From Shanghai with love…

 
Thanks to Ingeborg for today’s challenge: “abstract pattern”.
 
 It provided an opportunity to dig out some memories from our visit to China in 1991.
 
The pattern is from the silk carpet we bought in Shanghai. While M was negotiating this I watched some Taiwanese men haggle over some bottles of snakes in rice wine, a must have in traditional Chinese medicine. Quite frankly the sight of those snakes would be enough to cure any ailment.
 
One of the highlights of our visit was a visit to the famous 
Children’s Palace, a hothouse for gifted children where they receive extra coaching in arts, drama, and music .
We were able to meet some of these children and watch them painting. For those of us drilled in Western art education it was a revelation seeing the spontaneous way these children created beautiful ink brush paintings ( see extra) .
 As Picasso said:” Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”