The Math Teacher
Lily’s friend Su Mei is a middle school math teacher. They’ve worked together nearly 20 years. Su Mei turned 40 last week and has a 15 year old son. Now I know I am getting old and I’ll be the first to admit my memory is not what it used to be, but I am [...]
Yangshuo Winter
Last week Lily and I were able to take make a quick weekend trip to Yangshuo with a few friends. A world renowned travel destination, Yangshuo is an unapologetic tourist trap bordered by stunning karst mountains on one side and the Li River on the other. Sometimes a tourist trap is just what the doctor ordered. [...]
500KM City Music Festival – Kunming Rocks
Howdy folks… been a while. After weeks of going back and forth with a gaggle of different editors about which images to include in an upcoming photo essay, I’m finally able to post some shots from the 500KM City Music Festival. The two-day event took place September 10 and 11 in Kunming with Sunday’s headliner [...]
10 Minutes – 李水旺 (Li Shui Wang)
I met Li Shui Wang earlier this month in Kunming. He was sitting on a bench in a small park intently watching me as I struggled with two lenses, a camera and a bag while attempting to change said lenses. Mr. Li, recognizing my dilemma, invited me over to share his bench. He immediately started [...]
10 Days in Kunming – Perspiration Free
Welcome to the land of no humidity… That was the first thing I noticed about Kunming… the weather. During the 10 days I was there the temps topped out each day out in the mid to low 20′s with lots of sunshine and no humidity. It was nearly perfect. I had gone to Yunnan to [...]
731 Collision Music Festival
The 731 Collision Music Festival took place last night in Liuzhou. 6 bands and a couple of DJ’s later, I walked out of The People’s Square Arts Center equal parts surprised (pleasantly), alarmed, and I guess I’ll say encouraged somehow. A couple of slight, aging security guards in makeshift uniforms manned the doors with a [...]
Yangshuo Weekend
Yangshou is a picturesque tourist trap of a small town located in Guangxi Province about two hours south of Guilin. I’ve been a few times now and despite the touristy thing it still works for me on many levels. The scenery is the big draw. The rivers flowing though Avatar-looking karst mountains have enticed artists [...]
10 Minutes – The Pillow Huggers of IKEA
I’ve never seen anything like the Chinese when it comes to sleeping. Even after all this time I’m still amazed by some of the innovative sleeping contortionists I run into on the streets. If the ability to fall asleep absolutely anywhere at the drop of a hat ever becomes an Olympic event, China is going [...]
Sunday Morning at Xin Hui Tea House
A couple of weeks ago on a hot, humid Sunday morning in Nanning, I met my friends Anissa, Vern, and Suri at The Xin Hui Tea House. Groups of retirees get together there and perform a variety of traditional music throughout the week. They are all past their prime, most with weak voices supported by [...]
Three Hours In Sheung Wan
I had a meeting in Hong Kong this past Saturday and had a few hours to walk around Sheung Wan and Central before catching the ferry back to the mainland. I’ve never managed to spend enough time in Hong Kong to really shoot all I want. I’d like to go back and actually have a [...]
One Night in Nanning
I posted a short series of photos last night featuring Nanning’s dough-tossing pastry chef, Mr. Zhiang. Those images were taken during a photo-walk with young friends Vern and Suri. The couple spent a large portion of their weekend showing me around the streets of Nanning and despite the overwhelming heat and humidity, I’d do it all again. [...]
10 Minutes – Chef Zhiang from Hunan
I was in Nanning last week and in my free time managed to get out for a few photo-walks with some Flickr friends. Flickr is particularly great in one aspect, the ability to meet up with fellow photographers from around the world, knowing beforehand that you’ll have at least one thing in common. Over the [...]
Singing for your supper…
We had a small get-together at the house tonight. Some of Lily’s students are moving on to bigger and hopefully better things, so we treated them to a western meal and some live music. A Quan, Charlie Harper and I brought out our guitars and over the course of the evening we banged out a [...]
10 Minutes – The Pineapple Lady of Nan Qiang Village
Lily and I were able to jet away to Hainan Island for the holiday weekend. It was a last minute decision, as we seldom manage to wrangle time off at the same time so we figured we should take advantage of that. We definitely needed a break. We’d been struggling with some major decisions and [...]
Beijing Nights
Last week I attended The 14th China International Photography & Electrical Image Machinery Fair. It was an interesting event with pretty much anything and everything to do with photography represented at the show. Amazingly, I was able to get out of there without buying either my coveted Leica M9 OR a medium format film camera OR [...]
10 Minutes – The Knife Sharpener
A few days ago I met this slip of a man just outside my apartment building. Li Yongkui is a charismatic traveling knife sharpener. The 32 year old father of 2 walks from neighborhood to neighborhood, pulling a grinder along behind him while touting his services via a recorded message played on a beat up [...]
Sunshine
After weeks of dismal, dank weather we finally had a decent day this past Monday. The parks were full of old folks taking advantage of the warm up, myself included. I hadn’t been out with a camera since coming back from Beijing three weeks ago and it was good excuse to once and for all [...]
A Walk With Jeremy
Photojournalist and friend Jeremy Breningstall was in Liuzhou over Chinese New Year. Lily and I were treated to lunch by Jeremy and his lovely wife Lisa and then we managed to get in a short photo-walk through some of the 胡同 – hutongs (alleys) near the city center. Here’s a small collection of black and [...]
Lantern Festival – 2011
The Year of the Rabbit is officially in full swing now. With last night’s Lantern Festival, The 2011 edition of Spring Festival is over and it’s time for all of us here to go back to work. Lily and I took a walk down to the Liuzhou People’s Government complex where there were lanterns and [...]
Liuzhou Goes Live (almost sorta)
I’ve been feeling much better of late, so much so that I’ve actually been getting out a fair amount over the past week or so. A couple of days ago I had the great fortune to be invited to Liuzhou Television’s first ever Spring Festival Gala. Government officials put the live show together, hoping that [...]
Natalie & Nick In China (Day IV Xi’an) – The Terra-cotta Warriors & Tang Dynasty Show
Day 4, our 2nd day in Xi’an, may have been my favorite day of our tour. We were well-rested and the weather was once again remarkable. We met our guide Melissa at the hostel at 9 and then headed out to see The Terra-cotta Warriors. During the drive Melissa regaled us with stories about Emperor [...]
Natty & Nick In China (Day III Xi’an) – The Muslim Quarter
On Saturday morning we said goodbye to Jia and Beijing and headed to Xi’an. Packing, the taxi to the airport, check-in and security were all uneventful, as was the 2 hour flight. I’ve had a few folks ask about where we stayed, as well as more specific travel questions about transportation and the like. I [...]
Natty & Nick In China (Day II Beijing) – The Wall, The Acrobats & The Olympic Village
I forgot to mention that our first day together in China was actually Thanksgiving. After our walk through Tiananmen and The Forbidden City, Natalie, Nick, Jia and I wrapped up the day with a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner at The Union Bar and Grill in Sanlitun. Brother, did I ever have a lot to be thankful [...]
Natalie & Nick In China (Day I Beijing) – Tiananmen Square & The Forbidden City
The kids arrived safely very early last Wednesday morning and we’ve been going at it pretty hard since. Everything has been going fairly well, with just a minor hitch or two. We’ve made it *home* to Liuzhou, after touring Beijing, The Great Wall, Xi’an & The Terra-Cotta Warriors and Guilin. Our accommodations have run the [...]
