Everglade's blog

(Last night when I tried to upload the webpage was unavailable.)

People are a part of mosaic.

The background is seeing the magic garden through the gaps in the mosaic wall in front of my eye.

In the center is my reflection in the pieces of mirror on the mosaic wall.

Other three are pictures of people making mosaic more interesting and dynamic.

On our walk from Suburban station to the Free Library, most classmates were busy taking pictures of skyscrapers and monumental buildings. I, however, didn’t even press my shutter, which seemed strange since I always say I love photography. The reason was my “photography philosophy”: I see with my eyes, not with my camera, and I won’t start taking photos until the beauty no longer dumbfounds me. And I was dumbfounded then, by so many homeless people in the brightest and most fancy part of the city. In China, I had only seen them in poor suburban and subways, because city inspectors would banish them from visible area, but here they have the freedom to sleep in the perfect Logan Square or under the statue of a war hero, skateboard in Love Square, and look so vibrant under the warm Saturday sun. Just a few steps away, in the small streets straying from the broad and gorgeous Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, their scrawls are everywhere, and when they are merely standing there talking I can sense their movement like dancing. This is what Sharon Zukin says, “a kind of low-down but truer sense of where the self can develop”.

After wandering for a while, I went in the Free Library – also the territory of the homeless. I sat among them and started to enjoy the Quiet Volume.

“Put your hand on the paper, palm down, and press it into the book. Press harder. Push until your hand starts to shake a little bit.” I looked up awkwardly hoping no one noticed me. And no one did. They concentrated in reading.

I'm a little astonished as I recall my childhood.I had a schedule perfectly "crammed with activites that are productive, educational and fun". I practiced piano an hour a day since kindergarden, but my major memory of that time is still running and swinging in the twilight. I guess that's because I went to a great kindergarden: the hardest math we ever did was copy-writing numbers. My weekend schedule was filled with piano, drawing, ballet, calligraphy classes, but I never felt tired and I still got time to fly kites, climb mountains or just lay on the grass. The reason why I could do so many things at the same time as a kid is that, fortunately, I was curious about almost everything in the world so I enjoyed all the classes. They were not tiring burdens but just another form of play, an opportunity to do something interesting. So as long as a child is not forced to learn something he hates, "productive education" and play are not contradictory.

(Photos from Chinese social network)

I was born and raised in Hangzhou, China, and I went living in Shanghai two years ago. I felt suffocated at first. Not that I was nervous about living in a metropolis, since Hangzhou was also a big city, but much cleaner and quieter than Shanghai. During the first week in Shanghai, I was claustrophobic of so many buildings, scared at how bare the streets looked without trees, and nearly car-crashed for several times because drivers never seemed to be aware of pedestrains' existence. And walking in the city that never sleeps, every neon-light was like a bullet to me, ruthlessly litting every inch of space around me, leaving nowhere to hide.

My avatar is a picture of two umbrellas. A traditional Chinese umbrella is made of paper, making it delicate, romantic, and leading to dramatic possibilities. A man and a woman sharing an umbrella during a sudden rain and falling in love at the first sight, that is the start of a famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake. The story is set in my homecity, Hangzhou, the production site of the best traditional umbrella, the inspiration of artists and poets, a unique city where a beautiful lake is located in the city center and exists in harmony with skyscrapers. The city kind of shaped my qualities: able to see beauty in every corner in daily life and keep a peaceful mind in the fast-paced city.