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China was the trip of a lifetime ( so far) for me and Marian. We hadn't been
anywhere else in the world and this opportunity was just a great chance to do
something ! Our Party consisted of Me and Marian, Kerrie and Chris, Jenny,
Eileen, Leonie and Karen Whittaker-Taylor (the Arts Officer for Baw Baw Shire). I don't know what I expected but after a long flight( 10 hours) we
finally got there.( I know 10 hours is not long compared to the past where it
took months to travel there but I am a big bloke and sitting in the little
aeroplane seats was not really ideal!). We had an extra 90 minutes of travel as
the plane had to be diverted around the edge of a typhoon. On the plane were 60
odd Chinese late primary school students who played computer games the whole
way, ate too much and threw up .As we got closer to China they became noisier
and noisier as they were returning after 3 weeks in Australia. We left in the cold and after flying over
cloud the whole way arrived in Shanghai into a hot and humid evening. We stayed in Shanghai overnight and then
went by internal flight to Nanchang and then to Jiu Jiang.
I
hadn't expected the country side to be so lush and green on the way to Jiu Jiang.
Jiu Jiang is a lovely city surrounded by mountains except you don't notice the
mountains as the pollution is so thick that it covers the view. This is a rare
view showing the reticent mountains.
Chinese driving is not
quite the same as Australian driving and it seems that lines on the road are a
suggestion only. Driving on either side of the road, passing on hills when you
can't see who is coming and crossing from one side to another at any time seems
to be usual. The Chinese driver wore white gloves and beeped his horn to
alert the drivers that he was overtaking. Both We did get there and stayed at the Smile and Natural Hotel. The S and N
is a 5 star hotel where we were based for the 10 days.
(
this would have to be a really weird name and presumably what they meant was as
charming as a natural smile but some one in their wisdom decided Smile and
Natural was better!
This view is looking out our window over JiuJiang and the site of a new hotel being built . ( welding kept going all night and welding helmets were of the invisible type)
I sort of expected a lot of english speakers but it seems that everyone
learns English like we learn French and a good three words remain after school
finishes. However, there were a number of people that spoke reasonably well (
thankyou Miss Julia and Ms Lily) and everyone tried hard to be friendly and
helpful. The hotel staff were in the main lovely
and we soon felt very
comfortable there. We went out walking in the evening( did I mention that it was
uniformly humid... like a hot shower!) and we walked around the lake in front of
the hotel. Everyone really uses the open green bits and there were thousands of
people walking, playing games and singing in the evening.
Kerrie was a real star
with many as her blonde looks and small size made her look very appealing.
The next day we went out drawing first thing in the morning and Gary went to the lake and the lotus patch to do his first piece.I didnt have anything other than my sketch book and so I did some sketches. Marian got me a board( lovely and light , Korflute with a layer or two of veneer on top and wooden edges) and some paper from the art shop during the day . Masking tape was a challenge and we ended up with double sided tape. )
Gary drawing and being enjoyed by the locals
After breakfast we were taken off by Mr Hu to visit the buddhist art factory.
This was a series of rooms on the upper floors of a building in the main street
of JuiJiang. As we went higher the building became more rustic until at the top
floor it was pole and beam construction. I don't know what I expected but our exhibition was to be held in a
private art gallery near the Hotel. I thought a city of 4 million or so would
have an art gallery about the size of our Victorian NGV or even Fed Square but
it seems the three room space we had one room of was the main gallery for Jiu
Jiang.
.
The big disappointment for me was that my work was held up in customs.
Apparently the boxes had all been labelled painting and obviously my work was
not paintings. We were not sure what was going to arrive and eventually the work
arrived, everyone else's but not mine, only the plinths I packed arrived. We
set our exhibition up and then learned that people didn't just walk in , they
were invited in so a word of mouth system was in place. It did work but the idea
was so foreign to us that we thought a sign was
more appropriate to our democratic approach . We made one out of an old pallet with the aid of some helpful
visitors.
I thought we needed a hammer and some better wire and set off in a taxi to get
these simple devices. However there was no real clear place to go although
eventually we did find a place to buy wire and a separate place to buy a hammer.
Hardware stores could be a real go !
The shire delegation arrived and this consisted of David and Sue Balfour, Adam Tyson and his wife ,John and his wife , Glenn Patterson and his wife and Vicki Keane
That evening we had a banquet
provided by the vice Mayor. This was also quite out of my experience and we had a
lovely array of interesting dishes including "Tea incense chicken hit by wing".
However we were not familiar with how banquets are conducted and suddenly the
main people were finished so we all left our half finished meals and left as
well to go and view the exhibition. All ok but not quite what we were expecting.