A Very Good Day: Honeymoon in Hangzhou

February 12, 2012 | Howard Kaplan

monocrome image of woman sitting in windowIn 1925 writer, curator, and professor Benjamin March—one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art in the 1920s and 1930s—and his wife spent their honeymoon in Hangzhou, China, which he recorded in his journal and in photographs. Here’s an excerpt just in time for Valentine’s Day:

“In the early afternoon, we took rickshas [sic] and rode out of the city through narrow streets to Six Harmony Pagoda. I had been wanting to visit it again, and to try a couple of pictures I had not been able to make succeed the last time. We took our supper down to our boat and went out on the lake to enjoy the moon. We drifted and paddled about the lake and the islands. After supper we sat, wrote a little verse, and then Dorothy sang for a long while and I lay on my back watching the white moon. A good day, a very good day—and no rain.”

Learn more about the Benjamin March papers in the Archives of the The National Museum of Asian Art’s Freer Gallery.

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