Name/Title
OCT - Qizhen Duan - Spring Blossom - Oak Center TowersDescription
This soft-spoken 82 year-old native of southern China feels free at last here in the U.S. And she is very determined to use that freedom well: learning English, becoming an American citizen and then doing her favorite thing – painting. After her retirement in China in 2003, the former hospital nurse studied painting for three years in adult school there. The mother of two children came to the Bay Area with her husband in 2007 to help care for her two grandchildren. When she's not in class, Mrs. Qi Zhen draws scenes from the outings she goes on or just strolls out to the garden to make pencil drawings of the trees and plants. The binder where she stores her work, often done on the back of recycled paper, is filling up fast. She also copies images from the newspaper. She's proudest of her daughter and son. "They're very good kids," she says. "They have good jobs and they are good people." And one of her happiest moments was when her grandson, Hairuo, went to Washington D.C., representing California, and won first prize in a national high school physics competition.
