I'm not really crazy about Chinese art and for quite awhile nothing was really catching my eye--I seriously thought we'd be living here for a few years, and I'd have really not much to show for it. But slowly, some things start to grow on you, and you start to find things here and there that catch your eye. In the end, I think it's been good, because we haven't bought a lot until this year and I really love the things we do have.
As part of having a new head of school and the 30th anniversary at ISB, a muralist was hired to paint the entrance of the school and one of the hallways. These peasant paintings are really popular and I guess this particular artist is quite famous. I love this picture of Chinese New Year. We have such terrible light in our house that even during the daytime I often need to use a flash so the picture looks much brighter than it is.
One of the great things about here is that you can have furniture made from pictures and it's not that expensive. This cabinet I adore. It just came today. I found a picture and explained what I wanted and 3 weeks later--voila! The cool thing is that the wood is at least 120 years old. As buildings get torn down, everything gets recycled, so even a new piece has an aged "lived-in" look. I've been wanting something like this for a long time. 
From my trip to the tile factory, I picked up this dragon head. I need to mount a wooden support before I can hang it on a wall, so for right now it's glaring down at us from above the TV. The factory was supposed to be torn down in November, but I just saw it was standing when I went to get gas this morning. I have an urge to run over and snap up another one. Matching sets and all. The stone disc behind is another something I really like. They come in all sizes and colors, the most common being jade green, ivory, and a bronze. You can use them as servers, trivets, or just display. The red pots are from a furniture store where we got our TV cabinet and I know I paid too much for them, but I love the red. So much here is porcelain and either blue and white or ornately painted. Finding the more rustic pottery that I like isn't easy. I actually might have bought 5 of them. No, I really did buy 5 of them.
This I love. It's a shadow puppet that I got in Cambodia. We took a tuk-tuk to an out-of-the-way temple and then wandered around looking for this little shop with no signage. The tiny room and the little lady sold these amazing shadow puppets, all hand made out of leather. Can you all those cutouts? It's crazy! China also has shadow puppets, but they are much more delicate. I'll be picking some of those up (they are a lot more expensive) but again the more rustic look suited me. I was warned they'd be pretty expensive...and boy, this elepant was a whopping $25. Seriously. For once "pretty expensive" turned out to be in my budget!
Merry Christmas--again!
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