China 1

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Estou há quase dois anos na China. Aqui os expatriados dividem-se entre os que falam mandarim, os que estão a aprender, os que tentaram mas deixaram-se disso e os que nem encetaram a aprendizagem.  Como dizia alguém, aprender a falar chinês é um projecto de vida. Ler Confúcio no original parece-me um projecto ainda mais temerário que ler Pushkin no original.

Gostava de roçar a minha língua pela língua de Lo Kuang-chung, mas paciência...

Cannaletto

When a Lisbon street becomes a Venitian canal...

Cartoon

Stereotypes

In a recent exibition at the Museu Berardo in Sintra, Portugal one could see this curious depiction of the political map of Asia at the beginning of the XIX century...

Ekaterina ftaroi

"Tsaritsa" at the Bolshoi,

Last Wednesday

Georges Sand

A young woman near Qalandia check-point (Palestine)

A contribution to the discussion on the use of veil ...

Barclay de Tolly

Logistics were paramount. Feeding the horses turned out to be the crucial strategic skill....

Unknown Artist (tbc)

Narguileh Den...

A smoking establishment in Jaffa. The contacts of the artist were promised for next Saturday...

Prince Piotr Bagration

The battles around Borodino

I had to find a Russian coffee-table book on "Bá-rá-di-nô " to get some diagrams of the battles to make sense of the otherwise excellent book by Dominic Lieven "Russia against Napoleon"...

David Lynch

CSI Jerusalem...

A car slices a curve, control is lost and accident follows. Pilot and second passenger look fishy. Cars passing by don't stop. Half a hour later suspects leave and nothing could have make us imagine something had happened. Point is the Blogger turned into paparazzi cum private investigator and took photos. Creepy like a David Lynch film...

Fausto Zonaro

ORIENTALIST STREET PAINTING



The outside wall of a bakery in Jaffa in 2010। Refusing the all pervasive neon lights, the owner resorted to old style advertising। Does not the Right Honourable Read share with this Blogger of Yours that the colours and the composition evoke the technique of orientalist paintings (like Zonaro) ? ...

Orlando Figes

Night Life in Beirute...

Some photos taken with a NOKIA E-71 during incursions into the BO18 and the MusicHall... Reminded one of Moscow nights, maybe the blend of "East" and "West", but from distinct approach angles. Moscovites are Westerners influenced by the (Central Asian)East, Beyrouthins are (Middle)Easterners influenced by the West.

Samir Kassir

Historiography of Beirut

I believe what separates somewhat frivolous current upper class tourism, with travel-for-travel-sake four times a year journeys, from serious traveling is the careful research and the "further readings". Here's my direct bibliography for the recent hop into Lebanon:

Nicolas Sursock

Shaker Abtissi

Grozny-like devastation ...

Nahr El Bared ( Northeast Lebanon) still a desolate monument to asymmetrical warfare.

Nahr El Bared

A Grozni-like desolation...

(text to follow soon)

Alfred Sursock

Mahatma Gandhi

Bi'lin (West Bank, Palestine)

Will non-violent resistance prove itself a shorter way to end the ocupation? Most of us keep our fingers crossed.

Adam Thirlwell

Indeed "one of the funniest, most stylish and utterly original debuts in years". Threesome sex, bits of Jewish North London, hints of Stalin's relations with selected Russian writers (Mandelstam, Bulgakov), Bauhaus architecture as source of metaphors and aforisms - all very Kunderesque. But above all one is impressed with the "voice" of the writer. Quite something.