Fan Qian, a native of Shanghai, went abroad in 1981, master of fine arts from the San Francisco Academy of Arts, artist, writer, freelance writer, often writing for major media at home and abroad. He has published novels such as "Knocking on The Door of Heaven by Mistake", "Antique Street", "Peach", "Tintoretto Estate", "Wind blowing grass", "Insomniac Club", "White House Blue Bottle", "Baby", "Kinser", short story collections "Kiss of San Francisco" and "See the Ghost"
In June this year, I had the honor of traveling to France with Mr. Fan and American Chinese writers, and since then, travelers have either written articles in newspapers and periodicals, or published books in hand-drawn books; here, with Mr. Fan's consent, his old article "Paris Essays" was published, and some of his travelogues and American articles about Shanghai will be promoted in the future, so please pay attention to them.
(Courtesy of the author)
Paris Essay
Fan Qian
(Dreamlike Monet's Garden)
Twenty years later, I want to go back to Paris every year to see, but I have not yet made the trip.
I know that Paris is no longer the Paris I used to roam freely, a few years ago France joined the European Union, the franc has disappeared, with the years slowly lost, as well as national borders and cultural differences, the original beauty of Europe, lies in a wall, there is no hole in the sky. It's like you take a Night Train in Europe, and every day you wake up and stick your head out to see which country? Then drink different flavors of coffee and take out different coins from your pocket to pay the bill. It's convenient now, but another meaning of convenience is 'boring'.
The French banknotes are printed in a flower, the heads of the literati artists are dazzling, the feel of pinching them is light, when I was in France, i exchanged one dollar for five francs, the wallet was full of a large ticket, but it was not very durable, at that time the gasoline was five francs a liter, a cup of coffee was ten francs, a box of French black tobacco cigarettes was twenty-five francs, the two went to eat a McDonald's set, francs a hundred oceans could not escape. Food in France is particularly expensive, supermarkets are packaged like jewelry, and the French are mostly gluttons, hollowing out their minds to satisfy their appetites, and two-thirds of the income of ordinary families is thrown on the table. A tramp like me, other expenses can be saved, but eat always have to eat, how to eat well and not overburden is a university question, I lived for some days before I found some doorways.
The first is to sleep late, then a breakfast can be omitted, get up at twelve o'clock to drink coffee, eat a croissant, and eat breakfast and lunch together. In the afternoon, I went to French class to see if there were any new beauties in the class. Or wander the alleys of the Left Bank, the Streets of the Arab Colony behind the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where women are tightly wrapped from head to toe and clothes are dried all over the sky. Or chat with the painters of the stalls on the Place Pompidou, or sit on the platform on the top floor of the Musée d'Orsay and gaze idly at the gray roof of Paris. In this city, you are always a tourist and always have the right to be curious.
A croissant could not stand it for long, the stomach soon became hungry, and sandwiches were sold everywhere in the streets, and a section of BAGUETTES was cut open, with a few slices of cooked meat and tomatoes, asking for ten francs. Usually I don't buy this kind of sandwich, the cooked meat is not very fresh by the afternoon, and the bread is hard. I ran into the supermarket to buy an apple, or smoked and was hungry, preferring to stay up for a while to eat the buffet. Not far from St. Maiko Square, next to the fountain of Miró's sculpture, there is a cafeteria in the basement, the price is reasonable, the food is also fresh, there are soups, there are various salads, the best meat is only fried chicken and smoked sausages, fish and shrimp are not to think, rice is Arabic, put raisins and spices, cooked half-cooked, these are not calculated, the most important thing, I can eat vegetables here, hot soup, a day all depends on this meal, I always have to get up and add a two or three times, causing a string of white eyes on the counter.
In the thirteenth district, there are many Chinese restaurants opened by Zhejiang qingtian people, decorated in colorful ways, deceiving The French and tourists, the taste of the food is at most the level of a town restaurant, and the price is the old nose. Chinese there will be nothing to go up there and be beheaded, unless you take a French girl, take her to appreciate the Chinese style, sit there and feel the flesh pain, spring roll fried noodles can not be distinguished in the mouth.
(Handsome uncle under the Eiffel Tower)
No matter how much the flesh hurts, the money in the pocket is still less and less day by day, I only hope that the business is better at night, say business, this is really a business of human heads; painting portraits of tourists on the brightly lit Champs Elysées, a portrait painted with colored chalk asks for one hundred and fifty francs, and someone really sits down to paint. The sketching kung fu practiced when learning painting in China came in handy, and twenty minutes later a beautiful portrait was displayed in front of the guests, and they were smiling and smiling, and the wallet was pulled out happily. This money is easy to earn, but unfortunately the business rises and falls, busy when busy, busy when dead, the toilet is also held, idle time will give birth to a lot of things.
Good business must first occupy a good position, so early in the morning, the artists set up the bench, and the Chu River and Han boundary must not cross the boundary. But I couldn't help but go to the coffee halfway, go to the bathroom, make a phone call, and come back to see that the bench was thrown in the corner, and the place was gone. Everyone was bored to paint, and no one paid attention to his stubble. Later, the painters followed the ethnic group to help each other, and when you booed, I looked at the bench for you, and when I was running errands, you helped me greet the guests.
There are also times when I am distracted and blind, once a compatriot asked me to look at the bench, I was busy drawing and counting money, A distraction, was exploited by an Arab, the compatriots came back and looked at me with a reproachful look, and as soon as my head was hot, I kicked the Arab stool. The short Arab jumped up like a horse bear and shouted, and as soon as he shouted, many Arabs seemed to come out of the ground, at least eight or nine, and surrounded us with a few Chinese, pushing and shoving, and a guy drew a long whip from nowhere, like Ford. Harrison's kind in the Indiana Jones movie, held up and "whizzed" over his head. Chinese also used everything that could be used as weapons, bench easels, knives for cutting fruit in his pockets, the atmosphere suddenly became tense, and the crowd of onlookers gathered, three layers inside and three layers outside, and no one came to stop them.
Ah, Chinese from Asia. Fighting with Arabs from Africa, in the capital of Europe, on the bustling Champs Elysées in Paris, is really in response to Mao Zedong's words: We are all from all over the world, we are all rotten, in order to make a few small money, come together, fists and feet intersect.
While the sword was being sharpened, someone in the crowd shouted: The police are coming. The two sides immediately scattered, fortunately, did not get the result of blood flowing, and later we went to the street to paint with knives.
After reading some European travelogues and throwing them off after reading a few pages, the nerds who wrote articles longed for the 'bohemian' lifestyle in Paris, and at the same time praised this life with the greatest misunderstandings; scenery travel, alcoholic beauty, game art, and dashing life. They don't understand that the word 'bohemian' also includes starvation, homelessness, struggle in cramped living spaces, shyness, loneliness, and personal dangers that can be encountered at any time and anywhere. The companions around them are often not literati and scholars, but most of them are urban people, including many chickens and dogs, who cause some trouble from time to time. In my opinion, running to Paris to drink red wine and then going around the Moulin Rouge is not a 'bohemian'. The meaning of true 'bohemian' is not integrated by institutions, including political, economic, ideological, social norms, and traditional ideas. In other words, to maintain an independent vision, independent thinking, and independent behavior to the greatest extent. To experience true bohemian life, one must have great courage.
(Arc de Triomphe overlooking the Champs Elysées)
I live in Paris not far from the Arc de Triomphe, which is mainly axised by the Champs Elysées, and is only a stone's throw away from the Elysee Palace, the Louver Palace, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, and the Place de La Basti. With the Arc de Triomphe as the center and sixteen streets radiating in the surrounding area, my apartment building is located on one of them, Bd de Courcel. The building is some years old, the stone steps in front of the door are concave by the footsteps, the brass door handle is polished, and the entrance is a patio, with a gatehouse, the building is seven stories high, and the Parisian custom is that the first floor of the apartment is the most expensive, according to the subtraction. The seventh floor, which used to be for domestic workers, needless to say, was the cheapest. Along a long corridor, dozens of small, narrow dove-like rooms, a tiger skylight, an enamel bucket, and a narrow bed can be put down. Bathing rooms and toilets are located in the corridors, and the fatal thing is that people often keep the door open for a long time, presumably injecting drugs into them. The people who live on the seventh floor look like frustrated and marginal people, all described as decaying, their faces are not right, they don't look like they have a legitimate career, everyone never greets, they don't even say 'hi' when they meet, and they turn their eyes to look away. Occasionally, one or two seemed to be at work, wearing cheap suits and carrying leather bags to hurry up and down the stairs. Then there was the old man, full of white hair, with blood cut by a shaving knife on his face, stained on his tweed coat, breathlessly carrying a food bag, climbing a staircase for a long time. Paris is high, the seventh floor is at least equal to our tenth floor, not to mention the elderly, like my young and strong people, go downstairs to find that they forgot their sunglasses, and they are too lazy to climb the stairs again to get them.
Once, when I was painting on the street, I met a young woman, and between conversations she said that she hadn't slept indoors in a week, and she was so sleepy that she just wanted anyone who could take her to the house and sleep peacefully for a night. In Paris there are many young people from Eastern Europe, well educated, English-speaking, wandering the city with nothing to do, exchanging their bodies for food and shelter, and the Place de la Pompidou and the Forest Crissico are their settlements, these people are not thieves, nor are they professional prostitutes, they just don't want to work, they don't want to live in a place, they want to drift, they want to wander, you paint on the streets, they look behind you, they talk easily, and then make all kinds of demands on you. Most of them want cigarettes, ask for a small amount of money to buy food, or ask for a night's sleep.
Reader, you're curious about the outcome isn't it? Hang on to your appetite for the time being. Or, drive your own imagination.
Another time, after finishing the painting, it was two o'clock in the night, and he was tripped in the dark and mushy corridor, and then he looked closely at a man who was unconscious, his face was flushed, his breathing was short, and he didn't know whether he was drunk or overused, so he ran downstairs to shoot the door of the apartment manager in a panic, called the police, sent an ambulance to the hospital, and tossed until the morning to go to bed.
(Outside the window of The Flower God Cafe)
My former tenant left me an old bed with loose springs and a pot of half-dead melon leaf chrysanthemums on the windowsill, and from the tiger skylight, I could see the dining room of the sixth-floor family and the continuous gray roof. When it rains, you can't go out to paint, and you are bored to lean on the windowsill to watch people eat, and from nine o'clock, one dish and one dish are served until midnight. I was so hungry that I turned around and looked back at my palm-sized room, rummaged over the pillow, pulled out my coat pocket, hoping to find something to eat, knowing that everywhere was empty, but there was an illusion in my head; maybe there was half a sandwich left yesterday, and was there still a chocolate in my coat pocket? In the end, I found that I was empty-handed, so I had to drink a stomach full of cold water and go to bed. Lying there, I still thought about how fragrant the raw fried steamed buns on the Shanghai stalls were, how fresh the chicken and duck blood soup sprinkled with pepper was, and how good it was to be able to eat now. Or maybe it doesn't work, and a pack of instant noodles also solves the problem. Unfortunately, this little wish could not be achieved in Paris.
Occasionally when the purse is full, I asked the fox dog friend to eat steak, at twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, the restaurant is still in the market, the New York steak is priced at more than two hundred francs a guest, plus wine and sweets, each person consumes more than three hundred francs, equivalent to sixty or seventy dollars. Undoubtedly, it is a large amount. However, it is particularly appropriate to describe street painters as 'there is wine in this day and drunk in this day, which is the northwest wind tomorrow'.
More is to eat lamb pancakes after painting, there is an Arabic lamb stall in St. Michael's Square that opens all night, and it takes an hour to walk from the Champs Elysées, all night tour. Along the Seine, someone was playing the violin under the bridge hole, the water was babbling, the whimpering sound, like a cry, the footsteps of the people were soft, until they passed the High Court, the twin towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral were in sight, and then hurried to the pancake stall. The guy cuts the lamb and serves it with shredded carrots and coriander. Rolled in a fluffy cake, twenty-five francs a, held up to the steps of the Cathedral of Our Lady and sat down, the moon was empty, held up the cake to invite, after eating a big full uh, sour and soft can not get up, until half a pack of cigarettes before giving a generous departure.
Paris unified management of prostitutes and artists, issued business licenses, and had to wait a long time to apply for licenses, and a lot of cumbersome formalities, and the painters who took the licenses painted the dungeons in the Place montmartre, and made a bunch of colorful models, like John Rannon, Starron, etc., like pimps to greet tourists to their deception. And it is illegal for us to paint on the Champs Elysées at night, like unlicensed vendors, one eye always staring at whether there are policemen coming. Police officers on the streets of France wear boat-shaped hats, carry submachine guns on their shoulders, and pedal combat boots, and can stop people on the street at any time to check their identity cards. Unlicensed vendors like us who are caught will have to go to the bureau for a night, confiscate the painting equipment, leave a record on the visa, and find you some trouble the next time you re-enter. So the guys who paint wild paintings all say that our grade is behind prostitutes, which is the lowest level of society.
Of course, there are eighteen floors of hell, the water is deeper, the fire is hotter, there is a large open space called the Black Forest Park not far from the Arc de Triomphe, there are many rough sleepers in the summer, but also the nest of pheasants and pheasants and ducks, the counter of the business, the sleeping bed for pleasure, the man in the leather jacket with the shaved head driving the British Jaguar car, driving into the park and parked on the side of the road, there are pale, hungry young boys and girls to meet up, after a round of bargaining, and then take the car to leave. Or solve it on the spot, if you go for a walk and jog in the Black Forest Park in the morning, there are paper towels and condoms everywhere on the benches and in the bushes.
(In the evening, Mr. Fan walked down the street to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart to see the sunset and Paris)
Not far from montmartre, around a cemetery, there is a street of prostitutes, from beginning to end, prostitutes are like candles inserted at each door, swallow thin ring fat, beautiful and ugly, extremely windy, muttering and bargaining with pilgrims. Behind the open door, sitting muscular men and old bustards with shining eyes, I remembered that Turus Lautrec had soaked in such a place to complete his exquisite paintings. Henry Miller also wrote about his 'Tropic of Cancer' in a dilapidated apartment in Paris.
Elegance is of course beautiful, in fact, evil also has an irresistible beauty, perhaps more layered and textured.
I've always thought that French is the most vivid language in the world, musical, whether it's the whispering between lovers, the loud and atmospheric shouting on the street, or the low chanting on stage. Moreover, women speak Far more French than men. Therefore, in the summer heat, I often sit in a roadside café, holding a cigarette with my fingers, reading the coffee residue deposited at the bottom of the cup like a gypsy, and my ears are erect like rabbits, listening to the conversation of the female guest next to me, the French woman's soft tone, the vowel consonant in one breath, the accent like a bell melodious, the light sound like a piano flowing, the bursting sound between the lips and teeth, to me is nothing less than music, listening to the ear is a great enjoyment. French women are one of the few in the world, slender and soft, with smart and cunning eyes, elegant and leisurely manners, elegant and decent dress, graceful neck, straight collarbone, bone points on the shoulders, thin and thin exposed arms, beautiful shape of calves and feet, and always with a faint melancholy on the face.
Listening to the birds' high-spirited frustration, watching them tilt their heads and frown and light a cigarette, the posture is wonderful to use two fingers to bring the cigarette to the mouth, and then slowly spit out the green smoke, spilling out an indescribable sexiness between every move. I often have a kind of sudden thought, from Balzac's 'water-stirring woman' to Rodin's 'kiss', from Dumas's 'La Traviata' to Renoir's rounded female nude, from Diderot's philosophical literature to Simonva's female movement, don't look at the French artists and literati, French women, is their source of inspiration, is the eternal muse.
(Musée d'Orsay, a place worthy of repeated artistic enjoyment)
The last thing to say is the Musée d'Orsay, if you are at leisure, go to the Orsay, if you are depressed, go to the Olympiad, if you are in love, go to the Olympiad, if you are desperate, or go to the Olympiad. This railway station-converted art museum is full of beauty, intense beauty, out-of-the-box beauty, weird beauty, and continuous beauty. If it rains and you don't have much left in your pocket, if you left your pillow last night and didn't have to lie down, but you can't work, go to the Olympiad and make your gray day bright.
From the bottom, Dumière, Corot, Rousseau, Dubini, Courbet, Miller, Chardin, Fontine Leto, one by one resounding names are listed under a series of exquisite paintings, French cities and villages, the sky and water, the fields and forests, the layman, the daily life, traveling through time and space on the canvas, we know that more than a hundred years ago, the peasant woman could wear wooden shoes so elegantly, and the home-woven coarse linen puff skirt was so thick and layered. You can also feel that before the invention of the steam engine, the world was so quiet, beautiful and charming. Go up to the second floor again, are you ready? You will be captivated, shaken, and knocked down by great beauty.
Mane's bar night view drunken dreams, Olympia's jade body on the bed, Monnet's twelve Lunet Cathedral light and color, Sisley's waterside scenery swaying, Pissarro's pastoral paths, Renoir's bathing naked women's style, and Degas, this not close to the female color of the old-fashioned gentleman, cold-eyed, the dancers in the pen, extremely popular. Although the prosperous scenery is nostalgic, the helpless smoke cloud is indulged in the eyes. How can you miss Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh? These three lonely people say that they are lonely, because their hearts are too rich, ordinary people can't understand, and ordinary people are not worthy to solve. Cézanne lives in seclusion, Gauguin is far away, Van Gogh hallucinates under the high heat of Avignon, countless sunflowers open in the fields, crazy and warm, everything is dyed golden, the enchanted starry night swirls, the crows in the wheat fields are frightened, the shadows of death hover down, a gunshot in the empty wilderness, and a little blood color leaves the world with eternal amazement.
Then you drag your weak legs up to the third floor, in the boiling café, take out thirty francs to buy a cup of coffee, and then push open the door and walk up to the balcony on the high ground, and the wind is blowing, and you seem to have just emerged from the abyss of extreme beauty and returned to the precarious world, still in a trance. Take a deep breath, hands shaking badly, coffee has been spilled half a cup, light cigarettes, pigeons on the railing muttering, hugging couples silently overlooking, the extreme view of Paris, smoke and rain hazy.
The memory of Paris is continuous, vivid, and comes through the centuries, like a dream and a fantasy.
(Sunset Pantheon)
(On the Seine, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the disaster, can't bear to see)
(Photo: Ashigata)