Miaio Girl by Huang Yun Yu
Huang Yun Yu -Exhibition 1952
Huang Yun Yu - Portrait of a Boy
Backstory: 1949
In 1949, at the age of 23, I was appointed Lecturer in English, specialising in Linguistics, at the University of Hong Kong. It was an exhilarating time: Mao’s Peoples Liberation Army had swept down through China, and a Communist government had been established on the mainland - hardy more than a stone’s throw away..
In Hong Kong the old colonial regime was only just being re-established after the Japanese occupation, and refugees were pouring in. These included a new type of student at the University - .sophisticated young men and women, with excellent English most of whom had matriculated from mission schools in Shanghai.
Some time after term had begun, we received a late application supported by acadenic transcripts from Peking University which were entirely in Chinese. To test the applicant’s English, we asked him to write an essay on a subject of his choice. I thought the essay brilliant: it was on art history and I marked it at 90% ,However, my colleague, who had counted up the mistakes in grammar and syntax, said it was so badly written as to be unintelligble. After heated argument at the Faculty Board, it was agreed to accept the student, on condition that I took responsibility for improving his English. His name was TSENG YU.
A first meeting with Huang Yun Yu
Tseng Yu arrives at my flat as I am having breakfast.
He wants to take me to see a painter. As we walk down through the university compound we meet Amy, another of my students, whom we invite to come with us.
We go by ferry over to Kowloon then take a bus into the New Territories. As we walk first along the shore then inland, TY wonders whether we should press on. He says, apologetically, that he doesn¹t know why he has dragged us such a long way as this man is a bad painter and not worth seeing.
Well the day is warm even though winter, and the company is good so, having got so far, we agree to continue. After an hour or so TY says we are there. Walking though a bamboo grove and past a stream, we enter into a courtyard flanked by low buildings. An animated young man comes out to greet us, all shake hands and we sit down among the chickens and running cockroaches. We drink cups of hot water, are shown woodcuts, meet his wife and eat a Sharps toffee,. TY and the friend chat in Chinese then after some 2 hours, leave.
But it is only 2 o¹clock so Tseng Yu suggests we visit another friend. an up-and-coming art photographer Chen Yi. He is not in but I leave my visiting card and a note............
Two days later I receive the invitation to Huang Yun Yu's exhibition and take Mr and Mrs Scott (British Council) to meet him.
This is the first of so many fruitful, and often hilarious times that a group of friends met to enjoy the company of Tseng Yu and his friends Huang Yun Yu and Chen Yi.....and it was the occasion when, (this time on a table napkin), Huang Yun Yu did the first of his many caricature sketches of myself & friends.
Visiting Huang Yun Yu's Studio
Tonight after dinner in town, Tseng Yu, two friends and I pay a visit to Huang Yun Yu. His studio is tiny – about 9’ x 7’ – and is cram full of paintings, on the walls, on the bed, on the floor, on the desk and on shelves. We drink hot, bitter tea out of painting jars while Yun Yu does a dry-point portrait of me on copper for his exhibition next month. It was nearly spoilt because we got into an argument about communism and Yun Yu became so excited he put my top lip in the wrong place. However, this was merrily restored and the plate steeped in a glass dish full of sulphuric acid. For the rest of the evening, Yun Yu stroked the mixture with a long feather while we were talking. It will be ready tomorrow and we shall see the result. YY says it is more naturalistic than the others he has done of me – nicer but not so ‘good’ artistically. It was 2 in the morning before I got home!
Whoreson typist
So I opened the door and he came in for a chat. He told me that a friend had said the etching made me look like a whoreson typist. Ty said, on the contrary, it beautified me.
Nov 28th, 1951
DO NOT ASK MY NAME
I WOULD RATHER YOU DID NOT KNOW IT.
AND AS FOR MY ORIGIN
NO NEED TO ASK DARWIN,
THE PICTURE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
The Tram Strike
Tuesday 16 July
Don has invited RB and his friend Denis, together with me and my friends, Huang Yun Yu, and Tseng Yu, out to dinner. The discussion soon turns to the tramway workers’ strike, which has resulted in major disruption in central Hong Kong. Denis would like the strikers to be whipped back to work while Don argues they are being paid a miserable wage and he has actually contributed to the strike fund. Denis counter-attacks, “ Good luck to the man who has money & keeps it – why give any to the lazy bs who won’t work?” Don’s nose gets sharper and his face tightens. He says in his thin Australian voice that one must give, for one’s own sake - to have a right relationship with one’s fellow-man.” Denis: No-one’s ever given me anything. Why should I give? Don:” But it is artistic to give.” I catch a sudden glimpse of Don as he sees himself, of what makes him hand out money to strangers and let beggars sleep in his car. Huang Yun Yu meanwhile has whipped paper pen and ink out of his bag and is capturing Don’s intense, ravaged face with a few strokes as Denis replies, “ But who wants to be artistic?”
Time to go home and Don says he would take me if he could remember where he’d left his car. RB accuses him of affectation – never knowing where his car is. Don murmurs something about hysterical reaction – that he’s so afraid of driving there’s the overwhelming need to keep putting off the evil moment. It is RB who drives me back to the University on his motorbike and says, as we part, that I must beware of Don with his impossibly charitable view of mankind. He’s not the saint you might think - he swears all the time at pedestrians when he’s driving, and he can be very cruel about people.
Mr. RB
Among the group of friends who came to know Tseng Yu and Huang YunYu was an expat electrical engineer named Mr. RB. My first meeting with Ron was on the bathroom floor at a party thrown by Dr. Elizabeth Tang (better known later as Han Suyin, author of the novel A Many Splendoured Thing). It ws thought he was drunk and might cause trouble, so Elizabeth asked me to go and Œdo something).
In fact, far from being drunk he was in a mixture of distress and bad temper - a mood I became very familiar with later on. It seems his girl-friend had dumped him that evening at the party, and he was taking it out on the bathroom floor.and an unfortunate clergyman who had offered to help him. He was by now calmer, we chatted, and he finally drove me home to the University on the back of his motorbike.
At that time, in colonial Hong Kong, it was considered infra dig for an Englishman to get about Hong Kong on a motorbike, so you can imagine that for an English woman to ride pillion was downright scandalous. RB - from a a feet-on-the-ground Lancashire background - had not taken HK social norms into account when deciding to buy a boat rather than a car. After that, he
could only afford the motorbike. Well, I was a Lancastrian too, and not even aware till very much later how having Chinese friends and riding on a motorbike.made me increasingly "not one of us".
RB and I became firm friends and many of my students, incuding Tseng Yu, had enjoyable days out on his boa.t. This was how RB - and later his friend Don - became part of the circle around Huang YunYu.
A SNATCH OF CONVERSATION
Tseng Yu talking about RB: "Mr. RB is very nice but, I can't explain it - there is something missing.. ...., mmm......he has no fantasy. Mr Huang has, you have, and I have....but not at all Mr. RB." I think for a moment then say to TY that he has more than anyone. This pleases him immensely. He laughs and says "It is a big lack in Mr. RB," then adds joyfully, "especially if you are thinking of marrying him."
Huang Yun Yu's Miao Woodcuts
This woodcut of a Miao girl riding along merrily on horseback is one of a series which I bought at Huang Yun Yu¹s first Hong Kong exhibition in January 1951.
Miao Girl Dancing
Dear Brother Yu, 20 May 1952
Here is the letter from Huang Yun Yu to Tseng Yu, which I have kept safely in my archives for over 50 years. The translation is by Xu Liying, a very good friend of mine, now living in Shanghai.
Dear Brother Yu (translated)
Dear Brother Yu,
I was told that you are busy with your exams and we missed you very much and talked about you everyday as you have not been here for some time now.
I did a many paintings and carving and hope that you can come and see.
There are few more days before the exhibition, I am preparing to send the invitation out and please go to Mather and asked her to print out the name list of her friends and bring it to me within two days. I am working on this big oil painting right now (it was smaller than the last one, but is much better than the last one), so I don't have time to visit you.
Looking forward seeing you.
Wang Yuan Yu
2nd Floor 120 Kenndy Road, Hong Kong
The Greek Nose
I ask Huang Yun Yu and Tseng Yu to dinner to meet some friends who I hope will be interested in buying pictures at Mr Huang¹s next exhibition. When Tseng Yu comes to confirm the date, he says with great self-satisfaction, "I have told him to have his supper first because you always give such bad food".
However, as it turns out, everyone including TY and HYY seem happy enough with the meal (colonial English style as interpreted by my lovely amah, Ah Yau) and afterwards Yun Yu entertains us by doing cartoon drawings of us all (see later postings). My picture causes great hilarity. Yun Yu says I have a Greek nose, so he¹s made me look like a Greek Needless to say, I was NOT wearing either ear-rings or a pearl necklace he says he has added these for effect! Cherry (a university colleague) says it is quite clear from the picture that I have just been marking exam papers and giving the students a bad time! We end up with much laughter and mutual compliments. Yun Yu says it has been a great evening in which the most intelligent man in Hong Kong (himself) has enjoyed the company of the most interesting woman (myself).
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