How are you? Have you had a good weekend? I do hope you have and start a wonderful new week.

This is the 83rd day of my third class year in Beijing and the second class year in Chinese National Academy of Arts.

This week, except attending the lessons by Prof. Zhang Hongfei who is a tutor of Master Students, painted paintings; as soon as I had time, such as I was eating or cooking, I watched my favorite historical play -- The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

I read the books 30 years ago, then I watched the play in different versions, but, I had no time enough to watch any of them totally.

Maybe you would like to ask why I enjoy watching this historical play at the time I am so busy?

It is full of the wisdoms inside.

At the special time I just finished my former career in Chinese securities industry and entered art field, while I have to fight with the sicknesses at the same time, I must think of where I should go and how I should go my future road. I do need to learn from the historical experience, lessons and those wise people

During I watched the first 42 of the 95 volumes, the strongest feeling is:

-- A great organization, even a great country was started from individuals. The Kingdom of Shu Han （221-263）was from just three people – Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei; The Kingdom of Wei （220-265）was from just one individual – Cao Cao.

-- Heroes do not ask origin. Anyone who has a dream, wisdom and hard work down to earth has the opportunity to create his own road.

Among the three conditions, wisdom is maybe the most important thing.

A founder of a career should be a thinker at the first. If he or she has no wisdom enough, they must know how to cooperate with those wisest people.

With these ideas, I have been thinking what I should do now and in the future.

-- If I want to be a pure artist of painting, I should continue to improve my painting skills in an art school for a long time.

-- If I want to be a comprehensive artist, I should not stay in the art school always; I should work on the other more important things: create my own business model, look for the best work partners and so on... the painting, music, writing and translation work should be done by a team instead of doing by me itself for a long time.

Since I tend to be the latter and I see the former (as a pure artist of painting) as the final way when I have no any way to go, the question is where I should start after I finish my study in the art school, from Beijing, Wuxi or Shenzhen? From USA, Australia or China?

No matter where I start, before making sure about it, I should not do any big move. Therefore, this week, I have refused two requirements from two Real Estate Agencies – they would like to rent my apartment in Shenzhen with a quite good price that can cover whole of my expenses in Beijing.

As an employee who just retired from the company and has a pension just 30% of the former salary, I do need money indeed. But, if I paid more attention to the immediate interests, I would not be able to care for the big things. If I want to do something more mearningful and helpful, I must give up the immediate benefit, to think of making it as my base in case I choose Shenzhen as my starting point.

How do you think of my idea? Do you think that I have made a smart decision? Do you have anything special to share?

I am just a student on Art of Painting, Music, English and Management, to work on the web site in my free time. I would really like to do a few things with what I have learned to make this little web site to be an Electronic Bridge of Inter-Art & Cross - Culture Exchange, Chinese Language Learning & Friendship Making. To help the others while to improve myself.

I would like to appreciate you for your understanding, directions, supports and help.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn or leave your message on Message Board.

Shirley Yiping Zhang
Dec 09, 2012(Beijing Time)