Cool Oasis In The City Heat
By Shi Jing (China Daily)
2010-08-29 10:59
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"A lot of women are actually made to cook and they do not enjoy it. My kitchen is most conducive to cooking and makes a willing cook out of anyone.
"Even if you do not cook, you will find it comfortable just sitting here and killing time," she says.
Despite Dai's aversion to all things old, her apartment has three specimens: a Tibetan drum, a long bench and a pair of thermos flasks.
"My husband and I found the drum in a flea market," she says. "We brought it home because we liked its unique sound. It is comforting to hear the deep resonance as the drum sings."
The pair of thermos flasks look similar to those commonly used during the 1990s and before, but Dai's two flasks were brought back all the way from the United Kingdom about 10 years ago.
"I bought the thermos flasks because I liked the color, turquoise," she says. "Nowadays, if you check out boutiques featuring unique handicrafts, you can find these everywhere. But for us, instead of merely placing them as decoration, my husband and I actually use them for coffee when we go out for picnics. They are just the right size."
A closer look at her apartment reveals her sense of humor as a designer.
Almost every visitor will notice the lamp suspended from the center of the living room. It is actually a dozen separate lamps tied together, angled such that each lights up a different part of the living room.
"It was a huge task bringing home the lamp because it has too many parts," she says. "But it looked so humorous that I could not go home without it. Besides, the paper lamp that was hanging there before did not suit the room and this was the perfect replacement.
"But we did not expect the electric wires connecting the lamps to be so long," she says. "Some were dangling right to the sofa. We tried many ways to make them shorter and in the end, the best solution was to tie them up in knots. It also made the lamp look even better."
There are three one-meter-long thermometers standing alongside slender bamboo in a vase at a corner of the room. Dai says the thermometers are there to keep the bamboo company.
"It is another funny story," she says. "After I moved into this new apartment, I found my bamboos looking quite lonely in that corner. And then an idea struck me. Why not put the thermometers there? They were sitting doing nothing in my old studio so I took them home.
"And what do you know, they matched," says Dai.