Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Best A V Receiver 2010

Xi'an railway station

There are great companies that go down in history and legend in Sublime, and there are newspaper companies, which belong to the life and memory of one or a few people.

The terracotta army of Xi'an belongs to the former. Take a train to Xi'an belongs to the latter, and I am sure that experience has come in individual told of several foreigners who are found to transit from there.

Our Suzhou train leaves at 17.00. At 16.30, the driver left us at the exit of the station car park. "Zai jian," he says hurriedly rushing down the stairs toward his car. We meet in front of the station, we are less than 50 meters from the entrance. But at that moment we understand that the chances of getting on the train are very low, realistically speaking void. The square was a sea of \u200b\u200bhuman bodies standing, sitting, lying, squatting, people eating, sleeping, perched on the boxes in tow, clutching small bags ill, including purses, bags, garbage bags filled with who knows what. There is no room for anyone or anything. There is no space to move forward especially, to push the stroller, to spend our limited luggage though. A dense crowd, the usual sea of \u200b\u200bpeople, which is progressing slowly and at some points in his orderly, quiet, composed. For Sale in us a little ' anxiety, fear of not succeeding. All around, no one seems to be struggling against time and what makes our company even more difficult, because there is a row or a current that pushes more, where we could enter or from which sucked us to exploit the pressure, press, the pressure of progress. We slipped, we look for a passage, we apologize 1000 times while we can gain some position, we take off, we gain strength with the passage by the front of the walk, we again apologize, explain that our train leaves at 17, heading higher and higher, more and more agitated, more and more desperate. No one seems to listen or understand. Channeled between the barriers, following the set course, hardly reach the first check of the tickets, we implore that we do cut the tails, we do go sideways, we have a child, our train leaves at 17 ... nothing to do. We must continue to follow the mass flow. The more we realize that there are no shortcuts, plus the way we gait becomes rude, abrupt, indifferent to the reactions of those around us, who we have to overcome and leave behind. Trudge, sustains us in some way. It's hot, no, we feel that hot. Salt the beat, anxiety salt, salt the rush, salt intolerance. We arrive at the second step, the second check, this time a gate high, white. It goes 1, 2 at a time. The flow is moving too slowly, do not we'll never. There, the police officer who parked beyond the fence, let's try! I explained to him, we pray, our train leaves in 10 minutes, we have a baby ... his gaze does not change the light, change color, does not change expression. I see a 10 RMB bill before then extracted quickly return to its proper place in the portfolio. They are knee jerk reactions, so illogical, irrational, born and die there on time, it is because there is nothing we can do. Nothing to do. There are alternatives, there are "different ways". So push, push, ankles, calves, feet, legs, bags, there make way through everyone and everything. Unhesitatingly jump the queue in front of the conveyor belt for baggage checks. We run, we do not stop even to check with metal detectors, we do not answer to anyone who calls back, sometimes not even there, we only see the stairs in front of us, we know instinctively that we need to go beyond. Fortunately, the stairs are moving. A few seconds to catch my breath, to mend their ideas. At the top, we do not know where to go, right and left doors leading into the waiting room, always so many people, too, right, left, right, where, where? I ask. Look, right there, no, not this room, the other. Turnabout, run, run. Cross the threshold of the waiting room, at the bottom of the fence with several entrances to the trains as the gate airport. Only in a completely different context. The room is crammed, overflowing with people, standing, sitting on the edges, anywhere. After all, our gates, already open, the green light flashing, people in transit, then the corridor leading to the rails, is emptying out, they're all going, gone by, we can not see beyond. But between us and that gate, there are, how many feet will that be? 50? Hundreds of people. Not an inch of space. 16:56. Do not we'll never. Scream, we implore those around us - in words, his eyes, with the movements - we reach, waving in the air tickets, we wiggle, and then we push, push ... but there is no physical space to create for ourselves a hole. Impossible. We also have the stroller. There is not space to take our daughter in her arms and close it, this stroller too. No, there is no space. We are stuck, trapped. The people look at us. There is still silence in this room, how is it possible? Look at us, but nobody moves a finger, no one complains about the jostling, no one seems to understand. None. I am a tide, are all there, watching us, but they - before we - know that there is no way to go. And perhaps for this reason no one moves.

In these moments, when you say "the race ends here", we will lose and who knows when the train again, in moments like these, you no longer feel the noise, you no longer feel the heat, pain, weight. Can not you see that even more around you. See the goal, you do not see what separates you from it. Nothing. Only two minds that are spoken almost without opening his mouth, two eyes that cross, four arms and four hands that begin - coordinated, almost in sync - to make movement extremely targeted, perfect, precise and effective. A bag-to-head in his hand, grabbed the stroller in front of and behind the rise, and rhythmically, in turn, we get our feet on the unoccupied space between a chair and one of the long row of metal chairs. And so, on balance, we begin our advance, the stroller in the air above us and their heads, that we move forward as we were on quicksand, one foot here a foot there, up and down the chairs of several rows of chairs that we must cut diagonally to reach our gate. Pests of all crushed the feet of people standing, people sitting legs, bags, bags, parcels, sorry but do know that we have no alternative. The stroller seems to fly above us. The bags do not know how, follow us. The meters are reduced. The breath is broke. Semi-apnea, and calculate where to put the feet and inches. Our stunts are accompanied by screams, our cries, others silent or nearly so. I hear a sigh, a few comments addressed the child unusually calm and quiet, then slowly start to see some hand stretching, which helps us interpret our despair eyes, arms accompanying the stroller, people who move to get us off. We arrive at the gate, one last "obstacle" to overcome the human, catapults us beyond the corridor, down the stairs that obviously are not mobile. Lacks the forces, the air, the time to understand, even the clarity falters. At the end, turn left, the train, the first open door and the stroller inside the bags on us. We are on the train. Not on the car right, but on the train. I can only repeat a few times Shanghai / Suzhou watching the passersby and the railroad, calling the response with the power of the gaze. Yes, we are on the right train.
A few seconds after the doors close and the train starts moving. We will wait several minutes before the controller steps to open the door between the two cars. We are there, leaning against the walls of the train, in a sweat, your luggage on the floor, breathing heavily. Around us, everything seems to indicate that we are back to normal.

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The Terracotta Army - Xi'an Xi'an

When I finally found them in front of me, so much so deployed, so different from each other, staring into that something that gave their lives, I take it by force, but even more the individual of the group, I take the sacrifice, devotion, acceptance of a destiny in the name of the great cause. The combination of all of them still makes great power, starting by the visual impact. But it is the single, well cared for in those sections and differentiated in those hats shod so naturally, in that mustache here shorter and longer linear in those arms to the body or protracted forward and show all the deep humanity of these bodies. Men, before they are warriors, men in these uniforms, men, with hands that first spears and halberds are handled everyday objects. He perceives the force, but he feels his life.


So much so that, impressed, enchanted, enraptured by the vision that lies before us - the first time ever quite prepared - the initial impetus is to jump in and start digging with their hands to free those still in the ground. You can understand now that those long mounds of earth alternating rows of marching soldiers hide other ranks of fighters. So why no one digs? Because no one rushes to rescue them? Because no one is anxious to wipe away animatedly, grain by grain, all that land and bring to light all traces of the past to complete the work?


Step by step along the four sides of this huge land that is pre-staged the battle should be required to find a reason to make sense of the choices, to reassemble as keep words, slow down the decomposition process, basically to protect and ensure their coming into the third millennium. Reasons for the archaeological, scientific, chemical. Even so, it is hard to understand and accept. Tables, chairs, tools, buckets, ropes and tools behind the last warriors, some maimed bodies held together by bandages and cellophane, to hope that the scene (ie excavation) is not final but actually evolving.


A second and third pavilion are other groups of warriors, horses, archers, many reduced to shards, and the shapes of many galleries still to uncover, but where - thanks to x-rays - is given today to know what is hidden.


The focus is on all those bodies on those remains, I do not see nearly the few foreign visitors, many Chinese are once again more interested in pictures that my daughter finds. I can even forget the sad fixed course through the mini-village of recent buildings, all devoted to the sale of souvenirs, merchandise and groceries before the entrance to the site. No, still, thanks to their strength, the memory of a vision that has no equal.

Surrender Of Lic New Bima Gold

: walls, big wild goose pagoda, Chinese Muslim Quarter

Let's start at 20:42 in Suzhou a Friday night, but some very hopeful of traveling on a train in modern, luxury, cleanliness and speed equals what had brought us in Beijing, the flagship of the new line of super-fast trains in China. Not so. It's still the old ones. It means noisy, not particularly clean, air conditioning probably does not work (or unbearably hot or cold), but - above all - smoking allowed. Considering how many Chinese - especially men - smoking, air quality is quickly compromised. I say, but no worse than Italian trains 15 years ago. We arrived with 40 minutes late, at 10.30, three or four intermediate stages, and of course the continuous shouting of excited passengers passing through or stopping in the hall, toilets closed for hours (only open to those Turkish). Yet no one complains, no one seems upset, annoyed, barely bothered to have paid a ticket which is not negligible. The general attitude is acceptance, quiet, indicating that everything is normal.

The early morning is an accelerated flow of landscapes to the blade runner. Arid lands, beaches, the green is almost absent, sporadic nuclei of brick houses and shacks in sheet, advertisements pepsi blue hand-painted the only color that contrasts with the yellow-ocher-brown shade. Some chimney smoke, apparently dead fields crossed by some miracle green strip, here and there silhouettes of men bowed with his hands in the soil, moving bodies with hoes on their shoulders, some stray dog. Piles of sand, clay, depressions, holes and caves dug the bare walls, terraces, dirt paths between the ups and downs are lost in anything, brick hovels, old sheets or coils piled up, furrowed hillsides and eaten by man, old factories, abandoned, rusty old trains, old trucks. Coal mines, black smoke against the backdrop of the mountains faded silhouette. Then small mounds of earth, which I understand to be graves, marked by large radial garlands wrapped with plastic bottles, bags and other refuse. And below, under piles of earth under the clay soil, under twigs, dirt expanses that gradually, through the action of wind and torrential rain but perhaps rare, are unearthed. Garbage, of all colors, the only colors in this monochromatic landscape.


Xi'an appears gray, misty. Gave sunny, maybe the sun is there but not seen. The air is dry. Walk along the famous walls (a full square for a total of approximately 13 km), rebuilt really well. Matter of choice: preserve the original, though in ruins, not to distort the course of events, or reconstruct perfectly the work to bring it back to its former glory and show the world what he was able in the past the people united ? China has chosen the second solution anywhere. And these walls that seem to build recently, are now passable to all but those who want to walk or bike rides. More than loaded with historical significance are now full of practical use and serve as a recreational area. Immediately behind the walls scenes of poverty and indegenza. And this is not a matter of choice.
We visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (大 雁塔) in the southern part of the city, outside the city walls, now a symbol of Xi'an. Like, why is yellow ocher-colored stone, not gray like the many other sights around China, it is massive, massive, pyramid-shaped, over seven floors. Behind him, a huge open space with fountains, water features, rows of trees, gardens, where people stroll, gather, eat, talk. For the first time since I was in China I see a group of skaters. We stopped to watch.


the evening stroll in the Muslim Quarter all twisted around the mosque. Narrow streets and crowded on both sides file of shops, mini-restaurants, three-wheeled vehicles used in counters where they are cooked lamb kebabs, fish or vegetables or eggs, pancakes and dipped in sweet sesame sauce colored legs of animals, white bread of different sizes, especially dried or candied fruit. The women wear the veil, the face is uncovered. The facial features lead to distant lands only in appearance. Buddhism and Islam, diversity is seen here at last.

Located geographically in the heart of China, capital of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an is one of the four great ancient capitals of China, and the arrival point to the east of the Silk Road. At 35 kilometers from Xi'an is the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, an architectural complex of large-scale structure that mimics the ancient capital of Xianyang: the Imperial Palace in the center, surrounded by two walls. The burial site, an underground city was built by and for the man who later became the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (221-210 BC), the unifier of the immense territory of China under one centralized power, the same as ordered the construction of the Great Wall of China. His tomb was built in a favorable position in accordance with the principles of geomancy in which, in addition to the remains of the emperor, had to be preserved the treasures of the Qin Dynasty. No superstructure has come today. Instead, you see a huge mound of land now covered with vegetation. In 1974, some peasants digging a well discovered a pit containing terracotta statues depicting life-size warriors. The excavations, which were not yet completed, has allowed to uncover a veritable army of armed warriors and horses. Had not yet dug into an estimated 6000 other statues are buried. To the north of the first site have been found other cavities groundwater containing statues, weapons, chariots, horses. The total number of statues would - according to recent studies - to represent the exact number of the imperial guards.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Diarrhea After Eating Breakfast

syllogism: If pizza is round is

may be cut short to return to Europe and I say that is not too early to start to draw some conclusions. And then there's that underlying need to understand how things like aliases are made in China. Bella claim, I know. At least let's get to some point.

No frills, no diplomacy, outspoken. I say how things are for as I have lived on the skin, such as I have seen and heard day after day, year and a half now. We

foreign to them - the Chinese - do not like. It is a generalization, yes, but basically the way things are. They are curious, look at us like animals at the zoo, you look like you do in a laboratory experiment, we sometimes imitate the manner of appearance, we nourish self interest, but does not seem to find reasons to appreciate - for what we are and what we do - and even less for where we came from. No, we can appreciate.

There is no coincidence that I mention the food, which is and remains a raw nerve: it's pizza, homemade bread, a sweet Italian or chocolate, I've never heard "is very good." Instead, I caught skepticism, received a hint of sarcasm to match and their different approaches, concerns about the method of cooking and always end up only mediocre reviews, right around enough, if not below. But even worse, I almost got news that they're afraid to say that like it. It is so ostentatious, duplicated and distributed as the attitude that you obviously have doubts arise about the authenticity of what they think, and when it is so thank God you end up smiling. Doubts about whether someone - stencil in hand - they have all calibrated the same way. That no one can ever fall in love madly - and who wants to give it to see if not to shout from the rooftops - one of our products? Yeah, okay, the Starbucks coffee, the Prada bag, and Mercedes, but this is not true "love" is the only direct route to gain "a" as a status symbol, what global empire. I have the impression that they do not want or can not show us something of our own - or ourselves - to enjoy. On the contrary, it seems to follow the strategy of "denigrating the other to excel." Perhaps as children they told you to do so.

do not express appreciation. Perhaps no one has taught him. I he seems to have been instructed to suppress, but even worse to not try at all the scale of impressions / feelings that goes precisely from appreciating the other in general try to estimate, to praise someone or something, and last but not not least to thank. Appreciation, gratitude, esteem. O do not know them all or learn to repress them. I do not know what is worse. The second course would be more terrible and dangerous.

From here, a series of chain reactions and behaviors that our eyes are difficult to understand, let alone accept. Topping the list, I would say their deep, innate, unflappable, unsinkable belief in being the best. It is a belief expressed in words, no, the facts speak. Yes, and I fear that I really grow up thinking you're the best, thinking that the other there is nothing to learn. Too bad, in some ways, we pass and leave their great little. And what we leave is only material. Or so they make us believe.

Yesterday I baked an apple pie. I've been removing from the pan, happy that he had not stuck to the bottom, well it was leavened, heartened by the good smell of apples. My ayi arrives on time at the back and I - knowing the story now - I prepare a few comments like "good, yes, but ...." "I do not like us," he says literally, and I intuit that it means "not is coming. " I look at her, surprised. "Why?" I ask. "Bu xiang pizza" (not looks like a pizza), she points out. No, of course, because it is not a pizza, a pie is, is sweet. And do not even ask if you want to taste it, I already know the answer (like, thanks, I've already eaten) and even though I say so, the assessment would be granted (strange, cooked apples, sweet bread, after all ; prefer rice). We

a little 'we're bad, we mind, we potergli pleasure ...

Monday, February 28, 2011

What Happened To Javatalk?



Chinese New Year, I repeat it several times our driver, is like our Christmas. There are a couple of rules to follow. One, you have to visit family and relatives, two, you make gifts. The corollary of the first is a mass exodus that emptied the city workers, ayi , labor, willing to do anything to return home by parents and children. It is no easy escape, because most can not afford a plane because the train tickets you can buy at most one week before and many coaches "official" follow the system may go up and get in line. Then there are the abusive coaches, who charge money to do much more than the permitted number of passengers (many of whom have to travel by foot or by land) and not run into the police checks travel national and provincial roads, from a certain point in the same country roads. There is also a reverse flow, to those who can afford a holiday and put then on their way to the cities of interest (Shanghai, Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou and Suzhou also yes). The result is an impressive movement of human beings that you can afford only one, maybe two times a year, for China to stop "producing" has its costs.

on gifts is the golden rule and ruthless in this country: money, unless one has them. For those who gave them to the money, flowers and fruit (sealed in colorful baskets in which the fruits are so fake you look shiny and perfect). We get two pots of flowers from our agent handyman and a beautiful purple orchid by our landlord, who is financially well and visit me when I call to report a fault or a fault in the apartment, hair line with blacks licked on the one hand, casual wear-researched, strictly leather shoes with side lacing, not central to the shoe. Leather jacket and high waist bag under his arm. From our driver - with a slight lag due to a delayed return home, area Hefei (Yellow Mountain) - I get 25 eggs, assures me of hens are kept and cared for by his mother, and two bottles of clay containing oil sesame always in the region. This time could not - I do not know if as a matter of time, money, opportunity or other - to bring us the bai jiu (distilled spirits, or "white liquor"), but we will take him in April. Our ayi gives us two white rabbits cardboard hanging on the door. Our daughter was attached to tigers and it was not easy to impose the rabbit, now you - by associating it with the endless evenings of fireworks and loud barrels - an animal considered extremely noisy!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Difference Adult Junior Snow Ski Boot

Zhongguo Chinese New Year, the country where there is no "medium"

Capita, like me these days, that China is close to you. Or then I have to be too large for her. Overbearing and uncontrollable comes the need to distance themselves from this world, the need and the desire to give pain to stop, or even distress, to understand. As my Terzani this month, I have the feeling that what is around me is made to last a single season. Maybe I'm wrong then, and tomorrow I deny.

When you leave, she - China - somehow you are starting. Not with gentleness and love, no. Quite the contrary. Here is revealed in those folds and in those wounds that when the mood is high and life is full it's easy - and pretty soon - Not to see. Those creases and that all those wounds - a must clear the victims themselves - are scrambling to cover up and hide. Arms are stretched out furtively in rubbish bins to check their contents. However, arms, back on its feet until reaching the face, at first glance I would say a little square with the appearance, position, location of the person. Unsuspecting women in my compound. The vigilantes in uniform stationed in the parking lots between Mercedes and BMW, in front of several Starbucks, Cold Stone & Company, who pretended to take a tour of patrol approach the tables abandoned just to check whether the contents of cups and bowls.

The fault is now also inflation, the food, I do not mean much. + 10% in a few weeks. For the mass worthy of the name, a sentence of hunger. Jasmine or not, this would be enough to fill the squares. The streets of this country that, apart from and mockery of its name, the "middle" has nothing. You're either rich or you are poor. Or die of cold or hot. Either you or someone you're not really anyone. But also: spend or nothing for rice and vegetables cooked on the street in darkened containers of fortune, or spend 40 euro for a pound of cherries. Or pay the gold imported olive oil, or pay nothing for the oil extracted from discharges of homes and kitchens. But still less than the filtered sewers. No, you're China, in the middle you have nothing, not even in terms of feelings. Or you're innocently on your side, or you're terrible enemy. Or are submissive and acquiescent smile, or even see us. In short, you or you love or you hate it.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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Dance & Acrobatics - UP show, Suzhou SSCAC

dances, acrobatics, opera. Briefcase and coordination, physical strength and elasticity, drama and emotions. The ingredients are all there, the script and the symbols are self-congratulatory Discount China. Dancers, acrobats and singers perform with diligence, showing that everyone has studied and knows its part, does not matter - and who would notice then? - If the collection is a bit 'wooden and mechanical. De-sentimentalized. The note on which it relies for involving the public is a bit ironic 'burlesque a bit' naïve , because in the end make a joke of it plays down and relaxes the tone (it is often the case, not only in China) .



is the result surprises me. Basically absent-minded, more interested in settling on the best seats to change seats to two, three times for some reason - certainly not for a better perspective -, the busy strip in place and handbags and bags in tow, more inclined to shop around for see what the rest of the audience. A noisy audience, very disciplined, very attentive to the stunts, which comes in too late nell'applauso. An audience of various ages who discards food, drinks, nibbles seeds, said out loud, tickling the laughter of friends and family with jokes that I fear have nothing to do with what runs before his eyes. There are those who teases the back, who slips from the back of his cap, simulating a launch object to the stage, who - out loud - do not know what kind of guide to an old lady embarrassed and confused, obviously out of place, that instead of following spins and pirouettes observes me.

We are the only two foreigners, as in many other occasions, I have the feeling that we are the real attraction.



I especially feel that artists who want to say I agree with submission and servility on stage are not the protagonists, but only a misuse of funds, movement and music background fillers. A nice little frame. In defiance to the ticket price (no small by Chinese standards), this gathering of family clan seems to use this opportunity to be a foil or as a ground for self-amusement and play, as if implying - with gestures and manners - that these animated mannequins, as such, are not worthy of attention, respect, appreciation, but not only of silence. Has a strange effect. There is a lack of composure. And the relationship they have with the performer is television, that look at the pictures on the screen only if and when you want, without disrupting their daily business, without having any or empathy towards those that are creating the content.



Ha, whatever, something reminiscent of the instincts and impulses give vent to crowded arenas and screaming of the past. It has everything, much less to do with a certain ethics of the public, even paying, for it can not afford everything.


How To Remove Bug Bite Scars

Baobei event - Help Chinese Orphans

Stumble this new initiative to collect Baobei di fondi a favore dei bambini orfani in Cina. L'evento/cena si terrà al Napa, Shanghai, zona Tomorrow square.

Fields/Napa "Warm Your Heart Dinner" Steve Liang, Fields General Manager, and Matthew Ona, Napa's Executive Chef, are excited to make this long talked about dinner event a reality. They personally share our passion to help Chinese orphans and will be donating 100 % of the proceeds. Raffles and a string quartet will complete the evening. Feb 19th 7-10pm 358RMB RSVP to: Anita Haycook at anita@baobeifoundation.org

Esserci, per loro conta.

Why Does My Throat Hurt Every Night





Macao has been an explosion of colors. The blue sky and clear air gave a hand. The light seemed perfect: vivid colors, shapes and perspective in continuous full refresh, that mix that I think make the joy of a photographer.



Among Cine taken, sold and then returned, Macao, seemed to me that most sports stores and the outcome of a match before and after the merger - between east and west - ; that there could be at deeper levels, but also more visible and palpable, then a closer look connote depth. A diffusion of architectural styles, culinary traditions, languages \u200b\u200band faces at all bewildering, indeed, taste a bit 'of the successful prohibited.



The profile of a Christian church that overlaps with that of a pagoda. Signs and road signs bilingual in Portuguese and Mandarin, the dim sum and rice noodles sold in a street kiosk stationed in front of perhaps a typical inn where you serve rice with seafood and the famous bacalao to Portuguese.