View allAll Photos Tagged Baoding
Not a scene from a sci-fi movie - but none the less, this is the battleground for the future.
A worker standing on a wind turbine blade, in Baoding, China. Much depends upon how development meets the wild spaces in the world's emerging powerhouse economies like China. Find out how WWF is influencing things for the good of our planet: bit.ly/IChND1
© Brent Stirton / Getty Images / WWF-Canon
image may not be used without permission.
The Dazu Rock Carvings are a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings, dating back as far as the 7th century A.D., depicting and influenced by Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist beliefs. Listed as a World Heritage Site, the Dazu Rock Carvings are made up of 75 protected sites containing some 50,000 statues, with over 100,000 Chinese characters forming inscriptions and epigraphs. The sites are located on the steep hillsides within Dazu County (near the city of Chongqing, China), with the high points being the carvings found on Mount Baoding and Mount Beishan.
Niche of Sakyamumi Entering Nirvana(part)
The niche,700 cm high,3200cm wide and 500cm deep, houses 37 statues.Saykyamuni in Nirvana,reclining on the right side,is 31 meters long,but only the upper part of his body is visible.Ancient sculptors left a room for viewers to imagine how magnificent the Buddha is.this is rarely seen in other grottoes in China.
The whole carving
An expat who has lived in China for 18 years commenting on freedom in China - Jerry's take on China channel:
CNN went deep into rural China. This is how officials reacted
www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cnn-went-deep-into-rural-chi...
Andy Boreham of Reports on China refuted the CNN report point by point:
The CNN video claims the Chinese security not only watched them but prevented them from talking to people; however, CNN was able to talk to different families celebrating CNY. The reporter, Selina Wang, provided no evidence that the so called government officials were indeed government officials. CNN is well known for its China bashing reporting. Boreham said those so called "security guards" were from the local media liaison office and it's customary for journalists both foreign and domestic to liaison with them as they would set up local contacts for the journalists to interview.
This WaPo article is also full of contradictions. While claiming China lies about its Covid figures, all the people they talked to said their cases were mild and people were happily celebrating CNY, getting together after 3 long years without any Covid concerns. The word "propaganda" appears several times in the article. And WaPo has to bring back Dr Li Wenliang. It blames China censorship for no more videos of crowded hospitals and crematoriums. Dah! The pandemic is over, done with, that's why.
The fact is the U.S. spends many billions of dollars every year on propaganda. When was the last time WaPo used that term to describe U.S. propaganda? The sad fact is WaPo and all the mainstream media are in bed with Washington, regurgitate what the Administration tells them to report. Elon Musk recently told us how Twitter colluded with the Administration.
www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/china-speeding-through-pha...
China, speeding through phases of covid, gets on with living with virus
Lena Zhang was ready to get covid as she embarked on her first visit to China in three years, a visit that coincided with an explosion of coronavirus infections across the country.
Before the pandemic, Zhang would visit her parents in the northern city of Baoding from Austria every year. But China’s strict pandemic border controls and Zhang’s fear of passing the virus to elderly relatives had stopped her from returning since 2019.
After Beijing removed quarantine and other restrictions on entry last month, Zhang decided to make the long journey home for Lunar New Year — even though the country was, really for the first time since the pandemic began, experiencing a nationwide outbreak. Fully expecting to get infected on arrival in China, she prepared for a cautious celebration spent almost entirely at home.
The reality for Zhang, 42, and her family has been a quiet but relatively relaxed and surprisingly normal celebration because most people, including almost everyone in her family, caught the virus a while ago. Grocery stores and farmers markets have been crowded.
“It seems difficult to get infected,” she joked, alluding to the apparent current sweet spot of post-infection immunity.
In the short six weeks from China suddenly dropping its “zero covid” policy to the middle of January, a huge surge of infections, critical cases and deaths overwhelmed hospital emergency departments and forced crematoriums to work nonstop. Epidemiologists feared that a month of concentrated travel for the Spring Festival holiday, centered around Lunar New Year celebrations on Jan. 22, would extend the outbreak and bring it deep into rural areas, where the population is older and the medical facilities are often basic.
Instead, Chinese health authorities have this week doubled down on claims that the peak of deaths was in early January, and they say a second wave is unlikely to hit soon. Such a speedy recovery is at odds with international projections that suggest a far-higher death toll than the official count of just over 72,000 since restrictions were suddenly dropped in early December.
But many Chinese families, exhausted by three years of unpredictable disruption of their lives, have spent the holidays trying to move on.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that infections from the current wave peaked in December, while critical cases have declined by more than 70 percent since early January. They added that the highest number of deaths in a single day was 4,273 on Jan. 4, and the count had fallen to 896 by Jan. 23.
Experts outside China are skeptical of these official numbers, and such an abrupt and relatively low peak is hard to match with projections by groups like Britain-based research group Airfinity, which earlier this month predicted that mass travel would push the daily death toll to about 36,000 this week. China’s mortality data includes only those who die in hospitals from respiratory failure or a sharp worsening of an underlying condition deemed caused directly by covid, a narrow definition that experts say excludes many covid-related deaths.
The reported number of deaths definitely underestimates the scale of the current outbreak, said Shengjie Lai, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Southampton in Britain. He added, however, that CDC estimates matched his models based on mobility and population data that put the peak of infections in late December.
With so many people catching the virus so quickly, the risk of reinfection over the holidays was low, but even “if only 0.1% of the infected population die, the absolute number of deaths in this wave will still be very big,” Lai said.
Why China dumped its ‘zero covid’ policy so suddenly — and disastrously
Zhang’s hometown of Baoding, a city of 3 million people about 100 miles southwest of Beijing, became among the earliest to suffer from surging infections, with reports in early December of overcrowded emergency departments. But by the end of the month, state media was holding the city up as a rapid recovery success story.
Officials began the holiday on a cautiously optimistic note. Chinese leader Xi Jinping broke with a decade-long tradition of visiting the countryside ahead of the holiday, instead holding a virtual call with rural residents. “Tough challenges remain,” he said, “but the light of hope is right in front of us.”
Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist at China’s CDC, on Jan. 21 estimated that around 80 percent of the country had already caught covid in this wave.
As the holiday progressed, the drumbeat of optimistic propaganda grew louder as reminders of the outbreak started to fade into the background. Eager for a long-awaited return to normalcy, many families appear happy to accept a sense of relief and forget about the virus for the holiday, as some are reunited for the first since the start of the pandemic.
Since the outbreak of the virus just before the Spring Festival in 2020, those employed far from home in construction or manufacturing were strongly encouraged by officials to forgo their once-a-year visit home over the Lunar New Year holiday and remain wherever they were employed.
How bad is China’s covid outbreak?
This week, emotional videos uploaded by returning migrant workers who surprise young children or elderly parents have been shared widely online, often tagged with a simple three-character description: “It’s been three years.”
Optimism was apparent among online messages sent to Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who died of covid after being reprimanded by police for calling attention to the then-unknown virus.
Since his death, Li’s page on microblog Weibo has become a place of solace where many go to vent frustration, give thanks or wish for an end to the pandemic. “Doctor Li, the virus is much weaker now, everyone is happily celebrating the new year,” one user wrote this week. “If it had been like this at the start, you would have definitely been okay.”
Official propaganda has spurred on the sense of a new beginning. For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, a covid-themed skit was absent from the state broadcaster’s annual Spring Festival gala, the variety show switched on (and occasionally watched) in almost all Chinese homes on Lunar New Year’s eve. Its live audience did not wear masks.
Before the Lunar New Year, the Cybersecurity Administration of China urged vigilance against “gloomy sentiments” and pandemic-related rumors in a bid to “cultivate a positive, spiritually healthy atmosphere for online public opinion during Spring Festival.”
The censor’s heavy hand has been evident. Videos of patients packed into hospital hallways, once widely shared, have become hard to find online. Instead, dominating social media discussion are topics such as which Chinese movie would top the holiday box office.
Tracked, detained, vilified: How China throttled anti-covid protests
The reversal has been so dramatic that some online even began to question whether the virus had just suddenly disappeared. Ming Jinwei, a former state media editor turned political blogger, responded that, while it wasn’t yet gone, “the impact of the virus on the vast majority of people is right now fading away.”
“Chinese society has created a basic barrier of natural immunity at a speed rarely seen elsewhere in the world,” he wrote in an essay on social media app WeChat.
Regardless of the veracity of the official pronouncements, many in China now, after a period of caution, appear ready to accept that the pandemic is coming to an end. Holiday train, plane and automobile travel is near pre-covid levels with 700 million trips having been taken as of Jan. 26. Tourists have flocked to popular sightseeing destinations around the country.
The southern island of Hainan, sometimes called China’s Hawaii, has been especially popular as people flee from record-breaking cold in the north. State media has reported that resort hotels in the southernmost city of Sanya are 90 percent full.
Zhang and her family in Baoding have joined those going south — prepared, once again, to accept the risk of getting infected on the way. “I’m heading to Hainan on yet another packed plane,” she said by text. “Let’s see what happens.”
Baoding is located in central Hebei Province to the southwest of Beijing. The metropolitan area is home to over 11 million residents, making one of the top ten largest cities in China.
The tower has an inner and an outer skin, which you can kind of make out here. Between is void. It will help with climate control. I imagine this is not nearly cost effective and not something which would be built by a developer in the US.
Have you any idea how few pieces of music I have in iTunes with the word China, Chinese or meditate in the title? This was not an easy one to set a song to you know. But that's by the by...
I was struggling with this one and you nearly got an image of me relaxing in the bath and I know there are some of you who wouldn't necessarily appreciate such a spectacle. The others? Well, who knows? So I started to think about what might cause a sensation of serenity and it occurred to me that the Chinese have quite a few things about their culture that might be considered to induce a sense of peaceful coexistance with the world and I remembered these baoding balls I picked up in Hong Kong a few years ago. I had no idea they were called 'baoding balls' at that point, but a quick search at Wikipedia on "Chinese balls" turned up their correct name. They are intended for meditation or hand exercise, what better to bring on a little serenity? These ones are intended more for decorative purposes than actual use, as the surface can quite easily chip or crack if dropped. They are sold in vast quantities to tourists, like me, as souvenirs. The particular ones coming from Stanley Market on the south of HK Island.
And the music? Well, in the absence of anything obviously related to China or what have you, why not just pick something that is in itself serene. So here from Mr. Joseph Satriani Esq., is Z.Z.'s Song. Nice huh?
Texture: Stygian Tin from the Flypaper Summer Painterly collection
The bathroom is located near my dining room.
24Feb2011- The plug for the water heater is just to the right of this photograph. It does have a plastic water shield, and I try to remember to unplug the heater when I take a shower, but sometimes I forget. At least I live in a concrete building, so I don't think I need to worry about the building burning down.
At the end of the conference, a bus tour to a pair of the tourist attractions in the mountains approximately 50 km north of Beijing was organised. This was a long but immensely enjoyable day.
The first stop was at the Changling Tomb (Emperor Yongle’s Tomb). The Gate of Eminent Favour is shown here.
The following text giving some background information on the site was displayed on an information panel as you entered the complex.
"Changling Tomb (Emperor Yongle’s Tomb) is the burial mausoleum of Emperor Zhudi (1360-1424), the third emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, and his empress Xushi.
The main part of the mausoleum - the underground palace - began in 1409 and was completed in 1427, occupying an area of about 120,000 square meters. The mausoleum, consisting of the underground palace (burial chamber) and the above ground structures, is the largest in scale among the 13 mausoleums in Tianshou Mountain.
The main structures are as follows: Baocheng (Treasure Town, which has a diameter of 300 meters and consists of Baoding, the grave mound above the burial chamber, and Xuangong, the deep burial chamber), Minglou (Soul Tower), Ling’en Hall (Hall of Eminent Favour), Ling’en Gate, Langwu (the attached halls, 15 on either side), Sacred Kitchen (Kitchen for cooking sacrifice), Sacred Warehouse (place for temporary sacrifice storage), Livestock Slaughter Kiosk (place used to slay livestock: pig, ox, sleep), and Juju Hall (Dressing Hall for Emperor).
The mausoleum buildings have been repaired many times after the Ming Dynasty, so the main buildings have been preserved. Ling’en Hall and Ling’en Gate, made of Nanmu (a kind of rare hardwood), are the only remains of the hall-and-gate structures among the Ming Mausoleums, and deserve to be the treasure of ancient Chinese architecture."
www.orientalarchitecture.com/china/beijing/changling-tomb...
www.china.org.cn/english/features/atam/115650.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty_Tombs
www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/changling-tom...
Beijing, China.
Phone 4 - Photograph taken with the camera on an iPhone 4.
Camera - The native camera app was used without the HDR option.
Filterstorm - Opened the photograph in the native Photos app on my iPad3. Copied the image, opened the Filterstorm app, pasted the contents of the clipboard, and saved a copy of the image to the Camera Roll. This manoeuvre simplified the subsequent processing by having this copy as the most recent image in the Camera Roll.
Snapseed - Structure and Ambience filters applied. Overall lighting adjustments carried out.
Photoshop Express - Noise reduction and Sharpening filters applied with manual settings.
Photoshop Touch - Crop applied. Image re-sized to 2592 x 1936 pixels.
Frontview - Trapezoidal crop applied to change the apparent perspective.
ExifEditor - EXIF data from the original photograph transferred to the final image.
(Filed as 20130725_iPad3 003 Filterstorm-Snapseed-PSExpress-PSTouch-Frontview-ExifEditor.JPG)
na quarta, dia 12, deu uma nevadinha mixuruca dessas que some logo... desde o dia anterior (e no dia seguinte) já andava dando umas chuviscadas com gelo ou seja qual for o nome que se dá pra isso...
Yeah, ... So I guess the title for this photo lacks imagination... but, I was unable to think of anything that I liked. Today, I went to a tea shop with a group of people and tried various types of tea. Some of them I have had before, but others I had never had.
Baoding is located in central Hebei Province to the southwest of Beijing. The metropolitan area is home to over 11 million residents, making one of the top ten largest cities in China.
The seat of power. This is from the office of the Viceroy or Governor of Zhili from the Qing dynasty in Baoding, about 140 Km South of Beijing. The red sun is the emperor, and the crane standing on a rock is symbolic of high office, presumably referring to the Viceroy. The province of Zhilin surrounded the imperial capital, which made the governor a particularly powerful figure. The mansion is now a tourist attraction although the West wing was destroyed in the cultural revolution.
Baoding is located in central Hebei Province to the southwest of Beijing. The metropolitan area is home to over 11 million residents, making one of the top ten largest cities in China.
Quartz-hematite-limonite from China.
Reddish crystals = quartz with hematite coatings/inclusions
Dirty yellowish= limonite
A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are over 5100 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.
The silicates are the most abundant and chemically complex group of minerals. All silicates have silica as the basis for their chemistry. "Silica" refers to SiO2 chemistry. The fundamental molecular unit of silica is one small silicon atom surrounded by four large oxygen atoms in the shape of a triangular pyramid - this is the silica tetrahedron - SiO4. Each oxygen atom is shared by two silicon atoms, so only half of the four oxygens "belong" to each silicon. The resulting formula for silica is thus SiO2, not SiO4.
The simplest & most abundant silicate mineral in the Earth's crust is quartz (SiO2). All other silicates have silica + impurities. Many silicates have a significant percentage of aluminum (the aluminosilicates).
Quartz (silicon dioxide/silica - SiO2) is the most common mineral in the Earth's crust. It is composed of the two most abundant elements in the crust - oxygen and silicon. It has a glassy, nonmetallic luster, is commonly clearish to whitish to grayish in color, has a white streak, is quite hard (H≡7), forms hexagonal crystals, has no cleavage, and has conchoidal fracture. Quartz can be any color: clear, white, gray, black, brown, pink, red, purple, blue, green, orange, etc.
The well-formed quartz crystals shown above are reddish-colored due to coatings and inclusions of hematite (Fe2O3 - iron oxide). The yellowish coatings are composed of limonite, which is a hydrous iron hydroxy-oxide mineral (FeO·OH·nH2O).
Locality: unrecorded/undisclosed site in Baoding Prefecture, Hebei Province, northeastern China
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Photo gallery of quartz:
The Dazu Rock Carvings(Chinese: 大足石刻;) are a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings located in Dazu District, Chongqing, China. The carvings date back as far as the 7th century AD, depicting and influenced by Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist beliefs. Some are in rock-cut cave shrines, in the usual Chinese Buddhist style, but many others are rock reliefs carved into the open rock faces.
Location: Baoding, Hebei, China PRC
Circumstance: The Boys in the Hood...
Other Comments: So I wanted to have them take a photo with me in it as well, but that didn't go too well. During the first attempt, both boys were looking directly at me and not the camera. For the second attempt, she could not figure out how to take the photo, so I had to show her how to use the camera. The final effort was a failure after the boy on the left ran away and started to cry. I gave up.
Taken on May 2nd, 2013
Hashtags: #Twins #Boys #Children #ChinesePeople #ChineseBoys #cute #Baoding #CandlelightCommunity #China #BaodingPrefecture #Chinesewomen #双胞胎 #男孩子 #孩子们 #中国孩子 #中国男孩子 #可爱 #保定 #烛光小区 #中国 #河北 #中国女人 #女人 #oldwomen #老太太 #Hebei
This was an intense storm. By the time I had taken this video, the worst had passed. I had rode my bike past the mens dormitory and the men were yelling as I rode by on my bike. It was raining hard, and the hail was roughly pea sized. I think that thunderstorms in China are relatively safe. I would not have tried this in the United States. Tornados here are very rare.
In total, there were three short rain storms. The first one was very mild. It was a little more than heavy rain. I was inside during the first wave. After the first rain, I went to a restaurant and ate dinner. Because I was visiting a friend, I decided to return home. While on the way home, it started to rain again. I was able to stop at the Honey Pool, which is a local coffeeshop, for shelter during the second storm. I was looking out the window during the second storm, and the short rainfall caused flash flooding in major roadways downtown. After the second rainfall, I looked up at the sky, and thought that maybe there would be no more rain. I was wrong. There was another storm, and this one was the worst. I was unable to find shelter, so I have the dubious experience of knowing first hand that pea sized hail does not hurt that badly. Although I was wet, I was able to make it home safely.
In this video, I am riding a bike while holding an umbrella through a thunderstorm.