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July 22, 2014

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For one auto enthusiast, it’s more fun to draw than drive

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FENG Jixiang is an unabashed car lover. Not to drive so much as to sketch. For half a century, he has been drawing cars — committing their designs and the sleekness of their lines to paper with incredible precision.

His illustrations provide a trove of history in the development of automobiles in Shanghai. The 70-year-old Feng sat down with Shanghai Daily recently to discuss his lifelong obsession.

Feng lives in the Meilong area of Minhang. For his illustrations, he uses pens with three fine points of different thicknesses, a ruling pen, three rulers and a pair of tweezers.

Each drawing takes him about two weeks to finish.

“I’m not really interested in drawing other things,” Feng said. “I never get bored with cars even though I have been drawing them for more than 50 years. Their beauty is fascinating.”

Feng reckons he has about 200 illustrations in his personal collection. They are carefully kept in bound file folders at his home. “This is a record of what I love,” he said.

Love since childhood

Feng’s interest in vehicles began in his childhood. He lived in the Qingpu District, and every day on his way to primary school, he passed by the Qingpu Long Distance Bus Station.

“I still remember vividly what I saw back then,” he recalled. “At that time, the buses started with burning charcoal. Every morning, the firemen started the fire, their faces black with smoke and their eyebrows sometimes burnt off.”

The image somehow implanted itself in Feng’s young mind and set him on a life’s course.

Back then, China didn’t have its own brands of cars. The relatively few vehicles on the streets were international brands. People called them wan guo pai, which means “brands from different countries.”

“I loved to watch cars come and go on the streets and listen to their horns that went ‘a-hoo-a-hoo,’” he said.

After school, Feng often went to a garage near his home to observe cars more closely.

“It was my favorite place as a child, though I know that marked me as different from all my friends,” he said. “At the garage I accumulated a lot of knowledge about vehicles. It made me decide to study them when I grew up.”

After graduating from junior high school in 1960, Feng went to the Shanghai Hongqi Vehicle and Transport School, fulfilling a dream. There he learned about autos, their parts and mechanical systems, and the art of draftsmanship. Most of the books available to him were adapted from Soviet texts.

“All the illustrations in the book were sketched by Soviets, and the drivers in the illustrations had the faces of Soviet soldiers,” he said. “I was thinking how nice it would be if the textbooks used the pictures I drew.”

Starting point

And so he drew. His skill as an artist and his familiarity with vehicles made him a standout at the school. He was even called in to substitute when the mechanical drawing teacher couldn’t make it to class.

But Feng was never satisfied. He devoted all his spare time to improving his sketching skills.

After graduation in 1964, Feng was assigned a job, as was the custom in those days. He went to work in the Shanghai Transport Bureau, where he later became a technician.

“My art talent helped me at work,” he said. “Most drivers at that time weren’t educated and sometimes didn’t understand specialized terms. So if I was trying to tell them how to deal with breakdowns, I would simply sketch the parts I was talking about.”

Each of his drawings in the past 50 years is accompanied by an explanatory caption. What a history it makes!

The first car in Shanghai was brought in by a Hungarian businessman named Leinz in 1901. The drawing shows a fancy vehicle with a convertible top. The first trolley bus in Shanghai was put into operation in 1914. It, too, features in Feng’s collection.

In 1980s, Feng started to work for the Shanghai Science and Technology Press as an art editor. His hobby had finally become his job.

For the next two decades, he produced hundreds of vehicle illustrations. When he retired in 2004, his job reverted back to a hobby.

 “Every vehicle is beautiful, no matter whether it’s a car, a bus or a truck,” he said.

Back in his work days, Feng began driving cars, but in retirement he prefers to draw rather than drive.

In 2010, Feng and his wife went on holiday in Europe. While in the Czech Republic, he was impressed by the excellent service of the tour bus driver, so he drew a detailed picture of the bus, with the plate number clearly in view, and presented it as a gift to the driver.

“He was quite overwhelmed and said it was better than a photo,” Feng said. “I felt his appreciation and that made me very happy.”




 

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