This festival was well planned and well financed and highlighted a certain nation - the object of my    love/suspicious relationship.  Some say that that country has too much influence around our universities - for one .  I wondered about that when their centre of learning opened at the local university but who can say? The university would know what it is doing.

ENVIRONMENT.  Currently, with Ireland in its path, the powerful hurricane, Ophelia, is the most powerful hurricane to have ever been as far east in the Atlantic on record.
 Currently, our decision makers only toy with policies to curb the emissions from energy use that contribute to climate change. The law makers are weak and pushing back.
  One educated politician,  Jesuit education, I believe, and Oxford scholar, has abandoned science and talks second rate anti-climate-change gossip to make matters worse. We need to pay for our pollution in cold hard cash if that's what it takes.     

Take off and go left. Where we first arrived and today leave again and again.
And return.
Free trade but imagine trade in China going back to the Opium Wars  when Britain was hungry for trade say in silks and teas together with the import duties earned but China wanted to keep overall control of their trade and kept a closed door policy.  Opium from India came in via British merchants.
In 1839 in Canton the Chinese prohibited Opium and took actions that lead to attack by the British navy who were successful and China was compelled, mind you, to open more ports to trade - Shanghai and Hong Kong had their beginings. France applied pressure to win access for missionaries!
Inroads by the West led to second thoughts by the Chinese who tried to resist. The second Opium war in 1856 found the enemy right in Beijing.  Drastic incidents lead to a very punitive act when the Old Summer palace was burnt down by the British in the main.
While loss of life is of most concern, just imagine the Palace which had 350 splendid, opulent hectares of unique buildings and priceless treasures in a magical landscape.  All destroyed. The quaint unique palace that visitors see today, does not compare with the original.
Struggle by the Chinese did not end there and trade and dealings with the West were not for the faint hearted. The writer, Jung Chang, sheds light on this period in the book, Empress Dowager Cixi, published 2013. Jung Chang was featured on Nightlife on ABC radio. Her book is not sold in China.
  

Free trade agreement is anticipated between China and Australia. We can try.  China has quite a history about trade and hugh trouble. 

The Royal Oak Hotel Cessnock.  Large old hotels are found dominating corners around Kurri Kurri and Cessnock .  Built around 1900 to 1920. Could they become more fully utilized and integrated into the vinyard or  'wine country' scene?
If the hotels were given the right image and doings then possibilities would be created for day trippers and other tourists. Would the reality be too much for those hooked on theme parks?
Asian tourists are the future 'they' say.  Hotels like these don't exisit in China and contrast with their super cities which won't be found around here. But what's the use of travel to see more of the same?
Ni Hoa!  Try learning Mandarin, it's great. My one or two words and characters even help.
WANTED: New leader of the opposition.  Abbott clones need not apply.

光荣的中国兔年新年的新年
Year of the Rabbit..
...the sun rises in the eastern sky and hundreds of birds sing in harmony....

from Chinese Propaganda Posters. From the collection of Michael Wolf. publisher Tashcen. Gorgeous and sinister in equal measure - The Independent London

Well, there is always delight from Chinese art. Upper figure: Han dynasty 206BCE - 220 CE - no less.  Painted figure of a standing lady. Earthenware. Her demeanor suggest she represents a courtly attendant. Typically made from moulds, luted together, hand finished. A white base with traces of detailed painting. Second figure: fiesty?

Does anyone really understand the country that is China? The past century of turmoil in China is also marked by strange interventions from foreign powers and is littered with drastic incidents involving Europeans and others. Now it's a Nobel peace prize. No doubt injustice should be outed.  Full marks Stockholm for trying.

figures from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Chinese Year of the Tiger. About to leave the old city walls of Xian is a bus, many of which will be part of the homeward treck by vast crowds at New Year. Some taller buses seemed to be entirely set up with bunks and  considering the very long distances in China, bunks would be the go. 

A collection of Chinese propaganda posters from the collection of Michael Wolf (published by Taschen) are 'unique and marvellous'. They reflect the Mao era in Chinese history.

I can't comment on history or regimes or the celebration of sixty years of The Party but the art and the heroics are a knockout.
Shown is a lighthearted theme: Rejoicing at the plentiful harvest. On sheaf of rice: The People's Commune is good. Artists Gupin and Chen Huiguan; Liaoning Art Publishing House.

For the Chinese New Year a (xiao) concert at the shopping centre for The Year of the Ox.

Above: Dish China late 1600s or early 1700s. Porcelain decorated with famille verte (enamel colours of predominately green and red) From the Powerhouse Museum Sydney.
It seems the influence of this style is often seen today in dishes and ornaments of inexpensive giftware.
Above: Blue and White Late Ming dynasty dish, China, early 1400s.
This is a fine example of blue-and -white porcelain made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, which was the site of China's imperial porcelain kilns. Chinese Blue-and -white procelains, often of a lesser quality, were imported into Europe on ships of the Dutch and English East India compaines, established in the early 1600s to share in the rich spice trade.
From the Powerhouse Museum.
Two ornamental vases Tin glazed delftware (eathenware), decorated by Gerrit Pietersz Kain at his De Drye Verguilde Astonnekens factory, Delf, Holland, about 1680. Like generations of potters, many European factories imitated imported Chinese -and, from the late 1600s, Japanese- designs. They used earthenware covered with an opaque tin glaze that resembled the white porcelain they so admired but, except for a few factories, were still unable to make in the mid 1700s.
From the Powerhouse Museum.
One of these teaposts is a fake. Can you guess which one?
As interest in antique porcelain collections grew in the late 1800s, some potters copied antique objects and forged marks on them to achieve higher prices. The famous maker of such fakes was Emile Samson.
Knowledge of antiques was limited and it was easy to deceive customers. Not many would notice, for example, the give-away bright-white colour of hard-paste porcelain in Samson's 'Chantilly' teapot (15) - only the warmer toned soft-paste was made at the French factory.

15 Teapot Hard-paste porcelain, painted with Kakiemon 'two quail' pattern at Samon et Cie, Montreuil, France, about 1900. Chantilly mark (red hunting-horn) painted on base.
16 Worcester Teapot Soaprock porcelain, transfer-printed, handpainted and gilt with 'Chinese family' pattern, Worcester Porcelain Factory, England, about 1770.

The introduction of transfer-printing to porcelain decoration in 1756 meant that decorated articles could be produced economically. Early Worcester teapots showed strong Chinese influences. Later designs were often based on French engravings.
From the Powerhouse Museum.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Warren Duncan: Workers queue for a breakfast of noodles at a side walk cafe in Wuhan

Laying water pipes
Lu Shuan-chin
Commune member
Gouche 890 x 1230 mm
From exhibition: Peasant paintings from Hu county, Shensi province, China.

Dragon boat races on the Mekong River in Yunnan province. From an early correspondent: Warren Duncan

China's model terraced commune at Tachai in Shenshi province. Photo from an early correspondent: Warren Duncan.

Imparting experience
Li Chou-cheng

This is part of what the Chinese once called 'open-door' science.
'... processes of face-to-face contact and exchange appear to be exceedingly important in the transmission and popularization of science in China. Because such exchange generates little or no printed material, western observers, who tend to believe that all scientific communication of any note eventually reaches print, are likely to over-look what appears to be a vast network of informal scientific exchange in the Chinese countryside.' China: Science Walks on Two Legs. New York. 1974. p 48.
From a British exhibition: Peasant paintings from Hu county, Shensi province, China.

'A noisy political street march in Peking' Photo from an early correspondent Warren Duncan. Those were the days, no political street march passes by the Mattress (or Ice Cube) now.

'The spirit of Yenan shines brightly always.' is written on the chimney.
On the Kiln: 'Tawang commune brick-kiln factory.'
The Commune Brick-kiln by Chang Min-wu.
Quote from the card: Yenan was a small town in Shensi province where the communists established their base area at the end of the Long March. Here many of the principles of the Chinese revolution were worked out in practice over a long period (1935-48) for the first time.

From the exhibition: Peasant paintings from Hu country, Shensi privince, China, Arts Council of Breat Britain.

Information about this Chinese art refers to Dunhuang in the Western Region where caves have many examples of ancient grotto art.
The area was the hub of three roads leading to the West and of the Silk Road which resulted in a blend of influences and Chinese Buddhist art reached its apex there in the Tang Dynasty so long ago. A treasure trove of coloured murals were also found there.
The Tang figures are very amiable. The kneeling figure is that of a devotee. Mid-Tang (762-820) and the other is of a bodhisattva also Mid-Tang.
From China Pictorial, Beijing, 1980.

Eight Stallions, a painting by the Jesuit priest Guiseppe Castiglione (1698-1768), who became one of the imperial painters in China and famous for his horse paintings which he signed with the
name Lang Shih-ning.
From an old journal Orientations, Pacific Communications, Hong Kong.
..the horse....speed and perseverance, noted for its proud bearing, its fiery impulsiveness and its intelligence.

Here was a Mediterranean European Jesuit in old China. It is stranger than fiction. I don't think his work has the same flair as the Chinese artists but is a curiosity all the same.

From the article: The Chinese Lunar Calendar follows a 60-year-cycle, in which each year is given a specific name. Each year is denoted by the combination of the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and soil) and especially devoted to an animal of the 12-animal cycle. ...How this cycle came to be, what animals were chosen, and how, is a little story in itself. It was Buddha who decided, long ago, to summon all the animals of the world and grant them a special gift each. As it turned out, only 12 animals showed up. To each of them, he gave a year to reign so that each year would take on the specific character of the reigning animal. As each animal arrived, so his place was decided in the cycle. They came in this order: rat, buffalo, tiger, hare, dragon, shake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

Is there any connection between the spiritual world of a people and the political ideology they live with? It is obscure.

Yueh ch'in also know as a moon guitar, this Chinese instrument was acquired by the Powerhouse Museum ( or its forebearer) in 1884. It is still in perfect condition.


From Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, tracing the Chinese presence, which is longstanding, in Australia.
San hsien (hanging): wood, snakeskin and bone, China, about 1880.
Jinghu and bow (hanging): wood, snakeskin and horsehair, China, about 1880.
Tye or dizi (flute) (rear): bamboo and bone, China, about 1880.