17 posts tagged “vox hunt”
A late night challenge: Show us a photo of the full moon.
What can I say? Is it obvious I'm missing China? Another photo from my travels, a little village we stayed at outside of Turpan, Xinjiang Province. This is in the morning :) *sigh* Good times. Man, I have to get started on my plans for the reunion! I haven't even signed up yet, let alone a plane ticket. I can feel my empty wallet throbbing at all my plans when I no longer have a job.
~Nikki
Show us a photo of cherry blossoms in bloom.... Or, if you don't have cherry blossoms where you live, show us a photograph of any flower in bloom!
Wow, two in a row. Can you tell when I have a lot of homework? I tend to post more. Ah, procrastination, you will kill me in the end.
*sigh* I miss China. I'm glad that the reunion is coming up, I want to see my friends so bad. I hope Alex is going to be there (the dude in the picture)!
Anyway, speaking of China, I'm off to continue my paper on the political human rights abuses suffered by Tibetans. Uplifting...
~Nikki
"The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire." -- Pamela Hansford Johnson
Show us a self-taken picture of the sunset.
Submitted by Connie.
Here are a bunch, from a few of the places I've lived.
Denton. What a beautiful skyline :P Seriously only decent thing about Texas is the amazing sunsets.
First picture is at Tian Chi, a mountain range where we stayed in Yurts. It was freezing, but probably the most beautiful 'wilderness' type place I've ever been.
Second is the Forbidden City, in back and outside.
Third. ... Ha, I love this picture. It is from a park (Xiang Shen) right on the outskirts of Beijing. Beautiful automne foliage colours. But anyway. I enjoy this picture, this is the memory I have of sunsets in Beijing. The sun slowly disappearing and being blocked out entirely by the pollution. Wonderful.
This last one is at Hangzhou. Most gorgeous city in China, especially during Spring. They have a Starbucks. How can you go wrong?
I'm pretty sure we went to Haagen Dazs after this picture was taken.
~Nikki
Show us a photo that requires an explanation.
This one was kind of sad. I was on vacation in China with a few of my friends. We hoped a horrible ghetto bus with no airconditioning in Xi'an to get to the horribly ghetto town of Lanzhou to get to Langmusi. 15 1/2 hours, scorching during the day, frigid at night, window that wouldn't close. Horrible.
The bus we hopped to get out of Xi'an stopped outside the city to smuggle puppies. Seriously. A bunch of crates of these tiny, white, fluffy puppies underneath a bus, during summer, no airconditioning, for a day. I don't know how many lived, I heard them yelping right under my window whenever we drove by something the sound could bounce off of.
to get it to drink something. I wanted to cry. Some random
stop in the middle of no where and there was a lot of sketchy money
trading hands and puppies in crates going off to their new
unknown future.
I'll post a happier picture next time. I promise.
Show us a photo that's overexposed or underexposed but you love how it turned out.
The story: We had woken up early (think: 3am) to go on a camel ride, climb up some sand dunes, and watch the sun rise over the Gobi Desert in Dunhuang. The dune was impossibly steep and the sand impossibly soft. Took AGES to get up. Fortunately, it took seconds to fly and tumble down, lol. And even with my camera in a bag, the mini sand flying around everywhere worked it's way into the crevices and broke my poor camera, half way through the trip.
Later that day, we had the whole day free to relax since we woke up so early. We walked around town and found a cute little park and just laid down. I worked at my camera with some business cards and the like, for ever. I was determined. I was overjoyed when I got it to work (I still have the shitty camera to this day), but for some reason, for a little while, the exposure was totally off. But, I still loved the way this picture of Kat turned out :)
Show us something that you are saving or budgeting for.
Submitted by foxsydee.
Well, here they are, in order both of sooner to later, and also price wise...
And, ultimately, the goal of my life, getting back to China and staying there. For a while at least.
罗可儿
Nikki
Show us a cityscape.
*insert many sighs of longing here*
~Nikki
Book: Show us a great non-fiction book.
Both of these books were amazing. I REALLY recommend the first one.
Book Title: Buddha's Warriors: The Story of the CIA-Backed Tibetan
Freedom Fighters, the Chinese Communist Invasion, and the Ultimate Fall
of Tibet
Genre: Non-Fiction
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A+
Short description/summary of the book: [Amazon]
Buddha's Warriors is the first book that brings to life Tibet before the Chinese communist invasions and depicts the transition of peaceful monks to warriors with the help of the CIA.
Tibet in the last sixty years has been so much mystified and politicized that the world at large is confused about what really happened to the "Rooftop of the World" when Mao Tse-tung invaded its borders in 1950. There are dramatically conflicting accounts from Beijing and Dharamsala (home of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile). Adding to the confusion is the romanticized spin that Western writers and filmmakers have adopted in an effort to appease the popular myth of Shangri-La.
Buddha's Warriors
is no fairy tale. Set in a narrative framework but relying heavily on
the oral transcripts of the Tibetan men who actually fought the
Chinese, Buddha's Warriors tells, for the first time, the inside story
of these historic developments, while drawing a vivid picture of
Tibetan life before, during, and after Mao's takeover. The firsthand
accounts, gathered by the author over a period of seven years, bring
faces and deeply personal emotions to the forefront of this ongoing
tragedy. It is a saga of brave soldiers and cowardly traitors. It's
about hope against desolation, courage against repression, atheism
against Buddhism. Above all, it's about what happens to an ancient
civilization when it is thrust overnight into the modern horrors of
twentieth-century warfare.
My Thoughts:I can't recommend this book enough!
Buy it here
Book Title: Tears of Blood : A Cry for Tibet
Author: Mary Craig
Genre: Non-fiction
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A+
Short description/summary of the book: [Amazon]
From the author of Kundun, a powerful work that reveals the true horrors behind China's "liberation" of Tibet.
Since 1959, when China claimed power over this tiny mountain nation, more than one million Tibetans are believed to have perished by starvation, execution, imprisonment, and abortive uprisings. Many thousands more, including their spiritual and political leader, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, have been driven into exile.
The country has been systematically colonized, so that indigenous inhabitants are now a second-class minority. Not only are Tibetans being squeezed out by Chinese settlers, but there are reports of Tibetan women being forcibly sterilized and of healthy full-term babies being killed at birth. Thousands of Tibetans languish in prison and suffer appalling torture. Rich mineral resources have been plundered and the delicate ecosystem devastated. Buddhism, the life blood of Tibet, has been ruthlessly suppressed.
Mary Craig tells the story of Tibet with candor and power. Based upon extensive research and interviews with large numbers of refugees now living in exile in India, this book presents four decades of religious persecution, environmental devastation, and human atrocities that have caused Tibetans to weep "tears of blood."This book is dedicated to the brave and gentle people of Tibet, who have suffered and are suffering one of the great tragedies of our time. The entire world is turning its back, due to fear and greed, while the Chinese government pursues its systematic campaign of genocide. May the conscience of all people cry out in one voice! May the Chinese people inform themselves at long last, find out they have been life to by several of their own governments, and realize they are in extreme contravention of the laws of humanity and of nature! May their hearts then soften and may they take concrete action to repair the great harm they have inflicted on this innocent people. May the Tibetan people soon regain the sovereign freedom they have enjoyed since the dawn of history! And may the sunlight of Tibetan Spiritual Science once again shine brightly upon a freshened world!
Robert A.F. ThurmanBuy it here
Book: Show us a book you started reading but never finished.
The only book I brought with me when I went to live in China, I figured it would take me a while. Never ended up finishing it. I got over half way through and got so bored with the countryside descriptions that I stopped. I'm pretty sure I dropped it off at a backpacking lodge during one of my trips. I'm sure it has lots of redeeming qualities, and parts of the book were great....I just got bored.
Show us the best beach you have visited.
Submitted by Marko.
