shandy_reyes asked:


my baby is turning 2 and i want to make a custom happy birthday banner for her… i live in daly city, CA.. thanks

BARTOW

Elite Dark Lord_Dragon Slayer_2 asked:


whoops i didnt mean to put allow sorry

SHELLER

Tom Carter asked:


While China’s northeastern parts such as Beijing and Shandong may represent the historical heart of the People’s Republic, it’s in the west where we find a unique cultural diversity that is so attractive to travelers.

Nowhere else in the country might one uncover the splendor of China’s varied minority population than ’south of the clouds,’ Yunnan. Situated on the southwestern corner of four other provinces, Yunnan also shares borders with three countries (not quite including Thailand and India), its proximity resulting in the highest concentration of ethnic groups in all of China.

However, with the northern Naxi city of Lijiang having become China’s hottest holiday destination for tour groups, nearby Dali a laidback retreat for younger backpackers, and Zhongdian a jumping off point for Tibet, south Yunnan remains a relatively unspoiled region.

From the concrete jungle of the provincial capital city of Kunming into the rain forests of Xishuangbanna, this writer bypassed the more popular route towards Laos and Vietnam for the less-explored areas around the Burma perimeter. My timing was perfect, as I arrived in the village of Menghun just before its Sunday market.

A quiet community accented with stilted wooden homes and a hilltop monastery overlooking the surrounding rice fields, the day’s drizzly weather served to enhance the village’s reticence. But through the gray I caught glimpses of color that revealed thselves to be the region’s multiple ethnic minorities.By mid-morning, Menghun’s relatively small marketplace, abounding with freshly slaughtered pig heads, brilliant fruits and vegetables, plugs of tobacco and a rainbowof textiles, became a veritable kaleidoscope of culture unlike any I have every witnessed. I was first met by the silky glory of Xishuangbanna’s majority population, the Dai, a 2000 year-old culture that fuses Hinayana Buddhism with elements of Thai. The Dai dress attractively in shimmering attire, but it is the younger Dai girls in their formfitting pastel sarongs who catch one’s eye before teasingly runing away like nymphs.

Further illuminating the otherwise dark day were the Akha people, known as the Hani. Like a resplendent yet elusive jungle bird, the Akha appear from the deep lush hills only on market day, whence they adorn themselves in heavy layers of black brilliantly highlighted with intricately embroidered patterns. Descendants of the nomadic Qiang from Tibet, each Hani subgroup wear a different colored headdress to signify their tribe, not unlike the plumage of a proud bird, and lavishly accessorize in silver-studded bracelets and leggings, patchwork satchels and antiqued coins stretching out their earlobes. Tumpline baskets around their heads and teeth stained red with betel nut are commonplace.

Especially weary of outsiders, they timidly skirted all my advancements, however friendly persistence coupled with a sincere interest in their lifestyle soon granted me access to a tight knit Akha clan. They spoke very little Mandarin, and of course no English, so we relied simply on gestures and smiles in an attempt to learn about each other.

By noon the market had cleared along with the rain, the streets now lined with vivid knots of indigenous folk awaiting tractors to take them back to their respective outlying villages.

My continued journey through Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture would take me deeper into the surrounding tropical jungles, including a 50km trek from Bulongshan to Damenglong. But those are stories for another time. For now I will reminisce over that small yet colorful town of Menghun, for nowhere else have I ever witnessed such a definitive representation of China’s beautifully proud ethnic minorities.

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Transportation

1) From Kunming’s main bus station on Beijing Lu, express leeper busses to Jinghong, capital of Xinshuangbanna, daily at 6:30pm (150yuan, 15 hours).

2) Shuttles from Jinghong to Menghun leave the No.2 Bus Station every 20 minutes between 7am and 6pm (15yuan, 2 hours).

Accommodation

In Mengun there are several small boardinghouses, luguan, located on the main street near the bus stop (20 yuan each). A backpacker’s favorite is Baita Fandian (White Tower Hotel, 10 yua for a bed) on the outskirts of town and overlooking a lily pond teaming with fish and frogs. Directions are complicated so it’s best to ask locals to point you there

Regional cuisine

Rice is the staple diet of the Dai people, who were the first in the history of the world to cultivate rice as a food. Sticky rice baked in fragrant bamboo is a specialty. Xishuangbanna locals also enjoy nibbling on grilled pigtail from street vendors, and perpetually chewing on betel nut (binglang) mixed with lime, which gives off a light narcotic effect while staining the mouth red.

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SINGLETARY

gndcd402 asked:

12-31-1991 Daly City, California
Cow Palace
The most INTENSE Alive ever with an awesome stage dive by Eddie!

SOPHA

aerodynamicle asked:

Windy day at the coast. Blowing 15-20 mph WNW. Pretty boring stuff, but some sweet tunes to go with it. Sit back and relax

BUCKMAN

Scuola Leonardo Da Vinci asked:


Ever thought to take a Gap Year?

You are absolutely in time to take such a decision. The School Leonardo da Vinci again this year organizes the Academic School Year or “Gap Year” courses in its Italian language schools located in the most beautiful and charming cities in Italy: Florence, Milan, Rome and Siena.

The “Academic School Year” is an Italian language course, thought for beginner and elementary students, which lasts for 32 weeks and leads to the internationally-recognized AIL (Accademia Italiana di Lingua) diplomas (DILI-Intermediate and DALI-Advanced).

Needless to say, lessons are only planned in Italian from the very start to allow you an easier comprehension and to make you be at ease. Our study program was carefully thought to integrate speaking and writing skills, but without missing out important cultural components.

At first, you will attend a Standard Course focused on language, grammar and daily conversation, and subsequently, in the month before the exam, there will be additional lessons of preparation for the DILI-examination of AIL.

During the second term your horizons will widen. The Standard Course, now with a greater emphasis on the written language, will continue and will be concluded after a further 240 lessons, inclusive of a further four weeks of DALI-exam preparation. In addition, the program broadens to include general culture lessons.

The general culture unit includes lessons on topics related to the Italian culture, such as history of art, business and current affairs, fashion and design, Italian history and civilization. At the end of the course, we will ask you to write a final essay on a topic related to Italian culture (Italian art, history and business) and this task will be made easier by 10 lessons of private tutoring to prepare your essay.

Starting dates for the next Academic School Year Course are now available, so why don’t you have a look at our website?

www.scuolaleonardo.com



HAZELL

joey asked:


Prefably in San Francisco or Daly city, however, if that is not possible, please feel free to advise your comments

GILLISON

jojocircus3 asked:


Gelly Roll Metallic, 10-piece set (not the dark ones), Gelly Roll Moonlight 5-pack, Dusk, Gelly Roll Med. Pt., 10-color set Gelly Roll Gold Shadow - 5-color set, Gelly Roll Stardust, 6-pack, Galaxy, Gelly Roll Stardust, 6-pack, Meteor

HEBEL

Saatchi-gallery asked:


Zhang Dali was born on 1963 and Born in Harbin, China. Zhang Dali has portrayed 100 immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures, with a designated number, the artist’s signature and the work’s title “Chinese Offspring” tattooed onto each of their bodies. They are often hung upside down, indicating the uncertainty of their life and their powerlessness in changing their own fates.

According to the artist, immigrant workers who have traveled from the rural areas all over China to earn a living in construction sites in Chinese cities, are the most important members of the Chinese race, who are shaping our physical reality. Yet, they are the faceless crowd who live at the bottom of our society. To cast them in resin is a way to recognize their existence and contribution as well as to capture a fast-changing point of time in the Chinese society. From 2003 to 2005, Zhang has portrayed 100 immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures, with a designated number, the artist’s signature and the work’s title “Chinese Offspring” tattooed onto each of their bodies. They are often hung upside down, indicating the uncertainty of their life and their powerlessness in changing their own fates.You wouldn’t notice them in a Western city because the simple drawings would be quickly sprayed over with graffiti done by thousands of other lay abouts, vandals,artists and political groups.

But Beijing has almost no graffiti and the heads compete for space only with notices telling you not to park in front of gates or dump garbage, advertisements for venereal disease remedies and the ubiquitous Chinese character - chai, indicating that the building is about to be demolished. In fact, many of 18K’s tags are intentionally placed right next to “chai” characters. Not only is graffiti painted onto walls that will soon be rubble unlikely to stir the police into action, 18K also has artistic reasons for associating his heads with condemned structures: the work is an attempt to engage in a dialogue with Beijing, a city where buildings come down faster than they did in wartime Berlin and London.In the late 1980s, 18K was the first artist to move to the village near Yuanmingyuan that later became a thriving colony of artists and bohemians until it was closed by Beijing authorities in the early 1990s. In 1988, 18K was one of several artists featured in independent filmmaker Wu Wenguang’s Bumming in Beijing (Liulang Beijin).

Conclusions:

Zhang Dali has portrayed 100 immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures, with a designated number, the artist’s signature and the work’s title “Chinese Offspring” tattooed onto each of their bodies.

What to Do Next…

If you want any information about Zhang Dali or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/zhang_dali.htm



BLISH

joan asked:


any SURE DETAILS about him; please send in your answers. thank you…
sugarBear,,,you know what? this person is very special to me. but unfortunately i left all the stuff that i have with his contact details when i left it in my mom’s place and it just so happened that they moved out. i just wanted to keep in touch with him again. i never force you to answer my question,i just wish you try to be considerate next time and be more sensitive.

BISIGNANO