[ Yueqing ]
Took another short outing for the sole purpose of photographs.
And pizza.
The dinner choice was not my call: my host surprised me with “my country’s food.” I smiled and said “cool, thanks!”–eating the piping hot pizza topped with squid, golden corn, and seaweed without commentary. (For the record, it’s tastier than it probably sounds, but not something served on your favorite pie at Original Super-World-Famous Mega-Authentic Ray’s Pizzeria in NYC. Apple Pie isn’t gonna be displaced anytime soon, America-evoking-mealwise, is all I’m sayin’.)
Our post-prandial was a walk in Yueqing’s main park. On a weekend. I was told “Old Chinese People hang out here. They do old-people stuff. It’s boring, but the park is pretty. It’s good for pictures.”
Hmmmm…
While my host photographed wet leaves, I followed a different path. Over the next hour, I met the world’s most delightful sanitation worker, a table full of card sharks, and an ad hoc Chinese Classical band. Their Great & Terrible leader, Mistress Dragonfire (an apt pseudonym, I promise), was leading them to fits of poorly tuned but deeply passionate ecstasy. Under a gazebo. Old men rolling dice were looking on, sort of. There were also several street food vendors (duh) and lots of parents insisting their terrified children pose for family selfies with the “pale, tattooed, foreign man.”
[This is Inflexible Rule #1 of Photography: allow to be done unto you what you do unto others. I shall live eternally in smartphone photos with children–be they laughing, or peeing themselves in terror. In either case, I. Am. IMMORTAL! (I said that last part in Gerard Butler’s “This. Is. SPAAAARTTAAA!” voice from 300, in case that wasn’t glaringly obvious.)]
Wet leaves vs. a rainbow of quirky humans? I’ll take the rainbow every time (if the unicorns show up, that’s bonus points).
Until The Next,
—jim
