1 year in china and a lot of mixed feelings. hard to measure how much we fit here, with so many dramatic ups and downs, like cosine waves or bipolar periods.

yesterday, for instance. a bulldozer on a construction site accidentally hit a small brick wall by the sidewalk. p. was passing by on his bike when it happened and got caught under it. he’s cool, just scratches, bruises, a smashed bike and a dirty coat. nothing some ligaments and a lot of love won’t cure. could have been so much worse…

it makes you think, right? more than a year in china, today we’re celebrating each other and taking it easy. that’s it.

last time i went to portugal, my parents proudly showed me the progress of their “tiny clementina’s tree”. it’s a cute little tree that they purchased way before i came to china, but to which i never paid much attention. and it turns out that it wasn’t clementines that tree was growing - it was kumquats!! lots of them! i was in shock, and incredibly happy to be putting my new asian knowledge to work! :)

but this, i think, is something we don’t see in portugal (or europe) so often. they’re called pomelo, or youzi (柚子) in mandarin.

in china they’re on display on every supermarket (both fresh and candied) or street fruit stand and they look like green-yellowish oversized lemons (hence their latin name, citrus maxima). inside, there’s a really thick rind that you need to remove completely to reach the juicy pulp.

they taste not as tart as lemon, and not as sweet as an orange, but with hints of both… it’s probably closer to grapefruit, now that i think about it, only sweeter. and oh-so-adictive!!
give it a try if you find it around!

on the next episode of china fruit series, the mini-mango! stay tuned! :P

hanzillion is a (recently started) photo project*, a collection of the zillion hanzi, or chinese characters, found on the streets of china.
it works as my homework: when i hunt for them, my photographic memory starts to remember their strokes and forms. which i desperately need to do, since i have at least some 3000 to go before i can read a newspaper…

and yet, foreign as 99.9% of these characters still are to me, i can’t but marvel at their mystery, different typographies and simple beauty. it’ll be a work in progress, for a very long time.

* i just can’t seem to get enough of them!

There are many people studying Chinese now. I hope that all of you reporters, and the other ladies and gentlemen in attendance, can take up the study of Chinese. I believe that Chinese is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. Otherwise, how can you explain why 1.3 bllion people have chosen it as their mother tongue?

said by china’s foreign minister, mr. yang jiechi in a press conference this morning.

i have a class in half an hour, am struggling to remember a dozen characters and starting to feel like i want to kill someone. because, you know, it’s so simple!

(from danwei.)

“… cultural interpretation is a key business skill, as your writer points out. of course, that’s easier said than done. i have studied english for more than a decade, but I still become lost in some situations.

one time i attended a housewarming party held by a foreign friend. when asked whether i wanted a second helping of food, i replied politely in the traditional chinese way: “no, thanks” which actually means “yes, i do, but just a little“. needless to add, i went home hungry, and i’m sure many foreign businessmen have gone home “hungry” too due to miscommunication.

and so, when in china, it would be wise to “ask twice” when discussing matters of import. after all, for chinese, “beating around the bush” is a form of politeness, one that saves the face. “

spotted on a letter to the editor of a local magazine.

anitanachina.com é um projecto novo: uma foto por dia durante o ano do rato, para ajudar a mostrar a (nossa) vida na china nos dias que correm. vem na sequência das muitas vezes que nos fizeram a pergunta “como é a china?”, e da vontade de a mostrar, de forma mais coerente e explicada, aos amigos e família.

é ao mesmo tempo um exercício fotográfico (para me obrigar a saltar da cadeira e ir fotografar) e uma maneira de me obrigar a escrever em português - tarefa complicada nos dias que correm.

o nome surgiu de um comentário no flickr, pela joana. :)

anitanachina.com is a new project: a photo a day for the year of the rat, to help portray our daily life in china.
it’s a photographic exercise, but at the same time, it’s written in portuguese because i miss writing in my mother tongue (a task that is becoming increasingly difficult). english readers should find it quite easy to navigate though.

the name “anita na china”, literally “anita in china” is a play with some portuguese child books that used to feature a character, anita, discovering the world around her: anita in the train, anita goes to the farm, anita in the theater, etc. the idea for the name was given to me in a flickr photo comment, by joana. :)

… of christmas chinese new year, it’s the “god of fortune and wealth” birthday. to invite him in, what do you do? fireworks, of course.

because p.’s company wouldn’t pass the opportunity to attract wealth (and having fun firing some big artillery), we were invited to join the party on the boss’ house rooftop, still covered in snow.

for a couple of hours or so, we marvelled at the view from the 40th floor: everywhere we looked, fireworks and strings of firecrackers exploded loudly and bubbles of color filled the air. it’s one of those sights that really takes your breath away. (but if you dared to close you eyes for a second, i reckon the noise around you and smell of gunpowder would certainly prompt imaginary visions of armageddon)

anyway, all in all, it was fun. i don’t know how to efficiently photograph fireworks (especially with frozen hands and toes) so these are my humble tries.

    

you can find a lot of better pictures of it on flickr.