A couple of months ago BMW and I went to a scenic spot in Wuhan that we had not been to before. What a pity! It is the nicest part of Wuhan I have seen. The area makes a feature of commemorating the Shu kingdom, an early kingdom that was centred on this area. There are wonderful sculptures and bas reliefs cut into the sandstone of the hills, depicting arts crafts and technological achievements attributed to the Shu.
At Moshan also there are beautiful gardens of various sorts, which I will deal with elsewhere. There is a street of tourist shops, no worse than elsewhere in Wuhan and better than many. Moshan is on Dong Hu, the biggest lake within any Chinese city, East Lake in English. The lake has various moods and can look dreary under heavy pollution or approaching beautiful in good Autumn light with a wind dispersing the smog. Sorry Wuhanese, I had the disadvantage to be born near Loch Lomond in Scotland so most of the world’s lakes are not so beautiful in comparison.
To our delight, when we went into a small cafe at the end of the tourist arcade, BMW and I were befriended by the proprietor, an artist. This man is a photographer specializing in the photography of plants. He also sculpts in wood, creating beautiful creatures in the traditional Chinese manner from roots of bamboo and other trees.
Sun Yao took to us and offered to make me an official Dong Hu artist. I was pretty reluctant at first because I don’t think of myself as an artist, only as having an artist nature, but I accepted the honour and am determined to make a photographic study of Moshan so as to be worthy of the title. I will also write some poems to fit.
Our new friend took us to the top of one of the hills where a lovely pagoda sits. As the sun is setting, a concert begins. The instruments are of ancient design and the performers are costumed in kind. They produce lovely sounds and a young woman dances a graceful dance enhanced by the long flowing sleeves of her costume.
After the concert Sun Yao cooked us a meal of a fish he had caught in the lake that morning and we talked about art and life, BMW interpreting.
So there you are, doors opening.