Between the age of 6 and 12 life was full of adventures. In one day my friend and I might have ridden across the desert on our horses (mine was always a palamino), fought the baddies in the jungles of South America, sung at the tops of our voices in the Armadale railway station – the best acoustic studio in town  – and then morphed into one of the Secret Seven on a particularly thrilling case. And then, to fill in the 15 minutes before dinner, we would choreograph a roller skating routine to show off to our mums later.

The house I lived in was a clinker brick, two story place in the suburbs of Melbourne. I can see the rooms as clearly as if I was still living there today – all the nooks and crannies and hidey holes, all those secret places where adventures begin. We infused that house with so many good memories that I’m sure our young selves are still there today, still having our wonderful adventures. The secret passage behind the wood panelling in the front hall, the box room with a tiny door that led out under the roof, the jungle of overgrown plants at the side of the house, the wood shed where we would hold club meetings with the unimaginative name The Animal Club. And then there were the highly dangerous places like the secret underground cave my brother and I took months to dig (we could easily have been digging our own graves), the Slippery Dip, the Whooshing Whirl, names we gave to places on the roof. One false move and we would have plunged two stories to our deaths. Life was dangerous but it was oh so good. Of course, these adventures would not have taken place if we had stay-at-home mums or dads which is why it is an essential ingredient of any children’s books to get rid of the parents as soon as possible.

I didn’t know it then, but these were the moments that I would draw upon decades later to create my stories.

Recently, a friend came to stay from Seattle and he revealed something to me that rocked my world. He told me that his first childhood memory began at high school. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he had suffered any trauma when he was young but he didn’t think so. He said he had a normal childhood, he suffered some predjudice because he was Jewish but he was resilient.

As part of the tour around Melbourne and its environs, I took him to St Kilda, an exciting seaside suburb with a special flavour. As we were driving down Acland Street, with its many restaurants and Jewish cake shops, he suddenly became excited. ‘Stop the car!’ he said, agitated. I pulled over thinking that he was going to be ill. ‘I want to look at the cakes. Do you feel like coffee?’ He looked as if he was possessed. It was too early for me for cake, we’d just had breakfast, but he was the visitor.

When we entered the internationally famous Monarch Cafe, my friend’s eyes were bigger than ever. He grew excited and ordered far more cakes than we could possibly eat. He didn’t talk, but smiled and mmm….ed his way through every mouthful as a particularly delicious memory surfaced. He was eight years old, sitting on the front step of his friend’s house in Detroit eating Mrs Weisenbuam’s cheese cake, vanilla slices and chocolate kooglhoup.

When I first went to live in Taiwan to study Chinese, I met a local girl called Peggy. She was around the same age, about twenty-two, with a wide, generous smile. I liked her very much. One day, her parents invited me home for dinner. It was her birthday. I spent the whole day looking for a present. I wanted it to be special.

In the big department store I found a beautiful necklace. I had it wrapped, bought a card, and took a bus to her apartment.

Peggy greeted me at the door, smiling.

‘Happy birthday,’ I said, handing her the present. In true Australian style I was dying to see the look on her face when she opened it.

Without unwrapping it or even a thank you, she put it down on the hall table and led me by the hand into the living room. I was shocked. Nobody could be so rude. Her mum came out of the kitchen and fussed over me, sitting me down on the couch with a cup of steaming hot tea and a bowl of salted watermelon seeds. But I was still thinking about Peggy and my present. I just couldn’t get over how rude she was. After all the trouble I took buying it, not to mention the cost.

While we ate our meal, I tried to forget my anger but the delicious dinner that Yang Mama had cooked was soured as Peggy’s insensitivity nagged me like a constantly dripping tap.

When the evening was over, I decided that I would give her one last chance before I called an end to our friendship. Surely she would open it after I left, and would call me the next day to say how beautiful the necklace was. But the next day came and went, without a word from her.

The following week she rang to ask if I wanted to go to the movies, yet she still didn’t mention the necklace. That was it. How rude could one be? I said I was busy. And I kept saying I was busy when she called me again and again. I should have told her why I was angry, but I couldn’t. Eventually she gave up.

One day, a few months later in Chinese class, our teacher began talking about manners. I had forgotten about Peggy and the necklace until the teacher brought up the custom of gift giving. ‘In China,’ she said, ‘it is extremely impolite and appears greedy to open the present in front of the giver. Only little children do that. Only little children cannot wait and have to satisfy themselves immediately,’ she laughed. She turned to me as if she was reading my thoughts. Oh dear. My ignorance about Chinese customs, had cost me a valuable friendship. Was I too late to salvage it?

Right after class I rang Peggy and asked if she wanted to go to the movies with me. I explained to her why I had acted so strangely, and how I had stupidly jumped to conclusions. She just laughed and was as friendly as ever, as if nothing had ever happened between us.

Was this another cultural difference that I had not picked up on? I still had so much to learn about China.

When my son was a little boy he wanted to be a truck or a crocodile when he grew up. Oh, to have the creativity of a child, the boundless mind without compartments. The Taoist philosopher, Lao zi says that we must get back to this childlike state, to be like an uncarved block of wood. Young children i.e those between the ages of 2 to 6 are such natural artists. They draw from primitive instinct. Their interpretation of the objects they draw is sensitive, beautiful, naiive. But as we grow older we straighten out those lines, smooth out the wobbles, until the creative ability we had as children is squeezed out of us and we end up thinking we cannot draw. This happens far too early. When I go around speaking at primary schools, I have them do a drawing with me. In the beginning at least half the class say they can’t draw, but by the end of the exercise they are all extremely proud of what they have achieved. I wonder what would happen if art was considered a higher priority in our society.

One of my heroes is the Chinese painter Ba Da Shan Ren 1626-1705. He was a child prodigy – a brilliant painter and poet. Wang Kaixuan (Deputy Curator, Ba Da Shan Ren Museum) writes, ‘Once a relative of the emperor, Ba Da Shan Ren became a man whose family had been broken up and destroyed. He was in this mood all his life. Look at his inscribed name. When the four characters Ba Da Shan Ren were written together, they looked like two characters meaning “cry” and “laugh”. They implied that he did not know whether to laugh or cry. They were metaphorically used to refer to his lot in life. From his paintings, especially his landscape paintings, we can feel the void in Buddhism, the non-action of Taoism and the simplicity and elegance in Confucianism.’ Ba Da Shan Ren lived the life of a recluse.

Here are some of his paintings. Their beauty lies in their simplicity.

See how he captures the fishes personality

Chinese characters in the form of a poem always play an important part in his composition. In China, calligraphy is considered the highest of art forms.

Ahh... Simple, elegant and beautiful

Rocks are not inanimate objects in his paintings. Here he uses a rock to set up tension between the two birds

This rock is dynamic. It has a surging energy.

Trees dance and talk to each other

Even eggplants can dance.

I hadn’t done any life drawing since I left art school so I was pretty rusty when I started it up again at the beginning of the year. More often than not I find it frustrating, but sometimes the conte or charcoal or brush does what I want it to do. It’s a lot like writing – totally unpredictable. This is one of my best drawings to date done in conte on butcher’s paper. My teacher is Stanley Wong. His linework is just so sensitive and beautiful.