Day 159

Students drawing in the Chinese House gallery at the Peabody-Essex Museum.

There is an entire 200 year old Chinese house which was taken apart, piece by piece in China, brought here and erected in the Peabody-Essex museum.

Such a defensive design:  two double-story halls built facing each other with a central courtyard, just two or three tiny barred windows, the only real light coming in from above the narrow courtyard.  The rooms were tiny, with entire families sleeping in them (and no windows!).  I would have died of claustrophobia, let alone being attacked by bandits or disease or whatever.

The life of women was shockingly oppressive.  The women had to move to the complete stranger husband's house when she married, which was often far away from her mother's house.  In the galleries is clothing which was worn by the families which lived there, often multiple generations, and some were those awful tiny shoes worn by Chinese women, whose feet were bound and broken to satisfy some weird male fantasy.  The practice went on for 1000 years!  It is horrifying that women could do this to little girls.  Girls' toes were broken and pressed down to the soles of their feet, their arches were broken too, then the foot bound tightly.  All this with no painkillers of any kind.  It would result in complete deformity, lifelong pain and suffering and the inability to walk very well.  But supposedly it made the woman very desirable, particularly amongst the aristocracy, which always seems to generate deviance.   

Funnily enough, the women of the family who lived in this house all seemed to have lived much longer lives than the men who were merchants. 

The Chinese also have beautiful picturesque names for things, like Autumn chrysanthemum month, or the 9th month of the year.  And in the courtyard are two beautiful stone tanks with koi fish in them.

When I was little I designed a circular house.  I can't quite remember all the details, but here is another circular design, and in the very middle would be a fountain with koi fish swimming delightfully.  There is a garden for the bees and birds and us.  A salt-water swimming pool with a slide and a diving board, all for when my grandchildren come to stay.  There is a studio, a double garage with a sod roof and garden on top.  On the house itself are enough solar panels to run everything.  There is a bee yard and a honey house for processing the honey from frame to bottle. And all over the house, green plants, inside and out.  And sunlight coming in everywhere.