A China Trip
The year was 2001. The place was Mike Grady’s art room at the now defunct J.F.K. University located in the Berkeley hills. Mike, chairman of the Art Department, had just invited me to join him and the other students on an art trip to China.
“I am 76 years old!” I said. “Are you sure you want me?”
“Yes, I want you,” he replied.
“I am Bipolar!” I said. “Are you sure you want me?”
“Yes, I want you,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”
I immediately invited my daughter Eva to join me. I don’t know how I would have managed without her.
We left California in August. We flew from San Francisco to Shanghai, twenty art students with our teacher. I remember very little about our day in Shanghai. A big, impressive art museum.
We spent most of our time at an art school in Hang Zhou (pronounced Hang Joe.) It is southwest of Shanghai, by a large beautiful lake, West Lake. Lots of trees and little bridges. Lots of people playing cards, doing Tai Chi, ballroom dancing and taking leisurely walks. I was told the Chinese in those days didn’t work in offices from 9 to 5 as we do. They all seemed to be enjoying their leisure.
The art classes were very interesting, very different from American classes—e.g., a tree is painted like this; a house like that. I remember a beautiful young man who taught the landscape class. We learned how to produce a typical Chinese landscape. No room for individuality. We painted with tempera paints from little tubes. Mike Grady hung up our work on a clothesline with clothespins. There were classes I couldn’t understand at all, even though the teacher was said to be a famous expert in his field. For example, anatomy, which had nothing to do with our ideas about anatomy.
However, I had no trouble eating Chinese food. As a child, growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, I loved to have dinner with my mother at a little Chinese restaurant. In Hang Zhou, I ate whatever they offered, except for breakfast. I couldn’t eat the Chinese breakfast, which resembled all of the other meals, e.g. soup, fish, vegetables, etc. Eva went out bicycling early every morning to buy me rolls for breakfast. Once at lunch, when I was about to put something into my mouth, she yelled, “Mom! Don’t eat that! It’s a chicken’s head!”
The Director of that famous art school was a very nice man, whom I will never forget. I remember he “found” me when I was thought to be lost, wandering around on a nearby mountain with a nice young Chinese couple. We didn’t know we were lost, but Eva insisted that they look for us. The Director himself held my hand all the way home, so I wouldn’t get lost again. I thought that was very nice.
After a week or two at the Art School, we took a bus to the famous Yellow Mountain. The bus drivers in China drive very fast, and take all kinds of risks. One of our group, a rich middle-aged woman was actually praying every time the bus driver passed a car on the narrow winding mountainous road. I urged Mike to say something to the bus driver but he didn’t do it. He said Eva and I should move to the back of the bus and sing mantras. Which we did.
I remember that we drove through beautiful bamboo groves as our bus ascended Yellow Mountain. We spent the night on top of the mountain in a little hotel and saw the sunrise the next morning. We finally arrived in Beijing, and got settled in a hotel.
The following morning I understood that something terrible had happened. Members of our group were all rushing over to the next-door hotel, to watch t.v. What I saw there was unbelievable. The famous Twin Towers in New York City had been hit by two planes belonging to Al Qaeda, an Islamic Terrorist group. The buildings were aflame. People were jumping out of windows. The Pentagon had also been attacked. Members of our group were calling up their families. I tried in vain to reach my husband in Slovenia, and my cousin in Florida. Airports were closing down. We were all in an uproar, while the Chinese seemed to be unaware of what had happened. Eva was crying, remembering those familiar buildings and the fact that her grandfather, (my father, an electrical engineer) had designed some of the electrical systems for The Twin Towers.
China and the U.S. were not on good terms at that time. We all understood that we must try to get home as soon as possible. The day before we hoped to leave, Eva said to me, “We have to be at the airport at 4:00 a.m., before anyone else gets there.” We were there. The airport was deserted except for some old women mopping the floors. I was wearing my prettiest dress and a becoming hat. At one point a very nice looking Spanish-speaking man offered to carry my heavy bag. Among all of these young, attractive girls in shorts and blue-jeans, carrying rucksacks on their backs, he offered to help me. I felt very grateful.
Somehow Mike Grady finally got all of us on one plane. We stopped in Tokyo, then flew non-stop to San Francisco. Luckily, that airport was still open. When I set foot on American soil, I crouched down and kissed the earth.