New Apartment Pic's

We finally broke down and bought new couches... When I say "broke down," I mean our butts were literally breaking on our old couches - they were ROCK hard!!  I found a factory here that makes excellent Pottery Barn-ish furniture for about half the cost.  Here are some pictures!!

In the past few weeks, I've found some excellent new antiques - three old 'lunch boxes', two beggar's chairs (they are a matching pair), and one painted bucket.

     

I found this info on Antique Chairs online at www.bohoco.co.uk/origins.html  :

Generally chairs were made in pairs, (unlike contemporary European sets of eight, ten and twelve) and reflects the Chinese desire for balance and symmetry in room settings. Chairs were reserved for the most important members of a wealthy family and for receiving esteemed guests. Women, due to their subordinate status in Chinese society rarely sat on chairs and were confined to low platforms and stools. Chairs of the 18^th and 19^th centuries were not upholstered, unlike their western contemporaries.  In the homes of high-ranking officials, chairs may have been draped with extravagant and brightly coloured silks. There were several styles established in the Ming period, which were copied throughout the Qing dynasty: There are basically two major families or styles of chair, based on their appearance: square backed chairs and round backed chairs.

Round backed chairs

These are generally much more comfortable than the straight backed chairs. The square seat remains the same but the back rail offers a continuous support, which slopes downwards supporting the sitter’s back and arms. The finer pieces from the south were exquisitely made by craftsmen as the rounded rear support involved three to five ‘invisibly’ jointed segments of hard wood. These chairs were reserved for important members of the household and for ceremonial occasions. The round curving arms gave the sitter an air of imperial dignity and so it came to be that these chairs were considered as the perfect position for posing for one's portrait! Due to their shape they became known by westerners in China at that period as ‘Horse shoe backed arm chairs’. Vernacular versions of the round-backed chair were larger, more ‘rustic’ in design and were made of willow. The rounded back was made of one piece of willow which was steamed and then bowed to form the horse shoe shape. Due to their rather humble back ground, these more rustic chairs were sometimes referred to as ‘beggars chairs’

'Normal' ?

OK - by this point, I think we can all admit (especially me) that I’m not the most consistent blogger.  I honestly have the hardest time trying to decide what to write about because I’m actually getting used to living here!  Sometimes, I miss the feeling of looking out the taxi window and witnessing a bizarre situation for the first time.  Now, it’s bizarre that these things feel ‘normal’!  For example:

 - Trucks stacked so high with bundles of who-knows-what that I’m scared to pass them in case the load topples over.  Only to pass by and realize that amid the bundles there are Chinese men sitting between the bundles holding them in place.

 - Entire families riding on a motorbike.  Typically, a man driving with the woman sitting behind him, side-saddle.  She’s holding an infant (of course, that’s totally safe!!) and standing in front of the man, is a toddler holding onto the handle bars.  I used to constantly point this out to whomever I was with ... along with a comment or two about how unsafe it was.  Now, it seems like an affordable means of transportation (NOT :)

 - The seas of brown faces around every corner that shove, push, and crowd my personal space.. the spitting, hacking, and nose picking.. Although, I’ll always find it annoying and often down right disgusting, it doesn’t stand out like it used to.

 - A day of grocery shopping.  Yes, it often takes an entire day to get all the ingredients to make a meal.  No wonder we eat out a lot!

 - Walking out my front door to see a long rope hanging from the top of the building with a man latched onto it cleaning windows and gutters.  Other men standing on the top of the building peering below, yelling to the hanging men.  I just hope they don’t fall - I wouldn’t bet my life on the safety equipment.

 

 - The one thing that DOES still stand out to me are the Chinese babies and kids... can’t get over them... not sure I want to...