Friday, March 20, 2009

Lecture after Lecture . . .







Good afternoon all,

This week was an educational experience all its own.

Monday I had another jewelry class at the Community Center with CeCe.

Tuesday we went to a lecture at Gang Feng Wang's home. He lives in a typical apartment building a short drive west of Shama. Skip (CeCe's driver) took us and made sure we were in the right apartment block before he left us. He's the greatest!

Gang Feng Wang is a 53 year old man who grew up during the Liberation of China. He is a professional fashion photographer but his passion is photographing typical Chinese people in their own elements. He also provides commercial photography for many businesses and companies in Shanghai and China. He is absolutely brilliant and I will have to purchase some of his photographs to bring home. He did provide us with some post cards that I will bring home with me next month so if you plan on seeing me, please ask me to bring them along. They are amazing. His web page is http://www.gangofone.net/. Check out his work. Let me know if you'd like me to bring something home for you.
I have included a photograph of a beautiful "room furnace" that looked like cloisonne and was in the middle of the room at his lovely home. A photograph of Gang's father and my friend Cynthia. Mr. Wang was a delight. He's 85 years young and got all dressed up to meet us. He worked on a Chinese merchant freighter for years traveling the world and his English is quite good; he doesn't think so but it is very good. He loves to sing and serenaded us with a lovely song that brought tears to my eyes. He so reminded me of my own dad, whom I miss so very much.

Gang's wife, Coin Qian, is a lovely young woman who is a contemporary artist here in Shanghai. Her work is basically of Chinese women but I did see some other works in her home. Her web page is http://www.coinqian.com/ .
Needless to say, the Chinese have a wonderful way of welcoming you into their home. There were wonderful dumplings with pork and vegetables and some with chicken and vegetables. Very much like raviolis but different and very good. I ate mine with a fork but our friend, Julie ate hers with chopsticks because she's almost Chinese by now.

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