Tag Archives: Confucius Temple

The philosophy of painting a life story.

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Past thoughts are like a work of art.   It is already painted, hung on the wall and viewed.  Our thoughts should be like this.  Already did that,  finished and moving on.  A painter knows it is difficult to go back and rework a painting.  Typically, once you finish and return to paint you have lost the “zone” you were in at the moment you were painting.  The likelihood of getting it back is slim.  When recalling thoughts of past love, loss,  and sad times, it is best to observe them like a painting.  Frame it and hang it.  Reworking those times in your head, honestly it just doesn’t work.  The painting is finished, like the past life experiences.

From my artist view point,  it’s time to move on and paint something new and fresh.  How about you?  Are you still reworking life’s tragedies?  Well stop it!   Today create a new composition.  You may not be an artist but you can create a new life story.

Saturday morning I became a student of a 16 year old who has five years of Chinese traditional painting under his belt.  I pulled out my new bamboo brush dipped it in ink and started painting.  He stopped me!  The line must show more emotion from thick to thin in the blades of grass.  I should paint with more feeling.  He would correct my fingers and the way I held the brush many times.  He was so patient and constantly showed me how to paint leaves.  He has practiced the art of painting leaves for a year and I thought I could pick it up in a day.  NO way.  There is a specific way to create each part of nature according to my young Chinese teacher.  I would watch him paint.  Then I would copy his strokes.  I quickly forgot and couldn’t do it again to save my soul.  He never laughed just keep showing me again and again.  Is this what I need in my story of life, someone to show me again and again how to do it right?  I am beginning to wonder.

Is life a painting?  Think about that just a moment.  If  life is a painting, what does your’s look like?  Is it beautifully executed  or retouched and muddy.   Have you hung it on the wall or do you rework it over and over?  Today lets stop reworking our paintings, lets create a new one to hang on the wall?  You need some new supplies or new thoughts.  For me I bought all new supplies in a shopping trip to “Fu Zi Meow” or Confucius Temple shopping mall.  New bamboo brush, ink, felt pad, paper, and a couple of  “how to”  books in Chinese.  Fresh start.  New supplies are like new thoughts.  What do you want to paint?  I want to paint a mountain with misty clouds… but first I need to learn grass, rocks, leaves and flowers.   This is the start of my creation, a thought provoking mountain landscape.  Must learn the parts to create the whole composition according to my young teacher.  Like life, get all the pieces in order to create a great life painting.

Pieces?  What are your pieces?  Think for a moment, all the sweet things in your life.  Do you need to thank someone for something they did for you?  Maybe a child cut their finger and you were able to offer a band-aide and compassion to heal their wound and dry a tear.  Have you talked to your child today?  No!  My suggestion is call them and say “I love you”  for no reason.  Write them an email or text them a nice message.  Know an old person that is lonely, then go visit them?  Don’t know an old person, then call your grandmother and say hi.  You can smile at someone when your walking down the street.  Take someone to lunch and pay for it.  See someone on the street begging for money, then give them a coin or two.   Your painting becomes a compassionate one, one with tender feelings and love.  Every minute you are painting a life story, make yours beautiful, full of wonderful emotions and lovely memories.

Remember you can’t go back and rework it or you will muddy it up.

Start creating your story of life.  Reflect and step back, look at it and admire the effort you spent on it.  You might want to do this every evening just before you fall sleep, recall all the events of the day and say, “What a nice composition I created.”  Then fall asleep, and awake to a new day and start your new work of art.

What are you creating?  Hit the reply button and tell me what it is you created today!

High Rise Living

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Living in a Chinese high rise is a new experience for this Texan.  Looking out at dusk over the city as lites are popping on and fire crackers are exploding at a near by street I realize I am looking at something totally different than I ever saw from any of my past homes.  In celebration of my move I am having a French  Bordeaux wine in my  Confucius Temple mug while boiling some spiral pasta to have Pesto Pasta I purchased at the Carrefour store.   Plus some Spanish olives on the side.  A very internationally prepared  set of ingredients for this new to China cook.  It will be yummy.

My move has kept me cleaning for a couple days.  Meeting up with the landlady, I realized the place had not been cleaned, just painted and lights fixed.   I need it clean!  She had two maids come and  the washing machine man  fix my washer.  Seems everything needed repaired.  The maids got most of the dust, but the folks that lived before never cleaned anything.  So every nook and cranny needed attention.  I could not locate bleach, or any kind of American cleaners in the grocery store.  Sawyer said to use Mr. Muscle cleaner, which I found for every job you need.  It works!  There are no paper towels in Chinese stores, which makes it  interesting wiping grim away using cloth dish towels.  I have dusted and mopped the floors so they are sparkling.  You can walk around bare footed or wear Chinese house shoes that are at my front door.  Debbra Carrol is worried about my bathroom facilities having read about the trenches.  Deb- I have two western toilets, just like in the states!  I don’t have an oven to bake or dryer for clothes, seems that is not a necessity in China, something I will have to learn to live without.  Maybe I will buy a toaster oven, no major cooking of pies, cookies, artichoke dip, or lasagna. Darn!  There is a box like contraption on my kitchen wall that comes on with an exploding  sound of gas igniting when I turn on the hot water.  That is taking some getting use to.  I have three wall air conditioners, which don’t seem to have a filter system, or at least I don’t think so.  Air is pulled in from the outside along with the dust and I am finding a thin layer deposited daily on my floors.   No wonder Chinese don’t like these units.  Central AC/heat is the way to go.

My king size bed was an interesting find.  It had a blue mattress with an old mattress like pad on top and on top of that was a rattan mat.  I sat on it and no comfort did I feel.  I tossed the pad and rolled the rattan mat up and stored it.  Then I bought a brush to sweep the blue felt like mattress.  I thought I might be able to take the cover off and wash it, but not hardly.  When I started to unzip it I found this hard Brillo pad bed inside.  Impossible to remove the cover from a Brillo pad!  Off I went to the Suguo and bought a new mattress pad.  I found my American sheets I had brought from the states and made the bed.  I did buy another pillow.  My giant down comforter and soft pillow I brought from America topped off the bed.  My first night was not so comfortable, as the bed needs a few more of those mattress pads.  Jenny, my Math colleague said she would take me to Ikea to get more!  Yeah a shopping trip in a car.

My first morning I made scrambled eggs and coffee.  I can cook again.  Coming down almost thirty floors by elevator, I am thinking, wonder what happens when the electricity goes off.  This is a long minute or more ride.  I walk out onto a beautiful morning.  The air is fresh and blowing my hair.  Men are busy digging up something in the man holes right by the back door.  What in the world are they digging up, oh my it is raw sewage.  Then I get a sniff and realize they are bagging it into large flour sack bags.   What a job, not mine, thank God.  I am about to the point of running as I move past them and notice they have about a hundred bags of pooh next to the cement fenced wall.  I hope this not a daily job!  That evening when I came back all the bags were gone and there was no smell.  It has made me notice that there is many small excavations around town, wonder if this is a town wide plumping issue?  Oh well, I’m high enough I shouldn’t smell it, right?

Autumn Moon Festival at Confucius Temple

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September 22nd was the Autumn Moon Festival, celebrated by eating moon cakes.   A moon cake is given to friends and is a pastry with a variety of fillings.  I’ve tried a few and some have lotus or bean paste inside.  One had a honey, brown sugar gummy bear texture.   They taste somewhat like a Fig Newton.  Cute as a button, they have Chinese characters stamped on top.

The Moon Festival is a myth about Chang’e the goddess of the moon, and once a year she can come down from the moon to visit her husband and family.  The Chinese regard this day as a national holiday and to see the reflection of the moon in the lake is a good omen.  We went to Confucius Temple (pronounced Foo Zi Meow!) last night to view the moonlight, but alais the mist and rain clouded our vision of the moon.  The temple was an education in Confucius (Kong Zi) philosophy from 500BC.  The book I purchased discusses his personal and governmental morality along with justice and social relationships.  He is a leader in the teaching of benevolence.  As stated in my book;  “If the emperor is fond of benevolence, he will be unconquerable all over the world.   Now some princes want to be unconquerable in the world, but do not implement benevolence.  That’s just as someone feels extremely hot but is unwilling to take a bath.”   The lesson goes on to state if a person has the desire to help others, he will be kindly looked upon.  Is this not a lesson we should be teaching our children?  What a peaceful world it would be to have kind feelings or express goodwill toward one another.  Have I become a student of Master Confucius or maybe I was a student in a past life?

The temple was full of interesting legends, history, sculptures, stelai, one large drum, a gong bell and different presentations.  It was a plethora of information.

I so enjoyed the musical presentation by a Chinese singing, bell ringing and instrument playing team of Chinese ritually dressed young people.  The music was typically old style Chinese and I wanted a CD, where upon Alice said I could find this kind of music in the disc stores around town.  We also saw a stick puppet presentation by puppiters behind a sheet illuminating the figures  through it.  Now this was clever to watch as the wolf  attacked the man and the tree spoke philosophy with a mouth.   I believe this is for children, but the adults were mesmerized including Alice and me.  Sawyer smiled and laughed.  If you saw the movie  “Karate Kid”  released this summer, you will remember the puppet drama is the same.

We walked up and down the streets by the temple where vendors sold trinkets, which I bought many of.  The brightly lit stores lined the street full of people with umbrellas and wet feet.  It was a delight to behold.