Orphan Tourism

Namaste,

According to an article by Charlotte Turner, there are 269 orphanages and 12,000 orphans in Cambodia.

"Visitors see some poverty and they feel bad about it," said Ashlee Chapman, a project manager with Globalteer, an organisation that matches volunteers with local organisations.

"They want to do something," she adds, saying they might visit a children's project for a few hours, donate money and toys, "take a holiday snap and feel that they've contributed."

"Constant change of caregivers gives emotional loss to children, constant emotional loss to already traumatised children," Jolanda van Westering, a child protection specialist at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told AFP.

Read more.

The Cambodian children pictured here are not orphans.

Metta.

Bayon

Namaste,

The Bayon from the 12th century at Angkor Wat features 48 faces. All directions. 

Immense and powerful.

This slide show also includes images of detailed carvings from the main Angkor temple, depicting "Churning The Sea of Milk," an ancient Sanskrit Hindu story.

Metta.

slide your show

Namaste,

The crazy geniuses at Squarespace just made Earth a safer environment with visual impact.

They added a new dimension.

It can be revealed here for the first time in recent history, like three days ago in the long now, that SS designers, engineers and artists using electromagnetic pulsars from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)  in Switzerland have created and released the highest energy-particle slide shows in the web community.

Here's a gallery entitled Laugh. Art. from Laos.

Enjoy.

Metta.

Maybe 20

Namaste,

The demanding accusatory tone of voice is always an admonishing attitude of voice how reality is. Shanghai commands are simple and direct. 

Heels strike cold hard pavement in darkness. The sharpness belongs to a girl escaping from family for the night. Muted voices of an old couple walking through narrow concrete canyons echo as heels fade.

An elevator door opened on the 11th floor of a five-star business hotel in Shanghai. 

A beautiful Chinese girl, 20, in a white dress clutching a small black purse stared at a scuffed marble floor. Small puddles of rain water gathered around her shoes.

She raised her face from the ground. 

Deep dark brown rings circled old, tired, fearful eyes hiding her heart's knowledge, revealing her soul.

There was no place to hide, no magical cosmetic concealing the truth of everything she knew. The woman and witness instinctivily understood each other. Passing toward another temporary hope, another ethereal reality.

She was on the wrong floor and pressed another number. Doors closed. She was moving up in the world. Up to the room of a foreign businessman taking her through night into morning.

Everyone in town was making money. 

Billboards shouted, “Making Money in China is Glorious!”

She carefully folded hard earned hard currency into her black purse after a long hot shower and took the elevator down. Gliding through a revolving glass and brass door, she passed a deserted dark empty Japanese restaurant and negotiated gray stained industrial steps to Nanjing Xi Lu.  

One million serious adults in blue industrial clothing practiced Tai Chi with controlled balanced concentration.

Every methodical movement had meaning.

Dawn's collective mist breath crashed around her well worn heels skipping over cracked stones through shadows. 

Metta.

sun dance

I dream the Sun Dance of the Plains people.

Nations gather in late spring celebrating a four day cycle of rituals and creation dances.

Dancers choosing self torture will have their chests pierced by skewers.

They will hang under the weight of buffalo skulls for 24 dances.

Their sacrifice will be successful if they have a vision during their trial.

The sun is going home to the earth.

 One vision is all you need.