Hello, dear friend.

How are you?

I am currently writing to you during my 12nd American trip on their Thanksgiving Day. I would like to extend my best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving holiday to my American friends, professors, work partners and your family members, and express my gratitude for your past, present, and future help and support. Additionally, I would like to adopt the local customs and thank all of my non-American friends, professors, co-workers and classmates for a joyful, healthy, and fortunate day.

This is my 12th trip to America, but it has been the longest interval of four years between two trips and the longest distance traveled from Sydney – Beijing – Wuxi – Shenzhen - Shanghai – Los Angeles – Chicago - Springfield, MO. Although the Covid-19 epidemic halted my annual American travels that started in 2008 and disrupted some long-standing collaborations, it also provided me with time to complete my academic paper consisting of 68,000 Chinese words and obtain my master's degree (MFA) from Chinese National Academy of Arts in 2021. Subsequently, I became an Australian permanent resident in 2022.

Despite having witnessed numerous economic downturns during my travels after the epidemics and having experienced suboptimal health conditions, the best news is that almost all of my old American friends, former work partners, and I are still alive. As long as we are alive, there remains hope for establishing new collaborations with a shared dream of serving more people and helping this world.

Consequently, for the first time ever upon arrival, I refrained from immediately immersing myself in work as I had done previously; instead, I dedicated some time to focusing on improving both my house and personal well-being.

Fortunately, I received a lot of help from many old and new American friends.

- Mr. John David Lawson and his wife, who have been my friends since 2008, not only picked me up at the airport but also bought tools to reinstall the missing water faucet. They also helped me fix a cell phone service and purchased lamps, air-conditioning filters, refrigerator light bulbs, and adapters for my house and personally re-fixed them in person.

- Mr. John Walker, my first agent who sold me the house in 2015, called City Utilities to turn off the main water switch that was continuously flowing into my yard while discussing with them to restore electricity and gas on my first day in the US. He also repaired the garbage disposal under the sink in my kitchen.

Thanks to the assistance of Mr. John and his family members, I was able to live in my own house instead of staying at a hotel on the first day of arriving in the US.

- Dr./Prof. Yuhua Qiao and her husband Dr. Xinyuan Zhu have known me since 2009. They not only received my mail packages with heavy paper and books from China but also ordered Internet service before I went to the airport so that I had WiFi in my house by the second day after arriving in America. Then on the third day, we ate Chinese Jiaozi together at their house...

- Mrs.Glad Eyerman has been my reliable work partner and friend from 2015 until 2020 and now. She came to see me and gave me a ride when going to places such as Insurance Company, City Utilities, and Wal-Mart. She even helped carry my heavy painting board from my shed into the house.

Also, there are many other helpful old and new friends who have made appointments with me to meet in the upcoming several days. I will let you know in my next letter to you.

Although the after-effects of COVID-19 have affected my health, I have been trying to stay positively and engage myself in work. Therefore, on my 12th trip to America, I plan to do the following:

- In terms of creation, I aim to complete coloring my American Culture Map Series I – American State Bird and paint it using Baimiao style on a large thin silk. If time permits, I will also finish the Chinese Culture Map Series–Chinese Provincial Birds in the Baimiao style as a match.

- Regarding teaching, I intend to offer approximately 40 hours of lessons at church, colleges, and art organizations.

- As for research, I am planning to translate one of my papers into English upon invitation from an American publishing house.

- In terms of marketing, my goal is to establish new working relationships and collaborations with potential partners while also attempting to revive some previous partnerships that were disrupted due to the pandemic.

Additionally, there are numerous repairs needed in my house. Consequently, this short trip will be quite busy for me; however, I will strive to work as much as possible.

Anyway, some friends want to know my first impression within the first few days of my 12nd American trip. My answer is:

The prices of many things have risen; but the price of bread remains the same as it was 4 years ago. Although 4 years have passed, every American person whom I have met in the first couple of days - whether they are air stewardesses on the 3 airplanes, clerks at the 4 airports, employees at Wal-Marts, insurance companies, city utilities, banks or campus staff members; or dispatchers and drivers from taxi companies; cashiers and wait staff in restaurants... they are still polite, friendly and gentle. They continue to live their lives busily yet peacefully and delicately just as they did 4 years ago... It seems that kindness, friendship, freedom, equality and those beautiful qualities and personalities inherent in human beings have become ingrained in them and will never change regardless of how times or international relationships may change...

How about you? Do you have anything special to share? Do you agree with me?
 

Sincerely, I am just a lifelong learner in the arts of painting, music, English, management and Chinese art teaching, and work on the website in my free time. I would really like to do something with what I have learned and make this website a little electronic bridge for cross-cultural and integrated/comprehensive art and Chinese language studying. This way, I can help others while improving myself.

Thank you always for your understanding, guidance and assistance and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to write to info@ebridge.cn .

Shirley Yiping Zhang
Nov 29, 2024