Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Stargates in the Snow

Here's a big story coming out of China:
A Disneyland made entirely of ice and snow has been built in China's freezing northern city of Harbin as part of the city's Ice Festival.

Local authorities hope the park, featuring Disney characters and rides made of ice, will help attract around 800,000 tourists.

 

Harbin, on the edge of Siberia, is one of China's coldest places, where temperatures can drop to -35 degree Celsius. - BBC

Quite an amazing sight. Asia seems to be producing amazing spectacles at an astonishing rate. And all the ritual bases seem to be hit, yet again. Here we see a nice collection of illuminated obelisks. There's also a nice display of glowing, pulsating steeples on the BBC video.

And there are the obligatory fireworks and the now-obligatory Ferris Wheel, with the obligatory illuminated sun rays. Some symbols are universal, I guess.

Like Stargates, for example.

In the past we've looked at ice as being a metaphor for the cosmic void, so this particular symbol is extremely tantalizing in this context.

Speaking of illuminated obelisks, the always-reliable Yahoo! News has this on the front page:

Do you ever feel like we're all stuck in a reality TV version of The Lathe of Heaven?