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I’d like to recommend a Japanese anime series called Mushishi. The series follows Ginko, a man who dedicates himself to keeping people protected from supernatural creatures called Mushi. The anime is different from typical Japanese anime style, which can be watched in almost any order. Both have a lot of drama packed into these short stories. I like the music, the frame and the story himself, which gives me a feeling of autumn rain. I was a bit lost when I finished watching Mushishi, cause I want to live in that kind of world.

Mushishi is set in an imaginary time between the Edo and Meiji periods, featuring some 19th-century technology but with Japan still as a "closed country". It is implied that there are many more lifeforms more primitive than "normal" living things such as animals, plants, fungi and bacteria, and Mushi is the most primitive of all. Due to their ethereal nature most humans are incapable of perceiving Mushi and are oblivious to their existence, but there are a few who possess the ability to see and interact with Mushi. One such person is Ginko, he employs himself as a Mushi Master (mushishi), traveling from place to place to research Mushi and aid people suffering from problems caused by them.

I really like the person Ginko, though he does not has the face which could be recognized as handsome. In terms of personality, Ginko is generally laid back and focused on his work. However, he can be very serious when it comes to protecting people from mushi. The most attractive part I find is his attitude towards everything and everyone. He is a thinking person. He often stresses that the mushi are not evil, but merely trying to survive like everyone else.

Episode 6 is one of my favorite episodes, which is called “Those Who Inhale the Dew”. I felt myself so strongly seduced by both the light and the darkness is something that I never want to forget. The love, scenery, philosophy behind it… After I watched this episode, I would prefer the life of the living in the moment and appreciating life every day. The overall atmosphere is incredible scenery and hauntingly beautiful music. The simplest things turn out to be miracles of life.

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I will soon be graduated and I want to go back to China to open a tea room in Shanghai. Last summer I met with some of the people within this area and firmed my convitions. Here are some processes I want to share on tumblr.

I wish I could open a modern Chinese tea room which is simple and efficient. Most of the tea rooms in cities of China are elder oriented, young people are more willing to go to cafes like Starbucks. But I think as we have a long history of drinking tea, in our DNA, we prefer tea more than coffee.

One of the most important thing for a tea house is its location. I would like to choose the business street which serves for the white collars, with some other stores next to my tea room. I am very familiar with Shanghai but I will still do some traffic research before hands, thus I could ensure that there are some of the constant flows. These kind of tea room venue might be expensive, so that I should count for the portion of the rent, as well as the cost I need to pay employees, accountants, and other supporting staff, to ensure there is still a portion left of my budget for marketing and advertisement.

Then I need to get the licenses and permits I need to open the tea room in that area. After that, I need to design my tea house as well as buy the furniture and equipment. The equipment will be preferable simple, elegant, and durable, better to print the logo of my tea house on them. These would be completed by an interior designer and myself to make sure is it a warm(inviting) and unique(eye-catching) style.

Then I should find suppliers and design my menu. Through Shanghai itself does not plant teas, the two provinces nest to it are well known because of tea. Last summer I got to know some of the tea supplier which is very good and at a reasonable price.

I am planning to design the menu by colors(tea have different categories like white tea, green tea, black tea, fruit tea…) and changed with season. I may also tell a story which is meaningful and easy to remember. With some traditional Chinese dessert, the packaging of them are made easy to take to go. There might also be some tea ice-creams for sell in summer. My general pricing of the tea house will be fair, not too expensive nor too cheap as well. There might be some discount deals by weekdays or festivals, and more discounts are made during the time it just open.

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Sky lanterns means good wishes. It is considered good luck to release a lantern with the belief that misfortune will fly away with the it. I made one in my elementary school and another one several weeks ago.

I bought the sky lantern materials mostly on amazon, which includes a bamboo hoop, thin wires, a piece of solid alcohol, flame-retardant spray and rice paper (red rice paper). I started with the rice papers (which is easy to degrade) and folded four large pieces of them together and draw the shape of a bell onto the paper. The total bottom size of the bell shape should fit over the bamboo hoop. Then I glued (typical glue will be fine) two of the paper pieces together along the sides and repeat this process one every four edges at until the paper makes a complete dome shape.

After making the balloon, I built a frame and assembled it to the lantern. The bamboo hoop which holds the fuel could heat the air inside the lantern to make it rise. I stringed the wire through the middle of the hoop, wrapping the center part of the wire to the solid alcohol, then wrapped the alcohol with a letter wrote by mine. When the rice paper balloon was dry, I glued the frame and the balloon together along the bottom circle, and sprayed the lantern with flame-retardant spray. When everything dried, the Flying lantern was down!

The safe place to fly a lantern is over water. So I chose to fly it on the lake Calhoun, which was still frozen. It took me more than ten minutes to wait until the lantern starts to float.

But flying the lantern still needs some circumstances. The theory of its flying is because of burning the fuel let the density within the balloon less than the air outside. (I want to share some physical knowledge) So that we need to satisfy:

F(buoyancy)>G(total)=G(hot air)+G(lamp)

Which means that only when:

G(lamp) <F(buoyancy)-G(hot air) = ρ(air)gV(air expelled from the ballon)-ρ(hot air)gV，

mlamp<(ρ(air)-ρ(hot air))V(air expelled from the ballon)

As the ρ(air)=0.029kg/mol, in ideal condition, the hot air should be more than 88℃ and the m(lamp)<23.56g. This does not include the weather condition. As Minneapolis is cold in winter and windy on the lake. So that the weight of the lantern (include the fuel) should be as small as it can.

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For the x-lab 2016, what I can say is, it is a beautiful class which I would never forget. The course was different from any classes I have taken, the experience of it was like reading the “Dictionary of the Khazars”, which seems to have no meaning at first, just so many unrelated ideas, but as time goes by, everything starts to appear above the water. And at the time we noticed this, we had already affected by it deeply.

Yes, something appears above the water, and luckily, most of us saw it at the last day of the class. For most people, their most human things are like icebergs which beneath the water. But definitely, everybody has it. I got to have a closer relation with my classmates. Usually, it’s hard for me to get to know others within a semester, as I seldom talk, I would like to sit far away and listen to others. So I was really nervous and didn’t know what to say when Matt asked me, but as time passed, I felt more relaxed and involved with some of the discussion spontaneously. I guess if this class last longer, I might be a talkative person. And Matt is a cute guy, he really made the class happy. I felt impressed that he could remember and pronounce my name correctly from the beginning (it’s hard to remember even for some Chinese). That made me feel being respect.

Furthermore, it is surprised for me that I have not only kept a closer relationship with my classmates, bur all with the surrounding world. Like Macy said, I’m the person who usually immerse into my own world. I like writing much more than speaking, but keeping a blog brings a true friend into my real life (I am satisfied when I hover down my blogs). I have never thought of went to the Lake Calhoun before a final project, but which turned out is that me pressure was gone with that flying lantern. I was really enjoyed on that beautiful lake and I also got to know the person whom record the video, we have many similarities.

Architecture could be related to everything, and everything could be seen as alive. And architecture can be related to everyone, everyone has his or her own lovely spirit, this kind of mood needs humility. I have a deeper understanding of each person. Like Macy’s T-shirt. (What I want to point out is that Matt’s T-shirt is too retained, if I drew it, I would make it more crazy..)

During this class, we talked about a variety of things, like the black mountain college, the Alchemy architect (And Geoffrey said I was the first one who sent him the note~), Spirit animals, Yamamoto, Ai weiwei (I still can’t like this guy) and some books, musics…And the final project is not something of the end. I usually felt nervous of doing wrong at other studios, but I was happy and relaxed in this one. Like Bruce Mau’s quote: “Love your experiments. Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.” Every final project is inspiring. I like the kite idea when I got to know that everyone shares the same nervous, that made me feel less nervous. I love the experiment of the whole presentation.

To be honest, I was wondering from the beginning that: “Does this guy really know how to teach?” But now I would say, Matt is a person who truly knows how to teach (may be he is also learning with us). He does not just tell us some knowledge, but points a way not on the map. The spirit of X-lab is the original reason I went to the United States, which I kind of forgot during the 3 past years. I think every student should have an experience like this. Now it is the spring day, and I have more confident of opening a tea house(because I’m not so afraid of failure). Finally, As my lantern says: becoming stars, best wishes to the x-lab.

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I was thinking of a question that in today’s world, is writing more sufficient than speaking? My mind started to dig into this question after I came to the United States. After comparing them in details, I found it is not an easy question to give an answer.

The same purpose of speaking and writing is to convey meaning, both of them, as long as they can express ideas, have the power to move hearts and minds or to unite people. The expressed idea may not be justice, but also lies. And people who would be affect by the words are people who can understand them. Which way is more efficient depends on how people us them.

There are a lot of benefits of writing. It can “reveal power of innovation”. These is because written knowledge could preserve longer. Until recently, the carrier of writing is just paper, but for speaking, the carriers are people. As long as the original written thing still exist, the distortion of meaning would just be how people understand it. Then human could inherit and add on the knowledge from long ago. Written could unite the human wisdom past time and places.

Another benefit of writing is that people could have more freedom while writing or reading. As writing and reading is usually a thing to do alone. We can decide what to read, where to start, how and what to write about. This freedom could give us time to really think and revise.

But there are also many benefits of speaking. First, speaking has more interactivity. That’s why we still go to school, to attend a discussion, or to have a conference. By listening, we follow the procedure and train our memory. By speaking, people connect more with each other. Conversation is also the soil to generate humor and courage. More importantly, speaking could has more emotive meaning than writing. Our emotion can be easily moved by the way one speaks. (Imagine someone says: “I love you” or “I’m sorry” compares to a script, or Hitler’s speech. In this meaning, speaking does not have less power to unite people than writing.)

Though speaking is not as free as writing because it relies on time, it can free our eyes and hands (eg: make a conversation while driving). Though we can not remember all the things without written down, we could remember the most precious parts. Through it has less logic than writing, it has more perceptual feeling. Though we lose the opportunities to revise and refine our thoughts, we exchange ideas and connect with others. And usually, since the responder does not have so much time to “create”, his/hers answer would be more real. The speaking knowledge can also benefit the illiteracies.

But if I don’t type, how can I make posts in this way? When I come down here, I find I could not give out certainty answer. Which is more efficient? It still depends on how people use it. Speaking fits extroversion, exchange and Writing fits introversion and build. But if I need to decide on only write or speak for the rest of my life, I would choose writing. After all, introspection means more to me than the joy of secularity.

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Last Friday I went a trip to the downtown Minneapolis. I first took the green line and walked to the IDS Crystal Court 7th/Nicollet, which is a lobby and shopping area at the bottom of the IDS tower. The exterior of the IDS center is high (which is the city’s highest), with beautiful shining curtain walls surround it. It locates at the core of the skyway system for the Minneapolis Central Business District.

The first 3-storied retail complex inside the IDS building is called the Crystal Court. It has a feeling of a vital public plaza, pedestrian entries from the street and skyway level. The design of the Crystal Court is urban, with plenty of skylights coming down from above and warm, clean carpet in the hallway. It features many water fountains, inside vegetation and retail amenities adorning the perimeter, such as Starbucks and convenience store, which provides people a convenient and comfortable feeling while walking through downtown.

Then I went up with the elevators to the skyway level. The lobby provides skyway connections between the tower and adjacent buildings. From the curtain walls there, we could see the sky and traffic outside the downtown Minneapolis and stay warm at the same time (which would be more beautiful during the night). There are also many retail stores next to the connections, such as juice stores, sushi restaurant, and At&t mobile.  I continued to 9th Marquette and hovered to the Foshay Tower.

The Foshay Tower is also a tall building but not with curtain walls. It has unique designed interior: Polished marble, stylized images of clouds, seashells, circles and squiggles -which is known as the style of “Art-Deco”, characterized by the use of angular, symmetrical geometric forms. This kind of design gives the hotel a luxury feeling (guest may will to give out more money. What mostly draws my eyes is the bird statue in the hallway, from looking up the bird statue we could see a big skylight with skyscrapers out there.

Going out from the Foshay Tower was an impressive experience. A small elegant bar next to the door way was playing jazz. There is a heating lamp hanging at the exit so that people can stand waiting there in the cold weather. Then I headed to the 7th/Marquette, which is a decorated street beneath tall buildings and went to the Wells Fargo Tower.

The exterior of the Wells Fargo has a modern grand style, with golden straight lines pointing up, giving it a higher feeling. It’s shadow can be seen clearly in the curtain walls of the IDS tower. A branch of the Wells Fargo History Museum is located in the skyway level. The building is lit at night with lamps pointing up from the setback rooftops to illuminate the sides of the building, which can be seen from the university of Minnesota.

The interior of the Wells Fargo is also of Art Deco style by Cesar Pelli. The first glace gives me some a clean and magnificent feeling. With its shinning ground, it gives a sense of semi-private corporate space. Its interior wall and floor detail is of a human scale, in spite of high ceilings. An art exhibit from the corporate Wells Fargo collections, a stylistic addition that reflects the same tribute as the styling of the building. I was eager to take some photos but an administrator stopped me.

The location of these three skyscrapers are next to each other in the core area of downtown, which provides an easier way to do the business. The height and exterior them give the city a vital skyline view. The use of natural and manmade light connects to the surrounding areas, helps creating a positive affection on people’s mood. The public area (with retail amenities) and the skyway of them provide pedestrian a place to seat and meet, which results of creating an “enabling environment" to connect people together physically and psychologically. There are also some private areas which I could not enter. They give the buildings multiple functions which can be monitored for security

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At the same period which I read “In Search of the Lost Time”, I encountered another interesting book which impressed me a lot. It was the “Dictionary of the Khazars” by Milorad Pavic. The book is a lyrical description of the events surrounding the so-called "Khazar Polemic. People can read it as a dictionary (As its name states it is built of definitions that you can read in any order) or a fantastic novel. This is reality as dreamed by many people from different eras, stitched together and retold a dozen times, which is unlike anything I ever read.

The book told a story of the Khazars who are claimed to have called 3 religious people from surrounded religions to decide which religion to choose for their kingdom. So The dictionary is built of three books, red for Christian sources, green for Islamic sources and yellow for Jewish sources. Each faith's source says that their own side won the argument and the Khazar people ceased to exist when they were absorbed into the larger Christian/Muslim/Jewish community. Which reveals an interesting way to understand these religions.

The written style of the book is fantastic, which is like the way we dream. There are full of things like death by mirrors made, eggs filled with time, dream hunters, people carrying birds inside their shirts to keep warm in winter… My favorite part of this book is about the “dream hunters” shows in each entry. The dream hunters could plunge into other people's dreams and sleep and from them extract little pieces of Adam-the-precursor’s being, composing them into a whole, into so-called Khazar dictionaries.

Reading this book is like a retelling a dream in the early next morning. The author interestingly illustrates the reading action as a metaphor of two men (author and reader) holding ropes with a puma (text, thoughts, ideas) caught between them. There are scenes everywhere in our dreams, but we just can’t stop inside on dream,

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My favorite types of music are mostly these three: post-rock, dark-wave and Russian folks. In this post, I want to talk a bit about one of my favorite album called the” ‘Hymn To The Immortal Wind” by Mono. 

The Japanese band is one of a few to ever truly take my senses to a place of the immortal world. Their music are just so deep, with grand hope and hopeless. Everything gets emotional when I start listening to them, their stirring instrumentals adhere to post-rock is truly great, especially in the song called ‘follow the map’ (video). I encountered this song several years ago and did not put much notice of it from the beginning. But one winter morning, while I was walking to school, the most just hit me and I cried. That’s the power of post-rock. The avoidance of language actually leads to a universal and understandable by all.

I like the cover of ‘Hymn To The Immortal Wind’. Which looks like a boy and a girl holding their hands in the deep ocean. Staring at this take people a journey outside of themselves and absorb into it. I especially like the name of this album. It is like a poem describing a long story: "Ashes in the Snow"  "Burial at Sea" "Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn"  "Pure as Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm)" "Follow the Map" "The Battle to Heaven"  "Everlasting Light"  Throughout ‘Hymn…’, their quality control never once falters. ‘Follow The Map’ is piano-led and intimate, we feel our tiny on this planet and we are seeking a sense of security on the maps. We generally become ordinary and afraid. After thousand times of lost, we are awake, and finally find that the everlasting light is not on map.

Post-rock is not perfect but perfect. Much music has this goal, but with Mono just let us feel. I don’t like the perfect music like classical music. I like things with emotion, with wound and vague. Which is a dream in our life, a language not belong here. People are wearing there masks to pretend “perfect” in everyday life. Why don’t feel our life like feeling a song? We must admit our loneliness and go to a place not on map, but in the immortal wind.

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Fumi Koike is a freelance Illustrator and Designer born in 1985, Japan, her illustrations are one of my favorites. I like the simplicity and the same time sophistication of her artworks. It is a feeling like going back home and lying on sofas. They are natural and make people’s brain relax. 

I met one of her illustration on a website called “douban”(pic1), this makes me a fan of her. In this artwork I see a something soft, dreamy, and eternal beyond everyday staffs. Her work is light, lovely, and all about comfort. The way her decorate her bedroom gives me some beautiful inspirations of architecture and my own house.

While most information about her tends to be in Japanese, Koike keeps her Facebook page in both English and Japanese (https://www.facebook.com/fumikoikeillustration/) , and the descriptions of her artworks have a wonderful softness to them, which sounds like a friend talking with you on sofa. What I love most is the way she make scenes of everyday, contemporary life feel quiet and pretty. Big wooden beds, eggs for breakfast and cold hands around hot mugs are just some of the seasonal imagery featured in her work, not forgetting the brilliant collection of dog painting. Fumi Koike seems to have latched on to that feeling and managed to illustrate it in this wonderful series of paintings.

Sculling down her images, I fell that I have come into a word of nature and simple. Everybody are loved and trust.  Forest and lakes are just outside the window. We walked with our dogs, nothing is catching us from behind, life is just that cozy and beautiful.

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I went to the Basilica of Saint Mary this morning (pic1), which is a church located near the down town Minneapolis with awesome exterior and delicate interior. It is known as the first basilica and one of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in America.

More than just a beautiful religious building, the inside of it was much more delicate than I thought. That building shows strong lively religious power more than just a beautiful landscape. The nave was not only lighted by the stained glass windows, but also with tiny lights on the roof. There are not only Bible stories drawings inside the church but also some modern fine arts.

The exterior walls are sheathed in vibrant white Vermont granite (a building material three times stronger than marble). A colonnaded portico forms the main entrance, flanked by twin towers. The east tower holds a bell. Above the entrance is a rose window. Five arched big windows in bays on each side of the nave provide light; there are a lot of glass windows with beautiful drawings in the basilica.

Walked in the basilica, there is a transverse gallery with stone basins hold on the wall. Believers pick water from the basin before entering the church. The nave Vault is not supported by the interior cornice, but rather is hung from five iron girders that support the concrete roof. The nave is lighted by the stained glass windows as well as the small lights inlaid the roofs. (pic2)

The windows are really impressing. There are three rose windows, one is set in the façade and others are on either side of the transept. The outer portion of each window shows 3 rows of angels. The center of the rose window at the façade is Madonna and Child surrounded by choirs of adoring angels. There are 20 windows of the Clerestory contain scenes from the life of the Blessed Mother and the patroness of the Basilica (pic3). Beginning from the marriage of Mary to Saint Joseph to the Death of the Blessed Virgin.

The sanctuary, at the north end of the nave, is topped with a grand dome and circled with iron fence. Above the dome is a lantern topped with a bronze cross. There are two small exits at the either side the sanctuary. The marble altar is located underneath a high marble-columned baldachin. A sculpture of Mary stands on the top of altar, around her stands lots of angels. All of these beautiful, delicate features has made the Basilica of St Mary a stunning and sacred place in my eyes.

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Is there something today that is more valuable than money? This is a though question which relates to economics and philosophy. Someone raised this question during a class of mine today. And I was not satisfied with the answers or articles on google, so I want to talk some of my own thoughts here. Money is a tool comes for an easier way to exchange goods and value substances. To have more money means you have more to be exchanged with. In this way, money can buy all things that are open to be exchanged.

The things that are open for sell is more than people usually think. In many cases, something that seems to be not for sell is just because the custom did not give a fair prize. Money can also buy invisible things, like ideas, design, attitude, education, sex, propaganda, or even to change laws.

I found there are a lot of people in Quora said that the spiritual, emotional things are more valuable than money. I admit that having money may change one’s view of the world, but it is hard to split money completely from these invisible things. For example, if we consider “Time”. Time seems to be the most valuable thing for everyone, but it is still hard to compare with money. Life time is generally fair to everyone (maybe the richer person could have it longer?), but people still spend their time on making money, because they know that money can maintain a living and make time more useful. In another way, if a person wants to go to a place, it would be much faster to take plane than bus.

I don’t want to expand too much on this, what I want to say is that it is not responsible to compare physical things(money) with immaterial things, for money is a tool to seek these happiness, which includes health, knowledge, happiness, sometimes even love and freedom.

So here comes the first part of things I want to suggest that are more valuable than money: the things people want, but is hard to get and not completely open for exchange. In today’s world, there are the territory of a country, some of the cultural treasures, seeds, ET’s information (if there is any), secrets of safety, the highest technology, some rare medicines, or the rare animals like pandas.

Saying to the rare animals, we found it is valuable not only because it is prohibited for buying, but also because of its limitation. So here comes another part that is more valuable than money: the non-renewable, limited things we human need or want, but do not have a way to create or find a better replacement. Like the oil, some minerals. In the cultural perspective, there are many beautiful unique things which is more precious than money (peculiar jade, the first computer, or the real piece of Mona Lisa...) In a word to say, the staffs that will become more and more valuable with the passage of time.

The things that will become more and more valuable during the time (which the inflation could not catch up) is more valuable than money. This is my answer for the question. Writing to here, I want to add something to the third paragraph of the spiritual things. If there is something immaterial that is truly valuable than money, is the ability to control money but not to be controlled by money. The right way to use this tool to seek happiness begins here. The ability to control oneself, to know the direction, to know that money is just a tool but not to underestimate it. This kind of ability could generate a life that can become more and more valuable.

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On Friday morning I went a trip to the St. Anthony Public Library. The library locates in Saint Paul, which is considered as a part of the Saint Anthony Park neighborhood. Though it is a small library, it has an elegant exterior appearance and clean, convenient, interior features. When I arrived there, the first floor was registered by some first grade students at the elementary school. I found it functions as a great neighborhood library as the primary user groups are neighborhood residents and students from nearby. Which allows them to study and know each other better. I think the library serves as a good educational anchoring institution of the community.

I have noticed some good design features around the neighborhood. The Parking lot is close to the library, after people checked out books, they can walk to the DQ for ice cream, the Tea Source for tea, Annona's for olive oil, and many other basic goods in the neighborhood niches on Doswell Street.  The second stories of the buildings provide apartments for rent, which fosters vitality of the area. The parking lot is also well placed behind an office building next to the gas station, so that it won’t interfere the space of the street. The on street parking has also contributed a secure feeling to the experience of separating pedestrians from vehicles.

The most impressive thing for me is the large public park locates in the central of the St. Anthony Park neighborhood. Which is usual to see as a park design. Small unique houses with long entrances were built surround it on the perimeter, which provides a sense of privacy and also a sense of connection to the natural environment. As the Park itself is sunken down into the ground, residents could view it from each building. This implied safety and also adds a feeling of enclosure made by nature to the space. The park is also accessible to the public, which allows people of many ages, ethnic origins, and economic circumstances to gather together.

Although the whole area is well planned, it was planned to follows the nature typography of the landform. The streets are wide and curvilinear. People can walk three dogs at once, which implies a pleasant balance between vehicles and pedestrians. Abundant vegetation – Oak, Elm, and Hackberry dominate the area, not only provides corridor spaces and canopies, but also gives it an English garden landscape fused with a quality of American wildness.

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Today is the Lantern festival (also the Yuanxiao festiveal), which marks the final day of the Chinese New Year. Today is also the birthday of my grandmother, she is really a wise person with her own philosophy of life. During my childhood, she usually cooked tangyuan for the family during the Lantern festival. Tangyuan is a glutinous rice ball typically filled with sweet red bean paste, or sesame paste. But my grandma could fill in everything you can imagine. Chinese people believe the round shape of the balls symbolize family togetherness and eating tangyuan may bring the family happiness and good luck in the new year.

I still remember when I was 8, my grandma took me to the temples of Chenghuangmiao. Many paper lanterns with the shape of cats, rabbits and fishes were hanging there. We read the riddles written on the lantern and tried to solve them. (Most of them are connecting with the shape of Chinese characters, if one think he or she got the right answer, he or she could pick the lantern down and get small gifts from the temple sponsor). I saw a butterfly riddle with a poem on it, the script is: 众里寻他千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在灯火阑珊处。

My grandma suddenly got the answer of it. But she smelled and kept silent. After I begged her, she told me that there is a well-known philosophy in China that if a person wants to make his/her life great, there are three stages (called jingjie in Chinese, which means the artistic truth regarding the state of human existence and the system of human values) to go. They are all uttered by poems:

昨夜西风凋敝树，独上高楼，望尽天涯路。“Last night the West wind shriveled the green clad tree. Alone I climb the light tower to gaze my fill along the road to the horizon.” This expresses the first stage. 衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴。“My clothes grow daily more loose, yet care I not. For you am I thus wasting away in sorrow and pain.” This kind of struggling expresses the second stage. 众里寻他千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。“I sought her in the crowd a hundred, a thousand times. Suddenly with a turn of the head (I saw her), that where the lamplight was fading.”

The third stage represents a person finally finds the thing or realizes the dream (but not in the crowd, but in a place where light is dim). This poem was literally describing the environment of a lantern show. So the answer of it is “An” (Place where there is no light). Years past, these three sentences have never faded in my head. Today I missed my grandma I cooked some Tangyuan for myself (pic2). Maybe I’m currently in the second stage, maybe not. But I’m ready to suffer the sorrower of seeking in the lantern crowd.

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I finished the book “In Search of Lost Time” - also translated as “Remembrance of Things Past” in a spring day two years ago. This book is well known not only for its style, but also for its length.  The time I read it was a time I suffered with insomnia. I chose this book because I heard this is a perfect book to help people sleep. But the result is, I seldom stopped it until the birds singing.  

I’m not here to write a book review. I just want to share some experience of how to read a book like this. To be honest, I don’t think this book has a main thesis - which fits me well, I hate writing a thesis statement. It is just telling many tiny things happened in everyday life (which everyone would experience) with a detailed, grand, and mythological technique. Which gives reader a feeling of doing a slow, mental shower. I like the way Marcel Proust describes insomnia, with long, trivial psychological description, which makes me feel comprehended. That’s what we would think while we could not fall asleep, but Proust digs into it, describes it, then we find divinity in it.

The way Proust used is like to put a magnifying glass into our life. Or to say, a magnifying glass with a mirror function. In his view, everything makes sense (kind of like everything is alive). A soap advertisement could be as meaningful as “Meditations”. I think this is the reason that he wrote such a long book. Nothing in our life could be ignored. Instead, everything needs to be focused on and interpreted. (Which is good for a designer)

Examples like the insomnia and soap advertisement are everywhere in this book. From small things like foams, bills, to large things like love affairs and death.  They are all being amplified with emotions, dreams and feelings. But they are all so real because everyone does this, we just don’t pay attention to these feelings. So the “In Search of Lost time” could be also understand to “In Search of lost feelings”. From reading his lost time, we remember our lost things. Who haven’t rotated a handle in a door, but who are like Proust to give this action a detailed spiritual thinking?

This does not mean I recommend everyone to read this book. Actually I think this is more suitable for people who are suffering with something. To read this book, people should make his/her ego aside and read it as the words come from you head. This book does not need a deep thinking while reading it, it just need you to be aware of this words, and the world around you. It never tells you what is right or wrong but just gave out enlightenment.

After all, the happy thing for it is because it is a book of a person who seems have not “talent” at the beginning, which digs into himself and find out his precious talent. So if you want to find your talent or to get inspired, just open it into a random page and find the things you forgot.

[ronggexu-blog]

On Saturday Morning I went to the Purcell-Cutts House at 2328 Lake Place, Minneapolis, which is one of the most outstanding examples of Prairie School architecture in the country. From the tour, I find many design features to be put into a home design.  Before I stepped into the house, I walked around the building to see the surrounding of it. The exterior is earthen color, with parallel art windows and flat overhangs. The front yard is large, with a small rectangular pool in it. There is a lake in the west and a small playground in the backyard. What impressed me most is the front elevation and the entrance, which are a lot further from the street than other houses. This design also provides the side windows to see neighbors’ backyard instead of the houses. I think the overall look of it harmonize with the nature but not that with the neighbors… From the first glace of the interior, I saw an elegant, artistic, large and comfortable open space with earthen color. This kind of design makes me feel free and relaxed. I like the Japanese style painting in front of the fireplace, which shows wild geese flying in the sunrise. There are two unique box-shaped armchairs in front of it. I like the large art-color window with light pink and green, which provides abundant sun light and nature views from inside. I also like the light design which drops down from the ceiling, the piano in front of the long window seat, and the open dictionary with illustration put on a skeleton give this place an ancient and mysterious feelings. Though everything is so charming in the living room, what I liked most is the sculpture, which looks like a person ride on a bird in the dining room facing the window. Actually the living room and dining room is flowing together, with the living-room floor lowed and the dining room elevated. There is a V-shaped projection, which suggests a ship's prow, divides the two rooms. The sculpture is seating on the prow, looks like the person is going to ride a bird to fly out of the window to a dreamland.  There is a large oil portrait of Grandfather Gray at Island Lake hangs in the corner of the stairs. To be honest, I like the second floor much less than the first floor. The size of rooms is much smaller and the design seems regular in my eyes (maybe not at that time). But there are still some interesting features. There is a folding screen which divides the master bedroom from a small sitting room, with a fireplace and windows. There are two windows inside the wardrobe, which provides sunlight when open and finding clothes. In addition, two storage bins are inserted in the floor provides more space for storage. A small window was opened next to the child bed to let him seen the stars twinkling over nights.

[ronggexu-blog]

The Northrop Mall, based on a design by Cass Gillbert, functions as the main street of the Minneapolis campus in my eye. The design of it was largely influenced by Thomas Jefferson’s 18th Century University of Virginia, which served as model for similar designs of "centralized green areas" at universities across the United States. Similar to the design of University of VA, the shape of the space is rectilinear on an axially aligned grid pattern, with Cyrus Northrop building stands at the north end. There is a terraced green space surrounded by four of the larger buildings to the side (the primary mathematics, physics, chemistry buildings, and the Walter Library). The Coffman Memorial Union sits at the south end of the Northrop, opposite the Cyrus Northrop. Behind the Coffman Union there is the Mississippi River.

The style of the space is the Neoclassical Landscape, which evolved from the l’ Ecole des Beaux-Arts styled Chicago’s Worlds fair of 1893. In American architecture, neoclassicism was one expression of the American Renaissance movement. Based on this, the Northrop mall is a clearly organized space of aesthetics from the first glace.

The general characteristics of people there are students. On a summer day, many people would relax, have an outdoor lunch, or study in the sun on the lawn. As there are usually many events in arts, performance and academic held in the Cyrus Northrop building, there might be Northrop’s outdoor concerts or pop-up events held on the Northrop Mall. The circulation of the place is well-organized, which is simple to navigate. There are taller vegetations surround every grass lawns (oaks, eims, locust trees…), some of them could act as canopies, provide shades for cooling. With bike ways indicates at the side of the road, walkers generally won’t be affected by the events as they passed by but also restricted random movements.

In winter, the Northrop mall functions more as circulation. People can walk in from every space between each four sides buildings. The buildings are similar looking, usually with limestone columns and orders stairs. They offer secondary seats inside the area. Once coming out of these buildings, people could see the whole map of the mall by walking down the steps. This gives insiders an elegant and boredom feeling to be inside a “university site”, or to say, to be surrounded by knowledge. Stepped out from south of Northrop mall, people can either turn across the bridge to the west bank or turn east the catch the green line, or just waiting for campus connector under the bridge. There are also a wide variety of parking locations to choose next to the area. The beauty and function of this place has made it a great public face of the UMN.

[ronggexu-blog]

——どんな分野であろうと、生きることに疑問をもつ人間でなければ、ものは作れない。-山本耀司 ——No matter in what kind of fields, if a person has no doubts of existing, he or she could never create new ideas. - Yohji Yamamoto

In the film Notebook on Cities and Clothes (1989) by Wim Wenders, Yamamoto looks more like a dancer than a fashion designer. He seems to be always at his “most human”. By touching and playing with clothes casually, he created some interesting with his own aesthetics.

What I like most in this movie is the background music. After doing some research about Yamamoto, I found he is also a composer of music. This further explains that every kind of art has a connection. His design, though has less color in them, represents a feeling of flow like music. He said he likes black because black is the modest and arrogant at the same time. While the models are rehearsing on stages, the picture of the film is clam and cool toned, but the music sounds like a carnival. This kind of contrast and dizziness makes me fall into the world of the director.

“To learn from the past”. This is what I think the director want to tell us. Most of the time, there is a small monitor showing similar scenes from the past. This led the audience a deep thinking of existing. While interviewing in Paris, with the casual talks, the lens turned to the buildings and people, are they real things or not, what were their past and where will them go?

There is no correct answer. Life can be seen easy and lazy as a sunset-but mysterious, like Yamamto design. He likes cities. And I like the people in cities. We dress clothes in cities and live in our dresses. We seem like born on a highway, by asking why the vehicles are going somewhere, some people create things extemporaneous with the glance of the past.