Sensual City Studio

CIGARETTES

Being a smoker in Shanghai is fun. You’re allowed to smoke almost everywhere, and the best part is being able to smoke in the taxi back home.
This custom is comparable to the traditions surrounding food.
In particular, it is bad manners to eat everything on your   plate, as this signifies that you are still hungry and consequently want and need more food in order to be satisfied. The plates on the table will be endlessly refilled, until you finally give up your Western ways and leave some food to be thrown away.
With cigarettes, it’s kind of the same: sometimes you will still be smoking a cigarette and your Chinese friend will offer you another one. In this case, you should simply put out the one in your mouth and take the new one your friend is offering; later, it will be your turn to do the same.
And, believe it or not, it is actually normal to eat while smoking.
In a taxi, sometimes you can simply ask the taxi driver if he wants a cigarette, and hey presto, there you are in a mobile living room or smoking lounge.
Not accepting cigarettes is like not accepting food: it’s not good manners. However, they will accept a refusal, if you are truly a non-smoker. Just make sure they understand that it’s not an unfriendly gesture, but simply because… well… you’ll need a good excuse for this one! Personally, I don’t know of one…

SEVEN – GHOST MONTH – GHOST DAY

Seven is one of the few numbers that is as lucky in the West as it is in the East.   In Chinese culture, all annual rituals are determined in accordance with the moon. In Chinese, as in Latin-based languages, the moon is female; it is the yin  ; and it is the moon  that determines the propitious day for every Chinese ritual. Accordingly, the seventh month in the lunar calendar belongs to the ghosts, and so it is known as the “Ghost Month”; (鬼月) and the fifteenth day of this month is the “Ghost Day”. On this day, the deceased, emerging from the lower realms, are believed to visit the living. As an important Buddhist and Taoist festival, many rituals are performed in order to ease the pain of the deceased, by transmuting and absolving their suffering; to achieve this, their appetite should be satisfied and prayers should be said.

GLOWING KITES

The Qingming Festival is a wonderful time to discover what is, in my humble opinion, one of the pillars of Chinese culture. The rituals that take place as part of this festival, whereby everyone welcomes in the spring , are inextricably linked to one theme : transformation.
The transformation of paper matter into real objects in the afterlife, for example.
On this day, however, a more subtle transformation is also supposed to take place: the transformation of wishes and fears into real, tangible   outcomes in this world and in this life.
It was necessary to find a way of transmitting greetings to those loved ones who are now enjoying another life, in another space. For this reason,   it is believed that the Chinese invented kites – especially for this day, in order to commemorate and honour their ancestors, thus fulfilling their duty of filial piety.
Today, kites fly in the daytime and at night.   In the evening, so that messages don’t get lost, colourful lanterns are attached to the kite strings, and the kites are then transformed into a “sacred lantern”. Nowadays, the Shanghainese attach LEDs to the strings and cloth of their kites, so that shapes can be discerned in the sky, reminiscent of formations of clouds that look like real objects, recalling memories of past events. However, most of these lights simply enrich the dark evening sky and bring back the lost stars of Shanghai, just for one night, just for this night.

BALANCE

Balance is not just a word for the Chinese. Neither is it merely the act of remaining vertical in a given place at a given time. Rather, it is about according equal importance to all emotions, and the positioning of the essential places that contribute to the accomplishment of one’s personal rituals.
It is about the dichotomy of all things, which isn’t   necessarily real but perceived. It’s   about how all  forces are interconnected, and how  they complement one another – and how this duality in fact corresponds to unity.