Portland Chinese Gardens

"Only by contemplating nature, can truth be found." This was a quote in a brochure about the Portland Chinese Gardens. Our group from World View scattered throughout the Gardens, armed with notebooks and cameras. You could see people scribbling away in their notebooks and discussing what they were seeing with their partners. The idea was to record observations of what we were seeing through the grid of the 12 signal systems of communication. Proposition 11 in "Creating Understanding" states:
"All human communication occurs throught the use of twelve signal systems." These are: verbal, written, numeric, pictorial, artifactual, audio, kinesic, optical, tactile, spatial, temporal, olfactory. Any observation from the Chinese Gardens would fit into one or more of these signal systems. For example, there were 2 banners at the entrance of each building with six Chinese characters - these would be: written(the Chinese characters) numeric (the number of banners, number of characters), pictorial(the banners themselves), tactile (made of smooth metallic)and spatial(the location of the banners). There is much that could be learned about any culture and its beliefs through these signal systems.