I know I should just google this or something, but I'm wondering if you can actually "see" the individual groups of retinal cells that are excited by certain wavelengths of light. Not that this in of itself matters to anyone, but it would be nifty. I think I can or at least I can imagine what it would look like (little tiny dots of light in a dark situation, think Seurat) but I think our brains probably do a lot of the filling in-between the cells. However, I think my eye doc has told me that I have fewer retinal cells than I should so maybe I'm special.

In arguably more interesting news, I found a Chinese opera group practicing by Bei Hai this evening. That's one of the few things that has met my preconceived notions of China. We expect to find random pockets of rich Chinese culture--and, lucky for us, we do. Each singer took turns singing what were probably famous songs with the five-piece orchestra. The only instrument I knew the name of was the erhu. I'm guessing the songs are well known since every so often random old people would join in for a few bars. I'm not a good judge of these things so I can only say that, in my opinion, they sounded great. All this was nearly in the dark, illuminated by a distant green light, next to one of those ubiquitous excercise playgrounds, the kind you find in any city in China. It made my night.