The Little Things: Door Locks

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."

The Little Things: Static!

Beijing's air is DRY. As in no frost on car windshields and no crunchy frozen grass. As in constant chapped lips and bloody, cracked knuckles after washing a few dishes.  I was warned about this though and brought a Costco size tub of Cetaphil (if you're looking for a good lotion, it's amazing!)

What has shocked me is the static (pun intended). More than once I have felt like the embarrassed women in the Bounce commercials who can't keep her skirt from clinging to her legs as she walks down the street. Each night we are treated to an electrical show of sorts as we draw the covers over the girls and miniature bolts of lightning arc from the blanket to the bed, lighting up the dark room. I'm still surprised when I get that little prick when I test the temperature of the bath water.  And Brian exclaims almost every time he pushes his hands down hard enough to get out of bed and completes the circuit with the mattress springs. In order to turn each little prick into something that doesn't draw tears after any human contact, these little shocks, in our house, mean that the two people love each other a lot. We hope this doesn't cause too much confusion for the girls if they have a shocking encounter with a stranger.  Or think that we don't love them any more when the weather gets more humid...

The Little Things: Wedding Photography

Yet another thing you probably won't find in a travel guide: young Chinese couples are crazy about wedding photography.  All the photos below were taken in the span of little more than an hour on a sunny September day in Chaoyang Park.  You couldn't turn a corner without stumbling upon another costumed couple or three.  Photographer friends, if business ever gets slow in North America, take note. Click "Read More" to see all the photos.

I should mention, it's not any of their actual wedding days.  Apparently they take these images well in advance to display them at their reception.

The Little Things: Augmented Horticulture, Part 2

In part one, we shared how fake plastic leaves were mixed in with real ones. Fall arrived and the imposter green leaves were removed, leaving the real ones to fade to red, orange, brown and yellow. 

Then, I happened upon this.

An army of horticulture augmenters: one carefully stripping the tree of its naturally beautiful yellow fall leaves, two attaching swags of faux yellow leaves (note the neat pile above). And one to sweep up those pesky real ones. 

I suppose it does get all the clean up done at once. But for some reason it just doesn't seem right. 

The Little Things: Augmented Horticulture

It's not the prevalence of plastic plants that gets me. It's how often they are mixed in with real ones, outside, when the real ones seem to be doing their job just fine.  I hope someone can explain this to me one day.