Author: ana

about me

god bless dimicina.

this country can be scary. china has been under the spotlight lately, foodwise*, for the wrong reasons: maybe you have (or not) heard of the antifreeze flavoured toothpaste , the curse of pet food, the cough syrup that killed dozens in panama, the cardboard buns, the more recent water scandal…

eventually, the government executed its food and drugs administration director on an attempt to clean up the national image (he accepted bribes to license fake drugs companies). that sends quite a message, but does it work towards actually doing something? and do these things change overnight? hardly.

i’m still not on Jonh Vause’s alarm level, but, after a few food poisonings (thank you mom for slipping some dimicina in my luggage!), i think i got a bit more cautious with what i eat. maybe my stomach wasn’t made for all this novelty and does better with the “cozido à portuguesa” kind of dish, rather than the fried noodles thing.

bummer! :P

* food in the larger sense of the word (includes pills, toothpaste, food and pet food).

in china photography

meet the family

here’s the best possible picture at the moment of the new kids in the 88, dongxin road: grub and lilo, on a rare moment of quietness.

links and ideas

africans to bono: for gods sake please stop.

After his impassioned defense of aid, an African man in the audience asked Bono, “Where do you place the African person as a thinker, a creator of wealth?”

Celebrities make easy targets. Many at TED attacked Bono (ironically the catalyst for holding a conference in Africa in the first place) less for what he has done and more for what he represents. He has done more for raising Africa’s profile and our awareness about debt relief, unequal trade, malaria and HIV/AIDS than perhaps any human being in history. He represents a game we have all played for nearly fifty years whose only winners have been corrupt governments and the international development industry.

Visibly wounded by the question, confused how anyone could misinterpret his good intentions, Bono, like the proverbial white man with black friends, set out to prove how down he is with the black man.

Africans are the “most regal people on earth” and music is their DNA, he told the room of mostly doctors, engineers, and businessmen. He then began singing a traditional Irish dirge to show us how Celtic music has Coptic roots, and so is fundamentally African. I wasn’t the only one giggling in the back row.

Bono, in his awkward defense of his “Africa credo,” also represents our fundamental failure to listen.

an excellent ted article on the path to the future of africa. the classical fish vs. fishing cane problem.

Post author By ana
Post date July 4, 2007
1 Comment on africans to bono: for gods sake please stop.

in the netherlands photography

the winogrand in me

it’s been almost 2 years since our trip to schiermonnikoog, a dutch island on the northern sea.

a mix of laziness, lack of budget or decent photography shops made me lose interest in developing the film i shot in the island back then. i was curious to see the pictures, but while i still had the memory of the events i shot, and all the people with me… there was no real need to “see” them again… (i guess i’ll never understand the people that peek at the pictures when they’ve just taken them, on the backscreen of digital cameras). so i let the film stay in the shelf.

i have quite a few of these “forgotten” films. they have travelled all the way to the netherlands and back, to the states and back, and now here they are in china. they’re stored in identical canisters, with no reference to what’s in each one of them. little pandora boxes, with with unknown age or stories.

to me, photography is not about rules, big lenses and trendy bags, keeping negatives in the fridge and looking out for x-rays on the airport. it’s about fun and framing. i shoot when i feel inspired, when friends are around, when i feel like being a tourist, when there are not many cameras in the area. i develop when i have the time, the patience, or whenever i itch to discover what forgotten secrets are hiding in one of those black canisters. what about you? do you develop your films right away, or not so much? do you peek on the back screen of your digital camera? :)

more, on flickr.

* bonus: two weeks with garry winogrand, by mason resnic. garry winogrand was a prolific photographer who died on 1984, leaving a total of 12000 rolls of film that he never looked at. peculiar philosophy.

just life music

song for a rainy morning

If the sun
Refused to shine
Down on me
‘Till the end of time
As long as i have your caress
Your tenderness
I will be blessed

If the stars
Refused their light
Just for me
They stayed out of sight
If you say you love me best
I won’t care less
I will be blessed

If the wind won’t blow your name
Until i’m still
I will
If it’s whispered from above
The highest hill
I will

If the moon
Up in the sky
Turned its face
From the lonely eye
I could never be distressed
Or love you less
I will be blessed

I will be blessed, Lisa Ekdahl