[Photos]

It’s been a while since I put up any new photos, so here’s a fresh one … taken in a packed Christian service I attended out of curiosity this Sunday morning at Haidian district’s church (which clearly wants to be an American mega-church, despite, well, not being quite that mega). While the passionately Christian Chinese acquaintance I went with stood reverent and modest by my side, this girl, bejewelled and in her not-exactly-Sunday-suit, happened to step into my shot.

"We love party" ... including Christ, I take it?

I took this picture at Peking University’s East-South gate last Friday morning at around 8am. My count was thirty odd protesters: all chanting against Sun Dongdong. It looks like they will continue to speak their mind until either Sun leaves Beida, or China forgets they are there (no prize for which I guess will happen first).

I asked one of them his opinion on why Beida students were not supporting them in condemning Sun Dongdong. I get the impression he was somewhat carried away by the chance to rave and exaggerated his point of view in the process, but his answer was interesting nonetheless: “to them it’s like a joke”. I wish I could have asked what he meant by that, but a rather unsubtle plainclothes policeman kneeled by us to listen and I felt that was the time to move on.

Or this will happen to your teeth.

(I took this in Gonghe, just south of Qinghai lake)

Back in Beijing after a month on the (very, very bad Gansu and Qinghai) road(s). It’s too hard to describe the natural beauty and human interest of this area of China – from desert to ice, mountain to grassland; not to mention yak to motorbike, horse races to police chases. What I will say is that I was reminded that the environmental tragedy of the Tibetan plateau is in many respects more urgent and sad than its better known human tragedies.

But for the moment, I’ll post two pictures of a Buddhist end-of-year ceremony I was lucky enough to witness. These monks are of the Gelugpa sect (a.k.a. ‘yellow hat’. Guess why.) We climbed over an hour to the top of a mountain, with local friends. There, after an afternoon of waiting – replete  with requisite refills of yak butter tea – we saw the monks process onto the mountainside to perform their annual purification ritual, as tradition dictates, on the day before the new year.

The fire symbolises the purging of all bad elements, influences or character-traits before a new start. Happy Ox year (my birth year) everyone.

Leaving their monastery to perform an annual rite on the mountainside

The Gelugpa purification ceremony, on the day before the new year

I also can’t resist posting these pictures, of young…

This girl (the same as in my previous post) patiently stood still for all of two seconds while I took a quick snap, inside Beijing's Confucius temple

… and old.

This friendly man, 85 years old, was waving at passers-by while sitting outside his home in one of the hutongs near Yonghegong lama temple

I can only imagine what old has seen in his lifetime, and what young will see in hers.

I took this sequence of photos in Beijing’s Confucius temple by Yonghehong. I love how the sweeper doesn’t move. I guess, like Confucius, he’s seen it all.

Coming

Hiding

Going

Gone!