42th Life Human Portrait

April 13, 2016. Oil on Canvas. 30 x 40″ 3 hours painting at 貴卅從江縣翠里鄉高華村瑤族女人趙二妹40歲

The first stop of the rural painting tour in April 2016 with Master Chan and his Guiyang artist friends was a minority race village of 瑤族 called 高華村。It was lucky for us to be led by an artist friend who was brought up in this region and was familiar with all the routes. Not much villages had hostel and dining facilities for outsiders. These were the undeveloped rural area where seldom visitors would be able to access. 

Our escort brought us to a wooden hut just like all the rest wooden huts besides it provided accommodation and dining at RMB$30@head. The hut was primitive yet clean. There were a few big rooms in three storey which can house 10-20 guests.

  
   
    
   
From the hut interior one could see the entire house was built by wooden. No single sight of concrete cement or other modern construction materials such as bricks or glass. There was electricity but there was not much electrical appliance other light bulbs and an broken old TV. The cooking and hot water bathing was done by burning wood – their life was just like our ancestors several thousands year ago. It was hard life and a lot of work to maintain a living. 

It sounded unbelievable as the rest of the modern world were leading a very different life and how come they were living in this way. Pity.

   
The dining area was also the kitchen and the bedroom. For VIP there was 2 small simple private rooms.

   
Apart from accommodation they provided traditional herbs hot bath which was very good to health. I tried for twice to test the effectiveness. I am not sure how effective that was very comfortable to bath in hot water after a cold and tired day..

  
Our second model was the friendly and hard working hostel operator, 二妹. She was very happy that we asked her to be our model because she could earn some extra dollars for her family. The model fee was RMB$8@hour, cheaper than normal.

But then she was worrying of her household work the whole time and looked silly worried. During all the breaks she would take the time to rush back to her kitchen few steps away to do the dinner preparation.

 二妹had a dark skin tone and an exquisite face. Her hair had never been cut and could reach her legs when untied.  I was happy to finish her people portrait as my master told me that it was a nice one.

Thanks to 二妹for the modelling and the hospitality.

 Photo with the hostel owner couple 趙成清及趙二妹. They had 2 daughters who both married. When I asked whether the husband was treating her nice she said sadly no and was very silent afterwards.

Rural villages marriage had same problems as modern one. Couldn’t  guarantee happiness. I could feel that women’s inferiority in the family. She was fear of her husband. She knew nothing about their property and asset. Her whole life was to follow the tradition to work at home and listen to her husband’s instruction.
  View from the hut hostel. It was speculative. Living in hill village for a while was not bad. 
  Food and dishes were very simple, and also were identical for breskfast, lunch and dinner. The farmer dishes included a special rice tea which was pouring fried rice into hot tea soup. Very tasty and similar to my primitive home town dishes 炒米茶in 潮州鶴佬which I hadn’t taste for 30 years.
   
 Hens was very happily active in the rural.  Their freedom and happiness had projected on me. 

Unlike mass production of chicken and eggs in factories with all kind of chemicals and modern techniques,  villagers raised poultry in a natural environment, letting them run freely in the villages. It was widely recognised that these kind of running animals were tasting 100 times better than the factory raised ones.

I didn’t know the answer because when I thought of eating these happy animals I felt bad and I decided to stay vegetarian as long as possible.