Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: Friday Music: Impermanence, in reply to Kumara Republic,
“pick any two of the following: cheap, reliable, and convenient.”
I would hope that reliable is always one of the two picked. And on that measure, surely the humble book is a stand-out performer? I have in my possession books old enough to have the obligatory foreword by Mao Zedong, I used to collect National Geographics and had issues dating to the late 19th century, and there are, of course, much older books out there, many still very useable even after hundreds of years (although the older they are the more care they need, of course). And Rich tells us these fancy new-fangled things are good for maybe 10 years.
'scuse me while I pack my inner Luddite back into his cell. Don't know how he escaped.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Impermanence, in reply to Samuel Scott,
Do they think our stuff just magical keeps on existing!?
Quite possibly they do. The experience of being in charge of the office computers has shown me that an awful lot of people are technologically very naive, and that there is absolutely no correlation between that naivite and age.
And hasn't the promise with each new storage technology been that "this one will last forever!"? Or did the marketers give up on that as everybody realised were incapable of forever?
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Oh no! I wanna see yours too.
Flowers and other spring-like things are in increasingly short supply round these parts. But I can offer a pleasant surprise and positive change. When I first moved to this corner of Beijing at the end of 2002, this canal stank so badly that I could get on a bus up at Bawangfen (nearest subway station at the time), close my eyes, and know exactly when to get off based purely on the stench. Then they covered over the section west of the road and built a couple of hotels over the top, and the canal was dry most of the time, but still reeked when the summer rains provided a bit of water. Now whoever's in charge of the real estate scam going up on the site of an old market on the north bank seems to have decided to have put water back in the canal, and it still looks filthy, but it doesn't smell. Or perhaps the havoc the seasonal change is wreaking on my nostrils saved me from it....
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Dunno about the others, but I'm not not bothering, I'm being consistently stunned by the sheer beauty of your flowers.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to JacksonP,
Looking west, again.
Likewise. Sun got stuck in the trees.
ETA: Something got lost in the translation. It looked much better before I posted it.
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Just thought I'd share this little but quite pleasant surprise. I have a policy when I go for walks of taking a diffferent route home from the one I set out on, and today I turned down a lane I hadn't walked down before, and found myself in what felt like a tiny strip of countryside amidst the buildings, bustle and cacophony of downtown Beijing. Cool, calm, and quiet.
Didn't manage to find the book I've been looking for like, all year now. Must suggest to the wife that she hasn't visited her favourite market for a long time, then run for the book stalls when she's not looking...
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Hard News: Paying for what doesn't come…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Why would you pay for a political opinion to be written if you were then prevented from sharing that political opinion with others?
Isn't that precisely what we do with dead tree publications and pay TV?
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Rob Stowell,
And I enjoy sharing them. Although I feel I should be fair to Beidaihe - there was plenty of wide open space, too, and not just too far out to sea for most of the beachgoers. In the first photo, just to the left of that row of umbrellas was a wide expanse of nearly empty sand, and about 50 metres straight ahead the crowd thinned out dramatically. In the opposite direction you can see a large patch of empty beach and sea - but that's because there's solid fences and guards to keep China's leaders safe from us rabble.
China's beaches seem to grow old boats.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Wow, Sofie, great shots. Love the intensity of those colours!
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Beidaihe, last Thursday afternoon. Hey, spring-time people, it can't be too long til you're on the beach, too.
And it wasn't just the beach that was tigtly packed out at Beidaihe. Still, some people managed to grow flowers in the middle of all that.
