WATCHING fishermen on the River Liang using their trained cormorants to catch fish and visiting “the Venice of China” were two of many fascinating experiences for veteran Marsden-based artist Dez Wilson on his annual trip to the Far East.
He had booked a journey down the River Liang in a cruiser which took four and a half hours to reach Yansho.
“On either side were the great limestone karsts, the peaks in strange shapes,” he says.
“This is where you can find the fishermen using their trained cormorants. Later, on the quay, I met one of the old fishermen with his cormorant birds at either end of his pole.
“That evening, I attended an open-air concert. They used a small lake, or bay, to one side of the wide river. The peaks were illuminated in the background. It was an amazing experience. There were boatmen with flaming torches coming from across the river far away, and some in the foreground.
“The gorgeous, sweeping music came over loudspeakers. There must have been hundreds of players, as well as singers. The music, spectacle and lighting were astonishing.”
A wooden water-wheel on the river was a feature of Hangzhou, an old town in the Ming and Qing styles with narrow alleyways. Here, Dez experienced another side of Chinese life, where he met the “left behind children” – so called because their parents go away to the cities to earn money.
“The government subsidises schools where the children are looked after and educated.”
Four and a half hours away by car, Dez found Suzhou – the Venice of China, so called because of its many canals. With his guide, Nancy, he enjoyed a boat trip round the canals, visited a museum, ate in little Chinese cafes and went to some of the gardens.
“A striking one was The Humble Administrator’s Garden, of which I did a pen drawing.”
The adventurous Dez also travelled to Thailand and Cambodia.
“On arrival at my hotel, the Malaysia in Bangkok, they had a surprise for me,” Dez explains. “In the previous year I had done a full-page pen drawing of their swimming pool and had given the staff 10 copies of this.
“The owner of the hotel had commissioned quite a number of shirts in different colours. The designer used by drawing and added colour, plus an enlargement of my signature, all around the base of the shirt.
“The pink ones were for reception, yellow for the restaurant and green for the chambermaids upstairs. They gave me one or two for my own use.”
“Later, I flew across to Siem Reap in Cambodia and stayed at Mum’s Guest House. Angkor Wat I was not too impressed with. It was big, with a lot of steps. Bayon Temple, a smaller site, had some lovely interesting carvings on its walls.
“A taxi-driver who took me to the Cultural Centre told me that his mother and father had their throats cut and his sister disappeared, in the Pol Pot era.
“I made a drawing of band of musicians on the way to a temple. They were badly disabled by land mines. This was a darker side to my holiday.
“Passers-by were posing with me and taking photos of my drawing. The Japanese and Chinese seem to do this often, with lots of smiles.”
Dez was away for three months altogether and came back with a host of memories.
