time never seems to be in the right amount to update this blog. still, she is doing a great job documenting our snowy days here in ljubljana.

a snowy day in ljubljana from ana campos on Vimeo.

there’s more at meiadeleite.com.


today i took my old canon for a walk. it’s been over 3 years since the last click.

i’m happy that it still works. i missed it.


today i woke up to this view.


“For the first time in history, across much of the world, to be foreign is a perfectly normal condition. It is no more distinctive than being tall, fat or left-handed. Nobody raises an eyebrow at a Frenchman in Berlin, a Zimbabwean in London, a Russian in Paris, a Chinese in New York.

The desire of so many people, given the chance, to live in countries other than their own makes nonsense of a long-established consensus in politics and philosophy that the human animal is best off at home.

[...]

And yes, no doubt many people do feel most at ease with a home and a homeland. But what about the others, who find home oppressive and foreignness liberating? Theirs is a choice that gets both easier and more difficult to exercise with every passing year. Easier, because the globalisation of industry and education tramples national borders. More difficult, because there are ever fewer places left in this globalised world where you can go and feel utterly foreign when you get there. [...]To get a strong sense of what it means to be foreign, you have to go to Africa, or the Middle East, or parts of Asia.[...]

[...]foreignness is intrinsically stimulating. Like a good game of bridge, the condition of being foreign engages the mind constantly without ever tiring it. John Lechte, an Australian professor of social theory, characterises foreignness as “an escape from the boredom and banality of the everyday”. The mundane becomes “super-real”, and experienced “with an intensity evocative of the events of a true biography”.

[...]

Nowadays, you might rather say that the more you know of other countries, the more inclusive of all humanity your values will become. You educate yourself, beginning with anthropology.

Every foreigner of inquiring mind becomes a part-time anthropologist, wondering and smiling at the new social rituals of his adoptive country.[...]

[...]His enjoyment of life is intensified, not undermined, by the absence of a homeland. And the homeland is a place to which he could return at any time.

[...]

But we cannot expect to have it all ways. Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another. The dilemma of foreignness comes down to one of liberty versus fraternity—the pleasures of freedom versus the pleasures of belonging. The homebody chooses the pleasures of belonging. The foreigner chooses the pleasures of freedom, and the pains that go with them.”

and freedom i choose. text by the economist.


vrolijk kerstfees

christmas seems to mean different things for more and more people these days. nonetheless, whichever it’s the right meaning for you, have a merry merry christmas!


being back to portugal after 2 years of shanghai is sometimes, a bit like being on drugs. a sample:

- look, look! the sky, is so blue!
- wow! it’s really… blue!
- and so many different shades…
- and it’s like, a different kind of blue!

blue

i missed portugal during summer time.


if you need to see to believe, here’s how shanghai looks from our 31st floor:

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and they do this for hours…


while the world sets their eyes in the middle east, there’s different war silently being prepared by 1.3 billion people: the chinese new year.

words are vague to describe the insanity that this country goes through during the coming week: tons of explosives are going to be lit in the whole country. the war is going to last several days and there’s no bad time for yet another blast: every minute of day and night will be filled with loud, colourful and repetitive explosions coming from all directions possible. it’s a huge party and chinese spend large amounts of money to get it done properly. and needless to say that since their buying power is growing fast, so is the amount of explosives used.

for such a big party, they need to get ready in advance. which means, right now everyone is buying ammo and filling up their home stocks of explosives to make this new year the loudest of all. and where does one get all this gun powder? basically, everywhere. from the improvised street warehouses occupying to whole sidewalk to the wobbliest of all tables holding piles of it.

wobbly_table

fireworks_shack

everyone is stocking up to the roof and quantity is the key, not safety. chinese see buying explosives as normal as buying vegetables, and they carry it as such: on the back of their old bikes, falling apart scooters and otherwise in their shopping bags which they hold indifferently while taking a smoke. one would hope nothing serious happens, but always does, and of course, it does so in a china scale.


i’m not very good at packing bags for long trips. i always take ages doing it and go over the items way too many times to double-triple-check everything. on the good side, i usually don’t miss anything important for the trips. usually anyway.

i just spent the last few hours packing – tomorrow i’ll be flying back to portugal for a two week holiday. quite eager on catching up with friends and family and all the goodies i miss here in china. the food, the good coffee, the proper driving, the food. oh, and the real egg tarts!

but, can’t avoid thinking how much of a reverse cultural shock is going to take place. a year in china did change me and my view about things. curious to see how it goes this time.

merry christmas everyone! :)


picture a language exchange session. in this particular one, her with a chinese colleague which was practising her english. suddenly, this question arises:

- what is this word, “jesus”?

now, how does one answer that to someone who never heard about christianity before and:

a) be completely unbiased;

b) not sound just plain weirdo;

c) resist the temptation of leaving the person in the bliss of ignorance.

any takers?

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