A stroke of genius
BY ANGELO G. GARCIA
MoneyGram Philippines country manager Alex Chan Lim shares how Chinese painting
helps him grow his business.
In a studio tucked within a Pasig City subdivision, Alex Chan Lim teaches a group of professionals, retirees, and students the art of traditional Chinese painting, Furnished with the tools of the craft he dips a black inkstick in water and, in a circular motion, slowly grinds it on an inkstone, it yields a puddle of dark liquid that he uses to paint on rice paper. Following his lead, his students wield bamboo brushes and watercolor palettes to paint in mymmic patterns. Stroke by stroke, they evoke delicate flowers, breathtaking landscapes. lively animals.
Despite his busy schedule as the country manager of MoneyGram Philippines, Lim does this every weekend afternoon with about 10 students, most of whom he has mentored for years. His Chan Lim studio, named after his father, opened six years ago to impart an appreciation for traditional East Asian art. Lim and his proteges travel the Philippines and world to share this venerable craft with the public through a series of exhibits and free lessons.
Pupils of every age
Watching his father, a master in oil painting at work. Lim nurtured a love for Chinese painting that blossomed when he was 11. His parents urged him and his brother Felix to take up traditional Chinese painting under the tutelage of Taiwanese mentors. For the young Alex, it would become a passion that he would pass on to aspiring artists and his own family; his wife Ester, son Geoffrey, and daughters Kaye and Kyra.
The 53-year-old executive/artist first started teaching Chinese painting in the early 2000s at the Ayala Museum and the Ateneo de Manila University, juggling it with his full-time job.
His students come from all walks of life and different age brackets, ranging from a 15-year-old highschool student to a 78-year-old retired bank executive. "The most important thing in Chinese painting is, if you have talent thats good,” declares Lim. "lf you have an interest. that's better. But if you have talent and interest plus passion, that's the best. I have a lot of students who are Filipinos who didn't even know how to carry a brush, but they have stayed with me for five years.
One of the world's oldest art forms, Chinese painting requires years of training, from mastering each stroke to learning how to paint natural obiects perfectly. The craft is booming in China, but it is slowly fading In the Philippines. “Even the Chinese schools don't teach Chinese calligraphy anymore," Lim sadly admits, “so its a dying art. There was this Chinese store in Binondo that sold inksticks and inkstones but it closed down last March. Now we have to go abroad to find them."
East and West, old and new
Despite the difficulties, Lim and his students keep the art form alive for art—loving Filipinos. In group exhibitions, they show how modern Chinese painting has evolved over thousands of years. The art form is no longer confined to monochromatic inks on silk or on paper, it now incorporates Western techniques, tools, and materials, Lim's students are very creative in using materials such as canvass fabric and porcelain.
"We started with traditional Chinese painting," Lim points out. "Now we paint with bright colors for a very modern aesthetic.”
ln teaching the craft and nurturing the next generation of artists, Lim derives great fulfillment and also learns different approaches to life, and to his work.
"In painting” he explains, “I learned discipline and focus, which I apply to the business. I’m a very focused person; I know what I want." Painting also shows him how to strive for constant improvement at work, He muses, “No matter how good your painting is, there's somebody else who could do it much better than you.”
The art of success
A money-transfer company based in the United States MoneyGram has been in the Philippines since 1991. Only in recent years has the company seen significant growth.
Before joining MoneyGram in 2011, Lim held executive positions for various companies, including a clothing brand retailer, an express delivery enterprise, and a mining firm, Under his leadership, MoneyGram began to aggressively promote its remittance services.
"When MoneyGram first began here,” he recalls, "it was largely unknown. After I joined, I started building the network, then we focused on our customers: 11 million Filipinos abroad. We got [actor] Robin Padilla as a global endorser for his mass appeal and charisma: you can see his face in billboards all over the world."
MoneyGram now partners with major players in the finance and remittance sector, along with established banks, major pawnshops, and significant commercial establishments. This made the company's services more widely available, turning it into a key participant in the money-transfer business. "Today, I'm very happy because people already know us,” Lim enthuses, "the recall is already there.”
To illustrate the success of MoneyGram in the Philippines as a painting Lim envisions "a landscape with waterfalls; never-ending flowing with mountains as far as you can see, Clouds above. I'll add little flowers at the bottom to add color. It‘s alive, it has life.”