Charlie Shugart Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Upon further reflection, you may be more right than I was, MrChile.
Yesterday was not a good day for me- a friend insulted me badly, and worst of all, probably didn't even know it.
As I was processing this photo, I realized that although the man's look might be considered "neutral" at worst, in my dozen trips to Hong Kong I had come to realize that almost without exception, the only real (apparent) friendliness and politeness from any of the Chinese came in first class establishments and when I was considering buying a product. Same thing with the seven trips I took onto China. In Macao, I slowly raised my camera to take a photo of some men with "Red China" in the distance. They waved their hands no, so I put my camera down, turned, and as I walked away they threw small rocks at me.
Among the rare exceptions in China were when I asked permission to take photos of parents and grandparents with the little ones. Invariably, they were all smiles and cooperative.
This man's "gaze" suddenly slapped me in the face with all that (except for the kid photography).
By the way- My five trips to Japan were exactly the opposite. I could stop a scurrying businessman in downtown Tokyo and ask him where the Old Imperial Hotel was located, and there was a fair chance that he would walk me there- since outside the tourist industry, few Japanese speak English, and he was too polite to leave me stranded.
Charlie
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