Tag: China

Multitasking in China

[Found in here.]

Tomb Sweeping Day, Taiwan

Visual artists Lilly Kaohsiung and Yin captured Fu De Keng public cemetery in Taiwan during the Qingming festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day.

[Source here, h/t Charlen604.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 837 – The Icebreaker, Chinese Rock & Redneck Rave

[Found here, here and here.]

Collect Them All!


“These stickers are not easy to drop off; they’re non-reflective and even waterproof. I’m willing to call them the most successful invention of 2023!”

Some Chinese news outlets credited the unexpected popularity of belly button stickers to Chinese traditional medicine, which states that the lower abdomen must be kept warm to preserve the overall health of the body. By keeping the fake navel exposed, users can wear high-waisted pants that cover much of the stomach, while still rocking garments like crop-tops.

ONLY 1/2¢ PER BB!
A pack of 96  3/4″ x  1″ Chinese belly button decals for only 50 cents is one helluva deal. Confuse people by moving them around, or wear several at the same time and claim as many birthdays as you want. So many possibilities.

[Images and story found here.]

The Bloonship

The Blimp, Captain Beefheart (1969)

The .Gif Post No. 785 – Grillin’ the Veggies, Rockin’ the Ballers & The Bamboo Curtain

[Found here and here. The 2nd was sliced and diced from here.]

No Free Parking

According to some reports, pay benches were installed in Yantai Park, Shangdong province, eastern China, and were inspired by this art piece.

“The Chinese government got this idea of coin-operated park benches after seeing an art installation by German artist Fabian Brunsing where he created a similar bench as a protest against the commercialization of modern life. The irony must’ve somehow been lost in translation.”

I couldn’t verify the Yantai Park story, and it may be a complete fabrication.

“In 2008, German design student Fabian Brunsing created a piece called Pay & Sit. It’s an art installation in the shape of a park bench with sharp metal spikes that prevent people from sitting until they deposit €0.50 (about 70 cents) in the coin slot. It’s a (literally) pointed political statement, but that didn’t stop Facebook users from taking images of the bench out of context and presenting it as one more stop along the road to criminalizing the poor.”

[Found here, stories here and here.]

Stuff I Do When I’m Bored

Inkyman

Erasure- Art inspiration: Zhang Huan (Chinese, born Anyang, 1965). Family Tree, 2001. China.

A series of nine photographs in which the artist Zhang Huan’s face gradually becomes covered in ink and traditional calligraphy.

The text on the artist’s face consists of words, names, and stories related to his cultural heritage—words with personal meaning to him. The dots on his face in the first photograph represent moles and their connection to one’s fate. In Chinese cultures, it is said that having moles in certain areas on the face symbolizes good luck and fortune.

By the last picture, Huan’s face is completely covered in ink. Though the words on his face are about his character and fate, they ultimately obscure his entire identity. The piece seems to say that traditional words and ways of thinking can erase the things that make us individuals.

[Image and description found here.]

Updated: Corrected spelling of performance artist’s name Zhang Huan & added link: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/zhang-huan/

Three Women in China

Three women in the pillory, China, Anonymous, c.1875

Earliest Tineye image search results link to various Chinese websites (deleted or defunct) ca. February 2008. One source claims these women were accused of witchcraft, which suggests that the picture may have been related to religious persecutions that occurred during the Taiping Rebellion and/or the later Boxer Rebellion.

Religious persecutions persist in modern day communist China, and they are brutal:

“Rooted in atheism and materialism, the communist regime has been brutally suppressing Uyghur Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners for years. Those who refuse to comply with the CCP’s orders are detained and taken to secretive “re-education camps” where they are subjected to unimaginable abuses, including gang rape and electrocution.” [Source]

[Image found here.]