The Little Things: Augmented Horticulture, Part 3

The timing of Spring Festival, another name for Chinese New Year, is based on the lunar calendar. This year it happens to be really early, so Beijing does not yet look like spring but this is no problem for the Chinese are experts in transforming their plant life into convenient and consistent synthetic beauties.

This time hot glue was used to apply the "appropriate" blossoms. 

These trees in our courtyard haven't received a second glance despite their bright pink blossoms.  That is, until Brian started taking pictures for me. This lady stopped to join him, then a few minutes later, a man saw her and snapped some for himself. We can only wonder what they were thinking. Do they think it's as silly as we do?  Do they think it's genuinely beautiful?  Or are they taking a picture to share with their friends, saying "Some foreigner was taking a picture of these stupid trees.  Weirdo."