Hi Folks ...
You surely won't believe this but I was actually THERE and my wife even got a copy of the catalog personally signed by Wang Xisan and addressed to her !
Not just THERE but I even wrote the English translation of the preface and was the only Westerner at the opening ceremony and was even mentioned by name in the list of "notables " attending ("From England - world famous snuff bottle collector Dr Peng Da Li" Ha ha !
)
It all started as bit of a mystery : Jill told me about the exhibition a couple of months ago when she and Li Hui came to stay with us at our second home in China (Wenzhou) and asked if I and my wife would like to visit BJ to see the exhibition. At the time I did not give it much thought and later forgot all about it.
Then suddenly out of the blue Jill sent me something to translate into good English "by return email URGENT - PLEASE!" I had no idea what it was about and it was written in very erudite Chinese which made translation more of an art than a science (Steven will know what I mean because of the days .... weeks we spent trying to translate Wang Guanyu's introduction to Yuan Shijia)
Jill and I went through about 6 or 7 drafts before she finally decided it was OK (or the publishing deadline had passed - or both)
Next thing was a phone call from Jill out of the blue inviting me and my wife to go to BJ last weekend to see the exhibition, which I somewhat reluctantly accepted little knowing what an epic we would have missed had we declined.
There were back -to -back dinners and lunches and the very first dinner on the evening before the exhibition after a very long rush hour traffic jam drive we arrived at a traditional restaurant to find ourselves sitting next to...... Wang Xisan (also his son Wang Ziyong) , Liu Shouben and Zhang Tieshan all at one single table *.
I kid you NOT ! Talk about sitting with Royalty ! (Glad that my Mandarin was up to scratch)
It turns out that the Jing School is being revived with a lot of support from the Bejing municipal government and that Li Hui and Jill were asked to organize the exhibition as the kick-start event.
Apparently there will be some new students enrolled in a special School soon to be formed - presumably with Liu Shouben's support.
WXS and LSB left after the day 1 festivities but Zhang Tieshan stayed on for a couple of days and joined us on our last evening in what was probably one of THE best / most fun meals I ever had in BJ : a kind of open air roasted lamb eatery which was joined by a young couple (Tommy and Monika) who it seems were the last ever Jing School artists of the previous generation, before they resigned from the Jing School and went into other business
I joked with Zhang Tieshan as we went to the loo together after one too many beers : "Do I know Master Zhang Tieshan, Grand Master of the Qin School ?
Yes of course I know him ! We even pissed together ! " )
Joking aside - I have had more fun through meeting people : fellow collectors (Singapore!) , artists (Hengshui !) ....whatever than I ever had in actually collecting bottles.
That's REAL life !
China is WONDERFUL !
I have loads of pics from last weekend - far too many to even begin to post on the Forum
Li Hui told me he can send me a soft copy of the catalog which I will eventually include in my DB
The only sad thing about the whole exhibition was that the lighting in the museum was so dim that it was almost impossible to see the bottles clearly behind the thick panes of glass
Cheers
Peter
___________
* STEVEN : It was at that dinner that I took Wang Ziyong aside and agreed that we ( me, Wang Ziyong, Wang Xisan , Jill and Li Hui ....) would "somehow" publish my 2 - part ICSBS article
in Chinese throughout China. ICSBS copyright issues be damned !
Particularly because deep inside the article towards the end of Part 1 is the greatest compliment I can ever give to Wang Xisan : his real gift to us is not his own personally- painted works
It is his generations and their generations of generations students
Please just make a free-flowing easy-reading translation of my 2 - part articles. It does not have to be a "literal" translation . I just want the "feeling" to be passed on and I cannot think of anyone better than you to do so, with great respect and many thanks
Eventually - if George agrees and it can be done technically - I would like the article in both English and Chinese to be some how pinned into the Forum side bar as a permanent link - a bit like Wikipedia - so it will outlive me in cyberspace when I am just a small urn of ashes in a mountain side near Wenzhou