through the looking glass

turns amusing when lots of people get involved.

wait, rewind, you’ve no idea what I’m talking about.

the poet and his wife are soon to be married. well, technically they were legally married, oh, two years ago, but apparently until the actual nuptials are held it doesn’t count. right, moving on. a couple days ago, after extensive exploration of my camera and lenses, the poet expressed his wish for me to take their wedding photos. unlike the states, this does not happen the day of. it’s happening tomorow.

so today’s plan was simple. fuxi temple square (lots of pillars, dramatic, ooh), nanguo si (which I’d never actually been to but it’s a mountaintop, that’s got to be a good thing). check the locations, check the light, make a plan, keep going if everything’s ugly. the poet and I executed the above this morning. went for nuroumien. checked out his new pad (tertiary location, gorgeous spanking new flat). waited for his wife. who arrived, gave a 20 second look at the photos, and we were out the door to meet her friend who’s an amateur (had to try three different spellings to get that thank you) photographer.

first stop, top of the north hill. lovely view over the polluted city. wonky light (though I still haven’t figured out why, wasn’t the day). but nice for fuzzy bluegreen background outdoor stuff. then off to see if we could sneak into my friends old house (we couldn’t. it’s an unfinished museum.) then through art alley to the city god’s temple (where the keeper once gave me a gift-to-the-god pear, for luck, which I planted in a pot on my balcony). then down some really bizarre alleys that I thought would lead to some brilliant undiscovered courtyard house but in fact held a camera shop, where the amateur (only twice that time) wanted to get me a new lens cap (mine went missing a while ago. whoops.) and the guy behind the counter, after trying to sell me film, reassured the couple that if I shot in raw I would, as stated, be able to blow up the prints nicely for them. oh, and he set to raw without my noticing, so the rest of the day isn’t processed yet as I can’t seem to find my copy of c1.

wedding dress shop, aka scouting for costumes, is mostly a memory I’d rather like to forget (those places creep me out), however a uniquely flattering bit came when, deciding she approved of my fairly careless work thus far, amateur (first time!) decided she wanted me shooting her and kept dragging me away from the poet’s wife, who was of course why I was there. aah well. got a lovely neck shot that the poet proclaimed ‘classic’, though I’m still not sure in which sense.

oh, and did I mention that I bloody love my 85mm at 1.8? mmmmmmmmmmm.

took a walk downtown in the spring sun to run a few errands. singing along to oldies while meandering side streets. good.

78 kuai for 4 gilette mach3 turbo blades and didn’t even care.

last stop, supermarket. the music? madonna, la isla bonita. followed by….we will we will rock you

next, a cabbie who didn’t ask a single one of the usual questions (though we did get into an interesting conversation about why he asked where we were from instead of where I was from, as I was the only passenger) but did catch me up on the local foreigner gossip. I swear, cabbies know everything.

and capped the evening off with frozen chicken nuggets and ranch dressing and a visit from the illustrious poet, who has asked me to take wedding photos for his upcoming nuptials. we discussed locations, and I showed him the first collage I’ve been able to complete since moving to china. and, he knows where to buy proper canvas.

good day.

and apparently it’s not over yet….
(chuckles erupt sporadically from behind laptop screen)

while wandering the web I came across : Here We Go, sponsored by the china daily……”use accurate english to welcome the olympics”

I’m not sure whether this sign’s supposed to be filed under correct or incorrect, but it proclaims, all caps : ‘GET OFF THE BICYCLE’

another reader pointed out this brilliant one from the Office of English Speaking for Beijing Residents, in reference to the Summer Palace : “The fact is that three quarters of the Park are water surface. The introduction says, however, “three quarters are under water””

(actually, I really hope they don’t take the ‘fuck goods’ signs out of all the grocery stores. sniggering while buying raisins from that aisle is half the fun of the supermarket)

this one’s potentially overly correct….
” Another sign that makes me really sick is “Racist Park”…….For the tourists from English speaking countries seeing this sign, it would immediately occur to their minds that racial were legal in China, racists could celebrate in the park. Actually, this is the Park of Chinese Ethnical Minorities.”

but my favorite, the one that has me adding this to a post before even fully exploring the site…

“Please help us build more rubbish shelters.”

yes, this is the beauty of the english language. grammatically correct? yup. contextually? Wheeeeeeee. gotta keep that rubbish out of the rain. might damage it dontcha know. maybe this ties in to the new 8 prides and shames of good socialist people, the one saying not to waste anything.

but the truly brilliant bit is, the guy who posted the above did so to point out the ‘incorrectness’ of the following sign at the great wall

“If you would like to join us, rubbish will never be homeless.”

which I think is just plain gorgeous on so many levels (not the least of which is, also on the same sign, ‘Parking Lot –>’ )

yup, definitely a very good day.