Weihua Zhang’s blog

Kowloon Walled City Park is absolutely beautiful! This is by far my favorite place of Hong Kong so far. I look forward to exploring Hong Kong more in the upcoming days.

Here are some low country views in late November at dusk.

Six of my images have been selected for this year’s juried exhibition “Small Works.” Exhibition will be at Gutstein Gallery from Nov. 12 — Dec. 30, 2010. Hope you will join me at the opening reception on Nov. 12, 2010, 6-7:30pm.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2010, just before we left for Beijing Capital International Airport to catch our flight to US, my husband and I squeezed in a brief visit to Gong Wang Fu. According to Wikipedia, “The Prince Gong’s Mansion (Chinese: 恭王府) or Gong Wang Fu Museum is located in the western part of central Beijing, China, north of the Shichahai Lake. Consisting of large mansions in the typical siheyuan layout and gardens, Prince Gong’s Mansion is known as one of the most ornate and extravagant residence compounds in all of Beijing.” Gong Wang Fu and its garden simply took our breath away!

Yet, of all Gong Wang Fu’s grandeur and exquisiteness, it was a little stone lion that caught my attention. I just had to aim my camera at this little “fella,” all alone on the floor, next to the tall red imposing gate. See for yourself!

Here are two more photos taken that same day on site of Gong Wang Fu.

Changchun ［长春］, the capital city of Jilin Province in the Northeast China, is my hometown. During my recent trip to China, I’d get up in the early mornings and go to the local parks to simply engage in “people watching.” Many people, old and young, dressed in exercise clothes or not, in large groups or small, would practice tai chi, play badminton, and stroll in the park. I took all in: The green trees, the tranquil pond, the exercising crowd, and the reflections in the water. I love those mornings of “people watching”!

Shanghai ［上海］, China, is the host of this year’s World Expo ［世博会］, which runs from May 1 to Oct. 31. My family and I visited it on Aug. 28 and were simply overwhelmed with the tens of thousands of people that flocked to the Expo each day. We were not ale to visit China Pavilion–the one we wanted to see the most–but I did snap this photo of the unique yet unmistakably Chinese structure.

I read this group of poems at the 3rd Writers’ Assembly this past April. It is my attempt to reflect on my early experience in the US both as an exchange scholar and a graduate student between 1989-1995.

Re-Education In America

Lesson One: Save and Save Often

Early morning. January 31, 1989. Beijing Airport, China.
3 a.m., February 1, 1989. Swarthmore College, USA.
What a difference a day makes!
Like Sun Wokung, the Monkey King,
I somersaulted from Beijing to San Francisco to New York to
Philly and collapsed onto my bed at Swarthmore.

I woke up to a persistent knock at the door.
Who could that be? I glanced at my watch:
It was only 8 a.m. and still February 1.
I struggled to find my footing.
Jet lag.
What followed was a blur:
I was led to Breakfast, Registrar’s Office, Bookstore,
Professor Morgan’s “Folklore and Folklife” class.
“Your first paper is due next Tuesday, typed, double-spaced . . .”
What? I stared at the professor, you gotta be kidding!
I had never touched a computer back in China.

Barbara, a Hong Kong student, came to my rescue.
She patiently explained to me the basics in her broken
Mandarin:
Shift key, file name, open, close, save, print.
Thud, thud, thud
The throbbing pain in my temples
Merged with the sound of the keyboard.
Barbara soon left to work at the library,
while I ploughed along at a snail’s pace.
After a quick dinner break, I sat down in front of the same
Computer and reopened my file.

Alas, what was a full page neatly typed up before dinner
Shrank to one paragraph! [sigh]

An Expensive Chair

Ni Hao! Lisa greeted me when we first met.
She had studied in China the year prior.
That familiar expression sealed the deal:
She became my guide to everything American.
One day I read an article in the school newspaper
something about the Endowed Chair of Economics.
The dollar figure was astronomical to me.
“Hey, Lisa, what kind of chair is that? How come it is so expensive?”
She glanced at the headline and bent double with laughter.
I gained a new meaning of the word chair.

The Politics of Disapproval

September 1990. SUNY Albany.
Welcome party for the new Chinese TAs.
“What are you going to study?” the chair of East Asian Studies asked me.
“African American literature.”
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
He questioned me no further.
I quickly learned the true meaning of interesting in this context.
He was right.

Spring 1993. SUNY Albany.
Time to form my dissertation committee.
I struggled to convince three to serve
out of an English Department of fifty plus professors.
“I love all literatures,” one assured me.
Great. He was on!
Perhaps the two A’s I got in his classes have convinced him.

October 1993. Qualifying exams time.
“I can’t examine you based on your reading list.
I am not familiar with these African American literary works,”
He informed me with a straight face.
Just say you are not interested, I screamed in my heart.

I Quit!

My first non-teaching job in America
was to flip burgers at a Burger King.
Pretty soon, my boss figured it all out:
He would only give me the late-to-close shift
so I could drop off my co-workers.
You see, after we closed in the wee hours,
The city buses had long stopped running.
Now he had guaranteed work force at my expense.
One busy evening, I quit on the spot.
“Don’t you have to give two-week’s notice where you came from?”
“You know what? I have a permanent job in China.”

Never Pay Nobody Rent

His name is Nick, our landlord in Albany, New York.
“I like your people. You always pay rent on time.”
Nick is from Greece.
He came to this country without papers.
In fact, it took him three tries to get here.
Forty years ago, he worked on a ship.
When the ship entered the U. S. waters,
Nick jumped and swam to the shore.
He was caught and deported.
Fared no better his second try.
Only succeeded the third time when he volunteered to join the U.S. army.
Lucky Nick.
He saw no action in the Korean Peninsula:
The war ended before he was shipped out.

Green Card in hand and money from the G. I. Bill,
Nick bought a duplex and leased one unit out.
Hard work paid off.
Soon Nick’s duplex morphed into three dozens.
“Why don’t you buy this property?”
Nick prodded us each month when he made his round collecting rent.
“Better put money in your own pocket. Never pay nobody rent.”

That was 17 years ago.
Nick, where are you now?
Your former tenants are proud homeowners.
It sure is good to never pay nobody rent.

I visited Yuan Ming Yuan [The Old Summer Palace, 圆明园] on Sept. 9, 2010 when I was in China. I missed the Lotus Festival, which ended on Aug. 31. 2010. I was still able to capture a few remaining lotus. The other two shots are of the ruins of Yuan Ming Yuan, which was looted and destroyed in 1860.

I just came back from a two-week photography trip in China. Finally, I got to visit the world famous terra-cotta soldiers ［兵马俑］– those life-size army soldiers and horses entombed with China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang [秦始皇］–in Xi’an ［西安］. It was quite an amazing experience!