International travel is an important part of my usual life.
My first international travel is to take part in the 31st Annual Conference of the World Association of Chinese Newspapers, as a delegate of Chinese Financial Newspapers in Malaysia in 1997. Since then, I have had 16 international travels, such as having a vacation in Europe in 2000, visited family in Australia 5 times, and came to the US 10 times for studying, art exhibitions and teachings 2008 to 2020.
If saying the travel in Europe in 2000 is the start point of my cross-cultural and comprehensive art dream seeking, then the travels in the US 2008 to 2020 is the process of my dream seeking with studying, exploration and theory thought...
The travel in Europe has not only given me a chance to touch some of the greatest arts and human civilizations, to touch Bible and Christianity, and laid a foundation for me to become a Christian in American 13 years, but also it has given me a courage to connect with a group of native-English-speaker graduates of Oregon State University from Paris, then in 2 years, we published a series of publications with 4 books and 4 CDs to talk American arts (mainly movie and music) for helping non-Chinese speakers to learn American language, which is the first experiment on my cross-cultural and comprehensive art dream seeking…
Then the travels in the US 2008 to 2020 have endowed me more opportunities and a wider room to work from an opposite angle, to engage in finding, exploring and creating something unique to help non-Chinese speakers to learn Chinese culture and language with a more natural, an artistic, easier style…
It is said “If you want to give someone a drop of water, you must have a bucket of water,” and I never thought an amateur can stand the duties over, therefore, I have studied in two art colleges in Beijing for 10 years, for the purpose to transfer myself from an amateur to be a professional artist, who has many aspects of self-cultivation…very often, I encourage myself very often, I am not the best now yet, but I will certainly be the best suitable one to stand the duty to create a Cross-cultural and Comprehensive Art.
With this idea, I have been keeping the trips between China and US, between Chinese art colleges and American full time schools and art organizations, and try to combine what I have learned in China and what I have seen, practice and felt in the US, write them into my books, practice them into my teaching and creating…
The biggest gains during those international travels, not only have I painted over 1100 paintings, had 6 art exhibitions, taught about 500 hours in 40 American schools and organizations for more than 6300 non-Chinese speakers, published a series of publications with 2 books, 2 DVDs and 2 closed web sites which only open to my readers, but also and more important is that I have found the connecting point between traditional Chinese painting and modern Chinese language, and the relationship of a variety arts on a Chinese painting itself… Base on it, I have created a method to combine them together with a cross-cultural and comprehensive art style.
Anyway, I know very clear that I have just created a simple model which is in its infancy phase now. If I want to improve it on its youth, and adults’ period, it’ll take a longer time and I myself must work harder in the upcoming another decades.
So, I am thinking, since I have majored in Chinese art in two Chinese colleges for 10 years, maybe it is the time to learn western art and cultures in the upcoming 10 years with more international travels?
Do you think so?
Do you enjoy international travels?
Sincerely
Shirley Yiping Zhang
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My European Travel Diary (007): The Travel Adaptor and Friendship Can you guess what my biggest difficulty was in Paris? I couldn’t connect my computer to the electricity supply for the first two days. I couldn’t upload the pictures from my digital camera to the computer. The plug on my computer didn’t fit the French sockets, I needed a travel adaptor. I had met with the same problem in Hong Kong in June and so took two little adaptors with me, however, neither of them worked in Paris. I was so worried about that. I always try to buy or borrow an adaptor as soon as I reach a new place. After asking more than 10 times and being disappointed more than 10 times, I found out that the plug ends of my adaptors were of British and American patterns and didn’t fit French sockets. All French electric outlets have two round holes embedded in a piece of plastic about ...
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My European Travel Diary (009): From France to Luxembourg At 8 am, 29th Sept. 2000, I left Paris for Luxembourg. Between the two countries is the great French plane, which is like a green sea between the two countries. France also has a very strong farming industry. About six hundred thousand farmers produce grain for the whole country, so France is also known as “the barn of Europe”. Farmers are very much respected there. I quite liked the French plain; it was so flat, wide and beautiful. The bright green land was punctuated by areas of black and yellow. There were also many small hills on it, and by these deep green hills there were many orange and white buildings… The black was the newly ploughed soil, the yellow, flowers, and the orange and white buildings were farmsteads and churches. On the wandering highway that goes through the great plain, I felt that the cars, trucks and buses were like ...
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My European Travel Diary (006) -- Paris, the Capital of Art. In Paris, I visited The Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. I also sailed in a yacht on the river Seine. The Louvre is so great that I would really have liked to stay there the whole of my holiday instead of going to the other places. In just over two hours I took about 100 pictures. I hardly had time to listen to the guide, I ran ahead of the group to take as many pictures as possible. There is so much to see in the Louvre that if I were to spend 3 minutes at each exhibit, then it would take me about 3 months so see everything. Also, there were so many people there that if I didn’t keep up with my group then I would soon be lost in the sea of people. My favourite things were the sculptures and ...
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My European Travel Diary (008): Online in Paris On my second night in Paris, I stayed at a “Novotel” hotel. I was offered a computer to access the internet. At about 11 pm I bought a phone card and connected to the internet straight away. What a wonderful feeling that was! However, I soon found that it wasn’t very easy to use. The order of the letters on the keyboard were different to that on my computer, there were many French words and strange symbols on it. The pointer was controlled by a touch screen and the instructions on the screen were in French. Anyway, I tried to use the touch screen, tried to guess the function of the symbols, tried to open the inbox of my email account. Eventually, I was able to work with the computer, but it had taken me so long that I only had time to type in about a third of what I should ...
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At about 1pm, 29th Sept. 2000 I reached Luxembourg. This country only has a population of about six hundred thousand and, although not very big, it has a distinctive style. The streets are quite clean, the buildings quite classical and the atmosphere quite peaceful. My first feeling was that it was quite a comfortable, gentle and fragrant place, so I guess that the lives of the people there are quite pleasant. As you know, I took many pictures; I was using eight batteries a day in my camera and so had to buy some batteries in Luxembourg. I left the restaurant as soon as I’d finished my lunch and, after asking two people, I found a shop that sold them. The lady in the shop was quite warm and suggested that I buy ordinary batteries rather than rechargeable ones. I had almost forgotten that because the rechargeable batteries were drained and I couldn’t recharge them on the road, then I ...
