STORY OF EASTERN POND

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I believe in the second part." ---Ernest Hemingway A retrospective of Huang Ching-chen, a... More

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I believe in the second part." ---Ernest Hemingway A retrospective of Huang Ching-chen, a famous artist in the days when Taiwan was occupied by Japan. After studying abroad, the thirty-one year old artist had come back to see his family in Taiwan. He was on board a large ferry — the Kosenkei maru — coming from Osaka to Keelung with his pianist girl friend Kuei-hsiang, who had accompanied him for years. Unfortunately, the ship was torpedoed by an American submarine just outside Keelung harbor. More than one thousand passengers, including Huang and his girlfriend, died in the accident. Several years later, a gallery held a retrospective show of Taiwan art under the Japanese occupation, which included Huang Ching-chen’s works from private collections. The restorationist, Shio-shio, saw Huang’s oil paintings and was moved by them. They revealed to her that Huang was more than just a sculptor. Because of painting restorations and interviews, Shio-shio became curious about Huang’s works and the Kosenkei maru incident, and all the characters and stories found in his paintings, especially the “woman in the black coat” and “Kuei-hsiang’s head”. They seemed to have a romantic and complex relationship. While searching for the truth, Shio-shio also found in herself a way to face an illness that had been bothering her for a long time. In the last stage of her restorations, Shio-shio made another new discovery, on that was important enough to re-evaluate the works of Huang as a sculptor in relation to other artists. However, to Shio-shio, what was important was still the artwork and what it evoked about those at the time.... and from there starts the story. Close