LoveJY

“I can tell you are a good person from your kind eyes. I hope we meet again someday!”

I was Yonghe Gong Lama Temple, and this lady came up to me. She wanted me to take a picture of her, first asking if there was a fee. When I told her no, she kept saying that she could tell I was a good person. She thanked me profusely after I took this photo, and then repeated that first line while holding my hand. I was a little wary that she might be trying to con me into something, but after a few more emphatic repetitions, she just smiled and walked away.

I had a wonderful first afternoon in Beijing- after the visa office, I took the subway to Gulou Street, where I spontaneously rented a bike from a random hostel. I rode around by myself for about two hours and happed upon the old drum and bell towers. I decided to go up the bell tower, and ended up getting shadowed by two little girls who were afraid of heights and the dark (the stairwells are steep and can be almost pitch black even in the daytime). When we got up to the top, there was an old man all by himself, reading about how the bell tower was constructed in 1272.

Well, since that day one week ago, I’ve had food poisoning and sinusitis via bad pollution + dry air, so I haven’t been able to go out in the gloriously beautiful weather. But today, finally, today I can go outside and not feel dizzy or achy or feverish.

Not too sure where I should visit today, since I saw a lot my first time around when Crystal was here. Perhaps I’ll go see Mao.

Went to Zhujiajiao yesterday with Ricky and his friend visiting from the States. It’s a small water town, kind of like a little Venice of Shanghai, but quiet and quaint. You can walk along the river, but you can also venture into the residential alleyways, where we saw this little guy. It looked like he was planting something in a small pot. Anyway, we saw into the homes through countless open doors and windows. Lots of people playing majang or hanging up laundry. Life seemed so simple and uncomplicated here that I couldn’t help but wonder…

Since my last post.

I seriously cannot believe how time flies. The days go by so much quicker when you have a job. And even though there are so many more things I want to post about, the longer I wait, the longer I postpone, and then I end up forgetting what I wanted to post in the first place.

Starting to think maybe I should go back to posting more photos, especially since even though I’ve been learning about and improving my studio shooting, I really miss shooting outdoors.

With that, here’s to Chengdu, a beautifully comfortable place to live, also known as home of the pandas.

I miss the long drive from LA to San Diego.

I miss having to run across the beach because the sand’s so hot.

But

I love that I just came back from Nanjing.

I love that I’ve already been to Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, and Changzhou too.

I love that I’m planning to buy tickets tomorrow to see my parents in Chengdu.

I love that I can buy fruit extra cheap off the streets at midnight.

I love that it’s cold enough to use an electric blanket to warm up my bed before I climb in.

I love that my sense of family has changed for the better.

I love that I really do feel more Chinese, not just by association, but by learning through experience.

I love that even though I get frustrated with crowdedness and pushiness, there are acts of kindness to be seen everywhere.

Something about that city really makes me want to go back. I think it’s partly because I feel like I didn’t get to see the whole thing (and even those parts that I saw, I would go see again!), and partly because I experienced an exceptional amount of tremendous family hospitality.

Anyway, I’m back in Shanghai now, and I’ve started my new part-time job! I’m working at Barefoot Portraits, doing client and production coordination, and soon to be working on some marketing plans. At first I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have a more photographer-centered position, but I’m pretty sure the time and energy spent on doing my job well now offer me more to learn from in terms of soft skills and business thinking. My first few days and already I have so much information in my head to be sorted and mastered.

I end my short post tonight with the philosophical question of the day:

Is it worth losing good things in life, in pursuit of other good things?

While many of the animals at the Beijing Zoo have an outdoor area, most that we saw today were caged in tiny cubicles, I’m hoping only because there was still snow outside…

I’ve been in Beijing for the last 6 days, waiting for my visa extension to go through. In the meantime, Crystal’s taken me and another friend around the huge city, to amazing historical sites that are just incredible. We went to the Great Wall first, on an extremely cold day, as you can see it had just snowed (in March!). We only hiked past 4 towers, but it felt like we went so far because of all the climbing up and down in the biting wind. It’s hard to imagine how tough it was to build such an immense structure, totalling about 8000km in length, all along the highest points of the mountain; and on top of that, how soldiers had to navigate it with 20kg+ worth of armor and weaponry! That afternoon we also went to the Houhai Lake area, where we saw old men jumping into the half-frozen lake in their speedos!

The next day we went to Tiananmen, where Mao’s portrait famously hangs facing the Great Hall of the People. We wanted to see the Chairman, but the mausoleum was closed to the public for the week-long annual Party meeting. Out of 52 weeks, it had to be this one… But then we also went to the Forbidden City–where we walked through door after door after door– and the Temple of Heaven, the unique circular temple symbolizing heaven (heaven as round, earth as square).

I thought Shanghai was big and amazing–which it is– but Beijing definitely has more cultural significance and historical sites, all of which are just mindblowing. 不可思议: inconceivable, unfathomable.

Tomorrow, Summer Palace  and Beijing Zoo+Aquarium!

Addendum. Met a new group of cousins tonight, all super nice. I really wish I had grown up with more extended family around. I can only imagine how wonderful it would’ve been to have so many close  哥哥姐姐’s (in Chinese culture we call older cousins older brother, older sister, and since I’m the youngest on this side of the family, hurrah!). Growing up with my one older brother was awesome, so having 10 more would’ve been crazy! Since my dad was one of the younger ones in his generation, most of my cousins on my this side of the family are already middle-aged and married with kids, so it felt a little weird in the beginning calling them 哥哥姐姐when normally I would call people their age 叔叔阿姨 (uncle, auntie). Anyway, to put it simply, it was nice.  I like being in China.

Since my last post was quite lengthy, I’m going to try to keep this half a bit shorter. Aside from all the relationship realities, I’ve also been thinking more seriously about pursuing art. It sounds so vague, and I myself don’t have a good idea of what exactly that means. I’ve always felt like I had no real passion for anything, but I’m slowly realizing that those little things I like to call hobbies may just be what I’m really passionate about. I’ve just never allowed myself to think that way, because I was raised to think that the only successful careers are the ones that make money, and artists don’t make any money, so you do the math. All this time, when I was wondering if I had any passions, I was really wondering if I had any passions that might promise to make money.

Anyway, Ricky and I met a new friend recently who lent us a book called The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It starts off introducing a new philosophy of art and creativity, seeing it as coming from a higher source, and as we ourselves are only vessels through which this creativity can flow, we need to nurture our “Creative Child” to grow and improve. The most important thing it teaches though, is that we are our biggest blockers of creativity. We block ourselves by not believing that we have the potential to create something worth calling “art”, or that we’ll never make enough money to support ourselves, or that our family (i.e. Asian parents) will be disappointed. These are legitimate concerns, but those of us who really feel an unescapable link to artistic expression may use them as excuses, and we end up regretting having never tried to make anything of it.

An excerpt:

Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: “But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?”

Yes… the same age you will be if you don’t.

That was the most compelling passage for me. I’m not going to throw away the idea of going to school to get a Masters of Marriage and Family Therapy, but I’m more excited than ever to really approach photography and handcrafts as more than just a hobby or “side thing”.

As for making money off of them, I think there’s a huge aspect of learning to be a good businessman and marketer for your own product. As much as you are an artist, if you want to make money off of what you do, you need to learn how to sell it. Like John Mayer. or Jay-Z. Anyway, before I get too off topic, I want to leave you with another excerpt for brain food:

Without specific tools and sufficient ego strengths, many gifted arists languish for years in the wake of such blows. Shamed at their supposed lack of talent, shamed by their “grandiose” dreams, the young artists may channel their gifts into commercial endeavors and then forget their dreams of doing more groundbreaking (and risky) work. They may work as editors instead of writers, film editors instead of film directors, commercial artists instead of fine artists, and get stuck within shouting distance of their dreams. Often audacity, not authentic talent, confers fame on an artist. The lack of audacity–pinched out by critical abuse or malnourished through neglect–may cripple many artists far superior to those we publicly acclaim.

Plan of action: I will start looking up various photo techniques and styles to improve my shooting and general exposure to the world behind a lens. Which reminds me of another great quote: “An artist is the sum of his experiences.” You can’t be inspired by what you don’t know.

Today’s theme: black-and-white

AND! I’ve opened up on Etsy! Not exactly how I’d imagined it, but alas, many a great start have had humble beginnings. So please support me by sharing with your friends! Tell them I make pretty earrings.