The Portrait

If you have been following this blog at all, you know that my wife was with me in Taiwan. She arrived in the middle of August,1968 and left a year later.

After she left, I went to this portrait shop which was south of the East Compound on Chung Shan North Road. I took her picture from my wallet and asked how much it would cost for a painting and frame.

The price wasn't really that important since my mind had been made up long before to have this done. Still, it was a consideration. We reached an agreement and they told me it would be ready in a week. 

If Taipei had an overabundance of any occupations, it was tailors and painters.

So, choosing this place was more a matter of them being there for over a year and, what was perceived by me as quality work.

This was the picture I gave them. It was her engagement announcement photo. We were both 21.

In our hometown, it was a big deal for parents to announce the engagement of their daughter to be married.

The man's name was mentioned, but the local newspaper wanted the goods on the bride-to-be.

The same was true for the wedding writeup. She was shown in her wedding dress and the next several paragraphs were all about who else was in the wedding and what they wore.

I was pretty shocked to walk by the place the next day and see the finished painting sitting in the sun, waiting for the paint to dry.

Mr. V. S. Wang had knocked this thing out in less than a day. 



A couple of days later, they had it framed, packaged, and ready to go.

Down to the post office annex in the back I went where the guys crated it and shipped it home.

It arrived before I did. There were three pretty surprised people when they unpacked it.