"Radically different from what it was when I left Shenzhen in 2000, the Chinese art scene became much more open and free, looking like a newly discovered forest, where we now can see many beautiful birds and listen to many beautiful voices," he said.

    Instead of losing himself in the forest, Zou lost himself in depression for one year. One day in Sep. 2005, while looking through albums of his paintings, he found photos of two sketches, titled "Maiden's Boudoir," which he had made for his Russian tutor at the RSPU before graduation.

    His Russian tutor, whose name Zou declined to disclose out of respect, admired Chinese culture very much, but actually knew nothing about it. He even asked Zou why Chinese men had to cut off their pigtails, a common hairstyle among men before the Qing Dynasty collapsed.

    Zou made two small paintings of nude Chinese women and scenes from ancient times to give his tutor a glimpse into Chinese art as well as the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization.

    Later, the two paintings were sold to a Jewish businessman for 800 U.S. dollars, with which Zou paid for his air tickets back to China.

    Inspired by the theme of the two paintings, Zou believed he had found what he should paint. In a surge of excitement, he picked up his brushes again and began to paint the series, "Maiden's Boudoir," day and night without thinking of food or rest.

    In his paintings, Zou often painted one or two naked Chinese girls with various interior decorations such as dressing tables, round-backed armchairs, tea sets, lanterns, birdcages, gauzy curtains and old-styled screens.

    "The naked Chinese girls in my paintings seemed to have a good family background. But as the Western culture began to stalk into the old Chinese empire around the mid-1800s, their ideology and lifestyle had to change with the time, and their naked bodies sent off the fragrant smell of sex," Zou said.

    "As a painter, I seemed to be a sneak observer, stealing an interested glance into their private space," he said. "I believe it would be more interesting for me to use painting, rather other media such as literature or video and movie, to depict my vague and delicate feelings."