Flowers galore
(Display on the roadside: Suzhou)
You can just perhaps make me out between the two oxen at the back there to give a concept of scale; I’m waving in my red bike helmet, but the hazy afternoon made this photograph a little blurry. There is often a selection of these ‘displays’ along the main roadsides in the S.I.P area of Suzhou, mostly seasonally depicting traditional scenes or making use of seasonal flowers. Ying suggested that the cows are here because this year is my year of the Chinese zodiac, the Ox. To give an idea of location, we live about ten minutes (by e-bike) further along to the left.
From behind this showpiece, I could see that the entire structure is constructed from wooden panels, and the figures and backdrop from massive blocks of carved polystyrene. It is quite an art form; the characters in the foreground and the scene behind have been covered with what might be paper flowers. These have then been sprayed with pigment and the animals stenciled with floral designs. Real flowers adorn the entire front portion of the display with the inset Chinese characters.
From a distance, we could see another being constructed to celebrate the impending sixty-year anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China on October 1st. Of course, it used mainly yellow and red flowers to match the flag, and had an enormous ‘60’ at its apex.
(By the way, from what I can manage to work out, the first character means ‘happiness’, and another means ‘nation’ so I imagine this is a slogan to encourage love and respect for China. Translations gratefully received!)
Yeah, you’re quite right about that slogan. The four characters from the left mean “happily”, the fifth one “welcome”, the last twos “the national day.” Putting them together you get “Let’s welcome the national day happily.”
Are you learning Chinese now?