No Problem, Mr. Walt

During my first trip to China, I traveled to Changshu (not far from Shanghai) to discuss building the Mei Wen Ti. When I finished with my meetings, I traveled up to Beijing for a few days of sight-seeing. My favorite stop there was visiting Forbidden City. While walking around I took several pictures of many wonderful old Chinese window and door panels with beautiful designs that adorn the Forbidden City. After the trip, while I was writing the detailed specification for the

One day while I was at the boatyard, inside a very old building where they were fabricating all the furniture for the Mei Wen Ti, I ran across something that was very puzzling to me. Stacked next to a wall, were sixteen carved wooden panels about two feet square. The top panel had a sword carved on it. I looked at the next panel and it was a basket of flowers. But there was nothing in my design specifications that called for sixteen carved panels. What were they? After a disc

I love to read about Chinese history and specifically about Chinese junks (also referred to as "chuan", there are many different styles, sizes, uses and origins). One of my favorite books in my library is 1421 The Year China Discovered America, by author Gavin Menzies. Looking through the book recently, I was reminded of an incident that happened early in the construction of the Mei Wen Ti that I thought would make an interesting blog post. I was visiting the construction sit

In my previous post titled “Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy” I mentioned that on my many trips to Shanghai, I often went wandering in and out of every variety of store along the Bund (and surrounding area) that ran along the Huangpu River. In my book, No Problem, Mr. Walt at the beginning of each chapter is a little Chinese history beginning with Emperor Pu Yi in the early 1900s and progressing chapter by chapter to the present. So in that spirit, I will tell you a little abou