A whole lotta pink

Another picture from the Lotus wholesale market in Chengdu. And yes, pink is a girly girl color over here in China as well.

Incidentally, did you know that in the late 1800s in the US, pink was used for boys and light powder blue was considered a girls' color? As a shade of red, pink had the meaning of energetic, healthy, and powerful - as in the phrase "in the pink" - and therefore masculine. Meanwhile, blue was considered to be a more docile, relaxed, and melancholic, with more feminine overtones.

The original meanings, if my memory serves, faded around the turn of the century, and our current system of pink for girls and blue for boys started to catch on in the twenties and thirties. Anyway, that's what I remember from an incredibly interesting article that I read once and am too lazy to look up at the moment... (Would somebody care to Google it for me and get back to me with the results?)

All our links must go!

Here at the Slow Boat warehouse, we've got all sorts of links just sitting around the warehouse that I've meant to piece together into long, well-written posts that will take your breath away with my hard-earned knowledge and deep and lasting wisdom. And you know what? It ain't gonna happen. No way no how.

So, in the spirit of the Season, I'll posting them all online with very little comment in no particular order. Like a special holiday clearance / advent calendar / annoying Secret Santa kind of thing.

Anyway, to get you started, some cool pictures of China. Enjoy!

Body scans, freedom, risk, and innocence

I've been following the latest tempest-in-a-teapot body scanning controversy from afar, and, while I've got my own opinions about our poor ability to evaluate risk and the current state of fearmongering in the States, this post offers the clearest (and most chilling) take on the issue that I've seen so far:

Things we do to innocent people to prevent terrorism

Turkey revisited

Even though I haven't seen anything resembling a turkey since I've come to China (well, okay, chickens do resemble turkeys, so I take that back), I've recently fallen in love with 火鸡 - their name in Chinese. Say it with me: "huo ji." Literally translated, it means "fire chicken", so I've now got all sorts of pictures in my mind of turkeys running around with fire helmets and capes on, or jumping motorcycles through flaming hoops a la Evel Knievel.

Also been thinking a lot about vegetarianism a lot, especially since Jane's been discussing it in her three environmentalism classes that she's been teaching. So I thought that this post was worth sharing - about a guy in the Los Angeles area who raises and (very infrequently) slaughters his own poultry. The authors warn that the content is "not for everyone", but, no, I think it is for everyone. Something to get a good post-Thanksgiving discussion started, anyway... I've got more thoughts on the issue, but will leave it at that for now.

A last note - Homegrown Evolution is a great site on urban homesteading, gardening, and simpler living in general. Check it out!

Slaughtering Turkeys for Thanksgiving
Homegrown Evolution homepage

Hello, everyone...

Oh, yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!

As I'm wrapping up on lesson planning this last Thursday morning of November before heading to teach four hours of classes this afternoon, I'm reminded that back where I came from, it's a holiday of some kind or another. Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving!

As you may have gleaned from a post or two back there somewhere, we had our (turkey-less) turkey day a couple of weekends ago, hosting 27 people from our organization at our campus for an early American and late Canadian Thanksgiving. We had a couple of awesome breakfasts featuring pancakes and homemade granola, a load of interesting books and magazines hauled over from the States by our fearless leader, a game or five of Chinese chess, a field trip into Chengdu, and, most importantly, some great fellowship with our fellow teachers and friends. I can tell how busy we were before and how much fun we had during by the relative lack of photos that we have of the event. Below, a small sampling:


Shelly and Jane, showing their amazement at real (okay, artificial, but still...) maple syrup.


Bob the coffee warrior, going at the beans with a rolling pin because our newly acquired hand-powered second hand coffee grinder turned out to be a bit of a let-down.


Ysa hitting it off with Emily, who, along with Bob, is one of the new teachers that's joined our group this year.


Some distinguished folks in our apartment at breakfast time.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Wayne and Jerry. And cakes.

Okay, all quiz for all you artsy types. Which painter am I reminded of every time I pass this store just outside of the side gate of our university?



Did you say Wayne Thiebaud? Yeah, I know, that one was too easy. At least if you've ever seen his paintings, that is.

Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963

If you’ve never heard of Thiebaud, or don't know much more about him other than his signature cake paintings, now’s your chance to click this link and get right on it. Go ahead, I’ll wait...

Okay, done? Nice paintings, right? A little bit candy coated, perhaps, but nice. You may have seen them hanging in the modern section of your local neighborhood art museum, right next to the big black square painting that your mom couldn’t figure out. If you went to A Serious Art School, one of your professors might have dismissed him as “one of those decorative California painters”, and you may have had a twinge of guilt for liking something that was, well, pretty.

Now on the other hand, Jerry Rudquist, my first painting professor in college, really liked Thiebaud’s paintings. I mean, really really liked them, as in “let’s put up a slide of one of his paintings in a dark room and talk about it in a monotone for forty-five minutes running” liked them.

Given that, students of his had two choices - either:

• fall into a deep slumber dreaming of cake, or
• develop a taste for the nasty acid sludge from the coffee maker by the art department office, prop open your eyelids, learn how to look at a painting for a long long time, and discover things about paint, color, composition and space that you never ever knew before. Oh, and develop a deep and lasting appreciation for cakes, especially those that are artfully arranged.

So every time I run into a group of cakes, I think of Rudquist and Thiebaud. Or more properly, Jerry (who slipped away from “Professor Rudquist” into first name status sometime in my Junior year), and Wayne (since I believe that nothing puts you on a first name basis with somebody you’ve never met in person quite like looking their paintings for hours on end).
Wayne, the master of composition and sneaky bits of color. Wayne, the guy who can snake a horizon line right up to the corner of a painting and get away with it, still in California, still painting at age 90.

Jerry, who introduced me to Wayne, and Piet and Jan and Paul and many other painters that I’ve stared at so long that they’re past first name basis and now simply part of my mind. Jerry who introduced me to complimentary color and rhythmic composition. Jerry, who passed away in 2001, and was one of the first people to introduce me to the habit of looking deeply at things.