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Tibet café
Tibet café In this simple Tibetan café, we see a not necessarily hostile mix of people and their cultural expressions from China and Tibet. The large thermos flasks and at least one of the guests are clearly Chinese, whilst the lady with the impressive silver buckle is a typical, traditionally dressed Tibetan woman. The thermos…
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Waitangi Day
Waitangi Day On the 6th of February 1840 representatives of the British Crown and some 500 Maori Chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi (after the place where it was done), which guaranteed the Maoris right to their land and gave them the rights of British subjects. This sounds nice and generous, but the main thing…
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Bathing in paint
Bathing in paint We’re back at the Italian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2011. In an earlier post I had called it a sort of junk art shop. The larger than life portraits of a man and a woman bathing are impressive. Look how true-to-life the water is flowing in plenty over their heads! The…
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Washing at the pump
Washing at the pump The lives of seasonal workers in the brickworks revolve entirely around hard work, eating and sleeping in tiny huts and, as we can see in this photograph, washing themselves and their clothes at the communal hand pump. What struck me so much last week in the photographs of women working in…
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Pillars of strength
Pillars of strength So there they are, India’s working poor! Especially the women. Without their constant dedication and care, the whole of society would collapse in no time at all. Although they are vulnerable to exploitation and even slavery, these migrant women workers in the brick factories have one advantage over their middle-class employers. Their…
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Happy new year
Happy new year Hope you’ve all made a kiss landing into the year 2015 Photo of the week: Prague, Czech Republic 2007
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White elephant
White elephant Sometimes you meet after many years an old acquaintance who greets you with the exclamation “You haven’t changed a single bit!” The same applies to the Indian Ambassador car. Since its birth in 1957 as a clone of Morris Oxford its looks have hardly changed during all those years that it has been in production. But…
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Mind your step
Mind your step Everyone who has moved around airports must be familiar with this phrase “Mind your step”. Seeing it, I immediately hear the proper voice with the right intonation warning me: “Mind your step!” But what is it supposed to mean here? Can it be a warning to those who are on the verge…
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Blue Planet Sky
Blue Planet Sky So this is what the girl in last week’s post saw through her camera, or rather it’s what I saw through my camera. Looking at the sky can be a nice activity, especially when there is some movement of clouds. Looking at the sky through a fixed frame is even more interesting.…
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Two-way masks
Two-way masks And what does the girl with the camera see up there? The answer to that has to wait till next week’s post. Here I’m interested in the girl with the mask, sitting in this spotlessly clean environment. I always thought that these worker’s masks were meant to protect oneself against fine dust and other unhealthy particles…
