This morning the sunshine at six o’clock was already so bright that I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. My painter genes were itching too much, so I went downstairs to the gallery at 6.30am to work on some of the banners. Two of them were really okay to be painted on at the white backsides in combination with the images on the frontside. For this I could use the acrylic paint and the Chinese ink I have bought here. Also as a preparation for the session tomorrow with the ladies group I started to make a self-portrait on the paper I had bought yesterday. Now at the end of the afternoon I feel very tired en empty. All my energy has been soaked up by this paper, the ink and the paint.
Luckily the men are taking care of the food supply. May be I have to explain why I use the plural form here for the opposite sex. In a second big expo space here in the gallery another artist, Hillary Pollock from Australia, is working. She also took her partner with her. And he, Graham, and my partner Harm have the same background: schoolteachers. Also they are both retired now. This of course gives a jointly feeling, just like Hillary and I have because of the art. Since we arrived we therefore did already together a lot of things I described before.
So the two men are going to hunt for food in the nearby old fashioned hutong while the ladies are at work. In the tangle of narrow streets and small houses you still have this feeling of the old China out of the history book. Well, there are a few things different now! What to think of all those new big cars driving there? I really would think it over about several times before I would decide to buy one of those. And what to think about the lamp-posts working on sun cells? In time I will show some pictures of hutongs like this.
So the men buy the food and come in then to tell in a triumphant way that they just bought eight pieces of bread filled with really lovely stuff for about 40 eurocents! And coming with that were of course, Graham is from Australia, a couple of cold beers from the supermarket for the same price.
Tonight we’ll probably go to our local Chinese family restaurant to fill our stomachs with their delicious Chinese food. We really have to think about it that we won’t come back like those small porcelain Chinese statues of laughing Chinese men with big Chinese bellies.
By the way, spoken about little Chinese men! There is something awkward going on with this blog. It’s no problem to send my messages and photos to be published on my website. But when I try to reach the blog on the website here in China this particular page is blocked. It says that the proxyserver, or something technical like that, cannot be reached. But from the Netherlands I know they don’t have such problems and I suppose that in other countries the weblog can also be read normally. I also tried to reach the blog in other ways but without any success. So what’s going on?
