Gustave Dore

Gustave Dore is described as a famous French illustrator in the 1800's and made great engravings which aimed to preserve the essence of Victorian London. Below are some of his engravings of the London street traders, taken from "London" Time Life Book series by Aubrey Menen.
It is amazing how people in the streets define the city, its culture, the times and consequently our memories and our sense of the place.

Healthy Living

I am giving in to living a healthier life.

I would say that I fall in the category of the hardheads when it comes to watching what I eat and aside from an athletic stint that lasted through my university days, I have been living a relatively sedentary lifestyle. I think it may be partly because weight has not been a problem for me and also because I grew up in an environment where eating healthy is not much of a big and conscious focus.

But a lot of things have happened recently that had created a crack in this hard skull of mine. My mom had been diagnosed with abdominal cancer early this year (and since it is hereditary, I have been imagining my occasional stomach pains as those beastly cancer cells starting to invade mine too), my husband’s mom had been diagnosed with diabetes two weeks ago, and then Julia and I got sick from something she got at her daycare. It is just too much sickness at one time that I’m saying enough. I need to start getting healthier.
 My uncle who is 83 years old (and very conscious of what he eats), recommended us the GI diet book by Rick Gallop, which my husband bought and which I read. It is a nice place for me to start with since I like things to be simple and easy. So my goal now is just to stick to the diagram below (taken from the book), where I’d decrease my consumption of rice/pasta/carbohydrates (which is the big chunk of my diet) and putting the vegetables in its place and making them the main dish. My intention is not to loose weight as I don't need to but to eat more healthy foods and not fill myself up with too much carbohydrates. It is just one thing, one change and seems like a simple thing but then I realized, once you start on this path, it opens up a whole new bag of other things which basically messes up my entire life’s worth of bad habits and then other things need to change as well (and this may be a good thing). It is similar to the feeling after one has cleaned the kitchen, then we begin to want to clean the living room and the bathroom and the bedroom etc. For one cannot live on a clean kitchen alone, that's what I would now say.

I watched a late night show last night and saw Jamie Oliver’s Eat to save your life (or maybe it was eating yourself to death) show which I never watched but this time I did. And I was impressed at his passion for cooking healthy foods, horrified at how bad eating habits could accumulate all those gunk in our bodies and at how easy it looked to cooked delicious vegetable dishes. And so this is another place I’d start, trying on his recipes in the days to come. (I may be tempted to grow my own food someday as this seems to be the focus nowadays here in Victoria - the land of beautiful flowers, and maybe vegetables in the future, with a lot of free seminars on this topic and people advocating it, but I am not that evolved yet.)

I consider myself lucky for having had this realization while I’m still a bit young, before I totally become immersed with unhealthy eating in my new adopted country and before I could irreversibly ruin my daughter’s eating habits. Lately, in my exploration of North American foods, I have found myself exploring the microwaveable and ready to eat sections of the groceries which I see people buy and finding the convenience quite addictive. I’m so glad I had caught myself just in time. The convenience is not worth it. For me, with my eternal “why would I ever do it” questions, it boils down to my family and myself living longer, sickness free and happier lives. Those are good enough reasons for making the change.

Street Folks

As I walk my way to and from work everyday in the streets of Victoria, I always enjoy seeing the different kinds of people that I pass by. And when you walk often enough like me, you'd soon find that what use to be faces of strangers, become familiar and seem to almost be like long lost friends that you "converse" with, mostly with your eyes and a friendly smile and greeting. Recently I was struck by the realization of the significance the street folks have in my picture and memory of what this city is to me. Without the street folks that I see daily peddling near the harbor, playing beautiful music, standing in corners or sitting in front of the church bench constantly saying "spare change", the city of Victoria would be as dull and as impersonal as any city would be to me. Street folks are a part of the city and for me make up the important personal aspect of it that makes it vibrant and human. For this I am quite thankful.

Below is one of my favorite street folks - the violin playing Darth Vader. How amazing is that? He is pretty cool.

Throwing Caution in the Wind

This is more of an exercise on colors than anything else. Experimenting with colors is quite enjoyable. I don't really like minty green much but I find that when mixed with the reds and browns, it has a certain appeal.

Wind, Water, Fire and Earth

Let your dreams fly

to the highest cloud

That it may be blown

by the mighty Wind

Who will take it to places

you've never seen;

Let your mind flow

with the raging waters

Over hills and valleys

Bending and falling

that it may embrace

the stillnes of the deep sea;

Let your heart burn

with the hottest embers

For even as it consumes

Like the brightest star

it gives life

To those who bask in its radiance;

Let yourself be

As unwavering as the earth

Silent with the knowledge

that nothing can be taken

which dust cannot return.

I could be

It just strikes me, how when we were young, people would often ask, "If you could be anything, what would you like to be?" And I would give "grown-up" answers like, I'd be a doctor or a surgeon, or something complicated sounding to impress grown up folks. But now that I am a grown up, I wonder why noone asks me what I would like to be anymore. Maybe because we just assume, grown ups already have become whatever they had wanted to be when they were small. Or maybe we don't want them to think we need to grow up ourselves. But still I like asking myself that question and sometimes to people I know, who won't get offended. There is a line in the movie, "Memoirs of a Geisha", where Hatsumomo (the elder geisha) was thrown out of the okiya after burning part of it and the voice of Sayuri (the young geisha) could be heard reflecting from the window where she was looking at Hatsumomo walking in the dark streets, fading towards the shadows, a sad symbol of a wasted life. Sayuri's line went,

 " I could be her
Were we so different?
She loved once, She hoped once
I  could be her
I might be looking into my own future."  --- Memoirs of a Geisha

Sometimes when I see an image of a woman in Africa,
with her frail thin hands feeding her child with brown bacteria filled water from a canal,
I say to myself, "I could be her"

When I see a child frantically weeping beside the lifeless body of her mother
just crushed by a big boulder from an earthquake,
"I could be her"

There is a man lying homeless in the streets
with noone beside him but his loyal dog,
"I could be him"

In my walk around the harbor, I often see vendors selling their wares at the steps near the docks.
One time I stopped by and chatted with a nice elderly man who was selling postcard size prints of
his artworks for 2-5 dollars each. I have a soft spot for elder people still "working" to
earn a living and decided I'd buy one of his prints. While I chatted with him, he asked me if I was from Formosa. I said no, but I've heard of it. Why do you ask? He replied, "I'd want to go there someday and see this beautiful mountain (showing me his watercolor in progress of what looked like Mt Fuji)." He looked friendly enough for me to have the courgage to ask, "Is that where you want to be in the future?" He said yes. He wants to paint the mountain. He had been painting since he was a child and never stopped. Now he paints all day with his wife painting watercolors too, beside him. I mentioned that I paint in watercolor too. And he excitedly asked me to bring my work over so he could give me advice if I like. I got curious and asked him where he lived and he pointed his brush out into the harbor. I didn't get where he was pointing at so I asked him again. He pointed out again and this time said, "There in one of those yachts docked on the side". I had to repeat myself as I was clearly astonished, "You live in one of those million dollar yachts docked in the harbor?! Then why are you here painting and selling in the sidewalk when it clearly is so much better to be painting there!" I gasped. And he replied with a chuckle, " I didn't want to spill my paint on the $100,000 teak wood floor." 

What a life that would be, to be painting all day, and selling your work on the sidewalk and going home at night to have dinner in a yacht.

I could be him.

Quiet Time

I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to blog these days. It feels like the more I immerse myself into painting, the more I embrace and dive into the unexplored waters of my senses, the more I prefer not to "talk". Seems like talking (or blogging) dessipates the sensations that are building up inside, sensations that I need to create. So here's to the times when we are quiet and are most closest to ourselves and to the big universe that we are a part of.