journey east

My affair with Asia started in 1984 with a University of California course in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy taught in Taiwan. I studied under world-renowned Liang Dang Fong at Chung Da University in Taipei. Following that program I began exploring Asia.

In June 1985, I started off on what I thought would be a solo summer holiday through China. I flew to Hong Kong and then sailed to the Philippines and back as a crewmember on the 150-foot Outward Bound sailboat Ji-Fung. Soon after, I took a barge up the Pearl River and entered China for the second time in my life. Fortunately, the Mandarin I'd managed to learn in Taiwan afforded me enough communication skills to find toilets and buy train tickets. I traveled all over Eastern and Central China for two months, climbing three of China's five Holy Mountains. I hitchhiked on a truck into Tibet and spent several weeks painting in the marvelous monasteries and temples there while interacting with cheerful monks. Chartering a dilapidated bus, I joined a group of travelers and bounced for five days across Southern Tibet before hiking over the pass into Nepal.

I spent the first three days in my lodge in Katmandu, painting a picture of 'Fishtail Mountain' which I then traded for a Pentax camera with a 200mm zoom lens. I then spent a month trekking, painting and photographing in the Himalayas. By this time, summer was over but I was so close to India that I decided to venture south. I spent the next nine months living in various ashrams, Sikh Gudwaras and train stations while traveling the length and breadth of India. It was not unusual to spend three days stuffed into the luggage racks of an overcrowded train in order to reach the other side of the continent and some sacred site.

After three months in India I teamed up with a German woman I'd met on a houseboat on the Ganges River. It was a welcomed relief after traveling alone for eight months. We went by train from NewDelhi into Pakistan and then across Pakistan by bus, jeep and foot for two months. Often times, my companion was the only female to be seen in the buses and mountain villages we encountered. The local men were quick to point out that they were only allowed to take second and third wives if they could prove that their first wife could not bear a male child or was insane. Our Pakistan journey climaxed with a trek to the Nanga Prabat base camp where we painted and watched a Japanese expedition scale the world's third tallest mountain.

Going our separate ways, I then took a bus back into China over the Karakoram Highway which had been opened just two months earlier. I backpacked another two months across China and through Macau before returning to Taiwan. I painted and took photographs during the whole journey. Every few months I would say a prayer and mail home a big box of paintings because I just couldn't carry them anymore. At some point half way through the 16-month sojourn, I decided that I would go back to Taiwan to exhibit all the work I had produced. What resulted were my first painting and photo exhibitions in Asia.

On my return to Taiwan I continued my studies in Chinese painting and calligraphy while holding down numerous jobs. After 16 months of living like a refugee, it was fun to be employed and earning real money. For starters, I designed Halloween products, directed conversational English videos and wrote for various magazines.




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