My Asian Cocktail: Art, Culture, People

Ganesha

     Ganesha is the remover of obstacles.  It's wise to check in with him when beginning new enterprises.  Like making the six year commitment to becoming a docent at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum as I have done.
     Total immersion in 5000 years of Asia. from Pakistan to Japan!  One day a week of classes for three years.  Slide quizzes, tests, papers.  Ganesha, I do need your assistance.
     Fortunately, I'm surrounded by terrific people. In addition to the museum staff, veteran docents are always on call.  We work in five small groups of dozen aspirants.  We work up study guides, notecards and skills long forgotten.  We are a delicious cocktail of ethnicities and interests.
     And what have I learned in a month?  I've been reminded that art is always about looking, seeing and being a little seduced by what you see.  
     Amazing scholars from both the museum and elsewhere speak to us about their thinking.  Some of my mis-educated ideas have been corrected. I always thought Hinduism preceded Buddhism, and it did, but Buddhism produced architecture and sculpture earlier than Hinduism.  Here's a fine paradox:  the scenes portrayed in sculpture at Buddhist temples are stories of the Buddhas life, and his past life, but they may not have been there to instruct, rather to sanctify.  I should explain that we begin in the Indian subcontinent  and follow the spread of Hinduism, Buddhism and/or Islam through South East Asia, China, Korea and Japan.
     All great information, and there will be tests, but I will need the most help in learning how to present the collection to visitors so that they want to come back again and again.

Inlaid Design from Taj Mahal

     Speaking of visiting the Asian Art Museum, we had a preview of the next exhibition, Maharaja, which comes to San Francisco from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  It will be worthy of a great king.  Can you imagine fine glass embellished with precious stone, much like what I saw at the Taj Mahal?  The exhibit will visually explain the qualities required of these kings, and their history, from the Delhi Sultanate to British Raj.  It opens in late October, and is not to be missed.
     Don't laugh, there is  a connection between my recent trip to Ireland and Asia.  It was Lord Gough, an Anglo-Irishman and a Garryowen man (Limerick born) who fought the Sikhs in India and led the British forces in the first Opium War in China.  And I've even found a serious scholarly tome called Irish Orientalism. And consider that the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin is a treasure trove of Asian art, and will, when I next visit, feature an astonishing collection of photographs of China, taken from 1868 to 1872.