If I could have such a supply of sweets in Italy, I would probably be rich by opening a shop dedicated to serving dignitaries. But here, the price of candy is very cheap. Out of curiosity, Mr. Gonzalez spent a realy and bought a large bag full of candies of various colors. The sweets are beautifully presented in little waxed paper pockets. The store gave us a straw bag to hold the candies. This bag alone is a work of art.
The most peculiar pastime is their tobacco. You must be aware that this plant from the New Continent is currently popular all over the world. People have figured out various ways to use it. But in Lingao, there is a new way to pass tobacco. They sold the tobacco in long paper rolls. The white paper is rolled into a delicate paper tube, as thick as a pen, and the tobacco is evenly filled inside. They call it "cigarettes." Most smokers use a hollow bamboo,
A wooden or cardboard tube is connected to the cigarette to smoke, so as not to burn the mouth when the cigarette is about to burn out; ten or twenty cigarettes are sold in paper bags or cartons of various colors and patterns.
Although the appearance of each cigarette looks similar to us, the price varies greatly depending on the color and pattern of their outer packaging. The most expensive box can buy roughly ten boxes of the cheapest cigarettes. Neither Mr. Gonzalez nor I can provide a reasonable explanation for this. To our eyes, there doesn't seem to be a noticeable difference between the two except for the packaging.
What is used here is a kind of paper money called "circulation coupon". Marco Polo once said: People in China use paper money. I have always been very skeptical about this because there is no one in the world who loves silver more than the Chinese people. Except for a very small number of goods, the Chinese people always want the company to pay silver. But in Lingao, they do use banknotes. The banknotes are exquisitely printed, with complex and fine patterns on them, especially on the bottom plate of the pattern, which is very delicately outlined with lines and extremely fine shading patterns. Even as an artist, I feel that I am not capable of such exquisite painting. As for the method they used to print the patterns on the paper in layers, it is even more of a mystery. Apparently they had very good copper engravers.
All the shops here accept banknotes, and of course the shopkeepers are happy to take our rial, but when asked for change we can only give banknotes. For this we had to buy something for one rial each time.
So as not to end up with a bunch of banknotes that are worthless outside of this place. This way of shopping allowed us to leave home with a lot of stuff.
We lingered in every store. Each one was an eye-opener for us. I can understand why companies are impatient to send businessmen here." Lingao is also a treasure trove of trade. There are many novel goods here that we have never seen or heard of.
There are even shops selling ready-to-wear clothes, which is amazing, how can they make clothes that fit without a tailor to make them? Although Australian clothing is very shabby and shabby by our standards. Their clothes do not use woolen, silk or fur, but only cheap Indian or Chinese cotton and linen. The style of clothing is so simple that it is only slightly better than the natives of Batavia. At a cocktail party to celebrate the conclusion of the trade agreement, almost all of the Australian elders present wore such crude and crude clothes. This custom is really incomprehensible.
The clothing sold in ready-made clothing stores has no style at all. It is said that this is the standard clothing of Australians and their subjects. It is almost identical except for some details, and even there are only a few colors: black and gray. , blue and brown.
Regarding Australians and their subjects, this is what I have observed.
Australians have clear requirements for their subjects, which is to dress the same as them: including men shaving their heads very short and women keeping their heads short. Both men and women wear "Australian style" clothing, which is the simple clothing that all Australians, regardless of high or low, wear as I mentioned earlier. They call it "uniform".
Whether it is the indigenous troops recruited and trained locally by the Australians, or the workers they hired, the farmers, business people and others who worked for them, they all wore the same style of clothing regardless of each other. Certain groups of people, like the military, wear more special clothing. Others distinguished coats of arms similar to ours with various ornaments, markings and special equipment.
Just as we see specialized police officers on duty on the streets at night, their clothes are exactly the same as those sold in clothing stores. The bamboo hat, white trousers, small piece of cloth on the collar and the patch on the chest distinguish him from others. Of course, he also has a short wooden stick as a weapon.
I think the only benefit of using this approach is mass production. Apparently, Australians feel they have an obligation to provide clothing for all their subjects. To provide clothing for tens of thousands of people, the styles of clothing must be simplified as much as possible to facilitate manufacturing.
As for why they provide uniform clothing for their subjects, I didn't think about it. We initially guessed that it might be so that the Australians could distinguish their subjects from the local [Chinese] people at a glance. They all have [Chinese] faces. However, this was rejected after Mr. Gonzalez had no difficulty in buying a suit of the same style of clothing in a clothing store. Obviously anyone can buy such ugly and simple clothes. Clothes. And among the people we saw in Dongmen City, many still wore traditional Chinese clothes and wore buns.
Aside from reasons we can't understand, the obvious reason is that Australians like to be uniform. This can be seen in the attire they prescribed for the people, and not only that. The various buildings we saw in Dongmen City also convey a sense of neatness.
Although from the outside, these buildings closely together appear to be well-proportioned and of different heights.
But looking at the details, all the buildings follow an almost identical pattern. In my opinion, all the buildings in Dongmen City are built in different forms with the same structure and size.
Australians use the exact same building materials on a large scale. Burnt bricks were their most common building material. The main material of all buildings is burnt brick. Most of them are red, and some are green. "The texture is firm and fine" is obviously the result of high-temperature baking. I carefully observed several buildings facing the street. They roughly use bricks of three different sizes. The parts used for each brick are different, but in each building The same principle of use is followed in buildings. The windows, doors, steps and railings they use in buildings can, according to my observation, be reduced to several identical types. Apparently, these architectural accessories are based on several Fixed dimensions and geometries are produced in batches in a workshop rather than on site by a single craftsman.
Adopting this method should speed up the construction of houses. It should be by using this method that Australians were able to build a prosperous city here in just a few years.
"It's different from the Chinese or European buildings I've seen." The houses in Dongmen City are almost completely undecorated. Whether it's roofs, eaves or walls, you can't see any sculptures,
Traces of statues or murals. The walls are simply painted white or black, and some are directly painted with brick walls. I saw in Batavia and the coast of China that Chinese people love to carve various detailed bas-reliefs or apply various paintings on the pillars of houses, but here the wooden structure is only painted with the simplest Just a coat of paint.
There is a strange sense of uniformity here. After realizing the characteristics of the buildings, I suddenly discovered that many things in Dongmen City are the same: street lamps, garbage baskets, street signs... Even the people walking on the street are very similar. It's a feeling I can't describe.
Our walk was very pleasant, no one disturbed us on the street, and the shopkeepers were very friendly. We were overjoyed to find a sacred church in Dongmen City. You know that in Batavia the fanatical Puritans forbade our prayers and forced us to hold theirs. Now, in Lingao, under the rule of the Australians, there is actually a church of the Holy Church.
This church is both simple and elegant in appearance. More importantly, it is relatively "non-standard". Its appearance reminds me of the kind of small church in the small town back home.
The door of the church is open, and there are bright lights in the doors and windows. This is the sacred light that makes us feel warm. We walked in immediately.
Wu Shimang yawned profusely, but he still had to pretend to be serious. Because he was supervising John Dermot, a novice monk from Ireland who was painting murals on the walls. The Dongmen City Church has recently been renovated. Taoist priest Daoquanzi recently renovated an old temple that had long been abandoned in Lingao County, held a consecration ceremony, and became the official base of the new Taoism. It makes him feel competitive, so he pays close attention to hardware and software construction. The Dongmen City Church was built not long ago, so it was of course impossible to demolish and rebuild it, but Dean Wu felt that the interior of the church was too simple and lacked appeal. The arrival of Jin Lige and others gave him free decoration workers. Painting murals, installing colored glass and using ceramic tiles to decorate the interior are all on the agenda. Soon after arriving in Lingao, the masters and apprentices of Jinlige devoted themselves to the painting of murals and the interior decoration of the entire monastery.
The two priests were busy from morning to night painting murals, sculpting plaster statues, and even reluctantly participated in the creation of stained glass windows. Of course, this was not only for religious services, but the cultural and architectural departments also needed new art forms to serve their respective needs. Serve. a.
