We visited the studio of Pan Xiao Ling on this day. It was raining. We loved her art work and many of us purchased her paintings and paper cuttings. She taught us paper cutting of the Chinese Characters for Double Happiness. We learned that Farmer Artists are not only Folk Artists but were in fact actually farmers at one time. Pan Xiao Ling was very interesting. We learned that she did a Limited Edition Stamp Collection of her Art Work for the Chinese Post Office...Or perhaps, rather that her work was honored on a limited edition Stamp Collection in China. The Factory Visit was at a Family Business that made and sold the chemical for de-icing planes. The president of the company learned Russian as she was from that generation where learning Russian was the thing. Her son and daughter who were also officers in the company learned English but only barely. The charming grandaughter spoke perfect English and acted as translator for her mom, uncle and grandma. This day was notable also because Clay rejoined our group at another Business that presented us with the chance to sing Kareoke and that was really bizarre. But we greeted Clay with a resounding rendition of "Reunited" and I believe he was either deeply moved or deeply mortified..I couldn't tell which. Venus said he was deeply moved, so lets choose that scenario. We all went to dinner and enjoyed tasty dumplings.
edited by mfraser on 7/25/2012
edited by mfraser on 7/25/2012

Pan Xiao Ling's studio was impressive and most of us spent $$$ there. In fact, I charged my work of art, and just paid my visa bill a few days back. I NEED to order another picture to go along with the one hanging on my deck area. It is spectactular. Here is a photo of her amazing paper cutting technique. All of ours look sort of like this, huh?

I remember this as the day we were updated on Rudy’s condition. Clay was able to have a quick bite with us at the restaurant before having to return to the hospital. After a long eventful day we couldn’t have asked for a more delicious meal than the dumplings we devoured this night! Robin I also don’t remember the name of the restaurant where we had our dumpling dinner. All I know is I probably had the best dumplings in my life this evening. I’ve had Southern Chinese style dumplings in Los Angeles but never walnut and almond dumplings. I’ve tried looking for this style of dumplings in Los Angeles without success. I want to upload a picture I took while at the dinner table for some reason the size of the picture is too large. We ended this meal on a great note, Gustavo and I forget who else presented Clay with two paintings from Pan Xiao Ling studio.
edited by elopez on 10/15/2012

The artist's studio visit was, like pretty much everything we did on this trip, completely amazing. (I think I need to use a thesaurus so I can come up with a few more ways of saying that, but it's true.) She did a quick demonstration, creating 3 beautiful butterflies simultaneously in a flash. Then, very patiently, she walked us through the steps for cutting out the Double Happiness. I was so happy when mine actually worked -- you can see in one of the photos someone posted here that I look completely baffled, but I did it! I picked out the most gorgeous papercut, including one main character (luck) and many tiny ones intricately worked into the lacy webbing around it. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

I've never been particularly fond of dumplings before, but I'd clearly just been eating in the wrong place. Eddie mentioned the nut-flavored dumplings, which were amazing, and it was a vegetarian paradise all around. Gustavo had sweetly purchased the panda painting that we had seen made during the studio visit, and he presented it to Clay at dinner. I have a very, very blurry photo of the exchange -- I wish I'd gotten a clear shot. (I'm pretty sure that the karaoke was in Chongqing, but I'll agree that it was quite an experience!) We were all still in shock about Rudy, but we were making the best of a difficult situation and happy to hear he was doing as well as possible. Most of all, we missed Clay.