Businessman with passion for bonsai
By Caterina Bernadini |
April 18, 2012, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WHATEVER someone's profession, his or her hobby and passion may be very different and say much more about a personality than what one does for a living.
Take the case of 37-year-old Gianpietro Bellotti, an Italian businessman who came to Shanghai eight years ago to tap the China market for his company's business producing textile knitting equipment.
Today, and ever since he was a teenager, his avowed passion is bonsai, the painstaking art of growing and shaping miniature trees in shallow containers to produce a plant that is aesthetically pleasing.
He calls them his "creatures."
Bellotti has around 100 bonsai in China, where they are tended by growers, and he has more than 20 in the garden of his home in Shanghai.
He also has another 90 back home in Italy in Chiari, a small northern country town near Milan.
Bellotti arrived in Shanghai eight years ago on business - his original destination was Brazil on the other side of the world, but things don't always work according to plan.
Instead, he was sent to Shanghai to open up the China market for his company.
For Bellotti and his wife Chiara it was to be a brief adventure - "just a few months in Shanghai," he says - but it became everyday life. The project got bigger and bigger and today Bellotti is the CEO.
He and his wife have twin daughters who can speak Chinese better than their parents.
How did he develop a passion for delicate bonsai?
The answer goes back to his childhood in Chiari where a window in his house overlooked a cornfield. He could also see women tending their flowers and there almost seemed to be a competition to grow the most beautiful flowers.
When he was 10 years old, he wanted to take part in this "contest" and to win. So he started to experiment with geraniums, which he loved.
"My balcony had to be more beautiful than the others, so I put all my efforts into tending the flowers," Bellotti says.
Because of his interest in plants, he read about bonsai and became fascinated. When he was 15-years-old, he planted his first bonsai. In autumn he collected seeds and planted them. In spring, a bonsai was born. And then it had to be cultivated, shaped and pruned over years.
That was a great satisfaction and the beginning of his passion for bonsai, a form of art in both Japan and China. "Bonsai" is the Japanese term and penjing is the Chinese term for plant or landscape in a pot.
"China has been very useful, here I can find a lot of material," Bellotti says.
The businessman bonsai artist combines his hobby with his travels around China to look for bonsai.
"I choose the plants, I leave them to farmers that grow them and when the bonsai are ready I bring them to Shanghai," he says.
These farmers have licenses to cultivate bonsai so that visitors and collectors can order the plants they want and then the farmers will shape them to perfection.
After years, he has developed his own network of bonsai grower contacts so he knows where to go to find the most interesting plants with the greatest aesthetic potential.
Of course there is also the possibility of buying a mature bonsai but Bellotti says he doesn't like to buy "other people's work."
Though most of his bonsai are cared for by farmers and at home he has "just" 23, they require a lot of care.
"Plants must be well treated," he says. He wakes up early during spring and autumn to water and tend them but Shanghai's humid and rainy summer helps a lot.
His extensive travels in search on bonsai have taken him to surprising places, such as Maihuayu Village not far from Yellow Mountain in Anhui Province. "There are whole families that grow bonsai, something you would never expect," he says.
Bonsai is very popular in China and beautiful bonsai is given as a gift, often as expressions of thanks.
Bellotti is familiar with both Japanese bonsai, involving well-defined, classical styles and guidelines, and Chinese bonsai, which are more free-form.
"I choose the Chinese style because it reflects my free-style personality," he says.
Bellotti is just an example of how a deep passion does not know any country or border. It's something you can "cultivate" wherever you are.
Gianpietro Bellotti
Nationality: Italian
Profession: CEO
Age: 36
Q&A
Self description: Enthusiastically positive, curious, goal-driven, adaptable.
Favorite place: My garden in spring.
Strangest sight: Tongchuan Road Fish Market and the Korean Traditional Medicine Center (Not sure about the name) on Wuzhong Road.
Motto for life: It is never enough …
Worst experience: A hospital.
How to improve Shanghai: Flowers on every balcony, improve the project of Smart Shanghai and the coverage of free Wifi.
Take the case of 37-year-old Gianpietro Bellotti, an Italian businessman who came to Shanghai eight years ago to tap the China market for his company's business producing textile knitting equipment.
Today, and ever since he was a teenager, his avowed passion is bonsai, the painstaking art of growing and shaping miniature trees in shallow containers to produce a plant that is aesthetically pleasing.
He calls them his "creatures."
Bellotti has around 100 bonsai in China, where they are tended by growers, and he has more than 20 in the garden of his home in Shanghai.
He also has another 90 back home in Italy in Chiari, a small northern country town near Milan.
Bellotti arrived in Shanghai eight years ago on business - his original destination was Brazil on the other side of the world, but things don't always work according to plan.
Instead, he was sent to Shanghai to open up the China market for his company.
For Bellotti and his wife Chiara it was to be a brief adventure - "just a few months in Shanghai," he says - but it became everyday life. The project got bigger and bigger and today Bellotti is the CEO.
He and his wife have twin daughters who can speak Chinese better than their parents.
How did he develop a passion for delicate bonsai?
The answer goes back to his childhood in Chiari where a window in his house overlooked a cornfield. He could also see women tending their flowers and there almost seemed to be a competition to grow the most beautiful flowers.
When he was 10 years old, he wanted to take part in this "contest" and to win. So he started to experiment with geraniums, which he loved.
"My balcony had to be more beautiful than the others, so I put all my efforts into tending the flowers," Bellotti says.
Because of his interest in plants, he read about bonsai and became fascinated. When he was 15-years-old, he planted his first bonsai. In autumn he collected seeds and planted them. In spring, a bonsai was born. And then it had to be cultivated, shaped and pruned over years.
That was a great satisfaction and the beginning of his passion for bonsai, a form of art in both Japan and China. "Bonsai" is the Japanese term and penjing is the Chinese term for plant or landscape in a pot.
"China has been very useful, here I can find a lot of material," Bellotti says.
The businessman bonsai artist combines his hobby with his travels around China to look for bonsai.
"I choose the plants, I leave them to farmers that grow them and when the bonsai are ready I bring them to Shanghai," he says.
These farmers have licenses to cultivate bonsai so that visitors and collectors can order the plants they want and then the farmers will shape them to perfection.
After years, he has developed his own network of bonsai grower contacts so he knows where to go to find the most interesting plants with the greatest aesthetic potential.
Of course there is also the possibility of buying a mature bonsai but Bellotti says he doesn't like to buy "other people's work."
Though most of his bonsai are cared for by farmers and at home he has "just" 23, they require a lot of care.
"Plants must be well treated," he says. He wakes up early during spring and autumn to water and tend them but Shanghai's humid and rainy summer helps a lot.
His extensive travels in search on bonsai have taken him to surprising places, such as Maihuayu Village not far from Yellow Mountain in Anhui Province. "There are whole families that grow bonsai, something you would never expect," he says.
Bonsai is very popular in China and beautiful bonsai is given as a gift, often as expressions of thanks.
Bellotti is familiar with both Japanese bonsai, involving well-defined, classical styles and guidelines, and Chinese bonsai, which are more free-form.
"I choose the Chinese style because it reflects my free-style personality," he says.
Bellotti is just an example of how a deep passion does not know any country or border. It's something you can "cultivate" wherever you are.
Gianpietro Bellotti
Nationality: Italian
Profession: CEO
Age: 36
Q&A
Self description: Enthusiastically positive, curious, goal-driven, adaptable.
Favorite place: My garden in spring.
Strangest sight: Tongchuan Road Fish Market and the Korean Traditional Medicine Center (Not sure about the name) on Wuzhong Road.
Motto for life: It is never enough …
Worst experience: A hospital.
How to improve Shanghai: Flowers on every balcony, improve the project of Smart Shanghai and the coverage of free Wifi.
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