In 1955, Chu Teh-Chun embarked in Taiwan on the boat that would take him to France. This trip was providential, he left to contemplate with his own eyes the Western art taught to him by his teachers at the Beaux-Arts. He left the traditions and conventions of his already established life in Taiwan to discover Paris, described in the 1950s as “the city of life”.

The port calls were an opportunity to discover new places: Hong Kong, Saigon, Ceylon, Djibouti, Port Said, the Suez Canal, Cairo… The journeys brought him face to face with the immensity of the ocean, the blue of the sea, the horizon, some of the topics that will permeate his work.

This trip also was the beginning of his romance with Ching-Chao, as they met on the boat while she was on her way to Madrid to study Spanish painting. Their paths will never part.

They landed on the 5th of May 1955 in Marseille. This is a symbolic place in terms of Chu Teh-Chun’s trajectory, Marseille, his first contact with France, the beginning of a new life.