昙花再现 

从北京回来,屋里院里的花花草草,居然都活着,还欣欣向荣的。可见我们养的花，早已经过“自然选择”，所谓适者生存。最吃惊的是那盆七月份“现”过一次的昙花，竟然又长了一个花苞！于是我天天留意着，准备这次一定要看她“一现”。天越来越冷了，我都有些担心她着凉。花苞还是一天天长大了，两天前就看上去快开啦！我当然十分激动的时常去窗口盯着她看，可到了昨天晚上也没什么动静，心想总是要今晚再开了。谁知今天早上一看，那朵花居然半开着！ 赶快冲出去仔细看看，希望着她只是刚开。心里却知道，昙花都是夜里开的，这一朵给我坚持到早上还没谢，已经算是够给面子了！ 虽说是已开过了的花，看上去还有点“含苞欲放”的样子，也还有清香。昙花啊昙花，不知何日再现？那时我是否能把握时机，看到她开放？


cat 5:11 下午

留言/Comments(5):

beautiful flower. I don't think i have ever seen it before. Amasing and exciting story. Are you happy for catching the moment that it was still open?

Xiao Rong | 10.28.04 - 7:20 am

Yes, I was very happy to see it still open. It was very pretty, especially because it was a very large flower -- much bigger than my hand!

Gui | 10.29.04 - 1:47 pm

We had the same flowers while we lived in Beijing. You only need watering them maybe once a month. Some years, if you are lucky, you could catch them bloom two or three times a year. Where are the photos from China's trip? We are still waiting.

nairong | 10.30.04 - 12:16 pm

Beautiful picture! I've never done so well, like Japanese paiting.

Yangmama | 11.04.04 - 7:50 am

ha, I had been waiting for someone to praise my picture -- I thought it was pretty nice, thanks to my new camera. But since nobody did I could only praise myself. Finally came someone with good taste! Thanks Yangmama.

gui | 11.05.04 - 6:41 pm

Opera and Art Studios 

When I was a teenager, I listened to a lot of opera music almost daily for a while -- not voluntarily, but because at the time mom fell in love with the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, and she would play his CDs back to back (sometimes in the company of two other equally famous tenors). Not a huge fan myself, my ears were soon filled with the soaring arias and grew sick of them. After a while I almost developed an allergic reaction to operas and longed to never hear them again. But time calms the nerve, and there came a time when I could listen to operas again, and found some of them quite appealing. Nowadays I even buy tickets to see operas.

Last Friday, I saw my fifth opera, Puccini's "Tosca", and it is my favourite one so far. In terms of plot, setting, and songs, I find it more enjoyable than my previous operas: the Toronto productions of the bizarre and cheerless "The Flying Dutchman" and the tedious and dreary "Otello"; the San Francisco productions of both "The Magic Flute" and especially "The Barber of Seville" were more light-hearted and melodious, and being comedies, more fun to watch. In comparison, "Tosca"'s plot is filled with drama -- of love, jealousy, lust, rebels, murder, and betrayal. Tosca, "a good-hearted but high-maintenance diva", was played by Carol Vaness, who was supposed to be "the best interpreter" of the title role. Sitting from the top balcony, I couldn't really see her facial expression, but her body language seemed vivid enough. But my favourite song was the Act 3 aria, "E lucevan le stelle", sang by Tosca's lover, "the idealistic artist", in a sweet, though a little thin tenor voice. The production set, a lofty period piece, was not elaborate but well designed, with nice lighting effects. I especially like the scene at the end of the first act, where there was a religious procession going on in the background.

On Sunday we went to Hunters Point Shipyard in the city. "The Point" is an old navy shipyard on the bay, where some of the buildings have been converted to artists studios -- it has over 250 artists on site and is one of the largest artist communities in the country. Twice a year, during "Open Studios" artists open their studios and show their work.
We had been to another artists open studios in another old military complex in the North Bay, and was not very impressed -- the art was all very strange (probably because they were done by students, who try to be avant garde), and neither beautiful, nor very interesting. Here at "The Point", where the studios are more numerous and the artists more mature, the art works are of a good variety and much better quality (in my opinion). Matthew thinks these artists are probably more commercially minded, thus producing more mainstream art. We saw quite a few artists that we like and I was especially inspired by some of the abstract paintings -- in particular I would like to try my hands at acrylic and mixed media some day.

Here are a few of the paintings (and a photograph) from the show that I like.


cat 12:30 下午

留言/Comments(2):

Gui, Have you thought about a career as a journalist? I think you should try to send some of your travel logs, music impressions to some newspaper or journal editors. Maybe one day you will host your own editorial column in some famous newpaper or website and people will pay to read them.

Jia | 10.27.04 - 10:30 am

hmmm, good idea! It would be nice to get paid someday for doing what I'm doing now for free -- until then I'll just be happy to entertain you guys.

gui | 10.27.04 - 5:16 pm

My Mini 

Hi everyone,

Just want to share some photos of my new Mini with you. It is a fun and cute car. It drives like a big car.

Nairong






nairong 11:27 下午

留言/Comments(3):

Cute! It looks almost like a toy in the middle picture.

gui | 10.25.04 - 1:34 pm

sexy both the car and the driver. I like it.

Xiao Rong | 10.26.04 - 8:55 am

thank you.

nairong | 10.26.04 - 12:19 pm

还在北京时间... 

从北京回来，已是旧金山的雨季，却还是几乎每日蓝天白云。又呼吸到新鲜空气，我们甚感欣慰，但是又很想念北京的诸位，和各种好吃的东西...

回来一个星期了，不但感冒没全好，连时差也没调过来，整日昏昏沉沉，晚上却一点不困。唉！ 照片只处理了一半 -- 云南之行还在后期制作过程中，先给大家看看北京的几张：


In front of the Villa

Mingming and Matthew （明明的作业）

爸全神贯注他向往已久的大汤包！

全部北京照片请去这里看。

cat 2:55 下午

留言/Comments(4):

Hi Gui, nice pictures and family reunion. The next attritive things seem obviously the food!

Jia | 10.19.04 - 2:24 pm

It is amazing how poeple in Beijing eat (drink!) Baozi. Well I deleted the condo pictures to make room...

rong | 10.19.04 - 4:23 pm

nice to have you back(on the blog too)

Xiao Rong | 10.20.04 - 6:23 am

hmmm, rz, I must applaud your effort to conserve storage space! Although right now we are still doing ok with space, it is not unlimited and in the future I will have to removed and archive some of the older files. However, even though you deleted the original posting, you did not delete the pictures themselves, and that was how I could resurrect them, since only I have direct access to the image files. I'm not sure you have deleted the posting a second time though, since I'm still seeing them here...

gui | 10.22.04 - 4:14 pm