Day at the Lake

Matt, Nicola and I decided to go cycling on the hottest day I’ve ever experienced in my life. 35 degrees C! We cycled to a near by lake and did some drawing, rented some pedal boats then tried to find some grass to relax on but there were too many bug’s for me and the grass ain’t so soft in China. More dry and jabby! A hot day but a good day. Getting use of our 170RMB bikes!

 

This one would win a race...because he wants it!

Teaching!

On the 18^th May, Nicola and I were invited to talk at the school, our Producer and Director teaches at. Matt and Alex have already spoken to students before, when they came to Nanjing for the first time back in 2006/07.

We had been asked to talk about ourselves and making a graduation film, so we put together a quick Power Point presentation to show our films and talk about our processes and stuff.

When we arrived, we were a little nervous but we were trying to keep ourselves calm by saying they’re only students and they can’t understand what we’re saying. If we say anything bad then Thom, who translated, will correct us. Outside the lecture theatre there was an official poster printed up about our talk! Cool for us to see our names!

It wasn’t so bad. I hope that the things we said were useful to them. All the boys in the class pretty much talked all the way through but the girls seemed to take in some of what we said, they were taking notes anyhow! 

White Girls

Here in China, there is a popular fascination with the West. A lot of their culture is clearly influenced by America. From silly things like their spelling, color instead of colour, etc to their music, if it's not cheesy unbearable Chinese Pop its American gangsta rap! You can often hear a bit of G Unit and Snoop Dogg walking through Ladies Fashion. But the strangest thing I've observed, only of late, is how the women here want to be white. Nicola and I are often told how beautiful we are because of our white skin. It wasn't the Sun came out in all its glory and heat that Chinese women so want to be white that they cover up in the sun. They use umbrellas in the sunshine! How strange, especially to us Brits, who as soon as the Sun splits the grey clouds we pack into the closest park, beach or closest bit of grass where we can sit to get a tan! 

They also have a special product similar to our body lotion that is slightly tinted with bronzing materials to gently darken our skin so we look already tanned when we go to sun ourselves. Their lotion however, is called 'Whitening Lotion' to lighten their skin in the summer. 

So here us western girls are catching every ray of Sun, lying in every UV bed and coating ourselves in orange can tan to make our skin more like that of the Asian tone, while the Chinese are doing the exact opposite to make their skin more like the Caucasian tone.

Interesting... 

Barbie Store

Before we left Shanghai, there was still some sight seeing to be done. The 6 storey Barbie Store was the one we had energy to do.

Like being born again...gross.

Matt felt uncomfortable. 

Glass staircase filled with pink Barbies.

Cupcake Barbie

Themed Barbies. Here's one for you Elvis fans out there!

In fact here's two!

One for Rufus! Rose DeWitt Bukater.

Scantily Clad Barbie. Lesser Morals Barbie. Please suggest other names for this model on the comments!

Ghana Barbie for Rob

My Barbie! Cheerleading Barbie and BF Ken.

The Year of the Tiger Barbie. For all the 1986-ers. Hot stuff.

Trying to look like a girl, who may own a Barbie.

I was well up for the Barbie experience, she seems like a fun girl but I gotta say byt the time I went through the whole shop, I came to really dislike Barbie and everything she represents.  Where's the Lisa Lionheart dolls?

There were Barbie birthday cards that had phrases like, "A Plastic Tan Never Fades", "It's OK to be Vain and Self Indulgent on your Birthday", "Make Up is Cheaper than Therapy". 

Don't ask me, I'm just a girl. 

9 million and 3 bicycles in...Nanjing.

The three of us that are back in Nanjing (sorry Alex) decided to buy bicycles for our last weeks in Nanjing. The weather is glorious (the buses are sweaty as) and cycling is free and we can go see more places without relying on buses. 

Me, Matt and Nicola on our brand new shiny bikes. (that's our apartment block behind us!)

These are very basic bikes...they're pretty much just a frame...2 wheels and a seat. There's no suspension, gears and very little brakes! 

10 minutes after our happy purchase...Nicola's chain broke cycling up hill! 2 days later Matt's pedal crumbled away, lost to the cycle lanes of Nanjing and the next the other broke off too. Place bets now for when mine will begin to decompose. 

Tattoo Time!

Sorry Mummy...I got another tattoo....but so did Alex, it was all his fault! Heehee. Not really.

We had both been planning to get tattoos here in China and we had asked about it in Nanjing but there were only  couple and I happened to pass by one when buying stuff for Nayi at Confucius and it looked so seedy. I wanted to get a clean tattoo thank you very much. Through a series of unfortunate events we ended up in Shanghai, but every cloud has a silver lining I guess and since Shanghai continued to be fairly lame, the silver lining was finding a professional, English speaking tattoo parlour downtown at NanPu Bridge. 

Front of the shop.

So we went over to investigate and get quotes etc. about a month ago. The place looked very clean, very professional and it was managed by a guy called Dylan from Drogheda no less! So with good english, impressive portfolio and clean surroundings we were happy to make an appointment at this studio for the end of April. 

The lounge area. 

The tattoo room.

I like to get tattoo's from where I've lived, so far I have one from Belfast, Bournemouth and Paris. This time I went for a tattoo based on traditional chinese tattoos, but with a little me twist. The traditional tattoo is a carpe fish with water surrounding it, to tell the tale of how the carpe swims upstream and up a waterfall and when it gets to the top, it turns into a Phoenix. It symbolises wealth and prosperity. As most people know, I don't actually like fish/sea creatures at all, they're really gross and wriggly and just generally mingin'. But I really like the tattoo of a carpe and it has also been simplified to not look so fishy. The water has been replaced with clouds, which I've seen on lots of the architecture here in China and that Matt helped me design. 

And put it all together and what do you get? 

Alex also got his first tattoo here, a design he co-designed with an illustrator friend, on his right wrist, to represent the films he has completed and where his ingenious stems from! 

Brilliant Photography...again. 

Alex and Ting getting down to business.

The transfer.

The Ink.

Discussion with Ting and Dylan.

The Finished Piece.

Me, Matt and Spidey messin'

Nerves

Putting the transfer on.

The beginning. Ow.

Blood!

Did it hurt?

Alex was very relaxed and very cool about his, even though it ws on his wrist/inner arm...a very sensitive place to get a tattoo but he handled it like a man. Got a little hot at one point and his arm swelled up but he was grand. 

I, on the other hand, even though I already had a tattoo on my inner arm and should have been ready for the pain, was in complete agony. When she started with the outline it hurt but I was handling it...kind of. Then she got higher towards my underarm and it was getting excruciating! After the outline was done, she had to darken some lines. Ow. THEN she had to shade it in, more than I was expecting. AND THEN she had to do the darker shading. By the end I was sweating, wincing, flinching, shaking and even let out one little arrrrrh!!! But I survived and it looks cooooooooooool. 

Now alls we gotta do is wear cling film around our arms in this blistering heat. 

Elderly People

The lives of old people in China amazes me. People in China generally seem to be more social than the people in the west but old people appear to have this amazing social life with other old people. When I leave my apartment in the morning and walk towards the gate I pass several groups of elderly people gathered together just having a nice sit down and chat with each other, laughing and smiling. Then at lunch when I walk through the streets looking for somewhere to eat I see groups of them, mixed with younger people, playing an animated game of cards or mahjong. In many apartment blocks and public venues there are small public play parks/gyms for the communities to use and I have mostly seen the aged use them. They can work a cross trainer better than I can! In addition, since coming to Shanghai, out here in the Technology Park there is a large square; a very clean, pretty arena-type place that, by day, is deserted (but where we now like to take our lunch breaks to soak up some Sun) but by night, as we walk home, the square is filled with people, mostly 40+ I’d say, dancing away in unison to various beats (including No No Limit by 2Unlimited, no joke). I know my Nanny goes dancing at her British Legion nights, which I think is wonderful and I would love if so many more elderly people had something like this that they could take part in, actually, not just the elderly but all people from a community! A bit of light exercise would be good for us all. It’s outdoors, it’s free, it’s fun and it’s good for you. Note to self, find square in Belfast and encourage all Clonlee residents to attend. Power to the pensioners. 

Stealthy Pap-ing