“和你在一起的每一刻都很快乐，每一刻都不一样。”
“Every moment being with you is happy, every moment is different from each other. ”

“我们曾经说好可以有另外的情人，只要我们觉得那是对的，规则是这之后可以有两种做法，一是立刻告诉对方，对方可以嫉妒，但不可因此要求分手；二是不告诉对方，但必须做到永远不让对方知道。不然就分手。”

“We have agreed that we can both have other lovers as long as we think that this is the right thing to do. The rule is, after it happens, we have two ways to deal with it. The first way, is telling the partner at once, the partner can be jealous, but can not ask for a break up; the second way is, keep it a secret, but the person who do this must conceal the affair forever, otherwise, we have to break up. ”

“请你忘了我吧
 
因为爱情就跟艺术一样，它除了在那些稍纵即逝的时刻为你提供最高美感外，就再也给不了你什么了。”

“Please forget me
because love is like art, it doesn’t give you anything but superior aesthetics in those transient moments”

她和他是镜子见到镜子
和她在一起的时间，是他生命中的宝藏
和他在一起她很幸福
跟他在一起的无数回忆,让她的人生变得精彩

“He and she, are, like a mirror encountering another mirror

The time being with her is a treasure of his life

She is happy when being with him

The numerous memories between the two of them make her life a bliss”

Description of image above

Spotted on Facebook… the RL “avatar” of Rodion Resistance, one of RMB City’s beloved engineers, posting about his current activity…
Every city needs to eat… No digital farmers, no food!

“this morning when i wake up
 
i read your name, three times
 
it was so clear, so simple, so easy…
 
thats the way you stay at my mouth.”

SEX IS OUR COUNTRY SIDE。
 
SEX IS VERY IMPORTANT
 
BUT SEX IS NOT THE TRUTH。

“You don’t own me,
I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me,
don’t say I can’t go with other boys”

“sex is just some wonderful drops
 
after a long dark day…”

“I am not happy and I will not smile because life is hell when you are unhappy. I realise I have done to much damage to you in the past few days… I can totaly understand you when you say that you dont want to see me and I promise to leave you alone!!!
I have made many mistakes in my life but I have never been so depressed as this time…
It is sad what has happened between us and I realise now that my heart is more broken because I love you… not like a friend but like my true soulmate lover… I want you to believe me when I say that and I dont care if you dont love me anymore… I will always carry you in my heart…
 
Please dont stay away from me too long… this would destroy me and I could not live with that.
I am very very tired and will sleep now…”

The other day, I saw that my friend had an interesting Facebook status update posted:
“Winnie Chan is… so amazed that architect used to work long hours in Song dynasty China (14.4 hours in summer and 9.6 hours in winter)”

This made me laugh a bit, as we RMB Kids have sometimes been working late hours these days, as Beijing night falls earlier and earlier, and the days get colder and colder. I sent a message to Winnie (who is an architectural student, one of the creators of Green Map HK, and my former studio-mate from Fo Tan), asking where she got this information. She replied that it was taken from the Song Dynasty architectural manual “Yingzao Fashi” (營造法式) (which she was reading even though her study period is Qing Dynasty gardens and city of Yangzhou).

I became curious about this book, and after a bit of Googling, found that it was written by Li Jie (李誡), an architect and author who unified several older treatises on architectural methods into one document, which was then published by the Song Emperor Huizhong in 1103, to provide a standardized methodology to architects, engineers, and government officials.

Especially as we are in the process of exploring the possibilities of feng shui in Second Life and RMB City, it is interesting to think about traditional bodies of knowledge, and how and when they are standardized. The idea of an “instruction manual” with absolute rules, guidelines, and styles for building a palace, a city, an empire, is simultaneously worrying and attractive. Would it help or hinder creativity? In some unintentional way, have China Tracy and Jia Nootan (RMB City’s Artistic Coordinator) been forming our own “Yingzao Fashi” in the process of working with our engineers Avatrian? In the rapidly-evolving field of virtual architecture, where cities can rise in the blink of an eye and disappear as quickly, is there any need for such discrete units of systematized knowledge? Our RMB City Archive, and the upcoming feng shui project, aim to explore just this.

Yingzao Fashi detail… People’s Palace detail…

(more…)

Architecture and Lifestyle magazine Urbane gives a short blurb about the RMB City in their recent issue.
To read the whole article, click here…

James Au, the Second Life expert and RMB City’s good old friend, just posted a blog post on RMB ‘s Mian Mian project: “Love Letter to an Avatar”. James Au described Mian Mian as “Shanghai’s literary bad girl”, as her books have been banned by the Chinese government since 2000. The Second Life first-hand reporter also talked to the controversial writer on the love letter project, to read their conversation, see here

People’s Monthly – RMB City’s newsletter which contains all RMB-City-related statistics, interviews and articles – is going to be launched in January 2009. For those who want to know about this exciting publication, we offer a little preview of the newsletter – a flyer that is available in the Shop in Jian Wai Soho – for them to get a glimpse of this coming-soon RMB City production.