Hello, my name is Shirley Yiping Zhang.I am a full time student of Graduate School and Chinese Painting School at Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing. I will complete my 4th class year in July, 2014. I was also a full time student of China Central Academy of Fine Arts for 1 year. Before I entered CNAA & CAFA, I had learned Chinese painting from a professor for 8 years and vocal music from 3 teachers for 9 years.

I have been educated at 8 universities over a total of 17 years. I was majoring in Chinese painting, Chinese language and literature, business management as a full time students for 9 years, and world economics, journalism and English as a part time student for 8 years. I got my master’s degree in Missouri State University, USA..

I was an instructor to teach Ancient Chinese and Classical Literature for 9 years, an editor and a manager in the Chinese Securities News & Information Industry for 18 years.

Since I achieved my career dream in the Chinese securities industry in 2000. I have been working on my childhood and lifetime’s dream: to study, explore and create my own E-bridge cross-culture and comprehensive art system with paintings, music, writing on the Internet and in the real world.


Here is what I have understood, studied and done until now:

Definition of the Current E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art Project

It is an art series that is based on Chinese painting, focused on Chinese poetry, combining music and singing, multiple-languages (right now, it includes Chinese and English), Chinese Characters and calligraphy, essays and cultural background. Its purpose is to help non-Chinese speakers and anyone who is interested in Chinese culture, arts and language to learn naturally, easily and artistically.

Its transmission style is to be: “ face to face + multi – media ( Internet + mass media ) ”

The Main Content of the Current E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art

Includes 5 series:

1. Vocal,Bilingual Poetry & Painting Series : Learn   
   Chinese Culture & Language by Enjoying Paintings, Music & Poetry;
2. Stories behind Chinese Painting Series;
3. Traditional Chinese Painting Series:
   Chinese Baimiao Paintings
   Chinese Gongbi--Realistic Paintings
   Chinese Xieyi--Freehand Brushworks
   Mixed Gongbi & Xieyi Paintings
   Chinese Mogu Painting
4. Music written by me for Chinese poems
5. Bilingual Chinese Songs

These series and whole of the web site include my 850 paintings; 162 translations of Chinese poems and 130 translation of Chinese folk songs; 196 singings in Chinese (162 Chinese poems and 130 Chinese folk songs in Chinese, 80 poems and 50 folk songs in Chinese and in English); More than 3000 articles on Chinese culture and about 800 records of Chinese poems, music, singings and language

The Target Users of E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art:

1. Chinese language learners and teachers
2. Chinese art learners
3. Anyone who are interested in Chinese culture,art and    language
4. Researchers of cross-culture and interdisciplinary training.

The Theoretical Basis of E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art:

-- Art is, in essence, a tool. Artists express their thoughts and feelings in different artistic languages, governments use the ideas in the arts to help them to manage their countries and ordinary people choose arts to please themselves. Just like the different tableware on a dining table can substitute for, complement and support each other to help the diner to enjoy his food more comfortably. Sister arts can also interact to affect audiences naturally. Combining the process of learning a culture or a language with the process of enjoying other, various art forms, makes the whole process more interesting and enjoyable, and helps learners to grasp knowledge and skills more easily.

-- Traditional Chinese arts are essentially comprehensive. Chinese painting is made up of poetry, calligraphy, painting and stamps of chops; Chinese classical poems were sung in ancient times; Chinese calligraphy and painting came from the same rootstock; Chinese traditional art theory emphasizes that a good painting should include the artistic conception of a poem and a good poem should include artistic conception of a painting. By enjoying the comprehensive arts (including paintings, music, poems and articles), people will be able to learn Chinese culture and language naturally.

-- Chinese classical poems are mainly made of Chinese primary words. Chinese primary words are universal (they are used by all Chinese speakers), stable (they have been used since they were created) and have prolificacy (they are the roots of new words). Learning Chinese classical poetry is the best way to encounter Chinese primary words and to open the door of Chinese language and culture. Therefore, almost all Chinese children start their Chinese learning by reciting classical poems.

Based on the above understanding, I have chosen Chinese painting as one of my comprehensive art works’ media, focused on the core of Chinese paintings – poetry; adding music, languages (Chinese and English), literature (poetry comments), historical background (about the poets and the stories behind their poems), and the inspirations (what we can learned from the ideas of the poems or its written style in the ancient times, to purify our spirits and to improve our skills in the contemporary era), to create a new and unique comprehensive art, to help non-Chinese speakers to learn about Chinese culture and language artistically, easily and naturally.

The Transmission Mode of E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art

The transmission mode and channels of this project should be multi-media style, Internet, paper media, DVD, TV, mobile phone and face to face by teaching, exhibitions, events, publications and so on.

The transmission frequency should be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly.

The Work Result of E-bridge Cross-culture and Comprehensive Art 2000 to 2013

Firstly, A little Internet platform www.ebridge.cn has been run for 8 years, it has had 11,000 registered users from more than 30 countries. A group of volunteers are working on it.

Secondly, I have found the way to improve my own Chinese art level on theory and practice, completed the transformation from securities to the arts, from an amateur to an professional artist through the study in the best Chinese academy of fine arts and the highest Chinese arts research institution base on 8 years study in my free time.

Thirdly, I have found the key to connect the arts of Traditional Chinese Painting, Modern Chinese Language and Music that is Chinese Classical Poetry, since poetry is the core of a Chinese painting; it could be sung originally, its surface feature on a Chinese painting is calligraphy and character, its sound is Chinese vocal language, its characters are the primary words of Modern Chinese Language, and Chinese primary words are stable – since it was created, it has not been changed; they are universal – all people who speak Chinese use them; the most important point – they are the root of words ( character) of Modern Chinese Language. In case people master it, they have opened the door of Modern C