Tourist snaps
(Ying and I in front of the Cloud Rock Pagoda: Tiger Hill, Suzhou)
Here’s another gratuitous shot of Ying and I being silly. It gives some sense of scale to the enormous brick pagoda behind us – it is colossal. Some of you have asked for more pictures of the two of us – as if you need proof we are really in China! The reason for few shots of us is that we are not interesting – at least not as much as everything else. In addition, we often have a chuckle at other people, tourists and locals who either take pictures of themselves with a camera at arm’s length, or take ridiculous posed shots of their friends or spouse.
It must be a very Asian phenomenon, the most popular poses are (in order of highest frequency):
- the ‘V’ peace sign with one or both hands and a smile.
- the ‘flying squirrel’ which is balancing on one leg, leaning forward and stretching both arms out, as if flying. This is especially popular amongst young men, for some reason.
- the bunny ears behind the head of a girlfriend / friend.
- standing on one leg and smiling with arms held out, as if finishing a tap dancing set.
There must be many more, and I will certainly document them here. Although accepting of many aspects of life here, we don’t feel the need to embellish our snaps with bizarre poses bearing no relation to our surroundings. I did put my leg up in this shot though – sorry about that.
