People admire her not only for her artistic accomplishment, but also for the courage and perseverance she shows in exploring remote places where few people have ever trodden. Five years ago, she had a serious heart attack. After recovering, she still ventured out into the cold (20 degrees below zero Celsius) on a mountain in Switzerland to create "ice paintings"--paintings on which traces of snowflakes were naturally formed. Her persevering spirit is indeed astounding. "If I have a merit, it must be my perseverance," said Liang. She sees the trips she takes around the world on her own as challenges that help her live a fuller life. "Once you are brave enough to face challenges, your courage will lead you to wonderful, unforgettable experiences."

Liang's courage and relentless efforts have made an enormous impact on many people. Her daughter, Liang Ming-yi, also a painter, said, "Before, if I got lazy and wasted even one minute, I would feel remorseful, thinking of how hard my mother had always worked. Now, if I get lazy, I feel remorseful because I know I’m wasting my life."

Writer Kao Ying, who once traveled to China to visit minority ethnic groups and brought back many beautifully designed traditional costumes, said that she was inspired by Liang to take the trip. "During the journey, every time I felt like giving up, I would remind myself of Liang's unwavering resolution. I believed that if she could do it, I could too." So she kept on going and finally fulfilled her goal.

The path of art

Liang was born in Nanjing, southern China, in 1935. Growing up in a period when her home country was being torn apart by the Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945), she had to spend her childhood moving with her family from one place to another, fleeing the ravages of the Japanese army. During those years, the Liang family hardly ever stayed in a fixed place for more than two months. Experiences like these forced Liang to grow up quickly. At seven, she had to prepare meals for the whole family; at eight, she had learned to knead dough and make pastry; at ten, she had to trek over mountains before daybreak to go to the market.

As hard as life was at that time, Liang is grateful for the hardships and difficulties she had to go through. These childhood experiences stood her in good stead for her painting expeditions years later, which required resilience while tramping in snow deeper than one meter [3.3 ft] or driving alone in the Sahara Desert.

Liang's father, Ting-ming, was also a famous painter. Growing up and seeing her father painting and writing calligraphy all the time, she was profoundly influenced. It was not her father who helped her make up her mind to become a painter, but an episode that occurred when she was six years old.

That winter, Liang and her parents and sisters fled to a village in Guangdong Province. On the way, she and her younger sister, carried by a porter in his baskets, got lost in the crowd. Seized by panic, the two little girls burst into tears. They arrived at a Buddhist temple, and an elderly monk came out of the sanctuary and said to them gently, "Don't cry, little girls. Come into the temple and get some rest. Your parents will catch up with you soon." He then led them into a little room and gave them some soup.

On the wall of the dim room was a painting. When Liang's eyes came across it, it caught her attention immediately. The painting depicted a farmhouse drenched in sunset with smoke wafting up from the kitchen chimney. Pale yellow light spilled through the door and windows. A person leaned against the open door, apparently waiting for someone.

"The painting is very beautiful, isn't it?" said the old monk. "Everyone needs a home like that. But some homes are visible, some are not--home exists in your heart." Liang had only a vague idea of what the monk was talking about. The scene in the painting portrayed the warm home her heart cried out for after years of constantly moving from place to place. Tears immediately filled her eyes, but at the same time she also felt greatly soothed.

"Is it possible for a painting to possess such great power?" she thought. "It made me feel so peaceful." Admiring the painter of the picture for having the ability to create such a magnificent work, she made a resolution on the spot: "I'll become a painter when I grow up."

Liang showed a talent for painting. At thirteen, she passed with high marks the entrance exam to the Hangchow Art School in Zhejiang Province. But she did not finish her studies there. Two years later, in order to escape the fighting between the Nationalist army and Chinese Communist forces, she moved with her family to Taiwan. From then on, she studied painting on her own. Although her father was a painter, he did not pass on any painting techniques to her. He would only give her some vegetable leaves and tell her to draw them. At first, Liang grumbled about the lack of guidance. But as the years went by and after she had groped her way on her own, she understood that there were benefits to her father's not teaching her anything.

"Because my father didn't point out a path for me to follow, I was free to explore and find my own way," she said. "There were no shackles, no constraints on me. I could learn in all possible ways, absorbing as much as I could."

She talks about how she used to develop and improve her artistic skills. She remembers one time she tried to draw bamboo. She observed how it grew up daily, from when it was just a young shoot to a grown plant. When the bamboo was fully grown, she had finished painting a pile of sketches.

Fate never provided a good environment for Liang to develop her talent. She got married at an early age--before turning twenty. Her husband's business did not go well, and circumstances became very strained. She often didn't know where their next meal would come from. She even had to pawn her watch so that she could have her first baby delivered in the hospital.

But she did not give up painting. "The only thing I could do was paint." She made her pigments herself and looked for any spare paper to draw on. By the time her first daughter was one hundred days old, she had finished one hundred portraits of her.

Liang was good at turning the disadvantages and adversities in her life into positive forces that inspired her to go further. "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would lie dormant." She invented a term--"merciful adversity"--to describe obstacles that stand in people's way but spur them to fully exert and fulfil themselves. She thinks that if life had always gone smoothly for her, the harvest she reaped would probably not have been so bountiful.

She had her first exhibition when she was only in her twenties. As more and more exhibitions of her works were held, her reputation as a painter gradually grew. The success of the exhibitions not only won her chances to teach at schools, but also trips to show her art abroad. In 1972, she went overseas for the first time. The wonders and splendors of different cultures opened her eyes. She longed to see more of the world.

An intrepid traveler

Since then, Liang has painted in Death Valley, where the temperature in summer usually exceeds 52 degrees Celsius [125 F], made sketches in the Arctic at 40 degrees below zero [-40 F], hiked across the bottom of the Grand Canyon, which is home to rattlesnakes, trekked on Qingkangzang Plateau at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters [13,200 ft] looking for the source of the Yellow River, waded though a swamp infested with deadly mosquitoes... The list goes on and on.

Liang said that when she first traveled abroad, she went to cities or places where most people would choose to tour. But gradually she found that trips to the countryside or remote, unfrequented places tend to bring about greater benefits. "The people I met in the countryside were so much more sincere and honest than those I met in other places. Even though they didn't know me, they were still willing to help me as much as they could. It was there that I found the most valuable treasure--the beauty of human nature."

Traveling in secluded, wild places, she often had to endure great bodily discomfort. But she didn't mind that at all because she believed that suffering and tribulations would help increase the profundity and depth of her artistic creations. Trekking in a desert, she was made to understand how precious and sweet a drop of water can be; suffering from cold and hunger above the Arctic Circle, she appreciated even more the clothes that gave her warmth and the bread that gave her energy. She grew to be more appreciative of what life had to offer and always looked at the world with a heart full of love and gratitude. Like an ascetic pilgrim, she trekked mile after mile, traveling high and low. When the prodigies of nature and the things she experienced on her journeys expanded her mind and enriched her life, she created numerous paintings and sketches that touched people's hearts.

She had countless unforgettable experiences painting from life in severe weather conditions. She vividly remembers painting outdoors at a temperature of 40 degrees below zero Celsius [-40 F]. When she poured hot water from a thermos bottle to mix colors, the water immediately froze. She spread colors on the canvas, and they iced over in a second. It took six painting brushes to complete that watercolor because the brushes froze. When she finally finished the painting, her fingers hurt terribly due to the bitter cold. But when she looked at the "ice painting" with the marks of snowflakes, her heart leapt with joy. Tears rolled down her face and froze on her cheeks...

Seeing Liang's delicate figure, one can hardly imagine how she could march and trudge all those lonely roads and accomplish feats that would daunt even a strong man. Lin Yao-tang, Liang's colleague at Ming Chuan University, said that her ability to endure all the uncomfortable conditions on a journey came from her minimal demand for comforts in her daily life. "She wears little when it's cold. Her diet is as simple as can be--plain boiled water and a steamed bun often pass for a meal. Sometimes I think she is too strict on herself."

In order to prepare herself for all those demanding journeys, Liang trained herself to reduce her needs, and she also learned swimming, mountain climbing, outdoor cooking, and all the necessary survival skills, as well as the customs and habits of the different peoples and cultures she would come across. Nevertheless, as intrepid as she is, she never did anything that was beyond her abilities. Once she sensed danger, she would keep away from it and not go any further. On one of her trips, she almost reached the center of the Sahara Desert. But the food she had brought with her would not sustain her to the end of the journey and her feet were suffering from Saint Anthony's fire (erysipelas), so she decided to give up. "If you know me, you know how hard it was for me to give up." Despite that, she let the chance of a lifetime pass by. "A brave person knows when to proceed and when to retreat," she said.

Her trips around the globe not only spawned many paintings, but also a lot of books which record her experiences. Two of her books, Travelling across Mainland China and Deep in Love, even garnered her an award conferred by the National Culture and Arts Foundation. By publishing her stories, she hopes that her experiences can encourage people who are interested in traveling to reach out for their dreams and step out into the big world. "Traveling will take you away from the rut of daily life and enable you to see things from a different, wider perspective." Therefore she always encourages people not to stay in one place. "Dare to dream, dare to take challenges," she urged.

A bountiful journey

Five years ago, Liang had a heart attack. On her way to the hospital, she wrote a letter to her children: "Dear children: If I leave this way and return no more, I'd like you to know that my mind is filled with peace and there is no regret in my heart. On the journey of my life, my greatest pride is that I have always done my best. I know what a blessing it is to be able to depart from this life without any regret and remorse. I feel so blessed!"

Whether people's lives are fulfilled or not depends on whether they have done their best in their lives. Liang's achievements are incomparable. She has left her footsteps all over the earth and made a most beautiful picture of it. Her paintings have soothed many people's minds and inspired them to bravely follow their dreams. Although she is not as strong as before, the urge to travel is still great. "The world is a treasure house. I simply cannot suppress the urge to go out and collect beauty from it." It looks as if there will always be another journey waiting for her.