MYANMAR
Robes of Fire

"You ask me why I live in the gray hills,
I smile but do not answer, for
My thoughts are elsewhere.
Like peach petals carried by the
Stream, they have gone
To other climates, to countries
Other than the world of men."

-Li Po, (701 - 762)

To the soul of the traveller, the roll of the waves on a beach is the call of foreign lands. In Terengganu, year after year, the South China Sea glitters, grows, howls and then returns again to her quiet glitter. Twice, as an adolescent, Fee Ming had planned to become a sailor. “If I had had my way,” he said, “perhaps I would never have become an artist”. Instead, during his escapades in Pulau Duyung, he listened to stories about Nepal, India, and Thailand, told by young Europeans who stayed in a guesthouse there. Challenged, he gathered enough funds from his drawing classes in his studio in Kuala Terengganu and was on his way westward and north, towards the mountains, riding camels in the deserts of Rajasthan, sleeping in the cold.

At first Fee Ming had thought of painting his way onwards. But, (he was then in his twenties) he realised that he was keener on painting what he saw than selling his paintings to continue his travel. He had already embarked on another journey. “It seems so long ago,” he wrote later, “as I struggled to discover who the artist in me really was, that I took that first step.” ( Introduction to “The Road to Mandalay” exhibition, 1995). The thirst to explore was still alive but Fee Ming’s true vocation had taken over. Fee Ming did not need to go fast or far.