Day 5

It was another bright and sunny day in Beijing. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was almost 50° this morning. Because Huang was tied up on another assignment, he told me that his older brother would drive me to the railroad station. I allowed for another half an hour on the assumption that he would probably get lost. His wife decided to accompany us. She was a backseat driver par excellence. He had brought a map with him, so before we started out we planned the route. Although it was far away it was pretty easy to get into the general area by going on only two ring roads. We got there without incident and he insisted on parking the car to accompany me to the train. I tried to insist that I had done it before from the normal entrance and not to worry, but he insisted. Instead of a walk of 150 feet to the waiting area, we had to walk over half a mile from the parking garage, which included going up two flights of stairs and of three escalators. We followed the signs. Fortunately, I spotted a ticket counter and decided to purchase a return ticket. I wanted to come back on the evening of May 1, but there were no seats available. So I picked an early-morning train on May 2. Because of the possibility that no one from Aimei was going to meet me at the Zibo railroad station, I did not want to carry my luggage up two flights of stairs to buy the return ticket in Zibo. Buying the return ticket in Beijing made sense.

At the last second they switched the departure gates . It was like a large stampede of over 4000 cattle. Surprisingly, the old people were the most aggressive. The teenagers and young adults had a laid-back approach, because they probably realized that there was nothing they could do about being pushed further back in line. You want to be one of the first ones on the train so that you can put your baggage above your seat and there is not enough baggage space, especially for the cheaper seats. My ticket was purchased too late to get the better class of seat. The ride to Zibo was very pleasant as I was able to study Chinese and read Glass Magazine. I was afraid to fall asleep because I did not want to miss my stop and end up in Tsingdao, which is more than 400 miles further south of Zibo.

Since I knew the arrival time was around 3:10 PM and you must be off the train within one minute, I took everything down from baggage at 3:00 so I could be near the exit door. Again, the very old people pushed and shoved everyone aside so they could get nearer the exit door. When I got to Zibo I waited for approximately 10 minutes to see if someone was showing up. I then called Sun Yan who confirmed that I should take a taxi. She was nice enough to speak to a cab driver to make sure that she understood where to go. I had an extra business card from the hotel which I gave to the taxi driver.

Just before we arrived at the hotel I spotted the park where I previously saw a festival of kite flying and kites for sale when I first came to Boshan. After getting settled in my room and someone from the hotel helped me connect with the Internet, I walked over to the park. It was very zen-like, with many large kites flying 200 to 400 feet above the ground. I wanted to buy more kites for Ruben and the twins. Ruben hung the last “action character” kite I purchased in Beijing as a decoration in his room, so I bought him a Spiderman kite. The kite for the twins is a Chinese cartoon character that is very popular.

By now it was dinner time. There was a large wedding in the main dining room of the hotel. Interestingly at the large round tables all of the men sat on one side and the women sat on the other side. Sun Yan called to make sure that I had arrived safely. She put her 11-year-old son on the line and he confirmed to me in both Chinese and English that I was expected at the foundry tomorrow. But it was unclear whether or not someone was going to come and pick me up at the hotel. It was a long day and I decided to go up to my room to edit some of the photographs of the sculptures Mung had recently finished, do the diary and study some Chinese characters and sentence structure. However, the electric connection that I used for the computer was not functioning and my machine went into hibernation. I had a similar problem last time at this hotel, so I disconnected the table lamp which was working and plugged the computer into that outlet. The computer operated smoothly, although now I had no reading light at the desk. I made my choice. Fortunately, the reading light by the bed worked.

Day 6

I had received no instructions from Aimei about whether or not I would be picked up at the hotel at around 7:30 a.m. I got a call at 6:30 a.m. that someone was in the lobby and was waiting for me at the request of Sun Yan Hao, so I quickly got dressed, missing breakfast at the hotel which commences and 7:00 a.m. No one was in the lobby. I went outside and looked around and there was his wife sitting in the van around the corner. Fortunately, I recognized her from a previous dinner. Off we went to the foundry and at the foundry she gave me a Chinese version of Egg McMuffin. It is really a very thin sandwich consisting of fried Chinese dough with a small filling of meat and vegetables. I was very hungry since I had skipped dinner, and my one sandwich tasted very good. The foundry does not really begin to operate until 7:30 a.m. It was interesting watching the glassblowers come in and prepare their stations and equipment. Everyone was extremely friendly. It was a nice feeling. There were lots of comments on my new mold and it was decided by Qian and Soia that we would work on the new mold tomorrow. I wanted to start with some more of the Crocodile Series, but the right colors were not available that day. The available colors were black, a dark blue, green (the wrong color green) and white. Also there was a shortage of frit colors.

I also spent some time looking at the glass scrap in the open yard behind the foundry. Last night I had drafted out some sketches for a conceptual piece utilizing shattered and broken glass that was being thrown out by the foundry. For my steel I have always used metal scrap that the steel fabricator was throwing out. My thought was to take something that no one wanted and make it into either a beautiful or thought-provoking piece of art. Qian just smiled when I told him that I wanted him to save certain scrap because I had an idea. Sun Yan asked me to explain my idea, which I did and she immediately got the concept. I also had some ideas on how to use this concept as a performance piece. There is a fairly new classical composition which I heard for the first time about seven years ago at St. Ignatius Church in New York City by Michael Torke. It reminded me of shards of broken glass reflecting in the sunlight. I will have to do some research to locate that piece and contact the composer to get permission to use that piece as part of the installation of creating a new sculpture utilizing the glass from the furnace that no one wants.

I decided I’m doing a series of five dark blue Chinese Dragon series first. It was like we were continuing where we left off. Next we did five more dark blue Chinese Dragon series but we added yellow frits to the design. I wanted to do something in the dark green glass, but was told there was too little glass of that color for both my sculptures and the other scheduled work. So we switched to doing five black Chinese Dragon series.

In the interim Qian, Soia and I walked to the local restaurant for lunch. For once we did not over order. We had a very simple but good meal consisting of the equivalent to a plate of fried anchioves, a soup with lots of vegetables, string beans in chile,chicken with vegetables and finally noodles in a beef broth. This sounds like a lot of food, but it was about half of what they normally order for lunch when I am around.

I also gave them three issues of Glass Magazine as my gift to everyone at Aimei. I knew they would find it very interesting even though they did not understand the English text. In particular, we ended up discussing a Venetian glass vase which used a type of etching technique. They tended to like the more conservative pieces which I found quite interesting. They were also interested in some of the technical aspects of the glass sculptures.

That afternoon we also used the dark blue glass to do more of the spermoid series in that color. I just like the way this color comes out utilizing my technique on that mold. Surrounding the dark blue with a clear glass makes for some very interesting shadows and contrasts in a piece that has only one color. I believe that installation of 7 to 10 of these pieces would be very powerful.

By the end of the day I was dog tired. Because I saw that the company van and none of the Sun’s cars were around, I decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. I called Sun Yan to tell her this and she asked me to wait. When she saw that there is no available vehicles and that I was comfortable taking a taxi back to the hotel because I wanted to take a nap, she agreed. After walking about 60 feet she asked me to stop and Dong appeared and said he would drive me back to the hotel in the company truck if I did not mind. Since I was totally exhausted, both physically and mentally, I readily agreed.

After a four hour nap I decided that I was not hungry and did some reading and posted the diary. Leslie is going to call me on Skype and then I am going to go to bed for the evening. Standing on your feet for 6 to 7 hours a day doing physical labor is very tiring when you are not used to it. When I am at the metal shop in Brooklyn I can get very tired after working 6-7 hours, especially since I am standing most of the time. It is no different here except rather than a 30 inch high stool, I have an 8" high Chinese stool. You get used to it after a while and it becomes quite comfortable. The only problem is that it is difficult to get up easily from that low of a stool.

Day 7

I set the alarm early in anticipation of another 6:30 a.m. telephone call. I was off by 20 minutes. The sun was out, but because of the pollution you cannot see any clouds or the sky. The Chinese version of the McDonald’s Egg McMuffin this morning had much thicker dough and more filling. It did not taste half as good as yesterday’s. I was one of the first persons at the foundry. But I noted that Qian as the production manager was extremely busy setting everything up for the day. It was interesting to watch him in action.

They had the right colors to work on the Crocodile Fish series today. We did 11 of them because we had a problem with one of the sculptures which I do not think can be remedied in the cold shop finishing. I also did one in the dark blue. I like that form and that particular color. Maybe I can do an installation of various shapes of the dark blue sculptures. We went off to lunch to the same restaurant.

The conversation was entirely in Chinese. However, since my Chinese vocabulary is still quite limited it was not a very animated conversation but we were all able to understand each other. I described to them my idea of using scrap glass scraped off the furnace for a performance or installation sculpture to be called “Shattered Dreams,” which in Chinese is “Meng Po Le.” In the Chinese translation “le” indicates that this is a change in the action. I was previously advised that this scrap had to be thrown out and was a real pain in the neck to the foundry, so they had no problems letting me try to do something with it. Soia thought it was a crazy idea that made no sense. That is material that no one wants. My response was that I loved to take things such as scrap steel and made into something beautiful or thought-provoking. Why couldn’t I do the same thing with glass scrap that no one wants?

That afternoon we used the new mold to do 11 more sculptures. When the foundry was shutting down I started to work on this performance piece since the cleaning people had just scraped this glass off the furnace and piled it next to where we were working. Initially, I worked with clear glass using it to surround an open area. I was able to take a picture with my telephone camera but for some reason I was unable to save it or e-mail it successfully.

Qian and I had previously discussed that I thought this concept would work better if we used black or dark blue glass scrap. A bunch of the workers including Qian and Soia came over to see what I was doing. The next thing you know Qian and Soia were getting black glass from the furnace and drizzling it over the clear glass scrap, which was a suggestion I had made. They were having so much fun getting into it that I had difficulty getting them to stop. I explained to them that too much black would spoil the effect as the creation was starting to take a very fixed look. I wanted something that had lots of space even though it was surrounding a perfectly blank space. Each viewer can fill in the blank space with his or her own shattered dream. I wanted the viewer to imagine what was going on when the dream shattered.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my telephone camera to take another picture. I called Sun Yan in the office and asked her if she could bring a camera to work tomorrow morning so we could take a picture before the sculpture is destroyed. Even if we were to break the glass into sections for shipping, it would not look the same on reassembly. That is because you would lose the flow of the black lines interlacing with the clear glass scrap. It was lots of fun and I hope they can bring in a camera tomorrow so we can photograph the results of this piece, which can never be duplicated.

I took a taxi back to the hotel. We got a little lost, which was surprising since the hotel I was staying at is very well known in Boshan. So we stopped the taxi and I asked someone for directions. I was able to understand them well enough and then communicate that to the taxi driver, and we got to the hotel promptly. After a brief nap I decided to walk around the area. I previously walked around the area at night with Prof. Wang. I decided to take the reverse route. I found the central shopping mall. Cars are prohibited but not motorcycles or other bicycles, so it is still extremely crowded and dangerous because of all the vehicles. This particular area has a concentration of clothing stores. There are lots of people shopping, in contrast to the number of people in many malls in the United States. After dinner at a local restaurant, which was quite good, I returned to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep after posting the diary, studying some Chinese and reading some more of a Chief Inspector Chen mystery.

Day 8

Again no rain in Boshan, but because of the smog you could not see the sky or any clouds. Sun Yun Hao’s wife called me and said that she would be at the hotel at 7:20 a.m. This gave me a chance to have breakfast since the dining room opens at seven clock a.m. However, the dining room was closed and by 7:10 a.m. it was not open so I walked outside to look for Mrs. Sun. She was waiting for me in the company van and had another type of breakfast sandwich for me and a number of other persons at Aimei. Rather than eating in the car, I waited until we got to Aimei. It was just starting to get organized for the day.

After eating a sandwich which consisted of some type of meat and a sauce that I was unfamiliar with topped with lettuce, I was ready to get to work. However, Qian and Soia had a lot of preparatory work to do for projects that others had to work on so we didn’t get started on my sculptures on till after 8:30 a.m. In the meantime I gathered up some colored scrap that was about ready to be thrown out and sifted through it for black and blue pieces of shattered glass to take back to Beijing to create “Meng Po Le” a.k.a. “Shattered Glass.” We used the crocodile fish mold to start with a different color composition and organization. I decided to use his slender band of yellow glass with black frits instead of translucent green with black frits. I wanted the clear glass to play an important part in the sculpture other than being the base. I hope this works.

We then used the new mold for a series of three solid blue sculptures followed by a series of three solid yellow sculptures. At 11:00 a.m. the factory closes for lunch and we went off to the usual place. Even though Soia used restraint in a number of dishes he ordered, I was stuffed. Rather than ordering one of the Boshan tasteless and heavy rolls for me, they ordered a bowl of noodles in broth. It was a nice touch. We discussed the Iraqi war and it was clear that neither of them thought that the Bush decision to invade that country was a smart decision. They agree that Obama is on the right track in getting us out. Qian observed that the war had a bad effect on our economy and that it was affecting the world economy, including China. But business was picking up at Aimei and upon our return from lunch I saw the delivery of new components for a second or possibly replacement main furnace for the molten glass.

After lunch we went back to the small mold and did some more spermoids white with green frits. We then did two more sculptures with a white background and blue frits. These look like they could really come out well. This was a new color combination utilizing the small mold. Again, I took liberties with the form as we were manipulating the glass. I want to try to convey the movement of glass as a liquid in the creation of these sculptures.

At the end of the day I asked Qian if he would show me how to make glass drippings for my “Shattered Dreams”conceptual sculpture. Rather than teaching me he wanted to do it himself with my guidance. I wanted to vary the type of free-form design much like I do for the surface of the coral kelp series. It is difficult to explain to another person in English. But I was able to communicate to him what I wanted and we created some interesting free-form glass in blue and yellow. I assume that these pieces will shatter in transporting them in a box from Boshan to Beijing, but that is going to be part of the process in the creation of this piece. Each time the sculpture is reinstalled the glass will be shattered some more.

None of the company cars were around so I advised Mr. Sun, the father, that I would take a taxi back. As I was walking towards the foundry exit, one of the master glass blowers stopped his motorcycle and offered me a lift. I was carrying my Chinese lesson book and Chinese American dictionary. The road from the foundry to the main street is a dirt trail with lots of ruts, since they are repairing the road. The town is working on putting in a new road but it is ending after about 100 feet because none of the factories or other businesses off that road want to pay for the continuation to the individual business premises. It was scary but I got back to the hotel. All of the people I encountered working in the foundry are extremely helpful and pleasant.

I was absolutely filthy and everything was sweated through. The first order of business was a hot shower. The second order of business was to post this diary for what had occurred today. I am going to put on WQXR and read a good book. The name of the book is the Mao Case, but I made sure to keep it out of sight when I leave the room. I tried to take a nap but that didn’t work so I did some editing on the diary for my last trip to China.

Snow Cao and his wife came to pick me up and decided that it was too early for dinner. We went to Yuan Shan, which is a large mountain which has been converted into a public park on the south side of Boshan. He thought we could drive all the way up to the mountain to get a sweeping view of the area. However, we had to leave his car in a parking lot about a quarter of the way up the mountain, and we started to climb by foot. Almost 2 miles later we were at the top. The viewing pagoda was closed, but the views were still very nice. The pollution to the south of Boshan is not as bad as the pollution near downtown. There were more mountains to the south and Snow explained to me that that area is basically uninhabited.

They wanted to take me to a famous restaurant east of the main part of Boshan. The restaurant was enormous and each table was surrounded by trees and a water moat. Again, you choose the food from selected samples that are either the real thing or plastic placed on large tables in front of the kitchen. Snow has decided that he wants to become a vegetarian or at the very least cut down on his consumption of red meat, chicken, lamb and pork. He does not really like seafood except very fresh seafood that is caught off the coast near Tsingdao.

We discussed his plans for turning over the business to his daughter and her boyfriend within three years so they could support him. I had a good laugh at this dream. He had spent many years building up the business and it would not be so easy to retire as a fisherman on a small boat moored in Tsingdao.

We also discussed his feelings towards dealing with the Taiwanese, Koreans and Japanese. He always avoided the first two having had bad experiences, but he did not mind dealing with Japanese even though he was sensitive to what they did to the Chinese right before World War II. We also discussed the health of his parents and his wife’s mother. She especially liked going to Tsingdao because her mother lived there. I always have a good time with him and if a customer orders 100 containers of merchandise this year, he has promised that customer that he will visit the United States for the first time. He intends to come through New York to see two buyers and to visit me.

He explained to me that there were lots of saunas in Boshan but they had no real sauna facilities. There are official government policies and then there is reality. Lots of beautiful young women work in these saunas. In effect, these were prostitution houses dressed up to look like they were legitimate businesses. They are very popular throughout China. You learn something new everyday. His business is operating at about the same level of sales as last year and he is very grateful. Snow and his wife are planning to buy a new Ford van at the end of this year so that traveling to their vacation home will be a lot easier.

When I got back to the hotel it was almost 9:30 p.m. and it was time to call it a day. However, I waited up to speak to Leslie on Skype. It is very difficult to explain the happening of a performance piece to someone who was not there. It was very good to speak to her and catch up on what was happening in New York. I then went to sleep.

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