Movies

I watched neither Avatar nor Confucius, the two movies competing in Chinese cinemas these days, as far as the Chinese authorities grant the former the screenspace competition would require.

Chinabeat has a discussion with Daniel A. Bell on the Confucius movie, its historical accuracy, and the propaganda department’s  intentions.

Thaw

It may be only temporary, but right now, the snow and ice is melting in our flat lands. You can kick the upper layers of the concrete snow and ice away – rain turned much of it into enamel during the past two days – almost as you are walking. The past windy nights still added snow and sometimes snowbanks as the temperatures were still under zero degrees celsius, but the warmer days kept reducing those add-ons.

Late in the afternoon, the clouds from the overcast skies seemed to touch the ground, the muddy daylight and the mist were lightened up by the plains of snow below, and of course, it was really the steam from the evaporating snow which rose, and no clouds that fell.

Its nice to hear the thaw water dabbling away, even now, long after sunset. But during the coming weeks, there is still plenty of scope for more winter days and their proper chaos. In our region, this counts as the toughest winter since 1978 already.