The Art Of Friendship: Schoolmates Reunited Spokane Woman Helps Old Pal Display His Creations In The U.S.

The last time Patricia Zhang saw her friend Li Yan Sheng, they were schoolmates about to be separated by the throes of China’s Cultural Revolution.

Now, 30 years later and half a world away, Zhang - who lives in Spokane - is trying to help her childhood friend establish an artistic foothold in the United States.

“Even though we have different cultures, art is universal,” Li said Sunday though an interpreter.

Li and Zhang were 9 years old when they met at school in Beijing, China’s capital.

Li, the son of a museum calligraphy writer, had come from rural Shanxi province. He needed help with his schoolwork. Zhang Xiao Ping - Patricia is a name she took in America - was assigned to help him.

Over the next few years, the two grew close. She defended him from bullies. He decided she was the prettiest girl in the class.

Then came 1965 and with it, China’s notorious Cultural Revolution. Tens of thousands of political dissenters were jailed. Millions of urban teenagers were forcibly relocated to remote farms.

In Beijing, school was canceled for five years.

“It seems the whole country stopped functioning,” recalls Zhang. “There were 10 years of chaos.”

Li moved to another part of Beijing. Occasionally he would pedal his bicycle to the closed school, hoping to meet his friend. He never saw her.

Zhang eventually went to work in a factory, operating a lathe. She married, and gave birth to a daughter.

Li spent years at a Beijing library, copying calligraphy from ancient texts. Living mostly on corn bread and water, Li memorized tens of thousands of characters in nearly 40 styles, some dating back 3,000 years. He joined a master calligrapher, who introduced him to Japanese cultural groups.

In 1976, Li became one of two official calligraphers at the Forbidden City Museum in Beijing. It is China’s largest museum. He stayed there 10 years, penning elaborate script for museum signs and state gifts to visiting dignitaries. He married, and became a devout Buddhist. In his spare time, he took up traditional Chinese music, painting and carving stone signature stamps.

“The Forbidden City Museum is paradise for learning, but it’s not a good place to promote your own work,” Li said. “You can’t create.”

After four years of paperwork, Li was allowed to move to Tokyo, where he lectures at a cultural center.

Zhang, meanwhile, was one of many Chinese students who came to study in the United States. She went to college at California State University at Bakersfield. In 1991, she took a job with Spokane’s Key Tronic Corp. She still works there, as a buyer dealing with companies in Asia, China, Singapore and Taiwan.

While she was in Beijing on business last year, an old friend told her that Li was a well-known artist in Japan. She flew to Tokyo to see his work - elaborate scrolls of calligraphy, books of his poetry and paintings, and carved signature stamps.

“I thought that all this should not just stay in Japan,” Zhang said. “I encouraged him to come over here.”

For the past six weeks, Li has shuttled around the country, showing his art to gallery owners in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. Zhang arranged nearby showings in Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint and Spokane. Several galleries have agreed to show Li’s art next spring.

“For a very short time, we’ve made good progress,” said Zhang. “Chinese culture is like the Asian economy - it’s becoming increasingly noticeable in this country. People here are traveling, seeing and appreciating things more.”

In gratitude, Li presented his childhood friend with a piece of art.

Using his homemade steel engraver, he carved a finely polished stone with 2,500-year-old characters. It was a poem he’d written.

“When we were so young, we said goodbye,” the poem reads. “For 30 years, we didn’t see each other. I often saw you in my dreams.

“My feeling touched Heaven.”