Notes From Me

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Along the way

The last view of land I saw when leaving Japan, just before the drizzling sky broke into wide blue patches reflected in the deepening water, was a long outcropping of bridge parts or giant metal swan frames suggesting a town of mechanisms only.

On the ship I met Pepper, from England, who had been volunteering at a hospital in Japan. She and I made plans for venturing around Shanghai. I should have taken a picture of her; she had a most serene face. I read a lot during the two days at sea--one of my sending off gifts had been Autobiography of a Yogi. I was happy to read of the Indian saints who had an understanding of the workings of physicality, and reminded that materiality doesn't have to be limited (or limiting).

For me the best place in Shanghai was Yu Garden, which was anciently walled off from the streets and contained improbable rock forms with archways and passages that led to courtyards lined with flowering bonsais. There were immense halls and studies, exhibition rooms, small lakes and "stone boats" that were really wooden buildings topped with curving dragons.

Chinese train stations are odd entities, looking from the outside like refugee camps. Inside, hangarlike waiting rooms flank an enormous thoroughfare hosting a great swath of people, many hefting frayed plastic tote bags that were plaid and of hugely comic disproportion. Just before boarding, I looked but could not see the end of the train, its coaches receeding to a vanishing point.

Guangzhou, much more than Shanghai, has a New York essence that I like. I stayed with a family who were two doctors plus their daughter. I went one day while they were at work (and school) to an art museum. After paying my entrance fee an Italian woman approached and told me she'd been all over the museum, somehow without having paid, and had gone up to the 2nd and 3rd floors but that, "all the doors were locked." We both laughed. "There is only this," she gestured toward a large hall and said, "calligraphy." It turned out to be paintings by Chao Shao'Ang.

There were more exhibitions to see, no locked doors, and then I sat outside at a table near a koi pond. Immediately someone sat down and spoke at length in Chinese. He opened a large sketchbook and said, "Draw?" and then another person sat to my left and engaged me in halting English. This was his teacher, he explained, and the other people beginning to crowd around were students, as was he. The museum was closing so we left.

Outside, the student said, "My teacher wants to invite you tomorrow to (I couldn't understand at all what he said) so just call," and he gave me a number. I knew I would have trouble remembering and pronouncing his name but later I got it. Zeng Xihua (sounds a little like jeng see-hwa). The next day I went to the place they'd invited me to, a very worn building where they were having an intensive four-month study. This is the top floor:

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I spent many happy hours over the next few days with the students, unhesitatingly included in their arm-linking friendliness. The teacher Mr. Ming asked me on my last day to sit for him to paint and the students to draw, a change for them since they usually had Chinese drawing models. Here is what he painted:

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For some reason he remarked that Zeng Xihua and I looked like brother and sister. I don't think so, also I don't think I look quite like myself here:

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About not smiling in the photo, he said, "Sorry I don't laugh in the picture. It's wrong." He thought he looked bad when smiling, but he smiles so often, I made sure to take another picture:

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This is from the cemetary of the 72 martyrs:

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2 Comments:

B Goei commented at 4/03/2005~: astounding post! i love the images you presented. they float into my mind so easily.

it seems like you meet lots of interesting people on your trips. i hope the people of the world are as amiable this summer when i'm taking my trips and voyages.
JJJ commented at 4/04/2005~: Hey!
Yes, that is a cool visage- the portrait of you; it's somehow a bit cubist.
Also, I really like the name 'cemetary of the 72 martyrs'.
Thank you for all the pictures. It makes me wish for a good, digital camera as well. And a computer. And an adventure.

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