First employment experience at UBC Coffee House

First employment experience in U.B.C. Coffee House
On December 24th, the silent night…ehh, clatter night at coffee house at least, Sherry and I experienced a busy but wonderful time in UBC House for performing “generous” “Saint Nick and Saint Nicola”. How is that? We’ll come back soon to that one, but first I suppose a step-by-step introducing.

After a significant success with two distinguished performers--Sherry and me—for Xmas song performances in earlier December, both of Chaplin and Chaplina (OK I’ll stop talking about that) thought that we could and must continue our tour on the theme of Xmas. For the reason of that we took several pictures with the scene in UBC House, Sherry gave a suggestion that we have already found a place for our employability experiencing— As a result, we contacted with the manager of UBC…well actually we contacted with Sherry’s aunt and uncle, and they accepted it with pleasant. Woo, that’s far better compare with running around in a hurry to find a place of employment in holiday!

So you know that we went there on the Christmas Eve, with excitement, of course. However, I got a problem right after we arrived there: I couldn’t put myself in the Santa suit they prepared for their new man! The coat could be PUT on in all cost, but the hat… Later on they told me that their family has a tradition of performing in a Santa role by one family member every year in their UBC house… this fact made me more frustrated: It means that I am far “stronger” than any member of their family who have been the role…

After Sherry’s aunt gave another “big enough” hat, we started our work. This may be easy in your impression, but our job was “distribute” Christmas gifts to all the customers who were able to take a chance—It looked like a lottery but in hundreds of Red Pockets. That’s easy to handle it, right? No! The truth is: I was in the duty of carrying a noticeable big bag full with gifts while Sherry was holding a lottery box for customers, but they were all “Thanks for your participation” gifts! Then every customer, even everyone, treated me as a devil with bad luck…

OK, just kidding. Actually I was pleasured in this job, especially when the customers looked at me as a real Santa. I also think that Sherry was also very pleasant though she had already known their tradition before.

Finally thanks for the UBC coffee shop, and Sherry’s help, for gave us a opportunity to have such a fantastic experience. That’s a great value of us when we are in the way of trying to become adapted in a new place around us.

Gourmands’ gourmandize in Lucky Star Restaurant

Gourmands’ gourmandize in Lucky Star Restaurant

Christmas, merry Christmas! In the end of the 4-day Christmas holiday, December 28th evening, we went to Lucky Star Restaurant in the CBD district in Nanjing. As the team called ‘we’, we have both grade 10 students and 12 mentors.
The title above, ‘Gourmands’ gourmandize’ is so suitable for our campaign: We talked, or argued intensely because of too many restaurants we could choose. Finally we chose the American style restaurant—Lucky Star Restaurant. The reason of choosing an American was actually not the most delicious one compared with le François, or la Italiano, but it was the cheapest one… So sad!
Afterwards, we met at 6 p.m. in Xinjiekou for being ready for gourmandizing. When we got inside the restaurant, I felt astonished—How can a quiet bay located on the busy city center?!Then we begun to order our own dishes, and I found astonished again: Where’s an real American style meal that I expected while we were discussing? The menu got Spaghetti, mushroom soup, even espresso, but no American could be found!

A Visit to Wu Wei Shan Cultural Figures Sculpture Gallery

On December 4th, 08, the whole class went to the famed university, Nanjing University, for an art exhibition which is called Wu Wei Shan Cultural Figures Sculpture Gallery. All the sculptures are made by a well-known artist, Professor Wu Wei Shan. A mixture: Expressing the ART of sculptures with stone, bronze, or wood by using traditional Chinese idea of art expression, and use contemporary technique for made these pieces of art profound and significant.
Many of the sculptures in exhibition hall gave me deep impressions, but now I want to talk about the most famous one: the sculpture which was christened ‘Laozi’. It was made in 2005, but the sculpture in Nanjing University is a replica.

The first impression to me of this sculpture “Laozi” How huge the sculpture is! Nevertheless, the most astonishing fact is that the “huge” one is not the biggest at all but a slight bronze replica for a sixteen-meter-tall “Titan laozi” in Huai’an, Jiangsu! Then, after a few second applauding in admiration for Professor Wu’s work, I became confused: Did professor Wu think this is a sculpture with deeper, diversified meanings? Maybe the meaning is actually visible, but I still cannot figure out his intention until our guide teacher came and interpreting it to us that this shows a image of Laozi’s thought and his philosophical theory on society issues, attitudes on life, which can be considered as a kind of naturalism.

Whereas, I asked a question to the guide teacher: ‘can you help me with this question: Why this sculpture has a elaborate sculpting on Laozi’s upper half-length portrayal, especially for Laozi’s face, but a very simple, ‘cursivelike’, or even unshaped sculpting for other parts?’Our guide teacher answered with smelling, ‘This is a way of a oriental ideology: not everything must be detailed, but in order to show different further meanings by let audiences get their own understandings. So you can see that’s totally different form Western. Moreover, the simple or even just contour sculpting on subordinate object can also make a good effect by supporting major object.’ Wow…

Well, this seems to be a irony to me (again) after I gave a excellent appreciation to this sculpture “Laozi” because a prefer the Western schools’ method of expressing art in realistic…But anyway, “Laozi” is my favorite in this exhibition because its steady but degage figure, leisurely expressions, the most important one—the sculpture can communicate with visitors by its empty inside which is totally different from other works.

Practically, I think this sculpture virtually reflecting a kind of HARMONY between the spirits of sky, land and also include human beings. It also tell us the importance of a balance between natural principles and human activities—It matches the basic but distinguished thought of inscriptive words (which is from Laozi’s literature Dao De Jing). Moreover, I think that maybe these profound ideas are also match the his outlook on life, and his solicitude to all livings—‘he’ means both two masters on philosophy or sculpting.
After an hour’s visiting, I felt satisfied with the exhibition(but not for the way of sculpting style), for the best art exhibition I have been in this year.

A Guest Artist's Lecture--Art with Traditional Chinese Gardens

A Guest Artist's Lecture--Art with Traditional Chinese Gardens

Last Monday, December 1st, we got a meaningful-- actually hard to understand at beginning-- lecture from Zhao Bing, a landscape architect from Nanjing Forestry University, with a brief introduction , principles of traditional Chinese garden designing, and a contrast of differences of Chinese--Oriental and Western idea.


Professor Zhao's impressive explanation on the irreplaceable factors of a Chinese gardens(the picture above) made us get interested in the ART of traditional Chinese architecture in Suzhou. The private gardens in Suzhou , or 'the oldest forest in city', are a perfect example of showing mild, leisurable harmony scenery --Both landscape and waterscape--in a noisy, bustling city. In Addition, they also showed the garden owners' simple and elegant sentiments and interests. 'What a brilliant, magnetic historical POEM!' Professor Zhao said.


Then, Professor continued his speech on particular features of Gardens in Suzhou. 'Maybe,' Professor said, 'the first thing which went over these garden designers' mind is : Use symbolization to represent the NATURE.' In order to prove this, he gave us a sentence from a poem' Got a hill for thousand-mile mountain range, have a spoon to imagine water in huge', which told us the designers used to make a small land(water)scape in the garden to represent the magnificent scenery through whole China. But although they used symbolization, the designing always went along in natural expressions. For example, if the a rockery is composed of many small stone stacked together,they should be stacked like natural rock vein patterns to MINIMIZE the ARTIFICIAL MARKS--just for being natural. Another example is, that the pools, streams, always have a connection to water body outside the garden, for make the waterscape lively--and then become LOVELY in a NATURE WAY.


Finally, Professor Zhao told us the main idea of traditional Chinese, or Oriental thought of expressing beauty for gardens. 'Can you find that you'd never enter a garden in Suzhou straightly and directly? That's one of the example of traditional Chinese culture.Chinese designers,not similar the Western thought of having a glorious,gorgeous, astonishing design, they want to make a gentle, comfortable image, but a profound meaning inside.'




This lecture was really meaningful to all of the students! That's a ironic thing because I became shamed throughout this lecture--I had very poor knowledge in this subject! Professor Zhao really remind me of that I should pay more attention on my native culture...Anyway, I can suck knowledge like a sponge at all time!


In addition, from the lecture on last Monday, now I realized that we need to try to comprehend the different concepts of value and outlook on life between China and the West, for becoming adaptive in both this two cultures. Isn't it perfectly right?

Laurence,Les Laureat Libre

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