Suzhou - Day 4 - Like a Fourier Transform

(just a short post, me hopes)

 

I walked past a sex shop today, and very nearly didn't notice it. The window display had an absolutely gorgeous display of white lilies. Next to a mannequin dressed in an outfit made solely of leather straps and chains.

 

I don't know that I can explain why, but the window display made me quite giddy, if only for the fact that it's a sex shop with lilies. Lots of lilies. But, I suppose, when it comes down to it, what I really like is that it's this glorious superposition of entirely disparate things.

 

I think that that might be what I like most about China -- all the things I've seen so far keep me in awe, tis true -- but what gets me most, hands down, is something overall about this place. Something about it being a superposition of all things, so distinct, so unlike one another, yet so ... consistent. Come to think of it, this seems to describe the people I like most too, but that's a story for another day.

 

But, it's like walking down a small cobblestone road, along the banks of a canal, with old style small roofed buildings all around you, with a man pushing a small wheelbarrow of watermelon... Next to a guy in a business suit, riding an electric bike, talking on his cellphone. It's huge commercial buildings with name-brand fashions alongside a buddhist temple. It's street stalls with food being sold next to a restaurant with waitstaff in elegant eveningwear. It's the fact that a narrow alleyway feels as natural as an 8 lane wide street.

 

I can't really do it justice in description, but suffice it to say, the constant superposition of things makes me giddy. =)

 

PS. Speaking of sex shops, actually, there's one on my way to breakfast whose sign still cracks me up every day. It reads, underneath the large heading "ADULT" two other things in English (I can't read the Chinese... not really part of standard curriculum vocabulary, you know): "Joy gift" and "happily sex". Yeah, translation never quite carries the way it sounds in the original language, but I quite like how that last one turned out. =)