And Then Some News

Thursday's Essay Preview

This is the twelfth of 17 essays that cover our Southeast Asia cruise (March, 2010).  The first paragraph of the twelfth essay reads as follows:  "This essay on Shanghai could just as easily be two completely different essays about the same city, because Shanghai is cut in half by the Huangpu River (a tributary of the Yangtze), and on one side is Puxi, the old area lying on the west side, and on the other, Pudong, the new development zone lying on the east side.  The contrast between these two sides is not just a “conversation piece”; it is real, dramatic, and startling — the obviously modern versus the clearly traditional.  (I have written two essays on Shanghai; however, they don’t divide the city into two parts.  The essays simply divide the information on Shanghai into two parts.)"

Thursday's Essay Excerpt - from the last two paragraphs of the essay

Yu Garden is considered landscape art.  It is meant, throughout, to perfectly balance the yin and the yang.  Each garden within the walls “must have several elements, the main ones being plants, rock, water, and pavillions, in order to make it harmonious,” says our Beijing Encounter guidebook — which includes information on Shanghai.  Our guidebook pointed it out: “To make it harmonious, the gardens are built . . . for promoting the flow of qi [energy flow] as they are to be an aesthetic pleasure.  The hardness of the rock (yang) should balance out the softness of the water (yin)” (p. 124).

The gardens within the Yu Garden are stunning in their beauty, and I will continue my discussion of them (briefly) in the second essay on Shanghai.

And Then Some News