People watching

The first picture is not a person..it is a school/temple called the Chen Folk Art Museum. It was very beautiful and contained many traditional art forms, including porcelin painting, ivory carving, embroidery, bonsai...all the things that would interest a 20 month old! There are more pictures in the public viewing of our Picassa web album.

As I said, there are many crazy bronze statues all over the neighborhood. And the tourists like to pose with them and have their friends take pictures of them, posing. It is happening everywhere, and all of the time. The other picture taking experience that occurs here all the time and everywhere is wedding photography. According to one source, the Chinese spend alot of money on their photos. As you can see, this couple if decked out. Sometimes there are 4-6 couples having photos taken within 1/2 block. Along with each couple, is a group of photographers, aluminum lighting holder person, often a makeup person and someone carrying all the stuff.

The last photo of the kids was a sweet experience. The one to the left approached me, with a piece of paper and pencil, asking me where I was from, my favorite color,my favorite sport and my name,then asked me to sign the paper. The others stood seriously around and with the urging of the teacher, they each asked me the same questions, I answered the same answers and signed my name. They were adorable. The little girl was the shy one in the group. They were from an English school in the neighborhood. I've been approached on several occasions by people asking if they can practice their English.