November 2018

Adventure Hong Kong - a painting trip with Willi Fikisz

A good twelve hours of flight to another world lay ahead of us. A small group of Swiss and Germans had come together to paint under Willi's wing, organized by the Swiss tour operator Bäumeler, and to experience the fascination of Hong Kong together for eight days. One thing in advance: we would have loved to have had a few more days.

For eight days, which at first seemed to stretch out so pleasantly long before us, practically vanished into thin air. But precisely because we experienced so much, because our days were so full, they also passed leisurely—a contrast so typical of this fascinating city.

Hong Kong is modern and old-fashioned, is a glittering facade scaffolded in bamboo, is a street market next to a skyscraper, is a temple next to a church, is turquoise water next to an urban canyon, is a dim sum restaurant next to a coffee shop, is ding ding above the subway and is boat people next to an arrogant yacht.

Hong Kong is one thing above all: incredibly colorful, an endless feast for the eye and the brush, brimming with motifs that sometimes reveal themselves quite obviously, but often only subtly. It is fun-loving and voracious; it is incredibly rich and incredibly poor; it stretches its arms ever further out into the sea, tentacle-like, ever higher it strives towards the sky – and yet it is leisurely and traditional, rooted in ancestor worship and Taoism, in Buddhism and Confucianism. It is rapid in its development and slow in its pace of life – how refreshingly often we had to adjust our rapid European pace to the calm, deliberate pace of our hosts.

We painted from the foggy Peak down to Hong Kong Island: the Bank of China with its glass facades and, according to Feng Shui, overly sharp angles and edges, contrasting with the HSBC with its supposedly pointed "guns," a towering IFC, and two embracing koalas from the Lippo Centre. Across from Kowloon, separated from Hong Kong Island by the murky water that day, where, dominated by the shimmering silver ICC Tower, skyscrapers stretched endlessly against green hills.

We painted from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, in bright sunshine, curiously eyed and often photographed by Sunday trippers, for whom the painting Europeans represented an unexpected attraction.

We painted on Cheung Chau, an island about ten kilometers from Hong Kong Island, sitting along the waterfront overlooking countless boats and ships, which represented a strange and exciting subject for all of us, and which Willi patiently introduced us to. We ate dozens of mango-filled mochi and dined in the evening before a magnificent sunset.

We painted among the boat people in Aberdeen, where the wind persistently tried to tear our paintings away from us as we conjured up boats and houses on paper. An elderly couple clambers along a rope on their makeshift ferry to their formerly green-painted houseboat, with modern high-rise buildings in the background, a reflection of a parallel society.

We painted in Tai O, a former fishing village and refuge, a picturesque stilt village built on countless stilts along the river of the same name in western Lantau. We saw decay and loving preservation in the immediate vicinity, grilled pineapple from a street vendor, and a curious frozen pizza in our host's cozy restaurant, from whose terrace we were allowed to paint.

We placed bets at the Hong Kong Jockey Club in front of a magnificent backdrop, dined among locals at a dim sum restaurant where we would have been lost without Gabi, who speaks perfect Cantonese; visited the Man Mo Temple with its countless incense coils that carry the prayers and wishes of the faithful up to the gods; watched the turtles in the ponds of the city parks and admired centuries-old giant trees that unwaveringly stretched their gnarled fingers toward illuminated billboards. We craned our necks to the airy ceiling in the lavish hall of the HSBC financial temple, drank Chinese medicinal tea on the long conveyor belt past the apartment buildings in Sheung Wan, and drank port and tequila (with cinnamon and orange, please) high above the rooftops of the nighttime metropolis, which lavishly poured blue, red, and pink dye into the water and whose streets wound through the city like golden arteries. In Aberdeen, surrounded by dizzyingly tall apartment buildings, we sailed past small and large boats, some dilapidated, some occupied, passing shipyards and ostentatious yachts, fish hung out to dry, floating restaurants, their fronts ostentatiously colorful, their backs rusty green. At the night market on Temple Street, we bought paintbrushes and thirstily downed Chinese beer, ate sweet rice balls in custard at Ching Ching Desserts; we strolled through street markets with their small shops and stalls offering wriggling fish and freshly butchered pork alongside crisp vegetables and brightly colored fruit, tofu, fresh and in long dried strands, alongside dim sum and roast duck, where our senses were almost numbed by an explosion of smells. Orange pendant lights and a fishmonger wearing yellow rubber gloves, proudly displaying glistening bodies, made us pull out our cameras. A bright green thingy makes its way through the crowd, ringing.

For some, another Ching Ching, for others, high tea at the Peninsula. All too soon, we stared out the windows of our bus for one last time (at least for now) at the ever-shrinking, glowing city.

Thank you, dear Willi, for this incredibly wonderful trip! For a fantastic time, an educational time, a time of enjoyment with unexpectedly rich impressions that—I'm sure of this—will resonate with each of us for a long time to come. A feast for the soul, for all the senses.

Steffi Hartstang, November 28, 2018