Bookish Mural

China is better known for sprawling developments of faceless apartment towers, and for good reason: there are miles of them in every city. But Qingdao also has some of the best street art of any city I’ve ever visited, possibly including Reykjavik, and many of the best murals are on apartment buildings.

Qingdao is in Shandong province, which the wonderful book Oracle Bones informs me is where the titular oracle bones were found. Those carved bones are the earliest evidence of writing in the world. Shandong province was also the birthplace of Confucius, whose writings are a pillar of Chinese scholarship. So it’s not surprising that even their street art has a literary bent.

{By the way, a recent Google “On this day” alert sent me down a rabbit hole of neglected photos from the 2015 homeland trip I took with my then 10-year-old daughter. You can expect to see pictures of China in this Sunday 1000 Words space for a long time to come.}