What's your style?

Greetings, everyone, again from Beijing!

Ellen, Bob, (and now, Zheng and Aye-yun) and I are having a blast in Beijing.  We leave in 48 hours to return to the United States!  There are so many stories:  short, long, hilarious, epic, passing.  And about as many photos to go with them.  

When we were in Kunming, giving our assembly-style presentations to the children at KIA (see post, "134 Waves"), we had received some really stunning gifts as a thank-you for our performances that afternoon.  We are discovering further and further that China is a gift-culture.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy).  

Within the gift-bags were some stunning gifts from Eden Ministry.  These amazing pieces of jewelry and art are made by women formerly held captive by the sex trafficing and prostitution businesses that we have heard about from the Asian countries.  You can read more about the jewelry and Eden's philosophy here:  http://edenministry.org/.  

The jewelry was definitely hand-picked for me and for Ellen.  They nailed our individual styles, which was interesting, because the person purchasing and presenting the gifts to us had only met us 45 minutes prior to the concerts.  Our friend and über-agent in Kunming, Mari, had given her friend Ruth specific instructions as to our styles.  

I was tickled by this, so I pulled Mari aside and asked, "How did you describe my style so well?  What did you tell your friend?"

With a grin, she said, "Well, I told her your coloring (hair-skin-eye).  And then, I just used the words,

"Celtic Bohemian."

I'm not showing pictures of the jewelry here because I have since visited the shop and made some fun Christmas shopping choices.  However, the picture attached is a gift from Zheng when I was in Beijing the first time.  It's not exactly Celtic Bohemian, but it's fun, and this has kept me warm against some pretty cold weather!

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Kristin Ditlow
kristin.ditlow@gmail.com
215.527.4237
coming soon: www.kristinditlow.com