Sensual City Studio

CHILDREN RIDING PARENT-CONTROLLED PURPLE ELEPHANTS

A whole range of things have been adapted into Chinese culture; it is well known that the Chinese embrace change and development rapidly.
Lactose is better assimilated by the younger generations, and so there are now some very tall men and women in China.
But the Chinese are not only getting taller: it seems they are becoming wider, too. McDonald’s and KFC have been widely accepted and welcomed in China.
Nowadays, China is reaching record-breaking levels of obesity: there are fat camps and fat-reduction hospitals where parents can send their only child to lose all those extra pounds.
In ten years, China’s childhood obesity rate has doubled, with the greatest gains made in urban areas, owing to more Westernized dietary habits combined with more sedentary lifestyles, with more and more kids spending time in front of their computers and playing video games instead of going outside and getting some exercise.
According to recent official figures in China (2012), more than 12% of the nation’s children are overweight, representing some 120 million individuals under the age of 18.
This trend is partially due to a loss of neighbourliness and community spirit  . Children have no brothers and sisters, and instead of living in an open environment such as the lilong where there are other children to play with, their typical living environment is an apartment on the 30th floor, with only Mum, Dad and/or Grandma and Grandad for company.
As a result, parents take their children down to ground level – home of the shopping centre and the market place. Then, using a remote control, they set in motion the newly bought purple elephant, or giraffe, upon which the child is sitting comfortably, so that parents and children alike can happily eat their ice cream in peace.

A SHANGHAINESE DAY 2

I imagine what my life would have been like if I had been a native Shanghainese grandmother…  Like the others of my generation, we would all speak the same dialect, and take full advantage of our home, Shanghai. I get up at around 4.30 a.m., and meet known and unknown friends in order to exercise: tai chi fan, tai chi, dancing or a martial art. I could go to the park, to the street corner where the lilong and the high-rise compound meet, or to the deserted pedestrian promenade. An hour later, I tidy up my house, carefully say my prayers to my ancestors, with the help of incense that cleanses both the air and the energies in the house. Breakfast should be salty, as we lose lots of water at night. I wake up the only son of my only son, and help him to get ready for school. I go to the market and prepare lunch; and then I sit and talk to my neighbours about the latest news in the lilong – who has moved in, who has moved out, who has got married and who has died. After lunch, I’d better take a nap.

ANCESTORS 1

In the past – and in rural China today still – the most important item to be acquired, and an essential item at that, was the coffin.
The coffin is intended to be the home of the body, whose soul is not completely detached but rather in the perpetual afterlife.
The afterlife is the life in which one remains forever, in the spiritual world. There is therefore no absolute detachment of the deceased from his or her family. After one’s death, a transformation will occur – usually within one to three days, sometimes longer, depending on the tradition – as a result of which one becomes an ancestor. As an ancestor, a person’s social continuity is ensured, even after biological death.
The coffin would be placed in the ground, and on top of it the ancestor’s treasures and cherished items, and then it would be covered by earth, creating a little mound, a tumulus  . Around the tumulus, the tomb takes on the form of a womb, as death marks one’s birth into the afterlife. In addition, it can be seen as a kind of “alpha” sign, symbolizing that the end is the beginning.
It is said that the higher the grass grows on top of the tumulus, the greater the fortune of the ancestor in the eternity of the other world.

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.