Portrait of an LBX

A nice hat/head-wrap combination spotted in a market in a little town on our way out of Yunnan.

Many of the women in this small-town market on our way out of Yunnan were dressed like the ethnic minorities we've seen elsewhere in the province, but we were told everyone was Han Chinese. Either someone gave us incorrect information (which happens all the time), or these people are impostors!

Kinda looks like a scene from a horror movie. We've had some mighty dreary days lately, despite the fact that Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou are all severe drought areas lately. This woman is carrying a small sickle, a ubiquitous tool stuffed into the belts of nearly all the Zhuang women we see walking down the roads of Guangxi.

After a 50km ride through the freezing wind this morning, we stopped and spent our afternoon in the town of Dingshan under Yixing City in Jiangsu province. The town is known is the home of China's ceramics, china as it's popularly known, and also for its handmade clay teapots and other tea accessories. We did some asking around and found our way to some of the masters of the art. The pots they make can take two or three weeks to complete, although they are capable of pumping out several basic ones in a day if an order comes in. The most carefully crafted pots sell for thousands of dollars, while more basic ones sell in stores all over town for as little as 50 yuan, or seven dollars. Here, a third-year apprentice working in his uncle's studio hammers gold wire into characters and designs etched into the side of a teapot. It was incredibly refreshing to meet people who enjoy what they are doing and take pride in their work, and we had a wonderful time listening to their stories. Evan will post a full update on the day later, as he had a much better time understanding the local accent.

Evan is in Beijing for 10 days and we took a bike ride last weekend to Sancha Village below the Great Wall. The family we stayed with consists of a husband and wife, who rent out a couple rooms in their house and cook meals, and their elementary school-aged son, who they send to live in the city with a relative during the week to attend school. They also take care of this mentally disabled man, who is friendly and endearing, but doesn't say much. I asked him if I could take his photo, and he closed his eyes and gave me a smile. He is lucky, though. So many of China's disabled citizens have no one to take care of and love them, and many of them wake up to the sight of the underside of an expressway rather than to fresh air, sun and green mountains.

I'm posting this in the spirit of the music festivals that usually occur around this time of year in China. This picture was actually taken at Midi two years ago. Unfortunately, Midi this year was moved outside of Shanghai and the Modern Sky Strawberry Music Festival took its place. I have some pictures from that, but haven't had time to edit them yet. Besides, all the metal heads seemed to be down south at the Midi festival, so Beijing had a much mellower crowd this time around. Volumes have been written about the history of rock in China. I will just say that rock music used to be a somewhat subversive genre in terms of lyrics and the people who followed it (think Cui Jian performing under the Goddess of Democracy in Tiananmen Square, 1989), but now it is much more commercialized and the lyrics are rarely politically charged. Still, this guy is not exactly a poster child for the CCP.

Spring is here, the flowers are blooming, and LBXes and everyone else are heading to Beijing's parks to enjoy the pleasant weather before it becomes unbearably hot. Of course, parents are still bundling their kids up like it's mid-winter. Taken in Ritan (Temple of the Sun) Park.

I'm posting this image in honor of the fact that winter in Beijing seems finally to be passing. Being basically on the edge of a desert, weather in Beijing swings from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye, with only a few short weeks' respite between dry, cold winters and dripping wet, hot summers.

This is an LBX whose story I really wish I knew. I saw him walking down the road in southern Yunnan province by himself, holding these bright green leaves and looking lost in thought. I still wonder where he was going and if the leaves were just something he picked up by the side of the road or if he was taking them somewhere with a purpose.

Note to self: LBX mommies are almost always happy to have their baby photographed by a random foreigner.