tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242949662011-12-30T03:28:00.469+01:00... caught by the light, trying to make some sense ...Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.comBlogger501100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-6592413527301842562009-02-25T02:51:00.002+01:002009-02-25T03:08:50.976+01:00

I must admit I was pretty shocked when I read that Hillary Clinton, in the frame of her visit to China during her first Asia-trip as U.S. Secretary of State, had stated that human rights could not interfere with other more pressing issues:"Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-92155232731380405992009-02-21T00:36:00.004+01:002009-02-21T00:56:48.868+01:00

It is with great pleasure that I present here today the first ever guest post on this blog.C. showed up on my Facebook page a couple of weeks ago. We haven't met for 20 years, ever since we left Tongji University in Shanghai. Now I like to make fun of Italians -rephrase: we ALL like to make fun of Italians ;-)- but the crowd at Tongji was super and I have the fondest memories for several of them:

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-46928908450793476612009-02-18T13:31:00.000+01:002009-02-18T00:45:52.848+01:00

"In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-61551932138681599952009-02-15T01:30:00.002+01:002009-02-15T01:32:10.979+01:00

As no doubt a lot of us who would by coincidence happen to read this post, I have been watching the footage on the burning TVCC complex with the "Mandarin Oriental" hotel, next to the new CCTV headquartes in Beijing, and there were two things that struck me in my own analysis of what had happened.First, I found myself wondering: "Do I believe this ?". Of course, I'm not talking about the event

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-62022749917611768612009-02-01T01:37:00.006+01:002009-02-05T01:32:46.578+01:00

I have this friend who is from Bogota, so it should only be natural that when I see something about Bogota in the news, in a magazine or on the Internet, I linger a little longer.So last week, I was reading this article in Newsweek discussing the danger of Obama's "change"-program getting compromised from the start by the nomination of Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Geithner, as we may

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-69353391549123488382009-01-27T01:01:00.004+01:002009-01-28T02:28:40.262+01:00

A couple of days ago, "Danwei" brought this article, which seems to have aroused some commotion on the chinese BBS-fora, to our attention. It relates the story of what appears to have been a class, taught by a Renmin University professor and well-known sociologist, Zhou Xiaozheng. Topic of the impromptu lecture: "Israël is definitely a good country"When I read the first few lines of the article

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-34661626658996177202008-07-13T16:01:00.003+02:002008-07-13T16:11:30.831+02:00

I know this is supposed to be a China-blog, but sometimes there are other things that take precedence over the Middle Kingdom and last month was just such a moment, when one of the most remarkable persons I have and will ever meet in this life came to pass away and started on his journey to the Yellow Springs. So for him, this posthumous tribute: ------------------- Luc, I have been

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-5665575332438901542008-05-18T16:42:00.003+02:002008-05-18T16:59:09.081+02:00

Dorothy Ko, in what is bound to become a classic on the topic, “Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding”, has pointed out that the final decline of footbinding as a general practice in China was, to a certain extent, linked to what she calls the “global episteme”. Though by no means the only reason for the decline, it has been the basis for much of the rhetoric of the

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-77010739023845410942008-04-30T21:47:00.002+02:002008-04-30T21:54:31.152+02:00

I think it can be called an understatement to say that I am kinda fed up with a certain group of Chinese hacking away at the western media and it's so-called biased reporting with respect to the Tibetan uprising of the past weeks. I shed my catholic belief long time ago, but these words I still strongly underwrite: "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone" (free after the Gospel of John 8

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-54307365006762168472008-04-27T03:27:00.003+02:002008-04-27T03:31:18.548+02:00

It's a complex world we live in and though of course it is not anything new I was confronted several times with that thought in the past couple of days. Just take this for instance: with our world's growing focus on the effects of global warming, on seeking to reduce greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions..., we start to look more and more for environmentally friendly technologies and models for

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-27861247815978057092007-07-21T17:38:00.000+02:002007-07-21T17:43:46.951+02:00

As you may well notice, something went terribly wrong with the template of my blog here. I am trying to work it out, but in the meantime, I beg you to bear with me ... or send me your welcome advice on how I can get that sidebar to be a ... well, sidebar again, instead of a "bottombar".

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-51970313037412634552007-07-20T03:47:00.003+02:002008-04-27T03:46:55.710+02:00

I think it's fair to say that, if you have any interest in nowadays China, even be it mildly, this guy should be on your radar screen. He definitely is on mine, but always with this big questionmark: how long still before he drops off the screen, how long before a missile takes him out of the air ?  Tiptoeing "the line" is feasible when you know where the line is drawn, but in China it can be

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-10434632122485399622007-06-24T23:48:00.001+02:002007-07-31T13:07:36.485+02:00

Yesterday I came across this story, taken over from the "Southern Weekend", which Roland translated on his ESWN-blog. Tracking the history of the owners of one of the now infamous brick kilns in Shanxi province, it's a very insightful account of how corruption at the basis works, from it's seemingly harmless origins to it's detrimental results. Go and read it by all means, and don't be

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-4182312162254267992007-06-20T20:14:00.002+02:002008-04-27T03:49:21.161+02:00

Sometimes, surfing the web, you just get lucky. The day I stumbled into this website, must have been such a lucky day. Hedda Hammer (Morrison) was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1908. From an early age she had an interest in photography. In 1929 she enrolled at the Bavarian State Institute for Photography in Munich where she studied for three years. Two years after graduation Hedda,

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-77248984524011562062007-06-19T01:33:00.001+02:002007-06-19T01:38:55.279+02:00

It's been a long time since I have been posting here. I'm not a compulsory blogger, in fact, I even don't qualify as a real blogger when compared to a lot of others. But neither did I say I was quitting this little hobby of mine. Let's just say I took an extended break and now I'm back. That's all there is to it. I was inspired for this post by all the China and US bashing by the usual suspects

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-41821767319641440412007-04-22T01:40:00.001+02:002007-07-31T13:03:54.880+02:00

I am not an American, nor do I live in the U.S., so maybe my voice should not be heard in the debate, but I simply had to get this off my chest. As the world was yet again watching in amazement as a Korean madman gunned down 32 people in Virginia, followed by an avalanche of expressions of grief and sorrow from the entire nation, I was quite honestly asking myself "So what ?". I know

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-25752308825331668832007-04-09T00:59:00.000+02:002007-04-09T01:09:16.019+02:00

Ten people enter on stage, taking their place in the dark. They will not move one inch from that place anymore during the entire length of the performance. Lights turn on, music starts and then there is that one voice from a woman with long red hair, sitting behind a harp, piercing through the silence yet seemingly leaving it intact: My love said to meMy mother won't mindAnd me father won't

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-52501662608728280622007-04-02T00:31:00.000+02:002007-04-02T00:34:45.440+02:00

China is a strange country. Consider this.Director Li Yu was told by the Chinese Film Bureau that her latest movie, "Lost In Beijing" (苹果, literally "Apple", after the name of the female lead role) could not be screened at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival unless she would cut about 15 minutes of the original version. Otherwise she might be facing the same five-year ban as was bestowed on Lou Ye for

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-85216776078144073832007-03-20T20:53:00.000+01:002007-03-22T00:41:28.167+01:00

So what can one do, when the joys of a sunny early spring are brutally interrupted by the return of something resembling winter (but not just quite) ? Last weekend, a bunch of us choose to go into hiding, deep into the dark dungeons of Cinema, not to see one, but two movies.Chinese movies, that is.Then that must have been a film festival, you say ? Spot on ! Otherwise, can you imagine getting up

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-28636100542704859142007-03-14T22:35:00.000+01:002007-03-15T00:22:39.660+01:00

Let's talk about China's Great Wall for a change.What began as defensive structures mostly made of earth, stone and wood, eventually expanded into the longest man-made construction ever erected. Stretching over 4000 miles, it effectively tried to separate China from the rest of the world on it's weakest side: the north. I guess, when Qin Shi Huang woke up one morning in 220 BC with the idea that

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-75200544924702429762007-03-06T22:26:00.000+01:002007-03-07T00:40:36.177+01:00

Okay, let's get it over with right at the beginning of this post: I have this Crush (with capital C) for Gong Li.You can read that sentence in the past, present or future tense, it won't make a difference.Ever since she lifted her veil in the sedan chair that took her to her husband's house in "Red Sorghum" (红高粱) (1987), it's been there and that Crush is there to stay.If you want to know what I

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-47735980963235147872007-02-25T19:24:00.000+01:002007-02-25T23:20:37.108+01:00

In monte munera ... the rewards are at the top : such was the device of my old school and I should have remembered it, that day last September when I was cycling with my wife on the slopes of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山) just outside Lijiang in Yunnan province. Unfortunately, not the lack of material but a lack of sufficient upfront training made us give up on the way to our destination

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-5059833761283790152007-02-06T00:10:00.000+01:002007-02-11T18:21:49.418+01:00

Eight o'clock in the evening on an average Saturday. Two bataljons of soldiers march onto the street of either side of the Menin Gate, blocking in effect any traffic that would like to pass underneath the gate. Though the weather is cold, the sidewalks lining the street that passes under the gate are crowded with people, mostly British students, three rows thick, standing still, legs apart and

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-8705685719919475892007-01-24T01:57:00.000+01:002007-01-24T02:08:31.886+01:00

Last weekend, I was relating to my wife and her friend about my only experience ever in a vegetarian restaurant. The year was 1989, the place Beijing and the restaurant was Gong De Lin (功德林). Established in 1922, the place can boast of some history, and rightfully so. I can't imagine myself ever living the vegetarian way of life (which is why I'll probably never reach Nirvana), but if there is a

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-24300205196639260372007-01-04T16:51:00.000+01:002007-01-04T19:34:15.966+01:00

Via the excellent portal Arts & Letters Daily, I came upon this very entertaining and even more informative "boxing match" between in the one corner, Will Hutton, British writer and a.o. columnist for The Observer, and in the other corner Meghnad Desai, British economist, writer and Labour politician. The two gentlemen are having a fascinating sparring match on the topic "Does the future really

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-40610742280836832052006-12-31T14:02:00.000+01:002006-12-31T17:30:00.760+01:00

Those of you who have been browsing this blog before already know that I am quite enchanted with the traditional art of papercutting. I did a post on that last April. I've always thought that this artform was typical of China though, but after stumbling upon this site I know that the creative mind cannot be confined to the borders of any country.Please let me introduce you to Peter Callesen:About

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-37434410261869697952006-12-30T19:53:00.000+01:002006-12-31T01:33:54.042+01:00

I've been out of town -to Paris, actually- in the last couple of days, so that's why I have only today noticed that I was tagged by Richard in some sort of chain-post (or how should I call this ? and are those participating then members of a chain gang ?) Anyway, always heed the call of the master, I was told, so when Richard puts me up on TPD, all I can do is obey.So here is five things you

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-31095086409606006922006-12-17T19:44:00.000+01:002006-12-17T20:00:05.615+01:00

I'd like to pick up on the story from John over at Sinosplice: "Military Weaponry for Kids". By all means, go over and read the whole article (and definitely don't forget to continue on to the link he provides to the Peer-See website about bizarre blocks. I won't link it here: go over and enjoy).I am not going to explain again here what John has done much more eloquently and ironic than I ever

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-10288152459397658852006-12-15T13:45:00.000+01:002006-12-15T16:39:58.389+01:00

Via the CDT, my attention was drawn to this article on the BBC news website that discusses the debate ongoing in China about the dragon as symbol of China:Chinese internet users have stirred a heated debate over the status of dragons, seen as a national symbol. The problem, some academics allege, is that Chinese people and Westerners have very different concepts of dragons. Chinese dragons are

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-76675030311349191202006-12-05T20:56:00.000+01:002006-12-05T23:29:37.031+01:00

From the day I put down his masterly account of 100 years of Chinese revolution as lived by the leading intelligentsia of the times in "The Gate of Heavenly Peace", Jonathan Spence was an instant hit with me. But he just wandered off after that, meaning I didn't read anything else of this eminent Sinologist, ... till last September, on my recent China-trip, I noticed this book of his I had

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-56554597387585048252006-11-18T23:18:00.000+01:002006-11-18T23:20:18.900+01:00

Hu Jintao seems to have engaged in a fierce struggle with George W.In the old days, father Bush (or Bush 41 as he's now named by Newsweek, as compared to the son Bush 43) still had to tell the Americans: "Read my lips". It seemed like the message he had to bring couldn't have been very convincing, as he got stuck with a single term in his presidency. That remark aside, he still required more

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-31376007294586775502006-11-13T22:55:00.000+01:002006-11-14T00:13:24.957+01:00

Somewhat of a sad irony, I thought, that while in the countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics more and more of Beijing's hutongs (alleyway with typical courtyard houses) fall victim to the merciless verdict of the character "拆" (to be demolished), new web-based chinese learning sites would exactly pick the quickly disappearing hutong as something that comes to mind in the context of teaching the

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-44460219671205337892006-11-07T12:55:00.000+01:002006-11-08T00:11:51.542+01:00

If the ability to halt Chinese construction work is any indicator of a big thing going on, then the Chinese - African summit held last weekend must have been a major gig. Which of course it was. The biggest diplomatic top meeting ever organized by the PRC (48 heads of state or government leaders from 40 different countries) focused on strengthening the ties between the Middle Kingdom and the

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-12348151794135889522006-11-01T13:39:00.000+01:002006-11-01T22:47:02.468+01:00

I just finished "Sky Burial", the second book by London-based journalist Xinran, who acquired fame for her account of different Chinese women's lives in "The Good Women of China".In "Sky Burial" she brings the story of another Chinese woman, Shu Wen, whom she met for a few short days in Nanjing, during which she told Xinran about the amazing twist that brought her to live in Tibet for 30 years.A

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-43705113120946772542006-10-22T15:44:00.000+02:002006-10-22T18:11:43.734+02:00

While the nationally heralded joy over Jia Zhangke's win at the Venice Filmfestival with his documentary-style feature film "Still Life" (三峡好人) must be slowly subsiding, it seems not all is quiet yet on the Three Gorges Dam front.While the film focuses on the tribulations and love stories of the people that had to suffer through relocation because the dam reservoir flooded their original

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-53062840655807186862006-10-20T01:50:00.000+02:002006-10-20T02:25:26.100+02:00

From a blog-spotting perspective, this has been a good week. I even think it's fair to say it has been an excellent week.First I ran into J's "Jottings of the Granite Studio", which makes for really very refreshing reading on Chinese history and how it links into modern China and the rest of the world, or just the opposite way round. Can't go wrong with a guy who can actually blog an entire entry

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-13744876531470077462006-10-16T23:41:00.000+02:002006-10-17T01:16:21.834+02:00

A lot of debate ongoing in the blogosphere on North-Korea, the international pariah receiving the unanimous conviction of the entire "civilised" world for the outrageous provocation they have thrown in our face by performing a nuclear test.To be sure: I don't feel comfortable with these guys messing around with nukes, albeit in the underground of their own country.But then again, I don't feel any

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-80658278382969226132006-10-02T22:29:00.000+02:002006-10-02T23:18:32.790+02:00

This time I couldn't help myself, I just had to buy a pair of those tiny little shoes for those tiny little chinese feet when I saw them on the Shanghai antique market near Huaihai Lu.Don't worry: it's not that I take these to be the real thing. When I compare what I had to pay, to the prices I find on e-Bay for these items, I either have to conclude that I struck an incredibly good deal, or that

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-79296012957309842862006-09-27T22:03:00.000+02:002006-09-27T22:30:53.274+02:00

"Achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination", that's what Amy Tan had to say about this book as we can see on author Lisa See's website.I fully concur with the first part of that statement, and I guess also with the second, though the research See has put into the book lifts the novel beyond the pure realm of imagination and depicts a presumably fairly realistic view of life and traditions in a

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1149199327900181202006-06-02T00:02:00.000+02:002006-06-02T00:27:47.296+02:00

Cold sweat, shaky hands, brains going in overdrive ... examination season is coming up again in China !! From June 7 to 9, millions of youngsters will again be faced with what could very well be a turning point in their lives: being admitted to university or being turned down. The impact on their further lives could be enormous and so the already well-to-do families leave no means unexploited to

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1149025802873490262006-05-30T23:02:00.000+02:002006-05-31T02:44:25.600+02:00

Read the book. Seen the movie. Been there, done that ... and with me, according to this Wikipedia article, another 60.5 million readers and who knows how many viewers. And counting, of course. 44 translations were made of the original, which, I think is fair to say, should have more than half of the literate world population covered, and I think I'm being conservative here.Undoubtedly like so

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1146175480273521462006-04-28T00:04:00.000+02:002007-06-20T20:19:56.702+02:00

YAMA 8LHASA, TIBETYama came with her parents and three sisters on a 6 week pilgrimage to the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa from the province of Kham. “Yama helped carry our 10 month old daughter much of the way.” Her father said. “We noticed very early that she was born with the true spirit of wanting to help others.”(taken from "Phil Borges: people of indigenous cultures") If ever there was sheer

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1145484444314988302006-04-19T23:19:00.000+02:002006-04-20T00:07:24.480+02:00

If this doesn't create an outrage in China, then I wonder what happened to human dignity. And at least in this instance, the China Daily also seems to get the priorities right.More than 200 people in camouflage gear demolished a school of disabled and mentally retarded children and beat students who attempted to block the demolition, media reported yesterday.A Beijing court ordered the school to

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1145311175761382862006-04-17T23:19:00.000+02:002006-04-18T00:03:40.926+02:00

I come from a country where the notion "urban design" was flushed down the gutter long time ago. But situation being as it is, our architecture has never been dull (I am herewith not even referring to the big amount of historical buildings spread over the country). You are bound to run into some surprise rounding every corner, laughable a lot of times, but very effective in avoiding our living

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1145137668211296142006-04-15T22:41:00.000+02:002006-04-18T00:06:36.576+02:00

Richard over at "The Peking Duck" is paying tribute to the "Tank Man" , the single individual that went to stand in front of a row of tanks on June 5th, after the Chinese army had swept Tiananmen square clean of the thousands of students and supporters that had been camping out there for months. The footage of that man, forcing the tank to veer sideways in it's attempt to continue it's route,

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1144972765099194832006-04-14T01:12:00.000+02:002006-04-18T00:07:26.436+02:00

Yangshuo. Almost 20 years ago that I went there for the first time, and what a place it was ...Lining the Li River in China's Guangxi province, the village was on a 2 hours ride from Guilin's main bus station. Sitting in the majestic countryside with it's typical karst formations, it's one of the most breathtaking sceneries one was likely ever to watch in China. Watched over by Moon hill, the

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1144800855481714862006-04-12T01:55:00.000+02:002006-04-12T02:14:16.286+02:00

I love them, these papercuts, because they are so down-to-earth, requiring only a piece of paper, a pair of scissors and two nimble hands. Yet, in their fragility and in the themes they treat, they reach for the sublime. They are rooted in the earth that is tilled by the folk artists and farmers that make them, but they transcend everyday reality and bring to life a total different universe.The

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1143070514432460022006-03-22T23:03:00.000+01:002006-04-18T00:08:21.436+02:00

Isn't it strange how a work of art, like a movie, is able to stir up such emotions that people would be actually prepared to go to war over it ? Thinking of it, that is in fact where my country's fight for independence began: after the performance of an opera which inspired my countrymen to rebel against the then ruling king.But going back to the "Memoirs ...", what is there to fight about ? As I

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1142724555516270362006-03-18T22:55:00.000+01:002006-04-16T15:25:11.643+02:00

Last week I went to see the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha", to see what the buzz and fuzz in China and Japan was all about, apart from the fact that the life in Yoshiwara has always been a topic of interest to me. The mix of raw erotics with a high level of refinement and an art scene going from Kabuki performances to the magnificent ukiyo-e prints, is something I couldn't locate in any other

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24294966.post-1142686678163146592006-03-18T22:51:00.000+01:002006-03-19T19:50:17.346+01:00

There's this magazine where I live, that every year, around Newyear, invites the people with name and fame in our small country to answer a few questions on their best and worst experiences of the past 12 months and one of the questions deals particularly with what they consider has been the major trend of that period. So you get to see a lot of answers that refer to the political upheavals we've

Rudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347709966227817285noreply@blogger.com2