Man Carves Wife a 6,000 Stair Path in Mountain

I just stumbled on this story and all i can say is aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh, sniff, sniff, sniff:

A weird love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world. It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half century.

Over 50 years ago, Liu, was a 19 years-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu. At the time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.

To avoid the market gossips, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing area.

In the beginning, they had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to lighten up their lives.

Started the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began, and continue for over 50 years, to hand carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.

A half century later in 2001, a group of adventures were exploring the forest, they surprisingly found the elderly couple and the over 6,000 stairs of hand carved ladder.

“My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day.” Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, “He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother’s convenience, although she doesn’t go down the mountain that much.”

The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years-old, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms.

So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife’s hand even after he had passed away.

“You promised me you’ll take care of me, you’ll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?” … …

Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband’s black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks.

In 2006, their story had became one of the top 10 love stories from China, collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the “love ladder” and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

Video showing the real couple:

More Pictures:

(QQ)

Shoo, shoo be gone you pesky conscience!!

I need a new conscience; I’m fed up with the one I currently have; it’s way too loud, obnoxious and never ever shuts up…oh and the stupid thing never takes my side!!! Seriously, anyone knows where I can get a new ‘inner voice’ or better yet interested in exchanging yours with mine :D

[Background to my plea]

So around 7:00 pm I logged onto Facebook and I see that there’s a lecture by DADI JANKI on “Secrets For True Wealth” at Salwa Al Sabah Hall at 8:00.

Me: Mom get dressed; we’re going go to a lecture on spirituality

Mom: Ahhhhh what’s the point? They don’t say anything I don’t already know. If you are in the mood to be lectured I can go on the mambar for ya. Here we go: Be good, be nice, be honest, let go of the past, be forgiving, be satisfied, be…

Me: Hahahaha very funny…come on… it starts in an hour.

[Blank look from my mom]

Me: Well, Dadi kinda looks like Lata Mangeshkar

So 30 minutes later we walk into the Hall, and who do I see sitting right on a couch as I enter—the only person I have ever treated not so nicely in my whole life and never apologized to. The same dude I was talking about in this post.

Me: Why, oh why God? Why do I have to see him here..and tonight of all nights.? Is this a sign?

Inner Voice: Yep, come on, this is your chance to be good again.

Me: I ain’t walking over to him…no way!!...and you have been seeing “The Kite Runner” way too many times!! WTH is with “you can be good again”?!!

Inner Voice: Fine, have it your way.

[A few minutes later]

Dadi: Honesty…I myself have never lied…why should I? What’s the point of lying? What are you afraid of?

Inner Voice: See? What are you afraid of?

Me: Shh…I’m trying to listen…hey hold on. I NEVER lied to him.

Inner Voice: Nope you didn’t lie; but you weren’t completely honest with him either.

Me: Huh? Look what I did wasn’t all that bad. Besides I don’t owe him any explanation for my action.

Dadi: Parents have to spend time with their kids to teach them morals

Inner Voice: See, your parents taught you better than this.

Me: Would you please Shhhhhhh. Seriously get off my back. Look this story goes back to my ‘dark’ days, and anything I did during those months cannot be held against me now.

Inner Voice: Do you think you ran into him here by accident? Why of all the nights, do you think you saw him tonight?

Me: Seriously, bug off….I'm trying to listen...ok fine…I’ll talk to him later.

Inner Voice: No you are not. At least be honest with your own inner voice. You never do the things you say you will do later.

Dadi: We have 3 enemies: carelessness, procrastination, and…

Me: ok, that’s it. I am out of here.

Inner Voice: Hehehehe…see I told ya so.

Here a video clip of Dadi...not the lecture she gave in Kuwait though

UPDATE: Thank you Grey for pointing out that I misspelled "conscience" :D :D ...opps

What do Da Vinci and I have in common? Polyphasic sleep

Ever heard of Polyphasic sleep? Basically it’s sleeping in ‘multiple short phases’, i.e., you sleep for 2 hours, stay awake for 4, then sleep again for 2, stay awake for 4 and so on. Apparently this is the sleeping habits of some quite a number of world geniuses, namely Da Vinci, Lord Byron, Einstein (though not all the time)…and …well the mother of all inventors--Kramer (remember that episode from Seinfeld)…oh and apparently Batman.

Ok, not that I was trying to be Mrs Batman, but it seems I have joined the Exclusive Polyphasic Sleep Club of Geniuses (hereafter EPSCF). My membership started 3 nights ago when I stopped going to work. I slept in late, then got up, ran a few errands, had nothing else to do so went back to sleep, then got up again, slept again, got up again and then I couldn’t sleep all night!!! Before I knew it, I had developed the pattern of polyphasic sleep.

Oh and on the first night I couldn't sleep, I was surfing the net looking for a good Happy Norooz video, but couldn’t find any. So being a member of the EPSCF I go, Hey gurl, see if u can make your own video using windows video maker.

And voila, here’s my masterpiece:

Week in review and the week ahead

Week in review

1. Sis b-day and a free yoga video

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday. She’s the kind that makes a list. One of the items on her list was a yoga DVD, so I gave her this link: http://yoga.org.nz/yoga_vidoes_download1.htm

Happy birthday sis :D

PS. Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes she did make me get off my ass and go out and buy her and actual gift. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could just give people links as gifts :D

2. Getting signs to start taking pix again

I got this personal belief that either do something with a passion or don’t do it all. So that’s why I haven’t picked up my camera in such along time. So when I got an email from some dude who is writing a book and wanted to use one of my pix; I’m like…hey maybe I could establish a relationship with that little thingy again. But this DSLR thing is too complicated so I went shopping for a good point-and-shoot camera. So far found nothing I like. Waiting for exhibition on feb 4^th to buy a camera and a laptop. Oh and thanks hamid for that email a couple of weeks ago also pushing me to start picking up that camy.

3. Thought of trying to develop a passion for cooking

Since a lot of people I meet these days seem to love cooking—even guys—I thought maybe I need to see if I can find the joy of slaving over a hot stove as well. So I thought of checking out you tube videos. Love this one :D

Week ahead

1. Gonna see my niece

My bro who (I don’t like using whom) I haven’t seen in over 15 years is coming this Tuesday :D :D :D…with his wife aaaaaannnnnddddddddd my niece :D :D :D This little angel has her own website!!! Damn times have changed, when I was born all I got was a bunch of pictures taken with a regular camera :(

PS.

FREE DVDS Yoga Online

Visit the Yoga.org.nz Online yoga website
heaps of cool yoga stuff including a free downloadable Videos and DVDs.

Mehrbano's Musical Ensemble in Kuwait

Pic from 'The Daily Star'

So in the 9 years I lived in Tehran how many times did I go a traditional Iranian concert—> Zilch

How many traditional music Cd did I buy?->Zilch

How many traditional singles did I listen to?-> Zilch

How many times did I switch channels and radio stations when a traditional music came on?-> Billions

How excited did I become when I found out that Dar AlـAthar AlـIslamiyah would be hosting a traditional Iranian concert?-> Jumped up so high doing the dance of joy that my head damaged the ceiling.

And what a night it was. A rejuvenating night for my soul for it was my soul not body that danced to the melody of the music. Now I know why people close their eyes, smile and wave their head side to side when listening to music…I was doing that!!!!!

The best part of the evening was the encore. Once their performance was over, the crowd drew them back on stage with their cheers. They played the Iranians version of a Kurdish song they had previously played earlier. Then when the clapping of the crowd died down, the vocalist sang: Ey Iran, ey marzeh por ghohar.

This was when my mom’s soul was revived. She started to sing along with them and the Iranians in the audience (which incidentally weren’t too many) clapped all through the song. I must confess that their version of “Ey Iran” was the best I have ever seen or heard.

Unfortunately, my phone camera didn’t have enough space to record, the quality is not that good anyway, and I was too busy enjoying the show to shoot anything anyway, but here’s a couple of videos:

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

VIDEO 3 (Kurdish Song)

More info from the Daily Star

Baraka: A Spritual Film

What a magical night it was last night! The soothing breeze didn’t let go of its embrace all night. With my mind clear, my heart light, my soul at ease it was the perfect night to watch “Baraka”.

Baraka is the first film of a “3 Evening Events” that ‘The Culture Sector Office’ of The Grand Mosque of Kuwait is hosting to promote inter cultural understanding.

And Baraka did exactly that. With no narration, no dialogue, no words, mere images choreographed with an enchanting music, it took your mind on a sensual journey in and out of people’s beliefs, rituals, and vices. Unlike other films where one passively takes in the storyline as it is dictated to them, with Baraka one has to connect to their personal soul, cultural knowledge, and openness to interpret the mélange of the audiovisual messages.

I’m still lost in my interpretation; still mesmerized by the beauty and the “Baraka” of our world, still at awe at our lost souls dwelling in coffin-like “homes”; still perplexed by the skull-museum of genocide victims, still at awe by the connectedness of world rituals-of our collective conscious; still trying to figure out the messages in the eyes of the snow monkey in the hot springs of Japan, in the eyes of the aborigine in Australia, , in eyes of the 3 kids of Yanomami Tribe, in the eyes of the girl from Iran, in the eyes of the monk…and in my eyes.

Still have 1 question in mind: Are we losing God’s Baraka?

More Info about the film:

Baraka was shot in the following countries: Alaska, Arizona, Australia, Brazil, California, Cambodia, Colorado, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kina, Kuwait, Mexico, Nepal, New Mexico, Peru, Poland, Thailand, Turkey & USA.

PLOT SYNOPSIS (taken from ALLMovie)

Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," Baraka is Ron Fricke's impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio's non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio's film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic "guided meditation" (Fricke's own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man's own destructive powers into a web of moving images. Fricke's camera ranges, in meditative slow motion or bewildering time-lapse, over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, burning oil fields in Kuwait, the smoldering precipice of an active volcano, a busy subway terminal, tribal celebrations of the Masai in Kenya, chanting monks in the Dip Tse Chok Ling monastery...and on and on, through locales across the globe. To execute the film's time-lapse sequences, Fricke had a special camera built that combined time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements of the camera. In one evening sequence a desert sky turns black, and the stars roll by, as the camera moves slowly forward under the trees. The feeling is like that of viewing the universe through a powerful telescope: that we are indeed on a tiny orb hurtling through a star-filled void. The film is complemented by the hybrid world-music of Michael Stearns.

Images from the film (taken from Spirit of Baraka)


Video Clips from the film (From YouTube)


1. The Kecak Dance of Bali Indonesia



2. A snow monkey (at peace)



3. Modern life (maybe why we aren't at peace)

Attan: updated

About the video:

"Attan is a traditional Afghan dance. It is said to be one of oldest Afghan Pagan dance, some identify Attan as an a religious ceremony of early Zoroastrians placing it 2000 BCE, and some have placed even older going back to King Yama's celebration of Nowroz and warriors dancing and circling around the fire. King Yama was the first Afghan king dating back to 3500 BCE. This was later modified into an Islamic dance to allow the dancers to get 'closer to God' this virtual Attan practised by many Afghan poets and mystics had even reached to corners of Turkey, Europe known as the Rumi Dance. It is performed usually with a Dhol, which is a double-headed barrel drum. The dance can be anywhere from 5 minute to 30 minutes long. There are many different kinds of Attan most famous are Kabuli, Mazari, Kandahari, Sistani, Herati, Pashayi, and Nuristani."

UPDATE:
Intlxpatr asked:

1. Is this dance related to the dance of the whirling dirvishes of Konya?

I just came to know about it, and based on what I have read so far the dance dates back to early Zoroastrians so I wouldn't say it stems from Sufism. However, with the coming of Islam, it was modified by Islamic mysticism. The dance involves "rapid circular motion, dancers perform until no one is left dancing in a fashion similar to sufi whirling dervishes." SOURCE

2. Women are allowed to dance this dance? Are they permitted to dance it publicly?


Based on this site, I would say yes they are. Of course, whether they still perform publicly in present day Afghanistan is another story.