I have been a bit distracted this past month. There has been sooo much happening! I was invited to show at the prestigious Wuxi Photographers Association along with seven other local professional photographers. We called the show The Power of the Eye. I was asked to exhibit my work on my impressions on Chinese urban life. I had scads of images that once I started to sift through all of them I started to think Hmmm, nice image but not worthy to hang. I am my most critical judge. I went through everything. I sent some thirty to forty images to them. Some were in black and white, some in color. Some were film and some were digital. They looked through all of them and picked all the color digital images. They picked things that I never would have exhibited and they left out stuff that I thought were worthy of hanging. When the show went up I was one of two photographers showing color work. How odd I thought. The work they chose, some of the images were strong and held there own, others were studies that I was working on, and others were snaps for friends and family. An odd mix. But I have a bunch of huge shots to give away as presents! I am already trying to figure out how to get these things back to the states. Some I will leave here. So for the last three weeks I have been slaving away at my work. having moments of genius mixed in with moments of why am I doing this, refresh my memory please? In retrospect, I do not feel I have finished what I have started here. Admittedly, I have found distractions to take me away from my goals in the last couple of months. Some of it has been the weather. The weather here has been absolutely awful. Some of my distraction has been the news from the States. I am sickened by what I read and see about the BP oil spill in the gulf. It is so very sad to see a country as great as ours run by men and women addicted to their own false sense of power living in denial, unable, paralysed by greed to do what they know to be the right thing. Among other things the wars... notice there are two of them still raging on. The damage to our souls and psyches cannot be measured. Some of it I think, irreparable. Then there is the real estate and the joblessness and the education and health crises that kind of round it all out. We are addicted to our own false sense of entitlement. We believe all the lies we tell ourselves about how great and strong we are, as the proof of who we are stares us in the face every day. Aghhhhh... this whole thing makes me sad. I think with all this happening in the world, people suffering, the oceans dying, what am i doing talking about my stuff. Seems a bit self indulgent to me. Like waking up in the Friendly Hotel the third day of my visit and having my phone cut off by the Secret Police. I couldn't get ahold of anyone, no one could get in touch with me. I spent the day waiting hoping Colin would come by and we could figure this out together. No Colin, This is where knowing a language can be a great asset. I felt so isolated and alone. I thought, maybe this is the signal to get out. I packed my bags just in case I needed a hasty exit. I wondered where they found my phone number since it was under a students name. My my imagination was starting to play games with me. By the time lunch rolled around I decided to walk to the apartment in search of any family member. An hour and a half later I make it to the apartment starving. Then it hit me. Even if I wanted to eat I couldn't communicate what I wanted because I didn't know how to say it. In less frustrating times I could have muddled through it. As it turned out I did end up at a restaurant and the best my waitress and I could do was a plate of potatoes and a bowl of rice. Oh I am much more linguistic now. The frustration of spending thirty minutes buried in a dictionary trying everything understanding nothing and getting no where was taxing. It's then I realized how much I depended on Colins help. With no one home I braved a taxi and pointed my way back to the hotel. I hated this feeling of being totally vulnerable. I ended up at the front desk and got the girl there to call Colins number on her cell. No response. He had changed numbers yesterday and wasn't using the one I had on my phone. Confused and bewildered I went back to my room to devise plan Z what ever that was going to be when the hotel phone rang and it was Colin just as frantic because he could not get in touch with me. I was frantic, frazzled and starving.He told me to wait and he would be there shortly. I suddenly felt relived. I relaxed my life rope had been thrown, I was not going to drown. Lin and Colin picked me up, we went to a restaurant and I ate like it was my last meal. We then went and Colin bought a new sim card for the phone for me under a different name that I still have to this day. He then gave me all the contact numbers I could use incase something like this happened again. They dropped me back off at the hotel. That was my day. In retrospect, neither one of us thought the police would go to these lengths to harass us. We kept telling each other it's ok, this is nothing we have done nothing wrong. In retrospect to what is happening to the world, this really was nothing... and I am ok...
