"It takes half of one's life to paint orchids but it takes one's whole life to paint bamboo," said Cui, who was invited by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions the other day to come to Beijing from Shanxi Province on a commission.

Cui's works of art are known for their ingenuity and intelligence and have earned him recognition among his peers. His secret, if any, is simple. "In the boundless world of painting, diligence is my own vehicle of passage," he said.

Cui was born in Xiangfen County in northern China's Shanxi Province in 1951.

He has loved painting since he was young. Later, Cui was lucky enough to become an apprentice with Dong Shouping (1904-97), a veteran Chinese artist and calligrapher famous for his bamboo paintings.

Cui's grandfather and Dong were close friends. "Dong always told me that the correct approach to scholarly pursuits is to seek truth from the facts, and an artist should learn how to be an upright person first," Cui said.

Painting is only a hobby for Cui's profession, however. He is deputy general secretary of the City Administrative and Legal Committee of Linfen in Shanxi.

His motto is "integrity and conscientiousness," which he said "is the basis of a person."

Cui's painting work "Orchid, Bamboo, and Stone" was collected by the collector Xu Jianchun for 560,000 yuan (US$67,470) in 2001 and he donated all the money to the orphans and poor people of Linfen County. Cui began to win acclaim in the world of traditional Chinese painting in 1997, when he won the first prize at a provincial painting competition in Shanxi for the first time.

It was then that his special characteristics as an artist began to take shape. Since then, he has won nine national awards. In December 2000, one of Cui's bamboo paintings obtained the Imperial Knight Medal of Belgium.

"I want to establish a Dong Shouping Art College with other artists to hand down my teacher's art and his spirit," Cui said.

(China Daily July 15, 2002)