It’s raining cats and dogs, it’s pissin doon, the rain is stoatin aff the flair and so I decide to go and get some culture and there is no better place than the Suzhou True Colour Museum on a wet and driech day like today. Now if you decide to do a Google on this you will have to use the American spelling “color” Yes their language permeates every part of the globe reducing the IQ levels of all that have the misfortune of coming across it. The Chinese of course like it because it’s easier to understand, but when they want to understand English properly they will call on the services of a qualified native speaker such as myself. Now what I find amusing is that I have more trouble being understood in Australia than I do in China and that‘s when I’m speaking English of course.

The True Colour Museum is tucked away off the beaten track in Suzhou, but it’s not too hard to find. It seems to be in the middle of an industrial area and of course when you get inside of it becomes apparent why they have picked such a location. The rooms are vast and there are many. But the strange thing is that you don’t feel dwarfed in any way and the art is so large that everything looks to be in perspective.

At one time this old building might have been filled with noise and machines, but today it’s filled with some wonderful art. I’ve never been one to analyse art or start to pretend I know what the artist was thinking or what the underlying metaphor was in his last piece, no I just enjoy it or loathe it on its presence in the here and now.

And I thought that the art here on show was very good. We had one room that seemed to be dedicated to Tea. We had Tea Pots and plenty of tables set up for what looked like a tea ceremony.

 

Now this is where it can be difficult of course. I can’t read Chinese and so maybe I miss out a little by not understanding the explanations, but another way to look at it is that I have the freedom to make up my own mind rather than having it polluted by some arty farty guru.

I went up to the second floor and for me this is where it got a lot more interesting. There are many bold pieces of art; there are many large pieces of art, but then again when you look at them you could be easily fooled into thinking that you could take one home and hang it on your wall and then you realise that you don’t have a wall big enough, or maybe I could hang it on the outside of the house. Or maybe my house is not big enough. These large rooms accommodate this art really well and the scale of the room and the art seems to be in sync.

One of the young folk working took the opportunity to chat with me, I guess just to get away from looking at her phone for a while. It must be a terrible place to work. To go in to work in the morning with the prospect of counting the hours till you finish, how dreadful. So along came me and she told me that the featured artist on this floor likes cats and travel and this kind of strange art. It does look quite different and it’s very pleasing to look at. I have no idea where artists find their inspiration but every now and again you can connect with what they are trying to say, although you don’t know what they are trying to say ‘cause you are just normal and not an arty farty person. I cannot remember the artist name but I think if you see his work somewhere else you would recognise it.

Maybe the weather kept many people away from here today or maybe it’s because it’s a Tuesday. You have to be careful about Tuesday’s, just ask Baldrick.

I saw four other visitors today and a few staff wandering around this vast interior and it was wonderful because I think having the place almost to myself made the experience that much better. It was my private viewing; I could wander around in complete silence and appreciate what was on offer. Although, there was one pesky mosquito that wanted to take a chunk out of my leg when I was trying to take a few pictures. I felt this thing stick its huge fangs into me, I went in for the kill and in a blink of an eye I missed it and smacked my own leg quite hard, much to the amusement of the mosquito no doubt.

So all in all I think that a few hours wandering about here was very enjoyable and it was great to escape the chaos of life for a few hours, oh and the rain 🙂