A Glimpse of North Korea from Dandong, China

Last May, I took a day trip to Manchurian city Dandong, the large border Chinese city next to North Korea.

I entertained myself during the short train ride from my home city Shenyang, when the scenery got dull, by observing the speed of the train, which had reached 244 km/hr (152 mi/hr).





Dandong was the entry point of the Chinese "Volunteer" Army and military materials pouring into the battlefields of Korean War in 1950s. The bridge connecting Dandong and North Korea was bombed during the war and it remained damaged, as a relic of the war, stood next to a later bridge, which channeled legal or illegal imported and exported goods between China and North Korea. The image of destruction had made a strong impression on me, and I even made a painting of those parallel bridges, titled "Bombed Bridge, III".


Bombed Bridge, Oil on Canvas, 24"x36", 2007

It should be noticed that the damage to the old bridge was limited to the North Korea's side only, while the rest remained intact inside Chinese territory. At the right vantage point, one could see both bridges stood side by side over Yalu River.







I took a little river cruise along the river, so as to take a quick survey of the border region of North Korea, Sinuiju.















Looking back at Dandong, which though in the economic depressed rust belt Northeast China, comparing to the slow-paced North Korea, looked like a thriving metropolis:









It seemed so arbitrary that one could be born in a "wrong region", or at a "wrong time". Or both. And for the unlucky ones, hope simple didn't exist.


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Best Transit Airport - Seoul/Incheon International Airport
- Supermarkets in Shenyang, China
- Tram and Subway in Shenyang, China
- Industrial Museum of China in Manchurian Shenyang
- New Subway System in Shenyang, China
- Glances of Manchurian City Shenyang
- Kitsch

A New Painting, "Discordance and Harmony", Completed

Last week, I finished another oil painting - a painting I had been working on for many months.

This painting was a confluence of many motifs I have been employing and experimenting with - white dress, ruin, river, writing of many languages.  On this 24" x 30" canvas, I was trying to bind together these elements to demonstrate during the long period of history, different cultures intermingled, fight with, learned from, and co-existed along other cultures and despite the constant tragedies entailed, it is undeniable that our collective history was enriched thus.

Discordance and Harmony
Oil on Canvas
24" x 30"

Matthew Felix Sun's Paintings Completed in 2012 by Matthew Felix Sun photoset

Related Article: "White Dress" Series Continues - A New Drawing and a New Painting

Natural Bridge and Crater Lake, Oregon - Oregon Trip, Part 7

During our stay in Ashland, we took a day trip to the renown Crater Lake.  Before we arrived at our destination, we stopped by the "Natural Bridge" at the upper Rogue River for a short while.














The Rogue River was a large rapids and a lovely one.  The wonderful thing to see here is the water had created courses underneath large rocks therefore the "natural bridges".  We saw clearly how the water came out of and flew into "caves".













After we'd left the Natural Bridge, we continued to climb up to more than 8,000 feet elevation and arrived at the Crater Lake.








Wikipedia described the lake as:

Crater Lake is a caldera lake located in the south-central region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is the main feature of Crater Lake National Park and famous for its deep blue color and water clarity. The lake partly fills a nearly 2,148-foot (655 m) deep caldera that was formed around 7,700 (± 150) years ago by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama. There are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake; the evaporation is compensated for by rain and snowfall at a rate such that the total amount of water is replaced every 250 years.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, with its almost perfectly round shape, the incredible deep cobalt blue in the center and magically shimmering blue-green at the shallow water edges.  The Rocks surrounded the lake was strong and tough and we even saw some snow at the bottom of the rocks.











We also saw a cute chipmunk at the edge of the lake, posing for tourists.



































Related articles:
--> Coastal Northern California and Wine Country - Oregon Trip, Part 11 (The End)

--> Arcata, California - Oregon Trip, Part 10
--> Idyllic Parks and Cute Animals in Ashland - Oregon Trip, Part 9
--> Art in Ashland - Oregon Trip, Part 8
--> Natural Bridge and Crater Lake, Oregon - Oregon Trip, Part7--> It Got Better - Three Plays at Oregon Shakespeare Festival - Oregon Trip, Part 6
--> Ashland Springs Hotel - Oregon Trip, Part 5
--> Ashland, Oregon - Oregon Trip, Part 4
--> A Night at McCloud, California - Oregon Trip, Part 3
--> Burney Falls in McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, Shasta County, California - Oregan Trip, Part 2
--> Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay, Redding, California - Oregon Trip, Part 1