I really like the lines in this and the lines of the copper tacks. I agree with everyone else that you need to share more about donkey dust and saving face in China. What if you found photos on the internet of these foods and you could create another layout to do those stories. Do you have a picture of Xiulan? You could do a layout about her and share her frugality and her warmth as a hostess. I haven't looked at your other pages yet, so I apologize if you have already done a layout about this. I think you need a page on hot and sour soup alone.
I am trying to find someone at the University to translate this album into Chinese, so I can send a copy to my friend Xiulan, who can not read in English. If that happens, I should be able to get a few characters to embellish these pages, but at this time, there is great technical difficulty in that, because I do not have software to write the correct Chinese characters. There are a few 'stock' characters, but they do not have the correct meaning for this layout. However, I do think it is a good idea to put some characters on the page as titles. Chinese writing is so beautiful, but it is hard to do, and harder for me on the computer.
I really love this lo Ilene! It is one of my favorites of yours. Great color choices for an oriental nightlife page! Great arrangement of pics and journaling as always. I loved reading the journaling, but also wondered as Leanne did about what your reaction to these different foods was. Therefore, I really loved reading your post above about your food experiences. One thought, often people don't take time to read hidden journaling, and since you have a lot to say, you could actually create another page about your food experiences while you were there. You could use some of the same pictures that you have included in this lo, or even in other los, I see people use the same pictures on different lo's all the time when they are telling a different story or journaling in a different way. I really like the idea of adding some chinese symbols. maybe you could find the characters to write "Beijing" vertically on the widest strip of pp on the left side and then "nightlife" on the vertical strip on the right side. Just a thought. I'm excited to see your other china pages.
I love this LO. I love the bright colors and i think that there is a perfect balance between the journaling and the pictures. Everything its in their right place and your eyes can travel smoothly through your page. But I would add a chinese simbol or something that can tell me more about the LO in the first sight.
Leanne: Thanks for the suggestion about how to add hidden journals into my China album.
Jasmine: I think the bowl of hot and sour soup was a family size serving. Maybe that is why my hosts seemed to debate ordering it. They had many conversations that I did not understand. I wonder if they argued between them like 'She'll never eat that much soup!' 'If we don't order it we'll lose face.' Face means a lot more to the Chinese than it does to us. I wonder how many times they lost face over me. But they are so gracious, they would never show it.
BTW: I love engaging in this discussion about the lo, and please don't hesitate to ask questions in your comments, because it causes me to invest more in the journals. Later I can expand on my journaling to take these questions into account. I am so happy that viewers have shown interest in this trip.
Thanks to everyone who looks at the album, and thanks for your comments.
I love comments.
Thank you for the extra details! Perhaps you could write out these extra details and slide a sheet under the layout between the 2 pages in the sheet protectors? I know that documenting your life is important to you, and if I am interested in knowing more, the people you care about most probably would be too! :)
I enjoyed reading your journaling! I love Chinese food. I guess being Asian, it's not too different from what we eat. Well, we don't eat 3-4 cups of soup in a meal, but I do love all these sorts of potstickers and dumplings. I love this page of yours. It makes me feel like I was right there with you. I like the orange color too as it truly gives a "nightlife" feel to the page.
I didn't like donkey dust at all, but I felt bad about it because I had told the family I would eat what they ate. I could not make myself eat the donkey dust after that tiny bite. But my hostess, Xiulan, being a frugal woman, has a philosophy that once it is served it WILL be eaten! So it came back to the table again and again, in various forms, all progressively less appealing to me, until it was gone. Lucky for me that Xiulan liked just about everything I didn't like. Or was it just her frugal nature?
Lots of funny things happened with food. On January 1st, I went for a walk with Lily's parents, to Beijing University to watch people skate. The walk was very long and we walked home after dark. We stopped at a restaurant that featured potstickers of many varieties I had never heard of. It was very cold out and I ordered a bowl of hot and sour soup. In the US, a bowl of soup is about 3/4 cup. In China, it is 3-4 cups! So they delivered this huge bowl of hot and sour soup and I only wanted a little bit of it. It was probably very expensive because it was full of only the finest ingredients, including a generous portion of tree ears, which you rarely find in your soup at a Chinese restaurant in the US because they are too expensive. Xiulan did not complain about my extravagence, even though they paid for the meal. She just told me how tree ears are good for your circulation, while she ate every tree ear left in the bowl. Even without the tree ears, I doubt the trim little woman has any problems with her circulation. She lives on the 5th and 6th floors of a building with no elevator.
Despite the introduction to donkey dust, I greatly enjoyed the food in China.
Xiulan wanted me to be satisfied and she prepared many generous meals for me, even sometimes when I did not come home for meals because I ate in a restaurant somewhere on my travels. She was a great hostess.
Donkey Dust sounds very interesting. I must admit to wishing you had included what *you* thought of it. (How it tasted/if you liked it, etc) I like that you included the time difference. It's also nice that you admitted to be surprised by the modern elements you found there. I really like the color you chose. Very vibrant! :)
You journaling is first rate. When I read it I can feel your excitement of experiencing this culture for the first time. I can almost smell the food. I liked how you discribed the place, the many different modes of transportation, and all of this supported by a great pictoral lo with fabulous colors.
Hi Truth and Wisdom!
First I really appreciate your post name! Secondly, I am so happy that you have done a China album. I have to go back to your blog to read more about when the trip was, but I was able to visit China in 1992. I was one of the first children's theatre folk from the west to be invited to go to China and visit child, youth and family theatre arts. It was an amazing experience.
I am still trying to get everything collected to do my scrapbook. As soon as its done I will get it uploaded.
I'm having fun looking at your LOs.
Aloha,
Wordweaver
I live in Elizabethtown, NC and worked at NCSU for five years before being sent by them as part of a government contract with the army to work the pacific rim (Hawaii, Alaska, Japan and Korea) for 5 years. (got to scrap all those photos too!) Anyway, I am about 2 hours south of Raleigh.
On my first night in Beijing, December 30, 2005, I ate Donkey Dust with the Yang family. Donkey Dust is a local treat of very sticky rice paste, in the shape of a slice of meat, coated with a light brown powder that looks like the dust that a donkey likes to roll in. At the end of the meal, Kejian, Xiaoqing’s father, invited us to go for a short walk for some exercise, to help us fall asleep, and to adjust to the time change. Beijing is 12 hours later than my home in Raleigh.
I was already pretty tired because I had not slept on the plane, but I didn’t pass on the chance to see Beijing up close. It was not at all like I expected it to be.
It had modern skycrapers, such as those at Qinghua University. It had modern shopping such as the Lotus Center, also near the Yang’s house. It had American fast food: McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC. But it also had traditional Chinese snack foods: roasted chestnuts, candied crabapples on a stick (which was favored by the teenage girls), nuts and some kind of omelet or pancake wrapped sandwich that Xiaoqing started craving as soon as she saw it and smelled it cooking.
Streets were congested with bicycles, buses, cabs, private cars, pedicabs and motorcycles.
Pedestrians picked their way through the fast moving traffic, often seeming to ignore the lights. It was very cold, but people were happy and expressive, which was the most surprising thing I found.
Created digitally, using PSP 9, Photoshop Elements 2.0, and digital scrapbooking files (like Ekits) from Cottage Arts.
Does this project or one of it's images contain pornography, profanity, or other illegal or offensive material? If so, please report it and our moderators will come by and clean it up in a flash.
August 30, 2006
August 29, 2006
August 27, 2006
August 26, 2006
August 26, 2006
August 26, 2006
August 26, 2006
August 25, 2006
August 25, 2006
August 25, 2006
August 21, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 13, 2006