A Chinese House in New England

J and I took a regional train up to Salem yesterday to go to the Peabody (peb-idy in masspeak) Essex Museum. I wanted to see a photo exhibit that they had going on by an artist named Alex MacLean. He's an architect and a pilot and his photos are all landscapes from above that show man's impact on the land by focusing on the unnatural semetrics in the things we do (straight lines). It was pretty cool, but the rest of the museum actually overshadowed it. I had no idea what the PEM was going to be like, but apparently it was founded to house east asian art that sailors out of Salem brought back with them. I'm a huge fan of Asian art, especially Southeast Asian, where the Chinese and Indian elements mixed together. They had a great collection and the temporary displays were also supurb. One of the highlights for me was a temp. display of items from one of the (now abandoned) former royal capitals of Siam (Thailand). It was especally cool because it is one of the places that J and I are planning on visiting when we go-a-travelling next summer. Also, they had a super cool house that they had taken apart in southern china, brought to New England and then reassembled. Chinese houses are built with high walls on the outside that don't have much ornimentation, but then there is a beautiful central courtyard in the middle with all kinds of beautiful latice work on the inside. They build that way because in China it is the family (extended) that is the most important and then the community. It was very cool from a cultural, artistic and architectural standpoint. I'm rating it pretty high on my list of stuff to see if you visit new england.

thursday i have to go to New Hampshire for a meeting. bleck.