"Ten Places To Visit Before You Die"

There is a list, "Ten Places to Visit Before You die."

Then, there is the list, "Hundred Places To See Before You Die."

Now I ask you: How many of us can afford the time, money, and energy to do this? Ten places, many be.

To me, just drive by the main thoroughfare of a city on a tour bus is not how to "visit" a place. 
Touring Ten Countries in Eight Days? 
No, thank you.

I lived in London for a year, and never really got to know most parts of that big city.
I lived in Hong Kong for eight years.
I grew up in Shanghai.

Now, I do have the time and money to do some of these suggested visits, I find them exhausting. 
Ah, advanced age. Life is not perfect.

Now, let's see. Suppose I have four or five years left for me to travel to some places, what would be my choices?

I have been to many of the places already - in some of them, I had spent many days, perhaps weeks or months. So . . .

I think I would like to spend few months in a farm house in Tuscany, Italy, or in Provence, France.
I could roam the market place, mingle with the locals. Be a traveler, but not a tourist. Be anonymous in a local restaurant - 
But, then I would miss my home. 

I could take a trip back to Hong Kong to visit family and friends. 
I could take a trip or two to some cities in the U.S. 

But, I don't think that I enjoy being a vagabond any more.
I would simply stay home - and try to discover the beauty around me, the beauty that I have been overlooking for many years. 
There are hundred of things that I have not noticed, many places that I have not been, right outside my doorstops.

So let me visit "them" before I die!

Following My Passion

I was approaching the conventional retirement age. But I did not wish to simply quit working. I thought I would slow down a little and do something which I always wanted to do - Painting. 
I had a little training in Chinese painting, but there was no one in Ada who could teach me more and perhaps take me to a higher level. 
I do like oil and watercolor paintings, but I really did not know much about either.
I needed to find a teacher. 

That turned out to be a difficult task.

I took some evening courses offered by the University Public Service Program. I tried to have some private lessons from a lady who lived some forty miles away from Ada. I finally settled on a lady who held regular classes in her studio closer by.
So for one afternoon a week, I would go to Carolyn's studio and try to paint. I purchased the necessary supplies and was eager to learn.

I told my associates that that afternoon would be my time. "Don't call me unless it is life or death."

Carolyn is a sweet lady, self taught, and quite talented. However, her style is not what I wished to follow. Also she did not teach theory but would merely show us what to do on our painting surfaces.

I needed directions, I needed theories, I needed to understand them . . .

My friend Mildred invited me to paint with her. Mildred introduced me to Bob Ross Workshops and she taught me how to enter art shows.
Bob Ross method got me started, but that kind of painting was not enough for me.

I did that for a while.
I felt that there was something missing.

Then, I went to Ardmore, a town some sixty or so miles southwest of Ada, and took a three-day Oil Painting Workshop. It opened my eyes.
Real working Artists teaching real art Classes - real art instructions! 
Still it took me another year or two before I figured out a way to attend Ann Templeton's workshops in New Mexico and old Mexico. For about eight or so years, I would go to her workshops once or twice a year. 
I had to unlearn my bad habits and my crafty techniques, and learn how to paint like a Painter.
Ann put me on the right path.
It was a slow process. Once a year with your teacher was not enough.
However, by then, I was hooked. I made time to pursue my passion for painting.
Meeting Ann was a beginning.

Since then, I have learned to research Artists on internet. I have learned by studying art books (of course, putting what you learn by books into practice is a different matter). I took classes in drawing and other art courses at the university. 
I try to find artists whose works I admire and learn from them. 
An on-going process.

After I finally retired from working when I turned seventy-five, I paint, I paint, and I paint.

I am still learning.

Painting Workshops

I did quite a lot of traveling after 1989. Almost every other year or so, I would take off and go to Hong Kong or London, England. 
I visited family and friends, and had my Fix of being in the Big Cities for a few days.
I would take in the sights. Shopping in Hong Kong. Going to the theater and museums in London. Yes, I was away from the ever demanding business of running a Real Estate Agency. 
I took time off. 
I was, however, still seeking out new sights, new sounds, new places, and perhaps new friends.

And my husband and I took some cruises in the mid nineties. We did the Panama Canal Cruise, the Alaska Inland Passage Cruise, and the Western Caribbean Cruise; during the last one, the ship hit a sand bar and we had to abandon ship, so to speak. That was that for cruising for us.

Did I enjoy them?. Yes, I did. It was great to be pampered for a week or two, with not a worry in the world. 
Good food. Great service. No housework. No phone calls . . .
Did I think it being the ultimate way of traveling? No.
There was something missing. 
I did not particularly like the many days on the water. I don't think it was that great to read a book on the deck. I could do that at home without paying $200 a day.
Did I enjoy seeing the sights? Definitely. But the stays were too short for my liking.
You might say that I was hard to please. 
Am I hard to please? Not really.

When I started to learn how to paint, in early 2000s I found what I had been looking for - Painting Workshops at home and abroad! Two glorious weeks in beautiful settings doing nothing but paint and sampling the local fare - nourishing my soul so to speak.  
I did not aim to produce master pieces, but I was totally happy.

Is this for everyone? No. Unless you are as crazy as we painters are, always struggling to capture the scene, or the essence of the scenes,- in blazing sun, whipping wind, sudden showers, and, sometimes, snow or blizzard. But you do come home with renewed energy and great memories. 
May be you made a new friend or two. 
And per chance, you did a couple of decent pictures.
And you would always have learned something.

That was reward enough for me.

Another Pair Of Eyes

This month I have been busy entering Art Shows.

There is a lot of work going into this - getting the finished works ready to hang and so on. Not to mention the many trips I have to take to and from to where the show is.
It is not that I needed people's approval, although it is always a thrill to win, ribbons and prize money.

Why do we put our works out there to be judged, to be criticized, and to be rejected, sometimes? 

Painting is a lonely business. You do your work by yourself. Sometimes, it is difficult for ourselves to know whether we are doing well or not. 

In the beginning we tend to love everything we do. A masterpiece every time? We treasured what we produced and loved them to death - they are our babies! We are crushed when some one criticized our babies. 
We are blind to our faults.

However, at some point you need another pair of eyes.
You need some honest feedback. Why?
Because we don't always see our faults.
You may say that there is no right or wrong in making art - express yourself. Right. Still what has been proven throughout the years has some merit.

You are lucky if you have a friend with a good eye and a friend who is honest with you. You may not agree with him. Buy I tell you, you need to value his advice and then make up your own mind.

My friend Mildred was the one who guided me many years ago. She told me to enter shows. 
I said, "I don't have anything to enter. "
She said, "Yes, you do." She then told me to enter some of the works I did.

Lo and behold, I won!

That was the beginning of me getting into painting.
Mildred, thank you.
So I am doing this with some young friends of mine. I am their Mildred now. 
One of them is a student of mine who has only been painting in oil for a year. She is doing so well and she is beating me. I am proud of her. Of course, I am not her only teacher. But still . . .

When she wanted me to take her on last year, I was reluctant. I did not wish to waste my precious time on giving lessons to someone who merely wanted to paint to pass her time or to "visit."
Not so with Sunkyung, she is passionate about painting. It overwhelmed me. On top of that, she has talent.

Teaching has taught me more than I ever learned in classes. I am glad she made me her teacher.

I am her other pair of eyes, and someday, she will be mine.
Thank you, Sunkyung.

My Mother

My mother's life is a story itself.

Mother was born during Qin (Ch'in) Dynasty, when the Dowager Empress Xici was in power - seven years before China became a Republic. China became a Republic in 1911.
she was orphaned when she was six or seven. She and her widowed mother lived with the extended family. 
I do not know how my grandfather, her father, died. What of? What did he do? I have no picture of him.
She escaped from bound feet because of her forward-thinking uncle, Number Three. Number Three was like a father to her.
I was told that she had wanted to be a teacher, but my grandmother would not let her leave home. She had a high school education. She was not particularly well read but well spoken, she was good with math, and excelled in sewing and knitting. She was a good manager of a large household.

She and my father married for Love, which was quite unusually in those days. You would say that she married well - she married the First born of a wealthy family. 

All through her life, there were riots, revolutions, and wars (wars between war-lords, wars between the revolutionaries and the dynasty, wars between communism and the republic). She went through Japanese occupation, World War II . . .
Throughout her life, she had many, many ups and downs. But she never talked about it.

Mother was in her early eighties when I went to see her in Hong Kong in 1987.

She was frail but not totally disabled. She had had a minor stroke.
I found her in an old folks' home, in a very congested area of Hong Kong.
She lived in a room not much bigger than my walk-in closet in the U.S. All her worldly possessions were in that tiny room.
She had some sort of a hot pot which she used to cook chicken soup with ginseng, a supplement to her meals at the Home. Her eyesight was very poor, she was legally blind with macula-degeneration. She was wearing a beautifully knitted white vest which she made for herself not long before I went to see her.
She could knit even when she could not see.

There were some ten or twelve women in that home. The home was privately run. I did know if they had any trained nurses there or not. Most likely not.
Mother did not like to live in the dorm like area, so she had a room of her own. Though it was small, it was at least hers.

I was in Hong Kong for a very short time.
I went back to see her again at the beginning of l989, after she had a massive stroke. She was not able to move or talk then. 
Mother had lost her husband, seven of her thirteen children, and alienated most of her other children by then, namely two of my brothers and my sister. 
With the help of mother's cousin, I had the very unpleasant task of taking care some of her personal matters for her - preparing for her death in a manner. 
She could not talk, but I could see the anger and the sadness in her eyes. She was no longer in control of her life.
I returned to the U.S. after a short stay.

Mother passed away four months later.

                                 Fu      father   mother  me   2 ahmas

                                        mother            me

"Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House"

While we are on the subject of building houses, I would like to tell you about a book called Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodges.

Mr. Hodges had a never-used degree in engineering from M.I.T. Instead he worked with the Atlantic Monthly group of publications. He later became Fortune's publisher  and vice-president of Time, inc.

"Mr. Blandings is a story of everything that happened between the time Mr. and Mrs. Blandings decided to buy an old farmhouse and its acreage for $11,000 and the time they shelled out the last of the $56,263 their dream home eventually cost."

The initial cost of the land and the farmhouse was actually $11,550. The restoration of the house was estimated to be for around $11,000. 

The biological laboratory warned Mr. Blandings that the waters were unpotable.
"He had better drill a well."

All the bids were in. "The hideous figure was somewhat in excess of $45,000."
The cost-cutting job begins.
"You could cut the cost of a $31,000 house somewhat - at the sacrifice of everything you wanted most . . . "

Then, some day no one was on the job.
"Where is everybody today?"

 And so on . . .

You will find that you are reading about yourself.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is an universal experience. 

I had read this book before I built my house.

Believe me, it helped me keep my cool during our construction period.

It is a good read!

A New Home

By 1985, S.C. and I were "empty nesters." The old house was feeling a bit too big for us, plus the fact that it needed work done constantly.

The two older girls got married, and our youngest one had one more year at the University of Oklahoma.

I had acquired a couple of building lots across the street from our home by some unexpected turn of events. So we started thinking about building a smaller home there.

The following year, we sold our house, without even putting it on the market.
I convinced my husband that we should sell while we had a good buyer. 
So, we moved into a rent house temporarily.

It took us almost two years to design and had a house built to suit us.
We designed the home so that we have a self-contained down-stairs. The upstairs are reserved for the girls and their families when they come home for visits.
S.C. said that he needed three things for the house -
  - a garden to grow vegetables in
  - a room for his fishing and hunting gears
  and 
  - an urinal!
If he got what he wanted, then I could do whatever-else I wanted with the house. 

A Deal!

So I used whatever knowledge I had learned from being in the Real Estate business, and designed an home to suit us, with the special half-bath that has a urinal in it. He also got his Hobby room, with a sink to boot, for cleaning fish.  And, he had plenty of garden space for his vegetables.

As expected, we encountered numerous problems and had a lot of frustrations. When building a house, there are hundreds of decisions to made and problems to solve almost everyday. But neither of us lost our cool over any problems. 
We made many trips to Oklahoma City to purchase lighting fixtures and other things to hold down the cost.
I am usually good about making decisions quickly and stick with my choices. So did S.C. 
Besides I think that I had the idea that I would like to have a house built someday. I was always drawing floor plans, like a want-to-be architect. So I already knew pretty much what I wanted. 
Pleasant and comfortable! Lots of windows! Lots of storage spaces! Lots of wall space for artworks!

Believe me, the satisfaction of having a home built to suit your needs far outweighs any problems. 

We did not get a divorce over building our home.
We moved into this house in 1989.

I am still in the house, and I still love it.

"China Journey"

Today, I was working as a volunteer at our Public Library's  annual Book Sale.

We had a great number of books for sale at a most reasonable price - paper backs for fifty cents a piece, hardback and a dollar each. There were CDs, tapes, and so on. If your local library has similar functions, you should go there. It is a great way to buy some books.

I came across Malcolm Purvis's "China Journey, a Winter Impression."

Macolm is an architect with a love of fine arts. He worked in Hong Kong for a number of years. While in Hong Kong, He and his wife, (who is also an architect) took a trip to China, they visited many of the places I mentioned, Beijing, Chengde, and Shanghai; and other parts.

"From the splendours of the Forbidden City and the collapsing houses lining the Grand Canal to the dusty wooden temples of Chengde, the author's sketches and narrative give a tantalizing glimpse of the experiences open to those who undertake the China Journey."

Malcolm's sketches are outstanding.

It is also a good Read.

You can be an arm chair traveler.

Home Sweet Home

Our return trip to the U.S. was much shorter. We did have less stopovers.

Most of us were pretty tired. Even Pat. He stopped talking as much. We all got some rest on the flight home.

You know I love traveling. But I am always happy to come home.

People sometimes say that they travel to get away. I travel mostly to see new places and meet new people. It is always interesting to me to learn about different people and different places. 
Life is interesting.

However, there is no other place in the world I would rather live in than this good old U.S. and A. 
Believe me, this is the best place to be.

I know lot of people who are dis-satisfied about this and that and the other.

People complain about the government.
 
People complain about health care. 

People complain about the pot holes in the streets. 

People complain about minimum wages . . .

Of course, there are always things that are not to our liking. No one is perfect. No place is perfect. No government is perfect. Perfection is a perception, not a fact.

But -
Try to live in a place with no clean water.
Try to live in a place with no electricity.
Try to live in a place with no security.
Try to live in a place with no freedom.
Try to live in a place with no opportunities. 
No hope?

You will stop complaining.

I always have at least one room, or one corner of the room, that you can call your sanctuary. 
My home is my sanctuary.

Surround yourself with things you love and people you love. You would want to come Home to it always.

From Summer Palace To Shanghai

We were taken to the Summer Palace, some eight miles or so northwest of Beijing, originally built by Emperor Qiang Long. It was reputed to have 3000 buildings for the Emperor, his wives, his eunuchs, his servants, his many soldiers, and so on. 
It was the playground for the royalties.

Much of the place was destroyed in 1912, and was rebuilt in l924. 

But the marble boat and the lake survived the revolution.
The marble boat was turned into a gift shop.

History told me that The Empress spent the money on the Marble Boat and other luxuries at the Summer Palace instead of building the Chinese Navy, and that was the reason we lost the Opium War to the British. 
Was that the truth? Would the Chinese have won the War with a better Navy?
I wonder.

We had the renowned Peking Duck at its original restaurant near the Forbidden City. It was every bit as good as it was reputed, if not better. 
They had the best plum wine in the world!

Then off to Shanghai!

I had not been back to Shanghai since I left there in 1949. I did not know what to expect.
Of course, it had changed greatly.
But it was still crowded. A populous city always!
The harbor was still busy as ever.
New buildings sprout up in the ares across the  harbor where there were fields when I lived in Shanghai. And they were building the future tallest building in the East.

Many street names were changed.
I did not recognize most of them.
The famous horse-racing grounds were turned into a park.
The home where I grew up was not there anymore. Along with many of the houses, they had been razed to make way for a Flyover (a highway of sorts). 

The Bund (the water front) was still there. 
There was some attempt to restore some of the colonial buildings along the Bund. Some European companies had started to move back into the old financial part of Shanghai. The buildings were there, but they badly needed renovations.

It wasn't until 2001 when I revisited Shanghai that I saw a great deal of improvements. 
Of course, Shanghai has really developed and it is booming these days.

in 1986, most of the private buildings and homes were in disrepair. The nation was still struggling. 

There was serious air pollution. 

Of course, we were taken to the best places. 

We visited a Children's Academy, housed in a former mansion that needed paint and repairs. A selected group of children were being groomed, artistically and so on. But for the majority, the standard of education was noticeably underdeveloped.
In the evening, we were taken to a Chinese Acrobatic Show, which was entertaining. But it was nothing like the old Peking operas - like the difference between Crafts and Fine Arts.

Soon we had to leave, heading back to the U.S.

Like the Blind man and the elephant, we merely touched a very small part of this vast country.