Did You Fall In Love With The Music or Musician?

I've had just enough time to...   wonder if I love the musician or her music?

Taken one spring night in Shanghai...

It was a pleasant spring night and I was having a stroll in the entertainment district of Shanghai where old and new buildings are well blended into an interesting and sometimes incongruous mix of modernity and history. This place then is aptly named新天地; "New Heaven and Earth". In the distance I saw brightly lighted kiosk selling this “mixture of everything” – Chinese helmets (why?) and Chinese Soldiers cap (this I can understand), ladies purse of modern design and traditional colours, and dolls. Porcelain dolls wearing traditional Chinese costume in elegant poses. And graceful modern dolls in gowns playing musical instruments. Maybe, it is this mix of contradictions that made me asked “Did I fall in love wih the music or musician

...of the musicians and their music and...

Did You Fall In Love With The Music or Musician?

Did I fall in love –

With the music or musician?

I couldn’t tell

Not when she is playing, not when

Her sound wraps round me

Like fur on a winter morning

Before the sun melts the icicles,

Lifts the heavy fog

Off the sleepy lake and

Prods lives under thick blankets

She wakes me up

And leads me to the sun

Did I fall in love –

With her or the sun?

Chinese ladies in their traditional costumes...

No Photo, Yes Tomato.

I've had just enough time to...   shoot a "No Photos" sign

Taken in a Shanghai food exhibition :D

I said “no photo” 

You said “yes tomato” 

I said “no film” 

You said “yes firm” 

I wrote it in black & white 

You said its blue & black 

I said “its Chinese” 

You said “No Italian” 

I look at you 

You look back at me 

I smile sadly 

You smile back 

I put down my sign 

You put down your camera 

The world is alright

These are the celebrity chefs they asked us not to shoot, ain't you glad I did! :D

A Stranger Through The Eyes of A Child.

I've had just enough time to...   see myself in the eyes of a child.

Taken in Kunshan while wandering around

“He doesn’t like me”.

Maybe it was not because he does not like me. Maybe it was because I witnessed what he did. Or maybe it was because he was protective of his little sister. His sister, who was looking at me with questioning eyes.

“Who are you?”

“What do you want?”

“Why are you taking our picture?”

She could not figure me out yet. So she was hesitant with her response. Maybe she will smile if I say a kind word or two. Maybe she will run away. But I kept my distance. I have no right to intrude.

Her brother, he just glared at me. I am a stranger. I can be up to no good. I cannot do anything for them except getting them into trouble. So he challenged me with his look. If I put on a fierce expression. Maybe he will run away. Maybe he will call for his family. I am after all a stranger and an outsider. So I kept my distance. Smiled, and backed off. I am after all an intruder into their world and I have to respect that. (I was in Kunshan with a couple of hours to kill and I’m not going to do that watching TV in the hotel room. So I wandered out into the street where ordinary people lived.)

Earlier, I “caught” them playing with the stainless steel bolts and washers that they somehow dismantle from the railings of the steps and overhead bridge. I tried one with my bare fingers and found it to be fast secured. Maybe, they have found all the loose ones or maybe they did it with some tools though I did not see any. If they construct the railings so poorly that children can dismantle them, then it is not the children’s fault for you can expect a child to do exactly what they did. I did not want to encourage them though so I checked my smile and moved away wondering what did I learn from this encounter to have it so strongly registered in my memory.