It’s the 7th of April, Howard tells me that we need to take a work break. If you are in SuZhou and you know already the city, where do you go? At the lake, the Taihu. We have already been there once, at the Sanshan Island, and this time he tells me that he would [...]

Between China and Japan there is a bitter controversy over the scale of the massacre, and over the claim from Chinese part that Japan never really officially apologize for it, while in Japan they insist that many a times over these apologies were offered.
I will not enter this, because this is a political issue that has in its roots motives that are going beyond its apparent claim.

I have observed elsewhere (and wrote, see my previous blog about the artist Liu QingHe http://themaking.blog.com/page/5/ ) nowadays in China there is a bipolar tension, a desire to give way to the outside world, of wanting to be validated by the others, to compete with the others, and at the same time a fear of seeing their own cultural roots disappear, buried by an impersonal and homogenizing modernity.
This tension is often resolved by proposing a return (one of those constant “returns” that run thru the cultural history of China) to the cultural aesthetic ideals that from now on I will call The Chinese Triad: Buddhism Confucianism Taoism.

Shooting pictures inside the most interesting and colorful grottoes is prohibited, but Howard defiantly do that. I do not know if to reprimand him or just to suggest him where to take the best pictures.
The grottoes are impressive, vary greatly in size and depth, in richness of details and statues; some are richly painted and carved on every surface, in other there are intricate carvings and sculptures on the wall…

After visiting PingYao we went back by train to TaiYuan and got on a bus, heading to DaTong (大同; Dàtóng). From DaTong we will visit The Yungang Grottoes (云冈石窟;Yúngāng Shíkū; in traditional Chinese: 雲崗石窟; also known as Wuzhoushan Grottoes in ancient time) and the Hanging Temple (悬空寺 Xuán Kōng Sì). We arrive in DaTong in [...]

Inside we found some of the best statues I saw so far about Buddhist art. They are in clay and were mostly made during the Ming dynasty, they are protected by iron bars. I feel that a better management of the Temple should be implemented, because the iron bars alone cannot protect the artwork from bad weather conditions and humidity.

We dedicate the second day to the city and its historic buildings. We decide to go around by bicycle, which costs 10RMB for the whole day, and will allow us also to make a trip along the walls. The map indicates the following as places worth visiting: the Confucius Temple, the Town God’s Temple, the [...]

I decided not to buy any re-release of her records. Likewise for Michael Jackson, or Amy Winehouse and whoever singer will die in the future. My money will not go to them, anyway, but to records companies, and family members, sometime reunited just in the name of copyright money.

The general impression is that the Biennale has truly reflected the intentions of the curator, Mr. Terence Riley, who declared “… our idea is to create a paradigm that considers the cyclical growth patterns of urban sites such as Shenzhen, where cities create architecture, architecture creates cities, and how this process continues without end. At a time when sustainability is imperative, the idea of describing an open process that takes into account its own renewal and constant evolution is essential”.

“An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.” Confucius
“All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.” Epictetus
“There are as many paths to God as there are souls on Earth.” Hadith
“No one loves the man whom he fears.” Aristotle
“Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one in adversity.” Plutarch