Infernal Landscapes

I just came across a blog post at a New York Times photography dedicated blog that reports that Lu Guang, a Chinese freelance photographer, has won the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his project, “Pollution in China.”
Here is a link to the New York Times LENS blog that features some of his pictures and another link to some other of his pictures for which he was awarded in 2006 a World Press Photo Award in the Contemporary Issues category...
Photographically speaking his pictures are very strong, and some of the images are very powerful, but somehow there is a little bit of staging in some of them and too much prying into personal tragedy which I don't like. Nevertheless it is not bad that a Chinese photographer is photographic also the other dark side of the Chinese Rise. There should be a balance in the picture of Modern China. Apart from the expensive gargantuan parades and opening ceremonies, not all is well. This week there is another case that came to light (I lost count but lately it must be the fifth one at least)of lead poisoning found in children.
Yes yes, China has achieved really a lot, but at what and whose cost exactly?!

Big in Japan - Katakana

Well, after learning Hiragana, it is time for the Katakana, the other basic Japanese language syllabary. It has the same sounds as the Hiragana,but in modern Japanese it is used for foreign words, foreign names, etc. In Japanese there are many foreign words (which sound like a very bad English ) for instance 'uniform', 'tennis', 'hotel, 'taxi', 'omelet','toilet', hm practically every modern thing...The Japanese have actually stopped using some Japanese words that have originally existed and have replaced them with foreign words...For instance today in our textbook such borrowed word for 'lion' caught my attention...While there has been perfectly established word for lion with kanji too in use for many centuries, why would Japanese want to use such a weird sounding new borrowed word?
All those borrowed words sound extremely weird and it will be a challenge to memorize since they are in fact a very bad misrepresentation (in their greater part if not all) of English words.
So actually this trade in the modern development of the Japanese language shows some very interesting sides of the wish to copy, imitate or in the best case and intention study the West.

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