Jianjun's Blog

The Grand Canal of China（大運河; pinyin: Dà Yùnhé）, also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal（京杭大運河; pinyin: Jīng Háng Dà Yùnhé）is the longest ancient canal or artificial river in the world. (Wikipedia)

The Grand Canal also runs through Tianjin, the city where I live. This afternoon I took some pictures along the river bank.

I have been looking for a three-column theme for my WordPress blog for some time. Now you see I got it!

Yesterday I customized some widgets in the two sidebars and changed its header image to ‘my own’ – a piece of famous ink brush painting work dating back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). What you see in the blog header is just a tiny part of the whole picture. How big is the original work? Some statistics:

According to some books, there are altogether 1,643 people and 208 animals illustrated in the picture.

It recorded people’s lives in the then Capital of Song – Bian Jing (now Kaifeng of Henan Province) around Qing Ming festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival). The whole work covers the scenes of the prosperous city center and part of the countryside along the Bian River（汴河）. The following picture is a glimpse of the city and Bian River of today.

Another development of this weekend is my right eye has been hurtful since yesterday afternoon and today it’s literally cherry-red! Guess I need to take a little rest after this post and REALLY stay away from my PC for one day. {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/BYCimuB2Cg_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”WordPress Theme Changed, Eye Red As Cherry ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/hTrAv2MGnA”}}}

My parents for the first time showed me my birth certificate (1971). It’s interesting to see the following paragraph printed at the top of that document:

最新指示
The Latest Directive

要使全体干部和全体人民经常想到我国是一个社会主义的大国，但又是一个经济落后的穷国，这是一个很大的矛盾。要使我国富强起来，需要几十年艰苦奋斗的时间，其中包括执行厉行节约、反对浪费这样一个勤俭建国的方针。

All cadres and the whole people must be reminded frequently that our nation is at the same time a big socialist country and a poor country with a backward economy, which is a big contradiction. In order for our country to become prosperous and strong, we need to endure hardship and struggle for a few decades, which includes practicing the policy of constructing the nation adhering strictly to thriftiness and opposing wastefulness.

Ah, cultural revolution was still going on at the time.

Another interesting thing is the document was typeset in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters, indicating the work to simplify the writing system was still underway.

The last line of the Birth Certificate indicates the document was necessary when applying for the newborn baby’s Hukou（户口 – household registration record）and benefits.