PITTSBURGH BONSAI SOCIETY

By Robert Grealish

In September, 1997, six members of the Pittsburgh Bonsai Society took a trip to Korea, China and Taiwan. Ostensibly the trip was to go to the World Bonsai Friendship Federation Convention in Seoul, Korea. This turned out to be an outstanding bonsai display, but a bust of a program. Anyway, we took a lot of pictures of the bonsai, which were magnificent. There were a lot of red pine, Korean hornbeam, and Chinese quince, among others. It was amazing to see what the artists could do with a huge red pine with only three branches!

From Korea, we went to China and visited Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Yangzhou. In Yangzhou, a city of about 500,000, we were delighted to discover the 4th Asia Pacific Bonsai & Suiseki Convention & Exhibition. Again, this turned out to be an outstanding show. It was not as formally displayed as the Korean show, and it was mostly outdoors. It was fascinating to see the variety of styles of bonsai. Some were more typically Chinese, but many were what we would call traditional Japanese style. Along with hundreds of great bonsai, there were many wonderful penjing and a few fantastic Tamarix trees that looked just like old Chinese paintings.

When we went back to Shanghai, there was another show at the famous Shanghai Botanical Gardens. This one featured indoor and outdoor bonsai displays as well as a rock show and sale. We then went on to Taiwan. There were no shows there, but there were some beautiful and large bonsai for sale in the open air market. Too bad we didn't have a good way to bring them back! The highlight of Taiwan was the National Palace Museum in Taipei, with incredible ancient bronzes, celadon pottery and carvings, among many other things.

In all, this was the bonsai trip of a lifetime because of the quality of the shows, the number of bonsai, and the variety of styles. We took over 300 photos of bonsai, mostly with a Sony Mavica digital camera. We have put as many photos as we can fit on this page for you to enjoy.

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Seoul
Korean hornbeam 35.19 Kb 640 x 480	Japanese red pine 25.69 Kb 640 x 480	J. red pine 25.60 Kb 640 x 480	Chinese quince 26.07 Kb 640 x 480	J. red pine 36.59 Kb 640 x 480
Japanese yew 22.20 Kb 640 x 480	K. hornbeam 42.26 Kb 640 x 480	J. red pine 28.51 Kb 640 x 480	K. hornbeam 29.22 Kb 640 x 480	K. hornbeam 32.00 Kb 640 x 480
J. yew 34.06 Kb 640 x 480	K. hornbeam 28.23 Kb 640 x 480	K. hornbeam 43.46 Kb 520 x 563	J. yew 50.78 Kb 405 x 564	Japanese Red Pine 26.09 Kb 640 x 480
Yangzhou
Chinese elm 24.75 Kb 640 x 480	Chinese elm 28.96 Kb 640 x 480	? Chinese style deciduous 33.92 Kb 640 x 480	Ficus 35.93 Kb 640 x 480	Ficus 41.32 Kb 640 x 480
Tamarix 28.27 Kb 640 x 480	penjing 22.22 Kb 640 x 480	penjing 36.98 Kb 640 x 480	penjing 17.15 Kb 640 x 480	Yangzhou style 32.32 Kb 640 x 480
Windswept style 22.93 Kb 640 x 480	Juniper 35.38 Kb 440 x 561	Tamarix 40.89 Kb 452 x 563	Needle juniper 41.95 Kb 434 x 563	Chrysanthemum bonsai 33.04 Kb 640 x 480
Shanghai
Chinese elm 52.20 Kb 640 x 480	Japanese 5 needle pine 38.43 Kb 640 x 480	Japanese 5 needle pine 51.56 Kb 640 x 480	Rock 42.25 Kb 640 x 480	Chinese elm 41.88 Kb 640 x 480
Japanese 5 needle pine 44.36 Kb 640 x 480	Japanese 5 needle pine 98.44 Kb 796 x 545	Japanese 5 needle pine 41.55 Kb 640 x 480	Penjing 22.79 Kb 640 x 480	Penjing 23.60 Kb 640 x 480