Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, December 14 – This is the 5th and I think the last of the Chubby Women statue series around Songshan Lake. There are many more in the series in other places though. This is the series by the sculptor named Xu Hong Fei, from Guangzhou. You can see the other four on my blog here: http://www.myownchinesebrocade.com/picture-a-day-1?tag=Xu+Hong+Fei
Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 5 - I’ve posted three others of the Chubby Women series by Guangzhou artist Xu Hong Fei. We’ve seen her walking a dog (Feb 5), holding a baby (April 11), lying with a cat (June 24), and now we have her playing golf – only she doesn’t have a golf club that is part of the statue. It doesn’t seem to be broken, it looks like there never was one; I thought she should have one, so I gave her a bamboo club for the picture :-) If you want to see the other three statues, follow this link: http://www.myownchinesebrocade.com/picture-a-day-1?tag=Xu+Hong+Fei I think there is still one more to go! www.myownchinesebrocade.com
Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, September 22 – Today we went for a bike ride and saw these three different types of herons all in one area. In Chinese culture, herons symbolize strength, purity, patience, and longevity. In Chinese, lu (loo), the word for heron, sounds similar to the word lu used for ‘path’ or ‘way’ (same as street). In Chinese art and poetry, herons are often shown or written about together with a lotus flower. This is because the word for lotus is ‘lian’ and it sounds the same as the word for ‘successive.’ So … the phrase, lù lián sheng, is a wish for good fortune, a positive future, or success in what you are doing. In Chinese legend, white herons were responsible for taking the souls of departed people to heaven, so the white heron represented the path to heaven. The pictures, starting with the top left, are the Little Egret (egrets are a type of heron), top right is the Great Egret, lower right is the Chinese Pond Heron (in non-breeding plumage), and the lower left is a painting I saw last year displayed at a small art gallery at Shenzhen University. In the painting, you can see the lotus flowers behind the heron.
I’d like to share another one of Xu Hongfei’s Chubby Women sculpture series that are along the shoreline of Songshan Lake. This one is called “Mother and Child”; There are quite a few in the series with mothers and babies or small children, but I think this one shows a much more tender side where the others are more “fun.” The description on the base says how a child needs his mother’s loving care in order to grow up healthy.
I found a great video on You Tube (13 minutes long) that shows footage from Xu Hongfei’s 2013-2015 Chubby Women International Sculpture Tour with exhibtions in Guangzhou, Florence and Sicily in Italy, Australia, London, Singapore, and Beijing, and also shows him working in his studio. It’s fun to see the people interacting with the sculptures. I think I’ll have to go sit by some of these sculptures on a busy weekend and see what people do :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8anOkimBc6M&nohtml5=False
The first sculpture picture I shared was on Feb 5th http://www.myownchinesebrocade.com/picture-a-day-1?tag=statues
The arts have been, and still are, very important throughout China’s history. Sculpture is included and can be found in many parks and gardens, as well as museums and more. The housing area where we live, as well as the public areas of Songshan Lake, have quite a few sculptures. Today’s pictures show two areas of the same style of sculptures: The larger group of children, seven in all, is between the largest playground and a small lake. I really like these because even when the weather isn’t so nice and the real children aren’t out playing, these children are :-) They kind of draw you in and make you wish you could go play with them. The boy and the dog are off to the side of the building we live in. I enjoyed “catching” the bird on the boy’s head, it probably even left some droppings, so the boy has good luck now ;-)
Life in China: A Picture a Day 2016, Feb 5 - I have seen three sculptures around the lake that have caught my eye as something different for China. Usually, women are portrayed as very petite, so I was curious about these. I have been looking for information about them and was so excited that I finally found it! It turns out that they are a part of a well-known series, from 2010, by Xu Hong Fei 許鴻飛, president of the Guangzhou Sculpture Academy. He did the series because he wanted to challenge Western ideals of beauty. “His ‘Chubby Women’ are not limited by their size and enjoy active and fulfilling lives.” The statue series have made a couple world tours and have been loved! So, here is the first one I saw at Songshan Lake, titled “Under the Sun.” As I explore more of the lake, I expect to find more statues!
