Yuexiu Park

So this weekend's culture kick was a lesson in traditional Chinese paper cutting, in the lovely setting of stone pagoda in Yuexiu Park, in Guangzhou.

I was shown 3 simple types of paper cutting, There is no way I would have managed anything complicated some the paper cutting art that people produce is amazing! I definitely recommend googling it! The designs can be so intricate because small (and very sharp) scissors are used to cut out the patterns. Craft knives are also a useful tool.

The 3 traditional (and simple) types of paper cutting were Chinese lanterns (which are used as decorations for lantern festival), Shuangxi (双喜）(which means double happiness) and finally the snowflake (they are used to decorate homes during spring festival).We used red paper because red is a popular colour in China but any paper colour is used

Shuangxi - meaning double happiness. Commonly used for weddings

I'm most proud of this lantern - I decided to get ambitious and try and cut the pattern of a ram into it for year of the Ram. Not a bad first attempt I thought!

The patterns as always displayed against white so my white walls are perfect!

After my lesson foray into Chinese crafts I walked around the park as i'd never been before. It's a nice park in the centre of the city - I still can't get used to seeing skyscrapers soaring above the tree-line! The weather is very over-cast and the moment (I think we are experiencing a period of low-pressure). I'm no meteorologist, but the weather feels heavy and it makes me very sleepy - is that low pressure?!?! Anyway it's characteristic of this time of year but it doesn't make for the most inspiring weather for sightseeing. Yuexiu park is home to the statue of the five rams which is symbolic of Guangzhou. I have no clue why, nobody seems to be able to tell me why but on just about every piece of information about Guangzhou is this statue so I can finally say i've seen it!

The five rams statue

A part of the ancient wall of Guangzhou (which is half way up a (little) hill) with these amazing trees growing out of it.

G x