Some photos of stuff found inside the palace halls.
Top left: a “blessing stick”. Or something. Apparently if you hold on to it you get good fortune. Or something. There were quite a number of these scattered around the palace, made out of a variety of sizes and materials.
Top right: Goldfish bowls. Wonder how long they could survive in those inhumane bowls. Note painting behind the bowls of a concumbine and fishbowl. Ugly concubine.
Bottom left: Sculpture of bamboo in a china bowl. The bamboo is made entirely of jade. If I remember correctly, this was in the Palace Museum, which costs extra to get into. We were debating over whether to pay extra to go in, but in the end went because it’s not like we’re ever going back hey?
Bottom right: Photo of Concubine Zhen. I thought she was ugly then but looking at the photo on wiki I suppose she’s not *that* bad. This is the room that her sister (also an imperial consort) set up in memorial of Zhen after she was executed on Dowager Empress Cixi’s orders. She was thrown into a well.
I came across this article entitled “Green with worry” via green blog re-nest.
It’s about how SF bay residents who have always been at the forefront of the “green” movement are turning from eco-conscious to eco-neurotic, and driving the people around them crazy in the process.
I can identify with that. Most definitely.
I hope the Rudd Government brings that bag tax, or “levy” as they prefer it to be called, into effect, and soon. No, not just a 25c levy per bag, but hey, go the whole hog and make it a $1 levy per bag! Ever since learning, to my horror, that our garbage bin liners at work are replaced every night as long as there is anything other than paper in it, I’ve avoided using my bin, instead either dumping my used tissues are food wrappers into either colleague’s bins or making the short walk to the kitchenette. I’ve scribbled on my bin liners with permanent whiteboard pens so I’ll know when the plastic bag has been changed. So far my record has been one and a half weeks, probably only cut short because my colleague dumped a whole load of tissues into my bin while she was sitting at my desk.
I struggle in the throes of guilt whenever I get a plastic bag from the supermarket. It’s definitely prevented me from buying stuff at convenient times when I don’t have a reusuable bag with me. I feel resentful when I see people drive shiny new 4 wheel drives. What #^$%^$%tards!!! And I’m always *this* close to lecturing people I see at the supermarket who use plastic bags for bagging fruit and veg. What’s wrong with placing them directly in the basket? You wash them again just before you eat them right?
I once saw some chinese students using a bag for 2 apples, and another bag for 2 onions. I almost flipped out. Screw it, next time I see that behaviour I WILL start yelling. One time I was helping Ray’s mom put away the shopping and I saw ONE TOMATO bagged in ONE BAG. I couldn’t think of any polite “nice” way to say anything, so I didn’t say anything. More than my feelings of outrage were my feelings of guilt over not saying anything.
Ray being my shopping partner most of the time could probably attest to my shopping manics.
The article makes a point at the end of chapter 2 in a quote from Osman, a therapist, who says
The depression, anxiety, panic, and feelings of hopelessness are symptoms of a world out of control. After all, what we’re facing is a fear of extinction. The people who are not anxious—those are the ones I’m really scared for.
I interpret that as perhaps meaning those guys haven’t cottoned on to the fact that the human race and its current wasteful, consumerist, way of life is facing extinction, and therefore by inaction are pulling the whole environment down into the dumps with them.
I might be crazy but I’m still rational. Everyone else is crazy for not being crazy.
I still dislike hippies though.
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