Kitchen by Day, Easel By Night: Kuang Ching Mei was born into the Chinese revolution and toiled away at Quincy’s Chinese restaurants. But he never gave up his passion for painting.

After moving to the United States with his family in the 1980s, Kuang Ching Mei led a life like so many of his peers of his time. Born in Duanfen Model Village in southern China in 1936, Mei endured a childhood shaped by the hard times of a world and nation descending into turmoil. Mao Zedong was rising to power at home and imperialism, genocide and war were slowly consuming the globe.

Works by Mei. Images courtesy the Mei Family.

Mei would eventually leave for Hong Kong and then to Boston in the 1980s.

To support his family, Mei, for many years, worked in the only jobs he could find, at restaurants like Cathay Pacific and others around Quincy. He cooked and prepped food in hot, busy kitchens.

But he had a double-life of sorts: Despite his many hours toiling away at restaurants, he was at heart an artist (who would become commonly known as Mei Ching, his artist name).

He was an artist, in fact, from his early years growing up during the civil war and revolution that would be won by Mao in China. Art was Mei’s passion — one that he pursued until the end, with great talent but often with little fanfare. While in China, he was one of the few able to study art in a renowned Hubei institution, earning a degree in Chinese Cultural Artistry. But in the U.S. his painting career had to wait.

“Like a lot of immigrants around that time, my father didn’t really go into his profession or what he learned, and he ended up doing other work (once in the U.S.),” said his daughter, Winna Ying Mei, during an interview with the Sampan. It wasn’t until later in his life that the late Ching Mei could again pursue his work professionally, opening the Plum Blossom Chinese Painting Academy in Quincy in 1995 and then two years later, the Boston Chinese Art Institute. He also served as the president of the Boston branch of the World Art & Cultural Exchange Association.

Still, many of his paintings — including traditional works of birds, flowers, and landscapes — and their awards went unknown, even to his kids and close friends, during his later years.

When his family was putting together Mei’s bio and his funeral notice after he died earlier this year in the spring, his daughter said, they were surprised to find out all the associations and organizations he was involved with.

“Even his friends, when they came and when they reached out to us, they were also very notably surprised, because he was not the type to talk about it. It’s not like he ‘posted it’ anywhere,” she said.

“You know, when he got an honor, he just kind of accepted it, and that’s it.”

A quarter century ago, the Sampan covered Kuang Ching Mei, writing about his work and his paintings appeared on several issues of the newspaper, including during the August Moon issue in the year 2000.

Sampan interviewed Winna Ying Mei about her father by phone. The exchange has been edited for clarity and brevity:

Sampan: Why do you think your father was so drawn to the arts, and traditional Chinese art in particular?

Winna Ying Mei: He grew up in a village, and during the time, obviously, you know, it was not the best of times, but he’s always, for some reason, loved art. And so when he was in elementary school, he wanted to go into art school – even at that young age.

But obviously opportunities in rural China were very rare, so he just kind of found opportunity often. He just really went for any opportunity that he could to draw and learn from the masters and actually go to school. So, luckily, after high school, he was able to get into the to an art school. And his teacher was actually very famous, a renowned artist. So, luckily, he had the opportunity to learn … and he always maintained that interest.

Sampan: Did you see his style evolve over his life? Or did his style become more refined? Or both?

Winna Ying Mei: It continued to be refined, but it definitely really evolved, too, from the 1960s. He was born in the 1930s, so in the ’40s and ’50s, when he was in school and learning, his style was very traditional. There was a lot of copying of the past art and past artists. But I think in his later years, definitely, after he graduated, his art evolved – he took a lot of traditional art, but he combined it with a lot of imagination. He could take an image of an existing landscape, but then he would add in different features of maybe another landscape and combine them together, and then there would be a meaning. There was a theme, there was a particular reason, there was a phrase. He did a lot of research on historical poetry and writing. He could take, like a novel or famous movie … and then take all those characters and take a passage of a story and make a painting out it.

Sampan: So your family moved from Hong Kong to Boston when you were pretty young. Do you have any kind of early memory with your father during your childhood that you think would be interesting to note?

Winna Ying Mei: … He had a lot of concentration in art before going to the U.S., and then art became more of a hobby in the U.S., because you have to make a living, so you’re doing work that’s not related. I think that’s was really tough. A lot of people went through this, and you end up giving up what your interest is. For him, however, after years of working at the restaurant and doing a different type of work, he was able to open the art gallery and teach at a later time in his life. He came back to art full time. So it took a lot. It took a lot, I think mentally and personally for the whole family, as well. But I’m glad he was able to do it. But persistence and continuation, I think, was very important for him….

Sampan: He had to have another job to make a living, which is pretty typical, right?

Winna Ying Mei: Mostly restaurants. I think back in the ’80s a lot of the immigrants were going into the restaurants. Not that many people who immigrated at that time would have very good English speaking skills, and really the major opportunity was restaurants or hotels.

Sampan: Do you know how he got involved in the Sampan ­­— that was about 25 or 30 years ago now?

Winna Ying Mei: He taught a lot and he opened his gallery in Wollaston…. He had a Chinese tape rental store, which was very popular back then, CDs and tapes of movies from Hong Kong and China. And then he had the other side as a full gallery and for teaching. And I think Sampan reached out because he was teaching a lot of kids and he was teaching adults.

Sampan: I like this quote in the biography that you sent in advance of this interview, that he believed in continuous learning. And I think a lot of people kind of forget about that. You know, as they advance in age, how did that shape your own view of life by watching your father kind of continuously look for ways to learn and grow.

Winna Ying Mei: I think his learning is really more of curiosity. In that era when he was growing up, a lot of stuff was happening around the world, and specifically in China (during that time), and the learning opportunities were just rare. And so for him to be able to learn and go to college and graduate … was very rare, especially around that time. I think his curiosity is really what made him the way he is.

For example, I love Tetris, and I’m very good at Tetris. But I do it more because I’m an executive assistant for a CEO, so I am very good at juggling calendars, which is kind of like Tetris. But my father was more like, he’d look at something, whether it’s furniture or a painting, and see how can it fit together. He did that without any formal training... That’s his curiosity. I think for me, you know, thinking-wise, I got from him that lateral and 3-D thinking. I think it’s very tough; you have to have the imagination to be able to think in 3-D.

Sampan: Was the revolution in China traumatic for him – how did that affect his life?

Winna Ying Mei: Yeah, I mean, even my mom and a lot of her siblings here in Boston and Quincy all had gone through it. When my parents were very young, before 10, they had gone through all that: No food, the bombings. They’ve gone through walking miles … like 10 miles a day … without transportation and that definitely shaped how they think about living and saving money and, you know, food itself, and not to waste it.

Sampan: Is there anything else that you want to mention?

Mei: … I think that’s tough for any artist, even though he didn’t say it (to not be able to share many of his works). I think it’s just tough because you have art that you want to share. You have these great pieces that you make, you want to share it, but you don’t want to make it very commercial or, right, you know, anything like that. I think that was tough for him, but he still enjoyed it, and he just, he still did it for a very long time. And so right now, as we’re going through all these things, there is a lot of art, and we’re looking for opportunities to share with people, whether it’s charitable events, donations, or anything like that. … All art, if you’re not sharing it, it’s just a waste. You know, one person collecting it and nobody else sees it, is a waste. It was important for him, that sharing art and sharing knowledge. And that’s why that quote you mentioned about continuous learning is, I think, pretty relevant to him.