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Seeing Shinhuey Ho’s paintings for the first time, it would be easy to assume they were done by a born Trini who grew up stoning mangoes, catching wabine, and spending Easter vacation in Buccoo Village. They are so alive with colour and sheer Trininess, if there’s such a word, that it’s a shocker to learn they were done by a young woman who was born and raised two days’ journey from here. Ho describes her native Taiwanese city of Taichung as a bustling metropolis with a population similar to that of our entire country. “The stores are open 24 hours,” she says. Her father, a retired businessman, once taught English and her mother, mathematics. Apart from her native Mandarin, she speaks the Taiwanese dialect. She also did a first degree in English Literature in Taiwan. When she left to study Business Management at Purdue University in Indiana, she could not have predicted the strange turn her life would take, when she met up with a Trini called Ilyas Mohammed.  Not knowing much about our neck of the woods, she had to admit that his Chinese-Indian mixture had her puzzled. “I didn’t know where he was from, or what kind of ethnicity he was. I thought he was from the Philippines or something.” The two didn’t start dating until after graduation, however, when they were both working in Silicon Valley. In 2003, they married, and in 2006 moved to Trinidad. The couple now has two children, aged four and six.  

 

Ho is grateful to her family for the open-mindedness they showed when she married out of her culture. “Taiwanese are conservative,” she explains, “but my parents are a bit more open.” She laughs a little and adds, “If they had said no, I would have done it anyway.”  She misses them terribly, but the time and cost of travel being what is, she manages to visit just once every two years. One of her regrets is that when her daughter began school, she ceased to talk to her mother in Mandarin, which leaves Ho the only person in the house who speaks it. “My husband can only say a few things, like Ni Hao,” she says with a wry face. Settling into her adopted culture had its challenges, including the unlicensed mouths of Trinidadians who saw no problem in calling her Chinee Lady to her face. This isn’t exactly correct. “Taiwanese are a little like Trinis, because a lot of us are mixed. We have Chinese, white, tribespeople who look like Philippinos. We don’t really think we’re Chinese.” (For those who find Shinhuey too difficult to pronounce, by the way, she’ll answer to Sherry.) Compared to the famous Asian efficiency, little things in Trinidad can barely move for the red tape wrapped around them. “Things happen a little more slowly here,” she says euphemistically.

 

But she consoles herself with the beauty of Tobago, Soca music, and food. She makes up for the loss of some of her favourite Taiwanese meals (sticky rice balls and beef noodles) with new favourites like stewed ox tail, beef soup, and phulourie. For Ho, her early art lessons filled the empty space left after she quit her job in project management for a tech firm. “I learned how to make jewellery. Then one day I passed by a studio, and saw people painting, and said, ‘I could try that.’” It was one of those chance happenings that can change a person’s life. She has taken part in a few exhibitions and craft shows such as UpMarket, and sells her art off her Facebook page and via a website called Dailypaintworks.com. Amazingly, she has embarked upon a challenge to produce a painting every day. “I’m getting to know more about myself as an artist through that. I am now starting to make it my career.” She can paint in watercolours and pastels, but prefers oils. “I like working with the brush.” She enjoys still life painting, but her favourites are landscapes with people in them. “I would love to do old houses, and fishing villages, like Icacos.” Her clients come from all over, as far as Europe. She likes to talk about a German client who bought a painting of Ho’s little daughter on the beach, which resonates with a mother’s love for her daughter. Another client was compelled to buy a painting of a deya, because looking into the centre of the flame evoked memories of her late father.  Stories like these fuel her plans to continue painting every day, and finding the time to produce larger paintings. She can see an exhibition of her own in the works next year, where more people can be reached by her vivid images. “It makes me happy to know that my art touches people's hearts.”