A gallery of photos taken in China over the years that I thought were dominated by lines.
A tour of Chinese lines in black and white
Tag Archives: China
China red
When I think of China I think of the color red. These are some photos from trips I took there in 2014.
The Chinese love the color red. It symbolizes fire and happiness…along with a lot of other things. This article talks a bit about that: Lucky numbers and colors in Chinese culture.
China red is a classic paint color and Pantone has a Chinese red:
PANTONE 18-1663 TPX Chinese Red
Color Values:
- RGB 190 34 57
- HEX/HTML BE2239
How does this compare to the reds I actually saw in China?
Hanging out to air
For Monday Washing Lines by Have bag, will travel.
This make-shift washing “line” is a pole laid across the corner of construction fencing. Often times migrant workers camp at or near the site where they work. Winnie-ther-Pooh and Piglet always make me smile…how about you?
A reflection on being human
A laundry line is something you see almost every where you go. In some ways it could be a symbol or metaphor for being human. We all need the shelter of clothing and sanitation.
I took this photo on my first trip to China, in the spring of 2014. Since then I have been to China about 10 times, to visit my son who lives there and works teaching English. I have always found the Chinese people to be friendly, welcoming and caring.
Continue reading Hanging out to air
Sun and moon pagodas
Some silver and gold for Cee’s Mid-week Madness Challenge: silver or gold.
Skylines
Once I started going through old photos for skylines I found I couldn’t stop. To keep the post a moderate length I put them into a slide show. These are all from China, but taken over several years and representing a variety of cities.
Waterfront in Qingdao. 
Kites flying on the waterfront in Qingdao. 
Another view of Qingdao, this time looking down. 
Chongqing through the mist. 
Boats and bridges as well as buildings define the skyline of Chongqing. 
The Bund in Shanghai, viewed from a boat on the Huangpu River. 
Looking the other way: a view of the ultra modern Pudong skyline in Shanghai from a boat on the Huangpu River. 
The pagoda of White Emperor City on the Yangtze River with the Wu mountains of the Qu Gorge (western most of the Three Gorges) behind it. 
Old and new on a peaceful morning looking out at the new city of Fengdu (relocated because of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam) from the ancient Fengdu Ghost City temple complex. 
A view of Xi’an from the top of the Great Goose Pavilion. 
The Forbidden City in central Beijing, photo taken from the Jingshan (coal hill) park. 
The Great Wall of China snakes along the skyline for many miles, this view is of the Mutianyu section, north of Beijing. 
Construction cranes at the Beijing Capital Airport and the mountains beyond it at sunset. 
A fairytale view on a smoggy morning in Weifang, Shandong Province, China. 
Sunrise in Penglai, Shandong Province.
Random reflections
A gallery of reflections from a trip to Guilin China in May of 2019. Beautiful area, May is rainy season, so there were plenty of reflections, even on the walkways. It is on my list to go back at a different time of year. Alas.
A more philosophical reflection
Answer versus solution
I remember a conversation with my father-in-law where he, a PhD mechanical engineer, expounded on the difference between a solution and an answer. I believe the conversation came up with regard to some, rather esoteric, topic related to computers and their ability to solve problems, numerical integration maybe? it was an awfully long time ago. His point, which was totally correct, was that the computer can give you an answer, but not a solution.
Continue reading Random reflections
The start of the trek to the top
Tai’an is at the base of the sacred mountain Taishan, where the emperors would go to the Dai Miao temple at the base of the mountain then to the top to perform certain rites. I was really impressed that they went up until I learned that they were carried up on a litter. I am very impressed by the guys who carried the emperor up. There are some super steep areas. My son was quite relieved that I chose to take the cable car (after I learned that the emperors didn’t do it!). He admitted later that he was trying to figure out how to carry both our backpacks and prevent me from falling.
There’s something about a bridge…
There is not a vanishing point in the above photo, but the buildings appear smaller farther away. That’s probably accurate: Chonqing is huge and the urban area extends as far as you can see.
The next one,taken a couple of years earlier, is downstream from Chongqing city. The water is brown because of flooding, when the river runs normally it is green.
I have always loved the elegance of cable stay suspension bridges. When I was in college, a very, very long time ago I was part of a team that built a model cable stay bridge that won a contest (a nerdy kind of contest where you were judged on things like displacement and strength over weight, as opposed to total weight, although there was a minimum load it had to bear.) These bridges along the Yangtze reminded me of that.
No pain, no view
View
Pain
Of course you had a climb up to get to the view.
Yishan is an interesting place. It is not as famous or tall as Taishan, but it was important in the traditional worship and the emperors did come here for some rites. It is known as “little Taishan”. Fortunately the climb was not as intimidating either.
We were really fortunate because we caught a re-enactment of one of the imperial rites at Dongzhen at the base of the mountain when we came back down.
It was interesting to see how the things we see were used.
The wall knot taken
We walked the other way. This is part of the Jiankou section of the Great Wall of China facing toward the Beijing knot.
XingfuMama 