A New Hobby

My 3rd Hu Yongkai Painting (and my 14th painting)

A couple of fellow bloggers disappeared and returned months or years later with a cookbook, a new baby, why not a younger spouse, designer kitchen and/or house, new body, re-designed face, eventually a more exciting job! 

Unfortunately, none of the above have I accomplished. I'm still fat, still stuck in Shanghai (though I've travelled quite a bit in the past year), still live in the same house (though we moved out for a couple of weeks in November because of a termite infestation) and still have the same hub (though he's now a few kgs lighter after he returned from a month at INSEAD and started embracing a healthier lifestyle that includes jogging 12km every other day)...

I searched far and wide in the neuron network in the past few months and finally woke up this morning with the perfect alibi: I've taken up oil painting a little more than a year ago! With age the circuit is a little retarded, sometimes clogged and bulbs just do not light up as often and as quickly as they used to. But, I did start to paint and have been religiously doing so every Tuesday morning since autumn in 2013.

My younger sister is the artistic one in the family, and I couldn't usually draw an egg to save my life. However, I was told by a number of people that with minimum guidance even an idiot could paint with oil and when offered the opportunity to try, I felt I had nothing to lose and jumped at it.

I think my teacher Yao ZW is originally from Ningbo, but must have spent most of his life in Shanghai. He rents a ground floor flat near Century Park in Pudong and sets up 6 easels so that he could have 6 students in the morning and another 6 in the afternoon. In the week most of his students would be Chinese housewives (usually pretty wealthy), and during the weekend and public holidays he would have lots of children (often children of the same rich tai tais).

My very 1st painting, took me 9 hours to finish

2nd painting, kind of scary having that
mountain range and body of water to paint

Impressionist 3rd painting

Teacher Yao is pretty cool and teaches so that he could feed his only passion which is to paint. His plan is to make a final exhibition of his paintings before he retires so that he could sell them and retire comfortably. At the moment he has bought a house with some land in the countryside about an hour and a half from Shanghai and starting next year will live there during the weekend and remain in Shanghai during the week just to continue teaching. He is actually a pretty well-known painter from some old school, but because his only child is a girl, he had no need in the past to buy a flat in anticipation of her future marriage and as such missed out riding on the property wave that made most Shanghainese rich, see very rich, in the past two decades.

All new students would start out with a series of 6 paintings chosen by Teacher Yao. Once we have completed these paintings and decide to continue with him, we can begin to more or less paint whatever catches our fancy as long as it's within our ability to do so. After the first few paintings, one would somehow start to have "the feeling" and would more or less know what to do, only occasionally asking Teacher Yao to come rescue us.  

4th painting: one of my favourites and now with Anna

 I really look forward to joining this class every  Tuesday morning, I think I've almost never missed a session since I started. I find it calming to spend 3 hours concentrating on trying to get as much painted as I could (and I'm very slow at it) and often spend days leading up to the class planning what I would do when I get my fingers on the brushes.

 We were the same group of 6 ladies painting together, except for my dear friend and neighbour F who gave birth last June and then moved back to the USA a few days ago. My classmates are all wealthy Chinese ladies with only one child each. The children attend the best Shanghai schools, have expensive tutors, go on exclusive school trips to Europe, and these mothers spend quite a bit of their time during class exchanging notes about their progeny. I usually have nothing much to say about mine because when your kids spend most of their time playing, have no exam pressure and no particular talent to display, you have nothing to share with the others.

And I am very slow, Teacher Yao complains about it from time to time (though he should be happy as it means each one of my paintings costs me more than usual), and the others would turn up in front of my easel once in a while to tell me that I pay too much attention to detail blah blah...

5th painting, I can't really do grass

They are all more advanced than me (at least by a year if not more) and are really amazing with their trees, mountains, sea etc. They are also really fast when they paint, often skipping the pencil sketching part, making me look even slower than I already am. So to set myself apart, I try nowadays to paint stuff that require a lot of patience e.g. buildings, figures, furniture...and they would mumble all the time I spend too much time on the details.  

6th painting and the license
to choose future paintings more or less freely

What did I do with my paintings? The first 2 paintings are currently hiding in my pantry, hanging over my shelves of dried goods and bottles of water; the next 5-6 paintings found their way to my several bathrooms (I have 6). One of the more edible ones went to Anna, and my favourite is at this moment making its way (via Hub) to MIL; yet another is currently hanging in the guest room. 

I also like to paint water villages (8th painting)

My 2nd Hu Yongkai painting
that MIL chose to have for Xmas (12th)

A European water village? (7th)

The 1st painting I dared to frame up (9th)

My favourites are the Hu Yongkai paintings (the ones with the Chinese ladies) and I have decided I may paint one between two to three landscapes (which are good for training our painting skills though they are boring) as I gain a lot of satisfaction from doing them. I've already painted all the 3 paintings that Teacher Yao has on photo though, and will have to source for my own samples if I want to paint more of Painter Hu's work. 

My very 1st Hu Yongkai painting (10th)

I like this one but the rocks were tough to paint
and saw a copy on Taobao selling for 12000 rmb! (13th)

Another Chinese water village (11th)

Well, so you know what I've been up to in the past year. 

Shanghai Fried Noodles 上海炒面

Shanghai Fried Noodles

I am like super lethargic nowadays. Shanghai's famous humid season has kicked in and it's hot and wet out there, like a steam room minus the aromatherapy. The house is a haven, an air-conditioned haven, and all you want to do is stay at home, leg over the armrest of the Poltrona Frau and do nothing meditate.

I did go shopping with C and her family yesterday near Huaihai Lu. They were on the lookout for a few good fakes and I happened to know a pretty decent place for such things. Even though I was really touched after the wonderful documentary I saw on Hermes' savoir faire (the last time I was flying), I understand that not everyone has the budget to afford anything from their range of luxury products and sometimes starting off with a good fake could actually lead to one buying the real thing when the desire to own one reaches the right degree (finances permitting, of course).

It was nice going in and out of air-conditioned boutiques for a few hours - until the sky was ominously covered all of a sudden (it actually turned dark at 4pm) and then it just poured. We barely managed to find cover and that was when it was cool to be able to whip out the phone and get the driver to rescue us.

We stayed in today since the kids wanted to lunch at the Face restaurant in our compound and play billiards and I wanted to clean up the mosaic bowl that I've just finished making for SIL. Nowadays I do not even have the energy to cook, so we usually eat out, a chance to bring the kids to different restaurants each day, a change from their horrible school canteen lunches.

The simple mosaic bowl I made for SIL

The last series of cooking classes offered by our compound finished in early June and I missed the last class as the family was here and we had other things to do. I've picked up a few useful recipes and one of them was the famous Shanghai Fried Noodles 上海炒面 that is also known as 葱油拌面 according to the chef.

Cooking this dish actually saw me starting to take some interest in the fresh noodles (and later also dumpling skins) being sold in local shops. I've been snubbing them until now, usually preferring dried Cantonese egg noodles or fresh yellow noodles to be found in supermarkets specialising in imported foodstuff.

The freshly-made local noodles are cheap, count about 2 rmb per one-person portion! I do not know anything about the quality of the wheat flour used, but the noodles do not taste too bad and cook quickly - an important consideration in a lazy housewife's book.

The dumpling skins are often too thick for my liking, but if you are not making Cantonese-style dumplings they will do.

Shanghai Fried Noodles :

fresh chinese wheat flour noodles

dark soy sauce

vegetable oil

sesame oil

a bit of minced pork

spring onions (only the green parts)

red bell pepper strips

chinese leafy greens (optional)

Blanche the fresh noodles in rapidly boiling water for about 2 minutes. Remove and rinse them in cold water.

In a large bowl add dark soy sauce (for taste and colour) as well as some sesame oil to the noodles. Toss well.

Fry the spring onions till fragrant in some hot oil. Use only the green bits as the white bits tend to give out too much water when fried. Remove, drain and set aside.

Cook the minced pork (lightly seasoned) and red bell pepper strips in a ladle of oil. Add in Chinese leafy greens if using them. Pour in some hot water and cover, using the steam to finish the cooking.

Pour everything on top of the noodles, add the cooked spring onions and serve. What is really important in this dish are the spring onions so make sure you are generous with them and that they are cooked till fragrant.

Making a Mosaic Tray for the First Time

My first mosaic tray

I have always wanted to make something with mosaics and had thought when we were living in Italy that I would get to do it there. Unfortunately I've not come across any classes in Modena and the city of mosaics aka Ravenna was too far away for me to commute to for any lessons.

After lesson N°1

Then I arrived in Shanghai and saw that the residence next door had a community centre that offered mosaic classes. I wanted to sign up last year but it happened to clash with the cooking lessons offered by my own residence so I had to give the former up. This year I found 2 neighbours who also wanted to do the same thing so we signed up for and attended the 5 classes together.

After lesson N°2

We were clueless on our first day, not even knowing what we wanted or what we could make. Then we got started and would change our minds from time to time, pulling out what we've already done and starting all over each time new inspiration hit as we were working. It was a time-consuming and back-breaking hobby and I've even managed to tear some skin off my fingers, bleeding on the mosaics as I worked.

After lesson N°3

If I had known better I would have kept my design simple. But I wanted to follow a picture I saw in our teacher's book and started on a journey of no return that produced a horribly colourful and confusing piece of work. I was pulling my hair out at one point and almost wanted to pull everything out, but I was running out of time and remembered Macbeth saying once about how going back would be as difficult as moving forward.

After lesson N°4

So I resigned myself to the result and just finished the tray, telling myself that I'll do better the next time. We plan to start on a new, smaller project soon and will hunt for mosaic tiles next week. This time I'm going to decorate a lazy susan. I know for sure now that I've no artistic fibre in me, but I enjoy working with my hands sometimes so I'll just go ahead and do it.

My tray after grouting during lesson N°5 - I've chosen white

Below are some of my fellow course mates' production. Some of them have already joined a few of the earlier mosaic classes so it wasn't their first project :

My favourite tray. This was her 3rd project, I think.

A lazy susan, also not her first project.

Judy's first project

Fei's first project

A Finnish lady's icy project

First project by the only guy in our class

The only vase

Making my own Five Stones

5 Stones filled with Red Beans

Baby Boy's current Unit of Enquiry is about Play and the teacher was asking parents if we would like to share a game we knew with the children. Well, of course I hadn't any idea, I mean, I'm such a hardworking and serious person do you think I spent my childhood playing?

But I guess that I did play quite a bit after all. Especially when the games I had as a kid were very portable, didn't cost much and required just a friend or 2 for playing with.

I remember that during recess, we would rush out to the playground and play catching sometimes hopping on one leg for added difficulty. Another group game we enjoyed was Eagle catches Chicks. Then when mom agreed to buy me a whole bag of rubber/elastic bands, I used them to make myself a very long rope and I would play skipping games with it with a few girl friends. It was something I could bring along with me everywhere, any spare moment I had e.g. while waiting for the school bus I would whip it out and start skipping. Other times, we would use a spare exercise book, draw (sometimes in 3-D) furniture, rooms etc and used it as background for our home-made or bought paper dolls.

I was also very nostalgic for my 5 Stones. Mom couldn't sew but she managed to buy us 5 stones of different sizes and fillings to play with. I prefer the bean fillings, those stuffed with rice were too compact and difficult to catch.

As a matter of fact, I even left Singapore more than a decade ago with a set or 2 actually. But I couldn't remember where I've kept them since my last move and if I still have them.

Told Baby Boy's teacher about it and she said she would try to make them if I would come show the class how to play the game. I'm absolutely lousy at sewing, but I am also very impatient, plus I am very rusty now not having played 5 Stones for more than 2 decades. Those kids would laugh at me if I couldn't catch half of my stones...

So I searched and found a blog that taught us how to make the 5 stones. I used Baby Girl's old tights and the material's probably too soft and elastic for the method she showed us, so I improvised and came out with 5-stoney-looking 5 Stones somehow. A bit too big for my delicate hands though. And probably will burst after a few throws. I don't have a sewing machine and had to hand-sew the bean bags.

But I'm so damn happy to have done it. Made them after our heavy dinner at the Churrasco restaurant (would you believe it - we were 18!!! 7 adults and 11 kids - but we survived) last evening so I went to bed really happy even though the stomach felt too rich. Now I just need to practise a little.