What does St. Nic have in his bag? The Santa is not me, I’m working magic behind the camera.
No more Santa photos, I promise. When you teach in China you are sometimes overcome by the cuteness.

December 25, 2007, Shenzhen, China.

It’s a small world, as the syrupy song proclaims.

My lao po and I were returning from a restaurant a week or two back when we learned some surprising news. We have become incapable of cooking for ourselves. Either laziness or exhaustion, or a little of both are the explanations.

We stopped at the little convenience store/fried chicken shack for provisions. The man sitting behind the counter started speaking to my wife. To my amazement, I could follow the conversation.

Man: Are you from blah-blah village?

Lao Po: Yes.

Man: Is your father’s name ….?

Lao Po: Yes.

Man: Are your brothers ….?

Lao Po: Yes (getting excited).

It turns out the bookstore, a few tables under a large blue tent, is run by a father and son from the same area as my wife’s village. The father went to high school with my wife’s father, and the son with her two brothers. They have been here two years and we passed like proverbial ships in the night.

Of course, this called for a celebration of some sort. A lunch was arranged. The twins, one working across the city, made the trek to dine with new-found old friends. (aside: Chinese men are more physically affectionate than western men. I will never get use to walking arm-in-arm with a man. I will never get use to walking arm-in-arm with a man while sober.)

We ate, we drank. Then the six of us returned to Chateau Stevo, and crammed into the shoebox-like living room, watching a Jackie Chan movie on television while eating endless oranges and drinking countless cups of tea.

New friends from old friends. In a nation of 1.4 billion people, in a city of 12 million, in a community of 50,000, people reconnect. Wonders never cease.

I’ve wrote a post about my adventures in the classroom and what I termed utter beauty. Same room, same time of day as the images in this post, but the photography and lighting are secondary. Yes, utter beauty. A sublime smile in nature’s spotlight. I have the best job in the world.

Laundry. As inevitable as death, taxes, stress, disappointment, and the thousand other unavoidable foibles of life.

Heathenly is ranting about her broken washing machine, referring to it, in less colorful language, as a porcine fornicator. My machine, which by its size was made to wash the clothing of elves and pixies, is operational. The washing never ceases. Some days I wonder if I should quit my job and wash clothes full-time. (Of course, if I didn’t have a job I wouldn’t have to follow the societal norm of wearing pants. There would be far less clothing to wash. I think Heller wrote about something called a Catch-22.)

I have written about laundry, in the past. I try to manage my time, fitting in a load of laundry whenever possible. It’s the hanging and drying of said clean clothes that is problematic. During the unbearably hot summer months, garments need to be hung on the line before they ferment inside the machine. In the winter, during the dreary overcast weeks of January and February, clothing refuses to dry. Wearing wet underwear isn’t something I, or any dermatologist, would recommend.

The question I have about shi yi fu (washing clothes) is an age-old one: Why is there always a missing sock or two? How, can dirty clothing, put into a bin, transferred to the machine, washed, and dried, be missing essential pieces when it comes time to put it away?

When I had a dryer, I believed both the heat and spinning action of the wonderful energy-sucking device caused a riff in the time-space continuum, teleporting socks to an alternative dimension. Somewhere, in a parallel world possibly, there is a pile of my mismatched socks. Now that I am dryerless the missing sock phenomenon isn’t unknown. I still have socks without spouses.

Body, hamper, washing machine, line: It seems simple, only three steps. Yet, somehow, socks disappear. Is it my cleaning lady? During her weekly vigil does she snatch a dirty sock? I don’t begrudge her the garment, if she wants my soiled socks she obviously has issues I’d rather not confront. Have the roaches banded together in a stock-stealing confederation? Perhaps Chinese Gods or dragons have taken my socks as talismans? Are monks invading my abode, intent on using my socks as sacrificial objects?

It’s probably a Masonic conspiracy, those guys are behind everything. They have agents with keys to all our homes. When away, they sneak in, steal socks, and depart. It’s all part of their master plan to dominate the world through the international hosiery market.

Or, maybe I’m an absent-minded, organizationally-challenged housekeeper.

I can’t decide.

Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, is a metropolis that dates back centuries. Often referred to as Canton, the provincial capital in south-east China has an estimated population of 12.6 million.Historians believe the area was first settled around 214 BC. According to an ancient tale the now-thriving area was once barren and famine-stricken.The 2000-year-old legend states that five celestial beings, riding five rams, descended from the skies. Each ram held a stalk of rice in its mouth. The rice was left for the inhabitants of the less-than-successful region, as were blessings from the heavenly visitors. They returned to their divine abodes and the rams turned to stone. After the visit the area became prosperous; some would argue the most prosperous in the Middle Kingdom.Guangzhou is nicknamed Wuyangcheng (City of Five Rams) and Yangcheng (City of Rams). A sculpture of the legendary five rams was erected in Yuexiu park in 1959, a giant 93 hecatre wooded area in the northern section of the city. It is one the most visited sites in sprawling city. Long lines of tour buses queue on the road next to the sculpture as the ever-growing Chinese middle-class discover tourism.
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It was a special day at the temple. (What I like about China Travel, is amazing Chinese temples.) I never learned which one, which deity from the pantheon I know little about was being feted for supernatural feats. People from across the city of 12 million had gathered at the largest temple in the region. Fridays are not usually busy days for religious observance in boomtown.

I love old things. Maybe that’s my attraction to China, and China Travel. Temples, tombs, and houses that hold the energy of the generations that have lived within their walls, fascinate me. I’m far from spiritual, professing only a belief in the FSM, having been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Chinese Temples, large or small, ancient or recent, give me reason to pause. The incense in the air, the chanting, the devotion, contrasted with running children, men on cell phones, and lovers holding hands and snapping photos, make temples a place for me to both reflect and people watch. They are a microcosm of Chinese society, ancient beliefs still observed in a nation economically bursting at the seams.

The monk was standing by a table full of offerings: Fruits, vegetables, flowers and cooking oil. I have a friend that professes the ability to see auras. While I call that new-age claptrap, for a moment, the briefest one, I thought I saw him surrounded by white light. He smiled benevolently, like the golden idols behind him. Serenity rolled from him in waves. His eyes were clear and kind, but with a glint, a small spark, of something that made me wonder what he did in his life before he donned the robe.

He saw me, standing in the afternoon sun, a camera in hand. A smile and he waved me over. No pause, no dropping jaw, something I often experience. He had seen enough foreigners at this place, his home, to be unshocked by my presence. The temple doves watched us from their perch above the religious chaos.

I froze. I didn’t understand his beliefs, or his language. My camera in my hand, I wanted to raise it to my eye and freeze the moment, the smile, and the calmness I knew my CCD couldn’t possibly capture. He smiled a little wider before turning away. After wiping some dust from the offering table, and looked at the group kneeling in prayer before leaving the main courtyard.

He meandered, moving in stops and starts. At the shrines, he looked at those offering their thoughts to the ancient Gods. I followed, waiting for an opportunity.

I hate posed shots. You see only a facade. There is enough posing in the world, people keeping up appearance for friends and neighbors.

The China Travel guidebooks say not to take photographs of monks. Since guidebooks are usually wrong, I wasn’t worried about causing offence. (Maybe a little, the thought of a thrashing from a monk trained in Shaolin gongfu isn’t appealing.) I could tell by his demeanor that he wouldn’t have minded a photo, he probably would have posed with me if someone else held the camera.

I’ve done some sleazy things with a camera. A newspaper photographer is not everyone’s friend. Standing at the side of a road snapping photos of mangled bodies covered in bloody blankets isn’t pleasant, nor is the feeling in your gut afterwards. A drink can make you forget for a time but doesn’t erase the act, the utter invasion of privacy.

No, he wouldn’t mind. My motives were pure. I wanted to capture him, who he was.

A moment.

A feeling.

He stopped by a pillar. The sun cast the last of its golden light over the courtyard. He turned a little, away from the shrine. I raised my camera.

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