CRIMES AGAINST POSTERITY: Exhibit D
Foreign-er Education It was a hotel in Xi’An, home of the world’s most famous doll collection. The television fired up to the usual stuff, each click leading us around the carousel of tolerable news and soap operas… Wait! What’s this? No emblem in the corner, but that was not so odd – most eye-catching, most [...]
CRIMES AGAINST POSTERITY: Exhibit C
No Quiet on the Eastern Front Not long ago I experienced a profound realization. I was leaning from our office window at the time, one hand supporting my body by grasping the swinging metal bars, while with the other I launched an aerial assault upon a pair of wailing cats perched on the patchwork roof [...]
CRIMES AGAINST POSTERITY: Exhibit B
Waste Not Yet Ye Be Wasted A simple garbage bin, a pleasant wood exterior, designed in accordance with the ultra-modern concept of discretion when disposing. Right bin or left bin?. Choose wisely. Consumption has past; it is too late to change that. You weren’t satisfied with your purchase? You think the whole thing was a [...]
CRIMES AGAINST POSTERITY: Exhibit A
They Know Something We Don’t Know And with one foul stroke of the artist’s pen, out goes the rumor of American Utopia, flushed as carelessly as the product the new America sells so well. A barefoot, sleepy-eyed non-Asian, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing on hands and knees while the peppy t.p. awaits his duty – the [...]
CRIMES AGAINST POSTERITY: Exhibit E
Such a darling setup – and magnified, of course, to domineering proportions. Life-size, it seems, was not impressive enough, not quite as instructive. These are the days of magnitude over quantity, or quality, for that matter- the time of things that make your chin raise. And what a message! What an image! The light falls [...]
May 06, 2009 | Categories: China, Crimes Against Posterity | Tags: harmony, history, Humor, modern china, social commentary, statues, Terracotta Warriors, the past, unification | 2 Comments »