“The resplendent red sun rises in the east. The first year of the great 1970s is past, now we welcome the beginning of 1971,” writes Fan Jin Feng in her report. “I will summarize my efforts to study Mao Zedong Thought during 1970 below, but first let me mention my deficiencies, speaking out of turn in class, for example. This is one of my deficiencies. But I have also done well in some areas …”

You can’t help but wonder who she could have been, had she not been sent to Yunnan to serve the Revolution.

No Red Guard set the fire, for all we know, yet still the whole museum leaves the impression that no matter how these children died, it was the Revolution that ate them. The entire museum is devoted to the 20-some million urban youth that were sent down to the country during Mao’s last ditch effort to indoctrinate the country. Several installations, including most of the second floor, show the tragic, heroic faces of young people drowning in a flash flood trying to bring grain to peasants, burning to death in a brush fire in Mongolia, or just sleeping in their dorm rooms, dreaming red dreams.

The images conjure up feelings of strong bonds, revolutionary joy and, above all, tragic waste. The beautiful, intelligent, ardent faces, all young, all dead before their time in accidents or disasters, are an ironic symbol for the whole era. The best of the nation becoming martyrs of the revolution, or worse, living on knowing all they did during the Red Era, the dreaded Cultural Revolution, was for naught.

Fan Jin Feng's school report, written months before she died in a fire (photo by Sascha Matuszak)

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

The first two people I met when I came to China in 2000 were survivors of the Red Era. Luo Shifu, the local handyman, was what you would call a “common laborer” – not much culture to him, but tons of wisdom. When he spoke of the Cultural Revolution in Chongqing, he always pantomimed shooting people.

“Ka Za! Ka Za! That’s what we did in those years. We all had guns. Everyone fought everyone!”

He had a gleam in his eye, when he stood up from the lunch table and showed me how he held his rifle. There was the brotherhood of struggle for him back then, that faded away with the Opening Up and Reform that followed. After he finished talking about the 8.8 Gang and others who fought over Beibei and Chongqing’s port, he would sigh and sit back down.

‘Those were terrible days,” he would admit. “All the schools were closed, no one had enough to eat. A crazy period.”

Then he hefted his tiny glass of baijiu and we toasted to the old days, good and bad. He never seemed too depressed about the whole thing. He went about his daily work with an irrepressible cheer and he always had a kind word for me. I drank his baijiu all the time, evenings with him were a glimpse into the simple routine of a contented man.

The second person I met, who also went through that period, was Mu Laoshi, a tall, balding man who spoke excellent English – in the sticks of Chongqing no less – but didn’t really have much to do around Southwest Agricultural University except drink tea, smoke cigarettes and engage me whenever he could. When he spoke of the Red Era, his whole frame slumped and an aura of failure, bitterness and indignation wafted out and took me in. He asked me for money or favors every now and then and always seemed on the edge of any conversation, leaning in, trying to glean a few morsels.

“A total waste, those years. No one could go to school, we were unable to train for anything. For me, a foreign languages student, it was especially hard. If it weren’t for those years … ”

I find the same dichotomy playing out with others that told me about their lives in the 1960s and 70s. Some were content, others were bitter, but mostly each person had a healthy dose of both. One man told me with unconcealed pride about eating mud and bark for days on end. When he finished reciting the hardships he and his family stoically endured, he proceeded to curse Mao, the Party and the entire Communist Revolution, all the way back to that maniac Marx himself. My father-in-law was one of the lucky few who were able to go to college in the early 1980s, but even he speaks glowingly of the guns and the roving bands of revolutionaries that ruled the land during that time. He smiles wide and confidently in pictures from those days, like everyone else did, it seems.

The Educated Youth Museum is lined with smiling faces. They peer out from trains headed into the countryside, stand out from a group of Tibetan herders, gather together for group shots along a riverbank or in the small kitchen of some peasant’s house. Fan Jin Feng sounds positively revolutionary in her report, written just a few short months before she died:

“I am very earnest when laboring in the factory, humbly accepting re-education from the workers,” she writes. She was 17 at the time. Was she truly earnest, or just writing what needed to be written at the time? She continues: “From today on I am determined to obey Mao Zedong’s words in everything I do, raise up the Great Red Flag of Mao Zedong Thought, flexibly study and use Mao Zedong Philosophy, constantly improve my revolutionary thinking, constantly improve my worldview, and strive to be a solid and dependable apprentice of the revolution.”

It’s not hard to imagine a young girl intoxicated by a movement heading off to the countryside, waving to her proud, teary-eyed parents from the rail platform, gripping the Little Red Book in her hands.

Some of those revolutionaries never came home. I met a band of old Educated Youth in the hills of Liangshan, the Yi stronghold of southern Sichuan, and they had been there since the 1960s. Some of them had married locals, but most of them were just happy to be away from it all. They ran a few shops selling stationary and petty groceries and not one of them cared a whit for their hometown, Chongqing. The band seemed lost in time, and quite contented at that. We’re not going back, they told me, there is nothing there for us … and we are happy here.

Some went on to greatness. Walking through the third floor of the museum is like viewing a Who’s Who of contemporary Chinese society. Politicians Wen Jiabao, Xi Jin Ping, and Bo Xilai; actors and actresses like Ge You, and Li Xiao Qing; the painter He Duo Lin and businessmen like Liu Yong Hao, even Fan Jianchuan himself. Everyone between the ages of 45 and 65 experienced the Cultural Revolution in some way or another and the effects of that period are deep and abiding. Those days and the people who went through them define modern China, much more so than their connected children, in my opinion.

Heroic martyrs, braving a flood to save some fertilizer (photo by Sascha Matuszak)

An Obsession

Fan Jianchuan was just a kid when the Cultural Revolution turned its sights on his father. When he was nine, his father was accused of anti-revolutionary activity and as he stood in the docks, he told his son to “collect every scrap of paper on these allegations that you can” and that’s what little Fan Jianchuan did. He hasn’t stopped since. He is now one of China’s most vigorous collectors, receiving more than 100 containers of stuff each year from around the nation. He has agents in every province, in every major city, and they help him sniff out collections and buy them up.

“The museum cluster hold about 1% of my collection,” he told me. “I have tons of stuff waiting to be displayed.”

The Fan Jianchuan Museum Cluster is the largest and most provocative privately owned collection of historical artifacts in the entire country. The Educated Youth Museum alone should raise eyebrows with your average hardline politico, but not only does the museum operate unmolested, but the visitors I saw – and the ones who left their mark on the guest book –  seem to identify with the symbology Fan has infused into his displays. The irony and the waste are not lost on anyone who lived during that period, or it turns out, on today’s young people. I saw an older man leading his teenage daughter through the museum, telling her of this and that, and it was clear to me that he was telling his story to a girl that grew up on a completely different planet. Yet she listened and, to her credit, she seemed interested.

A young teacher with me on the trip to Anren laughed away the installations and told us she knew nothing of that period and didn’t want to know anything. But as she read about young girls braving floods and saw the pictures, her attitude slowly changed. She started pausing at each image, each description. Instead of texting, she murmured her sympathy and appreciation.

“Gosh, they’re so young, they look like my students age,” she said, when we stopped to look at the 11 youths who died trying to save fertilizer during a flood. “But my students would never try and do what they did. No way.”

The cluster includes several other fascinating installations, most powerful for me were the Wenchuan Earthquake Museum, which Fan put together not a month after the tragedy, and the Plaza of the Martyrs. The martys are cast-iron, life-like statues of the major figures of pre-Liberation China. Generals that fought against the Japanese stand next to Revolutionaries who ran with Sun Yat-sen while Chiang Kai Shek and Madame Song smile benevolently just a few paces from Mao Zedong and Zhu De, one of the Communist’s greatest generals. They all face one direction and each expression is a mixture of determination, hope and zeal.

“This is where I come when I feel low,” Fan said. “I come here and look at these men and women and I realize that I am just a small, small person with a great responsibility. These statues inspire me and keep me going.”

Deng Wei San, an early revolutionary (photo by Sascha Matuszak)

Keep going where? When you ask him, Fan says he wants to be the biggest collector in the world and the first to open up a museum for traitors during WWII, or the first to create a museum dedicated to corruption. But when I walk around his cluster, I get the feeling Fan is exorcising demons. His own and the nation’s, but primarily his own. He designs every installation and although he insists that the objects speak for themselves, his touch is everywhere to be seen. He wants the nation to face itself.

“A mature nation must be able to look at things rationally,” he tells me. “For a nation to grow, people have to be rational, people have to be allowed a different point of view.”

In the middle of the discussion, he jumps up and grabs a vintage Mao Zedong pin and hands it to me.

“During the Red Era, people would pin these through their bare skin to show their devotion to Mao and to the Revolution,” he declares.

His expression slides between revulsion and awe and he demands I put the pin on right then and there. I can’t help thinking that he, along with everyone else over 45, suffers from a long, drawn out form of post traumatic stress disorder. I look down at the pin and am reminded of passages in Yu Hua’s novel, Brothers, in which villagers march up and down chanting slogans and anti-revolutionaries commit suicide with screwdrivers and primitive nail guns. I think of people beaten to death in the street while hundreds look on and do nothing. The horror stories are endless. Who turned his back on whom; who died alone and forgotten; who was executed by zealots. Fan hints at deep, dark secrets in his vault of artifacts, but many will have to wait, he says, because those who committed the crimes are still alive. When their dead, then we can speak plainly, he explains.

For 30 years these men and women sent down to the countryside or left behind in cities to fight over blocks and wave red flags have had no one to talk to. No one wanted to remember their deeds or misdeeds and when the topic came up, everyone muttered “insanity” and moved on. As a foreigner, I am a safe bet for anyone who wants to bring up those times. I have heard cabbies and bosses tell their tales of woe and repression. No one ever admits to killing or persecuting anyone, but that’s to be expected: Not one German knew what was happening to the Jews during WWII, right? It took generations for Germans to get out from under their collective guilt, China is no different.

Fan says his obsession is collecting, but I think that obsession finds roots in the horror of seeing his father pilloried and hearing his words, “collect everything … ” We cannot underestimate the power of that era and the hold those days still have on people today. When I ask my friends why their mothers are so clingy and controlling, they say that back when they were young, no one cared about them and they had nothing. When journalists trace back the conflicts that brought down Bo Xilai, they find age-old grievances and festering wounds.

In China, insulting someone’s ancestors is a big deal, as is sweeping the tomb of generations past. It might do Westerners good to take a step back and consider filial piety from a Chinese standpoint. Try and imagine being in a society in which the old rule by virtue of being old, the past is revered for being the past and then imagine having all that shattered in a few short years of madness. I feel in my bones that Fan Jianchuan’s obsession is not just his own, it belongs to all of China – those that went through the Red Era, their sons and daughters, and the Little Emperors they dote on so fiercely.

Today’s leaders would love for everything to remain covered until every last victim from the 1960s and 1970s is dead and gone. But Fan Jianchuan’s obsession, Mu Laoshi’s bitterness, the memory of Fan Jin Feng, Lin Zhao, Liu Shaoqi and Bo Yibo won’t let the past rest in its shallow grave.

“Some of us hate those years, some of us think it was a great experience,” Fan muses toward the end of our interview. “The good and bad is intertwined within every person, we all have this contradiction within … I do as well. When I die and the museum is still here, I still won’t know the truth, but at least it will be there for history to judge, and that is enough for me.”

Fan Jianchuan stands by a photo of his father (photo by Sascha Matuszak)

So with no further ado, here is the list:

1) 88, Muse, Babi, Suhe (苏荷)

失足青年 (shīzú qīngnián) Problem Kids. Or better put, kids slipping off the edge onto the sticky floors of the 88 dance club.

在校大学生 (zài xiào dàxuéshēng) College Kids. Straight out of high school, still getting milk money from moms and spending it on fake Chivas.

找刺激白领 (zhǎo cìjī báilǐng) White Collar Stiffs Looking for Thrills. Regular guys trying to pull a college girl, a problem girl, or a working girl … in that order.

time to ... Freak Out!

2) 井介Jǐngjiè， 彩虹 Cǎihóng (Rainbow)， 隔壁子酒吧 Gébìzi Jiǔbā (The Next Door Bar)

30岁以上中年哥老关 (30 suì yǐshàng zhōng nián gē lǎo guān) 30-something bears. These guys aren’t bad, just older dudes without all of the issues that plague the white collars and the angry youth. They can look their Cultural Revolutionary past in the eye and not flinch.

苦逼白领 (Kǔ bī báilǐng) Long-Suffering White Collar Stiffs. These guys were once bears, but they got sucked into the Chinese Dream. Now they turn off their cellies at night and go home with heads hung low.

I have never been to these places, so I have nothing to say about the venues. Sound like your local dive bars in the US.

3)  美高美 (MGM)，零点酒吧 (Lingdian)

三线城市短腿矮撮穷 (Sānxiàn chéngshì duǎn tuǐ ǎi cuō qióng) Short-legged, ugly dudes from third-tier cities. My favorite dipshit. They can actually be fun, as long as you don’t step on their oh-so-delicate egos.

Local老超哥 (Lǎo chāo gē) local gangster dudes. Just a long pinky-fingernail away from being short-legged, ugly dudes from the campos.

MGM and Lingdian are “low-class” clubs and discos with ratty deco, old music, tired girls and the above listed men. Author of the post nailed it with this one.

4) Lan Kwai Fong

白富美 (bái fùměi) white-skinned, rich and beautiful

高富帅 (gāofù shuài) tall, rich and handsome

The two groups above are the creme de la creme of Chinese nightlife society. It’s a step up, if you ask me, from the fat, balding guys and their entourages that once ruled the scene.

Angry young men on their way to the Little Bar to let off some steam

5) 白夜 Báiyè (White Nights)，宽债巷子 (Kuan Zhai Alleys), 锦里 (Jinli Street)

行为艺术诗人 (xíngwéi yìshù shīrén) Performance artists

文艺装逼诗人 (wényì zhuāng bī shīrén) Wannabe Artists

摄影爱好者 (shèyǐng àihào zhě) Amateur filmmakers

不明真相游客 (bùmíng zhēnxiàng yóukè) Clueless tourists

Not too sure if I agree with this one, especially since Jin Li  Street is stacked with all kinds of locals, but the idea is to call out all those hacks that wander the so-called cultural areas peddling whatever it is they have to peddle. All of these guys get my sympathy because if I look myself in the mirror and speak truth, I find the word “wanna … ” coming out slow and inexorable.

6) 小酒馆 (Little Bar)

摇滚装逼范儿 (yáogǔn zhuāng bī fàn er) Wannabe Rockers

文艺装逼范儿 (wényì zhuāng bī fàn er) Wannabe Artists

无处宣泄青春痘少男 (wú chù xuānxiè qīngchūn dòu shàonán) Passionate pimple-faced young men

Again. Have to disagree on this one. Sure, wannabes and angry young men do roll up on the Little Bar now and then, but it seems like the author of the post is a youngster who rarely rocks out at this bar.

7) 麻糖 (Hemp House)，家吧 (Jah Bar)，Lantown

飞行员 (fēixíngyuán) Pilots. Cuz they stay high.

破产嬉皮士 (pòchǎn xīpíshì) Broke Hippies. Trying to stay high.

炼丹道士 (liàndān dàoshi) Taoist Alchemists. Getting everybody high.

禅锈者 (chán xiù zhě) Zen Masters. Looking down from on high.

苦行僧 (kǔxíngsēng) Starving Masters. Looking up from down low.

边缘青年 (biānyuán qīngnián) Cutting Edge Youth. Watching everyone be high.

仙人扳板 (xiānrén bān bǎn) … this is a Sichuanese insult referring to the plaque above the mantle in many Chinese homes that houses the picture of one or many ancestors. 仙人扳板 is that plaque and it is common to threaten to perform offensive acts upon this plaque. Nowadays, the threat is implied and people just say “your ancestor’s plaque!” and then it’s on.

If you're lucky, we'll let you kick it with us

This list obviously refers to the mystic herbal remedies associated with the above listed establishments. I myself fall into every category save cutting edge youth. I lost both my edge and my youth in the unisex stalls of the MGM.

Eight) Paname, Jellyfish

ABC Chinese born abroad

国外讨口子 (guówài tǎo kǒuzi) Broke Foreigners

35岁以上英语鸡 (35 suì yǐshàng yīngyǔ jī) Over 35 English-language prostitutes. Does “me love you short time?” qualify as “English-language”?

英语专业学生 (yīngyǔ zhuānyè xuéshēng) English Majors. Awwww.

This list might reflect the recent (and enduring) local disdain for a certain type of liaison, but I can’t strongly disagree with the basic premise. There were many other types of people at the Paname before Madame X left the building. The description back then might have been more interesting than now …  C’est la vie.

"Where all the white men at?"

9) Xiong Mao

弄潮儿 (nòngcháo’ér) Hipsters

黑木耳 (hēi mù’ěr) Black Tree Fungus … refers to a vagina that has been penetrated so often, the labia resemble … black tree fungus. (See “wizard sleeves“)

吊丝 (diào sī) Hobos … all the cool kids now refer to themselves as hobos. Is this a global phenomenon?

嘻哈装逼少年 (xī hā zhuāng bī shàonián) Wannabe Hip-hoppers

海龟 (hǎiguī) Chinese Students Returned from Abroad

国际友人 (guójì yǒurén) Friendly Foreigners, like my man Big Mountain.

战士 (zhànshì) Warriors

GLBT Gay, Lesbian and Bi. The author’s list did not refer to transgender, but I figure any quick inspection of a Xiong Mao audience’s bits will reveal irregularities.

外星生物 (wài xīng shēngwù) Aliens

So now we know that the author of the post is a fan of Xiong Mao and there is nothing wrong with that. I might have to mosey on over there one of these weekends and get freaky with an alien. half alligator half shark-lady if you please …

Addendum

Some of you may have noticed a few omissions in this list. The Bookworm, The Leg and Whistle and The Shamrock are all absent. Perhaps some of you would like to take up the torch and write a few lines about the clientele of these fine venues in the comment section? Also, feel free to dispute, improve on and/or support this young man’s descriptions of the few nightlife options we have here in Chengdu. Is there a group of people out there that we missed? Are you lonely? Is your establishment not on any list, yet yearning to be recognized? Please step forward and be heard. ChengduLiving welcomes all.

Featured image courtesy of Her Space Holiday

Interview with Will Kerr

CL: Could you give us a quick introduction?

My name is Will Kerr, I’m a painter from Boston. I’m painting every day in Chengdu right now, and I’ve been here for a year.

CL: What brought you to Chengdu?

W: I wanted to interact with a culture that was different from what I had experienced. I had an appreciation for the history of Chinese art and philosophy and I just wanted to open myself and interact with that, have it come in to me. Like the way you eat a hot Sichuan peppercorn (laughs).

Will Kerr in his studio surrounded by his art

CL: What organization brought you to Chengdu?

W: A great Chinese artist and professor at Sichuan University named He Gong invited me here. I came to paint alongside a group of artists that he’s a part of. It’s been great. For the first time, I was allowed to focus on painting every day. My responsibility was to maintain my own studio and interact with the other artists, and learn from them and teach them. After 6 months in this environment I felt that it was maturing and I felt passionate about sticking around. To continue living in Chengdu and continue producing art.

CL: How do you feel about Chinese art?

W: There’s a wonderful dichotomy. On one side, there’s so much tradition, technique, pedagogy – so much of a self awareness that’s a part of it. It’s rooted in history. But at the same time, it’s very experimental. Chinese artists, whether they’re painting or making music, they’re trying to find the pulse of the moment and create from there. It’s a dynamic arena for art.

CL: Has your time in Chengdu had an impact on your painting style, or the way you approach art?

W: Yeah, for sure. I started just living with farmers, and the whole way they live and work had an impact on how I approach my work from a cultural level. But then seeing how artists are trying to process western modern art and trying to find their own voice after having such a strong foundation – it’s that dialogue, that competitive arena for Chinese artists – it’s pretty major league. People are really good and it’s inspiring to be part of that, where there are so many good artists.

CL: What’s your background?

W: My background is in philosophy, that’s what my formal training is in. Then I found art, 11 years ago, and decided to commit to that. I’ve been a curator, painter, producer for years. I’m a lot of things – sometimes people ask me what I do for a living and I say I’m a candle stick maker. Then they ask me: “Really?” and I say yeah, I’ve made candle sticks. Sometimes that was just easier (laughs). But I’m a painter.

CL: You have a gallery in Boston, is that right? Tell me about that.

W: I’ve opened a few galleries but I still run Gallery XIV. I’m the creative director. It’s really a gallery about pure aesthetic: whether it’s a piece of antique furniture made in France in 1750 or a painting made in 2005, the two can go together because they’re both authentic. So Gallery XIV is a fusion, mostly of antique furniture and contemporary paintings. We’ve host a lot of cultural events there, music and art, culinary events, and so on. It’s a fusion of elements.

CL: What do you think is the impression of Chinese art outside of China?

W: I think it’s exotic but that most people have a hard time wrapping there mind about it. People know it’s big and that something is happening but I don’t think people really have an idea for how dynamic it is.

CL: What are some of the biggest themes in Chinese art? History or politics, something else?

W: I would say individuality. A quest to be individual, or a quest to have a voice.

CL: What would you say to artists who might have interest in coming to China to pursue art or paint?

W: My sense of it is that it’s really a culture of craft. There’s a real respect and honor for craft. Putting yourself in a different environment will have an impact on what you make, and China has an art history that’s thousands of years old. It’s epic, and in a lot of ways this is China’s moment.

CL: Where can people check out your stuff?

W: They can check me out at Gallery XIV.

CL: Any other message you’d like to communicate?

W: I love Chengdu Living, it’s great for Chengdu and people who want to see what’s happening. I’m glad to be able to share what my experience has been like through the website. I appreciate it. Collaboration is so important and it’s great to be able to do that in Chengdu.

This time around the FGF chose Chengdu, a city known best for pandas, spicy food and the 2008 earthquake. The focus throughout the day-long press conference was on the question, Why Chengdu? The conference assembled a team of speakers to address that question, including outgoing Mayor Ge Hong Ling, managing editor of Fortune Magazine Andy Serwer, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Southwest China, Benjamin Wang, the business officer of the German consulate Claudia Spahl and economist Wang Zhi Le.

Most of the panel’s comments were the broad, positive strokes longtime Chengdu residents and China watchers have become familiar with, ie Chengdu

• is the hub of the west
• is “up and coming”
• is a growing consumer city
• is “livable”
• has a large and flourishing hi-tech sector
• has a large and well-educated talent pool

There were very few specifics, only this pervading idea that Chengdu represents China’s future in some way. Although the panel patiently fielded questions on Chengdu’s urbanization, internationalization and livability, it was evident that the city officials in particular wanted to steer away from past accomplishments and talk about this new future, China’s New Future as it were …

The Modern Garden City in Asia

The Jinjiang Modern Garden City Exhibition Center is located in south Chengdu, just outside of the Third Ring Road. The building is small and empty. There are no brochures, no maps, no information to pick up and take away, just a two-minute film on repeat and a massive scale model of Chengdu. The video and the model show visitors what Chengdu could look like in ten years. The southern side of the model is covered in tiny green, red and orange trees, the center is lined with rows of orderly skyscrapers, while the northern end has multiple railroad tracks radiating out.

I am alone in the building, but outside a gaggle of three-year olds from the Golden Apple kindergarten are running around and screeching. A group of teachers herds them toward a man-made lake surrounded by willow trees and bamboo just behind the center. Stretching out into the distance is the Lohas Green Belt, a bike path surrounded by greenery heading off south. The bike path will eventually link up with the Wenjiang Green Belt to the west to form a circle of green around the entire city. The belts follow the tributaries of the Min River that flow down from Dujiangyan in the north and are some of the most beautiful and rejuvenating areas of the city. Wenjiang and neighboring Pixian Country have no heavy industry, relying instead on services, tourism, organic and non-organic agriculture, real estate, high tech parks and retail for economic growth.

The flower market in San Sheng Xiang

Just east of the exhibition center is San Sheng Xiang (三圣乡), or Flower Town, one of the city’s most demonstrative examples of urban-rural integration. Flower Town farmers were among the first in Chengdu to employ the 农家乐 nongjiale B&B model as a way to take advantage of urbanization and a growing urban middle class eager to escape the city. The government awarded the town – actually a collection of small villages built around a massive flower growing base – AAAA level tourism status in 2006 and it is currently one of the top destinations for city dwellers looking for a garden to relax in.

To the west are the beginnings of Chengdu’s next great project: Tianfu New City. The project is a mixture of several different  visions for post-industrial garden cities, including elements out of Ebeneezer Howard’s book, The Garden City of Tomorrow (1902), which describes a central urban district surrounded by fields and suffused with gardens. His particular layout never really took hold of city planners, but his ideas did. Those ideas became the architectural foundation for cities like Washington DC, Canberra, Brasilia and influenced almost every modern city today. Much of the theory behind garden cities deals with removing disease, crime and slums; planners replaced twisty, garbage-filled lanes with wide, tree-lined boulevards. Tianfu New City is built along exactly those types of boulevards.

In “Green Modernism: The Irony of the Modern Garden Cities in Southeast Asia,” Craig Johnson traces the origins of the Garden City movement from Howard’s book through planners like Baron Hausmann – who designed Paris – and high modernist zealots like Le Corbusier to the prototype modern Asian city, Singapore. He quotes former PM of Singapore Lee Yuan Kew in his paper:

“After independence, I searched for some dramatic way to
distinguish ourselves from other Third World countries. I settled for
a clean and green Singapore. One arm of my strategy was to
make Singapore into an oasis in Southeast Asia, for if we had First World standards
than business-people and tourists would make us a base for their business and tours
of the region. The physical infrastructure was easier to improve than the rough and
ready ways of the people. Many of them had moved from shanty huts with a hole in
the ground or a bucket in an outhouse to high-rise apartments with modern
sanitation, but their behavior remained the same. We had to work hard to be rid of
littering, noise nuisance, and rudeness, and get people to be considerate and
courteous.”

Singapore is a model for China in many ways- the clean, efficient urban space is just one. Chengdu also wants to become a base for business in the region, and integrating farmers with urbanites was one of Mayor Ge Honglin’s main policies for the last 10 years. With Chengdu’s space advantage, the city has the opportunity to build Tianfu New City up from scratch – similar to other planned cities like DC and Brasilia. Preliminary plans show wide boulevards and high rise complexes interspaced with office buildings, high-tech zones, museums, parks and two of the largest, most impressive buildings in the world, Zaha Hadid’s  New Century Contemporary Art Center and the New Century City World Center.

Zaha Hadid's design for the New Century Contemporary Art Center

Although the magnificence of Hadid’s vision and the ambitions of Chengdu’s leaders are hard to deny, Johnson is skeptical of the modern garden city in Asia:

“Cities in Asia are going through a process of modernization based very much
on modernist ideals … Namely the decontextualization of the city from the existing
environment, the use of new technology in an attempt to radically remedy the pitfalls
of the existing urban fabric, and a forward looking perspective that seeks to erase
physically the historical social/physical urban fabric on which the city was built.
Interestingly, as can be seen in the cases of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, these
modernist processes are being packaged under the guise of a “garden city” although
they have little in common with the “garden city” concepts that Howard first
envisioned.”

The original garden city model and its ensuing editions in the US, Brazil and now Asia all call for a similar plan. We can see the results throughout Asia and especially in China, where cityscapes resemble each other and the charm of the good old days is wiped out by glass and concrete. Chengdu’s historical Kuan Xiangzi district strongly resembles Shanghai’s Xintiandi, which in itself is modeled after Beijing’s renovated historical neighborhoods, and it is precisely this pattern that taints the idea of the modern garden city. Garden cities, it seems, destroy the unique culture of the cities they replace.

But Chengdu has a plan for that as well.

Modern Cultural City

During the press conference, many of the answers to the question Why Chengdu? had to do with the culture of the city. The food and the tea houses, the laid-back living and friendly, open folk … Chengdu has a thriving artist community and music scene  - both in the modern and the traditional sense – and Chengdu locals respect the artist, which is not often the case in a rapidly developing nation. The municipal government recognizes that culture is every bit as important as skyscrapers and parks and they have extended their macro hand out to those in need.

Capturing Chengdu's Intangible Heritage

The first big project the government put together was the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Park, built in 2007. The park meets every possible official standard for success. The bi-annual festival held at the park, jointly organized by Unesco and the Chinese government, is one of the nation’s four State-Level Cultural Festivals. Thousands of dignitaries show up each year to praise the efforts of the Chengdu government to preserve local intangible culture.

But when the festival is not on, the park is empty. Colossal buildings drip paint chips into barren parking lots and mahjong tiles echo out through the double doors of dark restaurants. The nearby green spaces, however, are crowded with people: Several recently-built, already-dilapidated, European-style buildings have become a popular backdrop for wedding photos; packs of children roam the grassy knolls with grannies scampering up behind them and groups of friends play cards and litter the area with sunflower seeds. The Cultural Heritage Park was built to showcase the intangible culture that Chengdu has to offer, yet that culture is most evident in the unkept green spaces between the park’s awkward Century Dances District and the Folk Plays District.

The second big project, Chengdu East Music Park, was finished last year to great fanfare. Developers renovated a massive factory into a honeycomb of concrete spaces connected by huge pipes, skyways and tiled sidewalks. It was the most popular nightlife spot for a few weeks after it opened, but eventually the excitement died down and reality set in. A few venues, most notably Xiongmao danceclub, are having success, but many of the spaces are heavily subsidized by the government and at night, except for Xiongmao and a few others, the place is empty and silent.

Both of these projects are examples of the classic Chinese “build it and they won’t come” narrative that has come to symbolize massive government spending on top-down macro projects that never truly fulfill their stated purpose. For the Tianfu New City, such methods are necessary — in fact, it is the only method that works when creating the modern garden city. Culture, on the other hand, requires a grassroots approach, or people will see the commercial and political will behind the puppet screen and lose interest in the show.

A New Future

Fortune Magazine has judged the Chengdu Model – high-tech garden city with a strong cultural foundation – to be the core of China’s new future and perhaps a template for other developing cities across the world to study. This puts a lot of pressure on the city. Not only must the economic numbers keep rising while the pollution statistics drop, but Chengdu has to maintain a unique feel to it that can survive the massive uprooting that building a garden city requires. When I asked Mayor Ge Honglin if other cities come here to study what Chengdu has done in the past 15 years, he said that the solutions come through years of experimenting and are all highly tailored to the specific environment.

However, the major criticism leveled against the modern Asian cities is that they sacrifice a unique environment upon the altar of business development. Chengdu’s great task over the next decade is to achieve the modern garden city they dream of without losing its identity in the process. How they fare will have a great impact on the future face of all of China’s cities. Below a Google Map of Tianfu New District:

View Chengdu Tianfu New District in a larger map

There is a critical legacy in Yang Mian’s family: his father, also an artist and intellectual, was labeled a Rightist by the CPC before Yang Mian was born. In 1996, for his third-year solo exhibition as a graduating student in the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Yang Mian dedicated an installation to his, then deceased, father. It was entitled Sacrifice to the Lotus, and it bears little resemblance to the kind of work Yang does today. In Eastern tradition, he borrowed the image of the lotus to express his love for his father, their relationship, and his father’s death, placing the images in symmetrical form. White paper lotus flowers lay on the gallery floor, surrounding five paintings and reproductions of lotuses.

While he is primarily a Pop artist focused on culture criticism, this college exhibition showed that the young artist  was trained in the same manner as all other art students in China- replicating images from the Western canon, but following in step with tradition. The point at which Yang Mian ultimately did away with tradition, and with the advice of his many critics, came after. In college he stuck to the accepted Western forms, like Expressionism. This kind of borrowing is something yet to be interrogated in contemporary China, which is still witnessing the development of its artistic voice in a new global society. Yang Mian stands for this interrogation, and for standing out- amidst a competitive world art market- with irreverence, insight, and departure.

Yang Mian's CMYK piece, using pixels and traditional art

The Incisive Line

As I look through a book containing Yang Mian’s collection from Beauty Standard, going back to 1997, I’m first bored by the large number and repetitiveness of the images (finished in 2005). I see only faces- effortless, gliding, monotonous. Women tossing their hair with accidental charm, giggling, subtly entranced by how uncomplicated their life is …

I say “life” as if they were all one woman. Of course, they vary in style, number, and gesture. Snapshots of these women- or girls, really- come from magazines and advertisements on buses and billboards seen all over China, some in Hong Kong, and Korea. But their presence is known to every city-dwelling member of modern civilization. They reside in all countries, all cities, all cultures- ethnically altered, they play the same role as real people in a parallel society, gently circumscribing the most frivolous channels of our material existence- inviting anything but critical dialogue.

That is, until Yang Mian started interrogating them.

Coming into focus, a thin, almost reflective, yellow line bisects- or rather slightly inflicts- each beautiful, frivolous face. At first I didn’t see this, since the paintings themselves are so washed out, yellow almost blends in. Is the yellow a flaw? An accident of the light?

In contrast to his portraiture, Yang Mian’s yellow lines leave a tactile, weighty impression. In other words, they’re real. One thin little strip of realness punctuates each work. This realness competes with the unbelievability of the backing image, so confusion results. Of necessity, it creates a binary. A binary between what we see and what’s really there. This binary invokes us to question the validity of the image.

When I get to the pages with the red lines, the impression is a little more disturbing. The obvious connotation of a strip of red slicing through a face has a deeper impact, but also, the faces appear even more faded, more ambiguous by comparison. There’s a Stepford Wives aspect to these works.

Probably all of my favorite examples of Yang Mian’s Beauty Standard are left over from the late 1990s. That was when he copied some images from video stills, sometimes using a repeated image of the same woman. The paintings have a fuzzy and distorted quality, just like old video; a true Pop effect, with blatant “image of an image” plagiarism. Of course, they are original, being like caricatures of the women: washed out, no one else would think to paint them that way. And they have Yang Mian’s incisive line slicing through, that line threatening- almost violating- their smiles and contemplative expressions.

After looking for awhile, it came to my attention that the Standard series lines also look like watermarks, rising to about the same level in every painting. Or as indicators of measurement. They also seem to resemble pen marks made on the body by plastic surgeons. One could imagine such strike-throughs appear before breast enhancements.  A model, with her head slightly above or at equal level with the marking line, seems to indicate her level of qualification against the hegemonic ‘standard,’ as if she’s about to “go under the knife.”

“The year 2003 was the year of the beauty contest. There were Miss World, Miss Chinese Universe, and countless other beauty contests and beauty ‘festivals’ in China. In this year, it seemed that the “Army of Beauties” dominated the scene…At the end of 2003, the beauty of plastic [i.e. plastic surgery] became the hot issue. Now if you are brave and wealthy enough, nothing can stop you from becoming beautiful” (Dialogue between Yin Yan and Yang Mian).

You may wonder why this is of interest to the male artist, but Yang Mian’s work is not quite about beauty. In his interviews, he reveals an almost scientific degree of reflective social commentary- underscoring our notions about beauty standards, control, and the reliability of images in advertising. While making a clear target of international brands in his image selection, Yang’s target viewer is the average observer. Judgement is a two-way street, and while an image is initially judged by the selector, it may receive its final approval from ordinary consumers. Such judgement occurs in advertizing just as it does in art. If judgements of art are in the eye of the beholder, shouldn’t the artist be concerned with beauty? But he is not. He is concerned with exposing an underlying truth, and will go so far as to offend the viewer to do it.

A Reality Questioned

Yang takes a look at beauty with this piece, "Danielle"

We see in commercials a conspicuous stranglehold over imagery by the repeated ‘standard,’ seemingly as universal as a language. One of Yang’s questions is: at what point does this language become entangled with society’s own, taking root in and determining our belief systems?

“With the aesthetic standard in China becoming more and more internationalized and Westernized, is our aesthetic drifting even one step further from our own genetic inheritance and traditional standards?” asks the artist in his own statement. “The ‘Beauty Standard’ in my art works comes from those growing up in the [modeling] studios, not from real life; however, people have applied them to their daily lives” (About Yang Mian’s Standard, 2005).

I recently clicked through videos on TheMomsView, a new YouTube channel from the United States that claims to feature “Real Moms” and to address their everyday concerns. I was reminded of this contradiction between commercial-world advertising and real life. If prevalent in China, it’s inescapable in the US. The channel’s representation of motherhood often contains no dialogue, but is suffused with fashion makeovers. All moms appear to come from California. I’m vaguely persuaded that the Hollywood-style beauties are actual mothers of children, based on their claims, but the ‘Comments Bar’ at the bottom of video entries reveals what viewers think:

“Pampered bitches.”

“When does the porn start?”

So commercial reality is not always convincing. But as with every aspect of our lives, commercial values have literally held the child/ mother relationship hostage. Parenting is a public deal, while the moms and babies who are a part of commercialization are impeded with a hailstorm of tailoring, packaging, pruning and plucking. Even the scoop on “Love or Lust” by a comfortable Stay-At-Home, or the cooking and homeschooling tips of a family of twelve, are not enough. A mother’s identity independent of her consumer persona, who is imminently carefree, attractive, and even potentially single, has come under fire, as society’s expectations come into alignment with what it sees in the media.

“There are two threads in my works: one is the questioning of images, the other that of power.”  This was stated by Yang Mian in his interview with Yin Yan, covering his growth from childhood in the 1970s to his early exhibitions in the 90s. I like the use of the translated word “thread,” because it describes perfectly how his paintings tie together. “Power” is part of that thread.

“My works have been exploring one question when I use resources from advertisements: who has the right to decide which of these girls is beautiful? Who gives them the power?”

Power determines what we see on camera, stage or magazine centerfold. The endorsee of a product, service, or, these days, a lifestyle, is the tool of whomever gives her the job. And this determines for Yang Mian the direction and ultimate shape of reality. What exists in reality cannot be differentiated from what we see. Indeed, reality is what we see. Our filter is our shared cultural experience.

Yang Mian believes that no beauty experienced in nature can today be free of influence from comparisons drawn to the media, such is the media’s hold on our lives environmentally, politically, socially and ideologically. The goal is to question the believability of the digitally-processed image by stripping it down to its most primitive parts. Yang Mian’s paintings depict an almost completely flat world, devoid of flowery detail. He truly sees this as painting’s role in today’s culture: to depict flatness, superficiality. Only in this way can an image’s validity and reality be exposed and interrogated.

Film, video and animation have already eliminated the need for hyperrealism in art. What is left is to interrogate the image.

The Twisted Image

Yang's depiction of the King of Pop

His sculpture also represents a painter’s line of inquiry. “I choose a direct way of making sculpture,” he says. “I take a picture as the model, so that when the sculpture is done, only one side is realistic; the rest is all a bit distorted and twisted. I think painters should make their own contribution to the field of sculpture. For me, that contribution lies in the form of flat sculpture. That matches the properties of objects we know” (Dialogue between Yin Yan and Yang Mian).
Dangerous, part of his collection of Pop Art sculptures, depicts Michael Jackson in one of his glory moments- perched on toes, ready to dance to Thriller. We might say that no sculpted image of Michael Jackson better replicates what we see in the videos, because it’s highly simplified, leaving only the core (memorable) details. What more would M.J. himself have wanted us to recall? This transcription from video to staged photography to sculpting is part of Yang Mian’s signature (and highly laborious) skill set. With his most recent series of artworks, he arrives at perhaps the most laborious process yet.

Minghuang’s Journey to Shu was supposedly Li Zhaodao’s masterpiece in jinni shanshui, depicting in color what Emperor Minghuang might have seen on his visit to Sichuan. Done in the style of this Tang dynasty “gold, blue, green” (or “green, blue, white”) method of painting, with mineral pigments, the later replica is a work known all over China- still as ubiquitous as Michael Jackson is today. In a poignant modern take on the listing of colors in a method’s name, Yang has invented a method all his own, naming it after C, M, Y, and K- the color abbreviations, transposing and totally transforming images that people recognize.

Starting with a blown-up copy of the original, every pixel in the image is ascribed a color- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black to be precise, though the tints are customized. The artist has taken liberties with the pixels’ placement, but he takes great pains in locating and processing them. Every step of the transformation, which ultimately takes months to complete, is done personally. He has performed this transformation on images of many famous works, from Tang Dynasty paintings to European classical works.

The CMYK series represents a new turn in Yang Mian’s focus. With it, he has gone from an interrogation of superficial images in advertising, to a full-on investigation of the status of the image itself- its value, makeup, and origin. If even a great masterpiece can be reinterpreted beautifully through mechanical color-offset image processing, manipulated along different mathematical axes, what becomes of the original work? Is it irrelevant? Are we looking at a piece of art, or the many distorted reflections of a known object? Yang doesn’t answer this, but leaves it for his viewers to determine the status of the individual works.

The artist at a recent showing of his work

The truth is, more and more of us.

Li Cuan and Hugo practicing "sticky hands"

Martial arts training is exploding across the Western world and not just in the traditional arts of karate, taikwondo or gong fu, but in all the world’s styles, from Brazilian Jiujitsu to Thai Boxing to Burmese Bando and other styles and combinations of styles. There is no one reason for the spike in interest in martial arts fighting, but a confluence of reasons, really. MMA blew up in the US with the UFC and the Gracie Brothers, so the whole idea of training different styles and combining them to create a powerful martial art hit the brainstems of millions of young people through televised UFC fights. Movies like Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon brought martial arts to us in a whole new way.

But there is also something much more difficult to describe at foot. Western culture in general is tense and prone to outbursts of violence, much more so than Chinese culture in my opinion. The media plays a role in this, but not the only role … the true nature of violence in the West and its nature vis a vis other cultures is a topic for another time. For now, let’s get back to Hugo, the special student.

Gong Fu in the Family

For Hugo, the first taste of gong fu came from his mother, who taught him Mei Hua Cuan forms when he was just a little guy. After that he took karate and taekwondo classes like so many other little boys and girls and learned how to get beat up by his older brother, who was also studying martial arts.

“I trained a lot with my brother,” Hugo told me while taking a rest at Master Li Cuan’s school. “Nothing too intense, just playing around, trying to do good movements. It didn’t matter if we punched hard or not … I was beaten many times by him, I think I received more than 30 stitches from my brother. Many kicks to my head and body.”

What older brother’s always fail to understand is that each lopsided beating dealt out in youth will come back tenfold in humiliation when the younger brother rises up and throws down his oppressor. Happened to Hugo’s brother; happened to me too. But Hugo looks back on those beatings as the first in a series of tests that would lead him to embrace martial arts completely by the age of 18.

Listening as the Master teaches

The next test was weed and women. We all know how tough that one is. For four or five years Hugo struggled against these mighty enemies, before finally reaching an armistice that allowed him to continue on his gong fu path. By the time Hugo left high school, it had become clear to him that business school, a job in the suburbs, and puffing joints at night watching a sitcom while wifey cooks up some cordon bleu was not for him.

For Hugo it would be the Path of the Warrior.

Pain and Suffering

After a brief stint at the Dojo du Grenelle in Paris, Hugo decided to train at the source. So he checked online for Shaolin schools and found the International Academy of Shaolin (Kunyu Shan), near Yantai, in Shandong Province. The fee was roughly 400Euros a month, with small discounts for longer stays. Hugo planned on staying for six months, from January  to June 2011. He got his visa, paid the tuition, boarded the flight and headed to Yantai for some serious gong fu training.

“The training there was very hard. When I first arrived, I thought it looked like a jail. We woke up at 5am and ran all morning, did power stretching, forms and then punched and kicked trees for hours.”

For those of you who are just kinda reading along and sipping tea/coffee, let me remind you that Yantai sits on the northern coast of the Yellow Sea, which is in the far north of China. This particular part of the story takes place in January and February of 2011. So imagine punching very hard stuff every day for hours in the blistering cold.

Done? Ok let’s continue.

“I broke my foot and most of my knuckles. Had bandages on my hands all the time and I couldn’t really move for the first month.”

The school has had foreign students for several years and this particular class had 40 students, including 10 girls (and one Brazilian Goddess) who trained hard for three months before disaster struck. On April 11, 2011 the Fukushima Earthquake devastated Japan and destroyed a nuclear reactor, sending clouds of radiation across northern Asia. In Yantai, the closest city to Japan, the effects were extreme.

“On that day about 20 student got headaches, people had nose bleeds, some were vomiting. A couple fainted. They told us not to go outside if it rains.”

We’ll leave aside the news blackout that China placed over such events during the aftermath of the earthquake. The point is that Hugo’s gong fu training was cut short just as he was getting into the groove of hitting trees, stretching till something went Pop! and eating rice like Uma Thurman did after the “cruel tutelage of Pai Mei”.

A few months wasn’t enough, so Hugo returned to France and went back to the Internet, searching for another school where he could continue his training.

Finding a Master

The Shaolin school in Yantai was a great experience for Hugo, but there were a few things missing. A lot of the deeper theory behind the movements and the training was lost in translation because most of the masters there spoke little to no English and Hugo spoke no Chinese. So while he searched for another school, Hugo also began taking Chinese lessons so he could communicate with the masters and learn a bit more about what it is he is actually studying.

Eventually, Hugo found Knowledge Must and read the articles Daniel and I wrote about Master Li Cuan in Chengdu. The fact that Master Li speaks good English and focuses as much on theory as on practice was appealing and Knowledge Must also offered a homestay with a Chinese family. So Hugo once again did the visa run, saved up some cash and boarded a plane – this time to Chengdu.

“Knowledge Must organized a homestay with a family in Wuhouci and that was really nice,” Hugo told me. “They spoke good English, but the home was in center of Chengdu and it was difficult to get to Shifu’s (Master Li) place in San Sheng Xiang, so I left that home and moved out here to stay with Shifu.”

Although the training at Yantai Shaolin was much harder, Hugo found that Shifu’s style of training helped him improve greatly in a short period of time.

Sticky hands in the countryside

“Shifu showed me how to train myself; he is not going to be behind me all the time. I like to train just myself, not be ordered around and beaten and here I learned how to improve my gong li, which is important, because I know the movements but not the gong li.”

Gong li is the art of utilizing your entire body with each strike, providing maximum power and precision. Without gong li, a punch can be stiff and slow, or weak and ineffectual. With gong li, the movement is relaxed, quick and extremely effective.

“Here I also learned further movements of Yong Chun Chuan (Wing Chung), stick movements and Shifu also told me the details of the movements, the little simple things that really help everything. I was able to learn the deep theory of Yong Chun Chuan here, turning on the center, stuff like that. It really helps that Shifu speaks english, the Shaolin masters at Yantai just said 1,2,3 while we did pushups.”

Hugo only stayed a month, but both he and Shifu both feel that he improved greatly. Hugo left for France on Thursday, but now he is already planning a return trip. For young gong fu students like Hugo, it’s often about studying under as many masters as possibe and soaking up the theory and wisdom of an entire system. Shifu Li Cuan himself spent years wandering China training with various masters before he found Master Dai in Hanyuan. Hugo will most likely have a similar experience.

“Now I am going to train what he taught me, simple things. Push ups on the walls with my fingers … using practice and theory to learn the depth of a movement and the core of Yong Chun Cuan and how each movement comes to be.”

“I’ll be back in July for two months with a friend . I told him about Master Li and he wants to come and learn as well.”

And that’s pretty much how it works for most gong fu schools. A student shows up and learns a lot, gains respect for and from the master and then tells his friends about the school. They come. They learn. And then they tell their friends …

Learning the theory of Wing Chung (Yong Chun Quan)

For a look at the Next Generation in Gong Fu Awesomeness, go here. 

Sure, it’s more exciting to talk about scandals and princelings and sudden sacks during China’s most important political meetings, but when those rumors have swirled away into the wind, it will be business as usual in China. And business as usual means jumping headfirst into the 21st century sea with urbanization in one hand and globalization in the other.

The plan to fuse the two major cities of southwest China with a band of iron, steel, concrete and asphalt may have had its origins in the 1997 split that created Chongqing municipality out of the jungles of eastern Sichuan. At that point, the goal was to break off chunks of what was then China’s most populous province and develop them in that oh-so-efficient, top-down macro style that has made the Beijing Model so famous. Three years after the split, the Develop the West Campaign was announced to great fanfare in Chengdu. The goals of that campaign were (and still are) to make Chengdu the hub of everything in western China and use the hub to develop the rest of the region.

So now, fifteen years down the road, Chengdu has become the hub it was meant to be and Chongqing has emerged as a manufacturing powerhouse. A star-crossed couple if you ask me; we talked about these two cities a while back and if you think of them as a nobleman and a steelworker, then no, they do not seem star-crossed at all. But a noblewoman and rugged laborer …..?

Looking down on Chongqing's CBD

Two Cores, Five Belts

As you may have guessed, the two cores of this great plan are Chongqing and Chengdu. The belts extend like a web between them, with little nodes acting as hubs for their own little region. The five belts are:

• The region along the Yangtze River
• Chengdu-Mianyang-Leshan
• Chengdu-Neijiang-Chongqing
• Chengdu-Nanchong-Suining-Chongqing
• Chongqing-Guangyuan-Dazhou cities

The Yangtze River region includes the town of Yibin, which is about three hours southeast of Chengdu. There are few details out yet as to what will be developed along this region and how, but the government documents available describe a mixture of basically everything, with a focus on cargo and tourism. Utilizing the river to develop southern Chengdu seems like common sense. The government has also, in every document that describes this plan (and others), insisted that the ecological health of the region and sustainability as a whole be a major priority.

Chengdu-Mianyang-Leshan is a looping northeast to southwest corridor that will presumably be linked by the same high-speed rail that will eventually link Chengdu with Leshan. Leshan and Mianyang are already thriving cities, close enough to Chengdu to benefit from the hi-tech and services-based development that has helped Chengdu grow, but far enough away to be their own (semi-) independent entities. As such they act as catalysts for the growth of the still-poor countryside that surrounds them.

Chengdu-Neijiang-Chongqing and Chengdu-Nanchong-Suining-Chongqing are clear bands of east-west development that link the two major cores. Nanchong, Neijiang and Suining are a notch below Mianyang and Leshan in terms of overall development and they should benefit greatly from being pulled into the fold. These are the regions that require the most help and stand to gain the most from the new economic zone. Gangster-plagued, slightly-isolated and struggling to emerge out of the last century’s economy, these three towns are no doubt happy to be on the team.

The Chongqing-Guangyuan-Dazhou belt is for me the most interesting. Guangyuan is actually a very nice city with what seems to be a good pace of development and little in the way of nasty corruption, gangsterism and pollution. The city has a fascinating history and a great climate. A highway links Guangyuan with Chengdu and to the north lies the huge northern Sichuan-southern Shanxi mountainous region that was once the cradle of Chinese civilization but has since slipped into irrelevancy. Dazhou is in northeast Sichuan and has always been in its own little world. Shanxi has nothing to do with the place really, it’s very far from Chengdu (7-8 hours) and it is separated from Chongqing proper by the hills and jungles of the rest of the municipality. It will be interesting to see how this belt develops in the future.

Check below for a Google Map of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone:

View Chengdu Chongqing Economic Zone in a larger map

The Plan Overrides All

So the governments have the blueprint and now comes the tough part. Putting it all together. What the plan calls for now and over the next 3-5 years is the creation and nurturing of demonstration zones, in Guang’An city for example, that show that the two governments can work together to develop the tiny towns that dot the region between them.

A lot of the work in the next few years deals with the ability of the two governments to work together. If seen in this light, then the scandal with Bo Xilai might be serious from an overall developmental stand-point as well. How can we know what Bo did or did not do to further the goals of this long-term plan to develop this region? Was he too busy chasing gangsters and singing red songs? We cannot know. But the overall policy, handed down from the central government, calls for Sichuan and Chongqing to join hands and demonstrate that the development of the little guys is a major priority. It seems safe to assume that anyone getting in the way of that plan will be steamrolled.

This “cooperation” work between the two entails endless meetings and the formulation of Lord knows how many documents with titles like, “Decision on Boosting Construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone and Coordinated Regional Development in Sichuan Province,” “Suggestion Pertaining to the Implementation of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone Regional Planning,” and overarching terms like “One center, one base and three zones”  that help to simplify what is in actuality a mindboggling undertaking.

Even now, after all these years, I still find it fascinating that these documents and phrases and strange vague proclamations can actually create the economic miracle we see today. Taken together with the chaos and slippery nature of life in China, watching these plans unfold is truly something to behold.

A view of Chengdu from the southeast

The Mighty Macro Hand

One of my favorite passages in a recent document presented to the press by the Sichuan government is as follows:

Sichuan has started 407 major projects pertaining to infrastructure, people’s livelihood, social undertakings and environmental protection. A total of 328 billion yuan has found its way into the projects. Fifty-eight projects have been completed.

I have no doubt that the material lives of millions of residents of cities between the two cores has improved greatly. We can see the evidence of that all around us. But just a closer peek at even one of these projects would do more for Chengdu’s PR than one hundred thousand pages of the above. I wonder if a closer look would really make us feel as good as the above statistics. Poverty alleviation, urbanization and industrialization are complex processes that are not exactly zero-sum. There is a give and take that happens and the evidence of that is all around us as well. The government’s insistence on macro approaches to development has led to success on many fronts, but without the soft hand of micro investigations to go in after the heavy hand of macro policies, authorities risk a backlash that they find bewildering and often threatening.

This is now China’s fourth decade of development. The question is not, Will it work? That has been answered already. But How can it work even better? With this new economic zone, Sichuan and Chongqing are giving themselves just under a full decade to get it right and they are starting off using the right language. It will be a testament both to China’s policies and to Sichuan and Chongqing’s status as trailblazers to se this project achieve exactly what it is setting out to do.

More than three years later, I am friends with Liang Wei and have visited his family’s home in Chengdu and seen a variety of his new works on commission. I’ve met lots of his Chinese friends. It’s strange to think that a tall Westerner in butterfly wings got interested in the Middle Kingdom while peddling three Chinese men in a rickshaw, but I’ve been basically obsessed ever since, and have spent much of my time in this country being ferried around on those three-wheeled carts myself.

The Birth of an Artist

Liang Wei painting in the Liangshan region of Sichuan

Liang Wei was born in 1959, in Suining, outside Chengdu. As early as 5 years old he displayed a strong aptitude for art. His parents bought him many sheets of paper and pencils and watercolor sets to kindle his desire. A local primary school teacher carefully instructed the boy to paint fish, flowers, and bamboo stalks in the traditional style. His teacher and classmates enjoyed watching him work, and he was greatly admired for this skill. His interest continued, shared by Wei’s youngest brother, until approached high school graduation in 1976.

At this point, Wei was sent to a forced reeducation camp in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southern Sichuan. Forced labor was a common experience for men and women of Wei’s generation. Liangshan is home to many of China’s ethnic Yi people, a minority group. Being an artist, Wei worked among the Yi and was inspired by his mountainous surroundings. He was selected by the county cultural department of Puge (pu-guh) County where he was living to make “creative artwork”. What this actually meant was working for the central government propaganda office, at the time in need of artists to produce propaganda. China’s central government at the time was still under the influence of the Si Ren Bang or Gang of Four (known by anyone who has studied the Cultural Revolution).

Turned down for this position, Wei, after two years of forced labor, entered the army in 1978. He worked as a shibing (soldier) for a total of four years until 1982, right after the implementation of the Four Modernizations in military advancement. His division’s specialty was building tracks for the army railway. While in the army, Wei was selected to make propaganda for the central government. He was called to the PLA’s Beijing headquarters to collaborate on artwork for a soldiers’ magazine- part of an annual art exhibition held in Beihai Park. The group founded by his collaborators was self-titled Dalu Ban Hua Hui, or the Society of the Road or Railway Society. During China’s time of internal political struggles and external struggle with Vietnam collaborative groups of artists were frequently giving themselves names. Once the boy who once stood up in his middle school class to do art demonstrations in the absence of the teacher, Wei was now responsible for the army’s representation to the public.

Wei had a brief rest period, during which time he served a stint as a government office worker before his acceptance and enrollment at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. While earning his BFA, he received highest honors from the institution. Upon graduation he was invited by the school’s president to show his work in a two-man Academy exhibition. This exhibition marked an important step in the progression of the artist. Among the works displayed was “Memory of Liang Mountain,” a detailed painting appearing with a deliberate, rich symbolism. Elements of this painting, being autobiographical, speak to Wei’s more recent work.

Liang Wei and comrades during the Cultural Revolution

Straddling Two Worlds

A coincidence is that Liang Wei’s art often reflects not the beauty of his own land of origin, but of mine- the Pacific Northwest, United States. Wei has kept a studio in the Seattle area for 20 years, as well as one in Shenzhen, taking breaks from his work to travel cross-country and go to and from China. A bond exists between the Pacific Northwest and central/ coastal China that extends far beyond the life of the artist, however. Many tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants dwelling in the western coastal USA can testify to this, not to mention the tourists who flock each year from every part of Asia to admire Mount Tahoma’s soaring peaks, the Douglas firs and spruce and Ponderosa pine trees, the snaking bends of the Columbia River and jagged edges of the Puget Sound. A large trade relationship exists, personified, of course, in the figure of Gary Locke- former Washington State Governor and first Chinese American US Secretary of Commerce, now Ambassador to China. I could go on and on drawing parallels.

Why is this important to Chinese art? Most contemporary art historians will tell you that China’s art scene now crosses borders, extending transnationally- being one of the dominant art scenes in the world. A Chinese American who lives partly in Sichuan, partly in Seattle, can speak  transnational life of an artist, characterized by personal experiences of some of the major social and historical upheavals of the last half century, are important to what makes him contemporary. His life and work are like one, part of a larger picture of the contemporary world.

In 2010, Wei exhibited “Mysterious and Magnificent” at Shenzhen’s Guang Shang Yue Art Gallery, a series depicting his travels through the American landscape. Rolling clouds and shadows cast by jagged or rotund trees and land formations tell the viewer that the artist has surely travelled to the rugged places depicted. In 2011, Wei prolifically turned out another, related exhibit, entitled “East Meets West”. This series specifically points out parallels and contrasts in contemporary realities in the United States and China. As someone party to both cultures, he can articulately comment on each, showing scenes from Chinese and American life rendered in the same warm, distinct style.

Mother and child by the sea

Comrades in Arms

In the 2012 “Cross Arms, Cheers” series, Liang Wei depicts men, women, and even infants in questionable social situations- most frequently drinking wine from crystalline glasses. The subjects’ arms are linked together in a manner identified by Westerners as probably drunken behavior. In China, this behavior is usually reserved for wedding ceremonies. Drunkenness is acceptable at family and business gatherings between some colleagues. However, in the Drinking series, it is often unclear who is, and how many, are drunk. This drunkenness reflects changing trends in Chinese society today. It is implied through silhouettes of light that cling to the bodies of the moving subjects, their swaying forms appearing framed in sunspots. Glasses appear blurred, further enhancing the impression that the people holding them are unable to steady them. The hands holding the glasses seem anonymous, maybe belonging to the subjects, maybe to other individuals out of view. In the cases of couples, there is less romance than suffocation. The urge to drink seems less motivated by pleasure than driven by the desire to eliminate mutual discomfort.

I like the Cross Arms, Cheers series: first, it reflects my own experience of drinking in China (somewhat uncomfortable). And second, the social commentary implied in it is real. Not until the last five to seven years, says Wei, has the gesture of crossing arms and drinking apparently been adopted for widespread use at business parties in China. In a sweeping embrace of formerly “loose” behavior, those of different generations and wealth margins appear together to be mocking what was once sacred. A ritual devised for the purpose of establishing and securing vows of love, it is now being held up for show- a joke. What this says about the changing face of the culture at large can be seen in everything from casual gatherings to large, serious affairs. Almost indiscriminately, the Chinese are making a mockery of their sacred wedding rite.

This phenomenon is unique to present China. Liang Wei is aware of this major change, and the paintings in the Cross Arms, Cheers series are based on real occasions when the artist was present. In one of my favorite examples, “Toast for Birth,” a baby, still in swaddling clothes, is being propped up with a blissful smile. Everything suggests a healthy, glowing newborn. But this sense of peacefulness is interrupted by the appearance of hands supporting a partly-filled wineglass in the foreground. Whether the alcohol is intended for the child’s consumption or not, giving alcohol to underage children is now a common practice at Chines parties. In light of relaxed laws, the irony is not lost: the healthy infant is a wry symbol of Chinese opulence, as well as China’s pampering of its only children.

Another example of infant pampering and questionable behavior is “Face Ocean”. When Wei showed me this image, he seemed to say that few moments in time have ever so encapsulated the Chinese relationship with their cultural and natural environments at this time. An infant, while playing on the beach, began to pee. Uncertain what to do with her peeing child in public, the young mother quickly snapped up the baby and held him face-out to the ocean- a perfect, duplicitous expression of carelessness and the anxiety to do the “right” thing.

Then there’s “Cross Arms, Cheers- Let’s Do It”. While the title suggests an energetic enthusiasm, the actual painting depicts an aging couple, stiffly holding up their wine glasses and encouraging each other to drink. The atmosphere is one of inebriated fatigue.

Liang Wei and friends

Crossing the Cultural Border

Why does Liang include President Barack Obama in the Cross Arms, Cheers series? In “Mr. President, Cheers”, the President is depicted clinking glasses with a younger woman, whom Liang can positively say he has seen in real life: her face is based on a photograph. He saw her toasting and drinking a businessman in the same manner at a party. Obama is the only fictionalized character here. A Chinese-style silk jacket buttoned up to his red face, the symbol of Obama seems to doubly emulate the Chinese businessmen in dress and manner. From an American perspective, Obama throws doubt on the status of his office as President. But in the same manner, the businessmen raise questions about the sincerity of business being conducted overseas.

Liang Wei seems to want to invite Americans into the conversation about international business conduct, without saying this. In a new China of relaxed social conduct and norms, where many traditional rules are being discarded, America also does a large amount of business. At parties photographed for this series, many foreigners were present. What happens, the artist seems to want to know, when there is no longer a clear distinction between the solemn vows of the traditional Chinese wedding and the drunken, exaggerated promises of transnational business? What is really being mocked- Chinese culture, or the business party? It is as if not only tradition were being profaned, but the profaners themselves. We are left to wonder how trust, love, and other human feelings can be secured in such an unstable, i.e. not sober, environment.

Liang Wei offers no answer, but he prods us with the question and a dose of humor. Indeed, people caught in the throngs of the “wedding grasp” appear to have no answer themselves. The woman in the painting is no different from Obama: both have no idea what impact their behavior will ultimately have for the viewers, the beneficiaries of the business deal, or for weddings and traditional ceremonies in future China. It is one of the characteristics of an endemic culture shift, or major traumatic societal change, that those who are experiencing it are like hapless witnesses, unable to account for its effect.

It seems that space has always been a key element of the art world in the United States: how often do Americans hear the words “art” and “space” combined? Without a proper location, art isn’t art- or it isn’t being displayed so that we can see it, so it thus isn’t integrated correctly into the landscape. In a country relatively free from restrictions placed on individual creative expression, public and private space, Americans don’t often reflect on how the divvied-up space is allotted, and on who controls it.

Liang Wei painting in his studio as a young man

Conclusion

When I look at the art of Liang Wei, I also have a sense of vast space, for if anything, Liang Wei is well-travelled. However, when looking at the pictures of the man in his youth, surrounded by other aspiring artists who lived on the brink of societal transformation, I think of his art as paired with a different element: time. Time being on the artist’s side, over the long decades between the Cultural Revolution and the beginnings of economic liberalization, it was away from the immediate threats of a repressive regime that individuals concealed their creative lives. If Liang Wei worked within an oppressive system, his work nonetheless changed with the times, showing an insider’s view of the shifting social and moral landscape. And Liang Wei continues to change, as he travels from state to state and province to province, going to shows, selling his art, and promoting a positive understanding between East and West.

Still, I think that space says everything- it is almost like a physical allegory for the psychological control and manipulation that dominated public life and private activities in China. If not impossible to get, space for artists during the worst years of authoritarian repression was imminently steeped in politics. Spectators of subversive art, such as that of the Xing-Xing and Wuming Groups of artists, were also implicated and punished, as in the case of Behai Park in Beijing. As if to pound in the soul-crushing idea of propagandistic control, other types of art were and still are labeled “unofficial.” Thus, I see beauty in Liang Wei’s personal freedom of creative expression today.

While he was a producer of propaganda in its heyday, painting American landscapes and social situations around him is like a lifting of the silence that once hung over his generation. While tides of upheaval swept China, Wei’s landscapes and portraits reflected a shifting world- an environment where new and old alliances and values disappeared, or emerged. Chinese artists once took great risks to provide intellectual nourishment to a population starved of it, and to supply the independent spirit necessary to make art possible and accessible. Today, Liang Wei makes art for art’s sake, seeing uniquely with the eye of an international contemporary artist.

Interview with Michiel Hulshof

ChengduLiving: For those who don’t know you, who are you?

Michiel Hulshof: I am Michiel, I’ve been working as a China correspondent for four years now living in Shanghai. The last 2.5 years I’ve been mainly focused on describing cities in central and western China, which are developing much faster than cities on the east coast. And these are probably the most interesting places in China at the moment.

ChengduLiving: You came to Chengdu to participate in an event in Chengdu, tell me about that.

Michiel: Yeah, the Chengdu Biennale. We presented our new book there, and the way we did that was to try to bring together the culture scene. So we invited architects, artists, journalists, curators and gallery owners to come together and discuss the way that Chengdu should promote it’s culture.

ChengduLiving: What’s your book about?

Michiel: What we did was visit 16 cities in central and western China and describe what’s happening there. So not only how the cities have in a physical sense but also how life in these cities is changing and how lives are changing, and what the consequences of that are. This story is told with words and photographs.

ChengduLiving: What inspired you to write this book in particular? Had you traveled around western China before this?

Michiel: No, not at all. It was like this: four years ago I came to China and like many journalists, got started learning Chinese and writing about China. Most journalists write about the east coast: what’s going on in Shanghai, Beijing, the Pearl River Delta, etc. So I noticed that there enough journalists doing that and decided that I’d do something else. I met an architect in Shanghai, Daan, and we started to talk about this. I said: I want to do something different than what already exists – I want to know what else is going on in this country. So it was logical for both of us, because he’s an architect and I’m a journalist, to focus on cities. We started to say, what are the other cities in China that we hadn’t been to?

How the City Moved Mr. Sun, by Michiel Hulshof and Daan Roggeveen

ChengduLiving: So you co-authored the book?

Michiel: It worked like this: Dan is a very good photographer and I’m a writer. So in the end, we both wrote the book because we sat together and both took pictures. But I had the final say over the text and he had final say over the pictures, which worked well.

The reason we did these cities is because we found all these enormous cities that we hadn’t heard of: Chongqing, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, etc. We didn’t know them and when you look up the number of inhabitants it’s all 6 million, 12 million, and in the case of Chongqing, 30 million. So what’s going on with these cities, how are they developing? When you look at the numbers you can see that they’re booming but we wanted to know what’s really going on.

ChengduLiving: Right. Is there a body of literature available on this topic? Is it on the internet, or are there books published?

Michiel: In books, very little I would say. Actually all the books by foreign correspondents in China are about what’s going on in China in general, so what’s going on in the Communist party, what’s going on with the elite, etc. But they rarely focus only on what’s going on in the part of China that isn’t Shanghai or Beijing. You have some books that describe Xiamen, but that’s also on the coast. So that’s the journalistic part.

If you look at the architecture part there are some books about Chinese urbanism. These books are also mainly focused on the development of cities on the coast. So there’s very little literature about cities in central and western China. I don’t know, maybe you know more than me.

ChengduLiving: Probably not. I’m guessing not.

Michiel: Blogs, also. A good source of information for us was Wikitravel, which was really helpful. If we want to find a local bar in one of these cities, we find that online.

ChengduLiving: After spending years working on this and collecting information, how would you describe the summary, if there were one?

Michiel: The main thing is that all these cities have been focusing on physical growth, in a way that you don’t see anywhere outside of China. Planning enormous new districts, enormous new museums, big infrastructure, high speed railways between cities, all physical things. Up to 30% of cities population work in the construction sector. It’s all very physical growth. And I think that now at this moment these cities already look like modern cities. If you look at the skylines, you look at the buildings. What makes them different from cities in Europe or the States, is what’s happening inside these buildings. The focus is going to change from physical growth to the growth of cultural life. Good universities, better quality of air and water, reducing pollution. Focusing on non-physical growth.

Michel Hulshof

Officials in these cities know that they have to do this. Otherwise, people are going to protest. As they accumulate wealth, they start to care more about the quality of education, quality of the air, quality of life. Quality of cultural life. The government, because of the political system in China, is struggling with this. That means limiting some economic freedoms and giving other freedoms: thought, art, expression. It’s difficult for them, but they have to, it’s the only way.

So Chengdu just opened the gigantic East Music Park. It’s enormous and they completely copied an industrial district in Germany – one that lost it’s factories and transformed into a cultural district. So they copied that and it looks fantastic but now the question is: will they manage to create a successful cultural district? That is going to be the most difficult task for them.

Government tries to do it top down, so they say: we want a cultural district. But in the end the only to achieve that is to go bottom up. All the individuals who are painters, or musicians – creators, they will need to fill these districts. And the only way to do that is to give them the freedom to do that. There’s no other solution, so I’m quite optimistic about that.

ChengduLiving: Your optimism is great to hear considering the lengths you’ve gone through to reach a conclusion. How would you summarize Chengdu? How did it compare to other cities of a similar size?

Michiel: Everybody’s always talking about the relaxed atmosphere. I don’t know if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it’s certainly true (laughs). It’s one of the more relaxed cities, it doesn’t have the crazy chaos of Chongqing, which makes it a much more livable city. Also I have a feeling that the cultural life is more developed than in other cities we visited. Apart from Chengdu maybe only Wuhan has a cultural life that is sort of developed and interesting. Especially the music scene. But most of the other cities are really struggling with it. In Chengdu you can already see that people are longing for more culture.

I was surprised by the number of people that came to the new music park. Because they didn’t know what to expect, they only knew that it was going to be a cultural venue. Their longing for these kind of things means that there’s a big market for that.

ChengduLiving: How can people get your book?

GoWestProject.com is the project that I setup with Daan, the architect. On that site you will find stories from all the cities we visited and information on how to order the book. Apart from writing the book we also do presentations and organize events, so you’ll find information on that there also. The book is on Amazon too.

ChengduLiving: Thanks, looking forward to reading your book!

Amazon link for How the City Moved to Mr Sun

One of those is Word Tracer, an app for learning Chinese characters by tracing with your fingertip. If you’ve been learning Chinese for a while now, you might have realized that the physical action of writing characters is crucial to committing them to memory.

Here’s how this works.

Why Writing is Essential to Learning Chinese Characters

The traditional method: brush and paper

Our brains are divided into sections which are responsible for processing different kinds of information. When we listen to someone speak, the part of our brains that handles listening and language is engaged, which then commits some of that information to memory. However, the process isn’t very discriminating and crucial information is treated the same way as non-essential filler.

When you write things down, though, something happens. Another part of the brain is activated, which is much better at filtering out relevant information. In short, our recall is dramatically affected and we’re more likely to use what we’re learned. This is why writing is essential to learning Chinese characters. Instead of repeatedly writing the same characters over and over hundreds of times, we can use intelligent tools like iPad apps to make the learning process quicker and likely to suit our needs.

So, back to the topic: what’s great about Word Tracer?

Introduction to Word Tracer

Word Tracer is an intelligent tool to teach you to write Chinese characters correctly. In the words of the developer:

Selecting between the Practice Mode and Test Mode in Word Tracer on iPad

Essentially, use of the app is broken down between two different types of users.

If You’re New to Chinese Characters

This is probably Word Tracer’s strong point: when it’s in the hand of someone new to learning Chinese. Here are some of the benefits to the beginner:

• Dead simple to use
• Practice mode allows you to trace on top of characters to build recognition
• Pinyin and audio pronunciation are built in to strengthen comprehension
• Automatically corrects your stroke order mistakes (which is important!)
• Radicals included

If You’re Already Studying Characters

• 1,500 of the most commonly used characters are already included
• Test mode tests you on characters you’ve learned, including stroke order
• Create custom lists of words that you want to focus on

Flipping through character lists using the Word Frequency modifier

How I Use Word Tracer

When I launched the app for the first time, I jumped into practice mode to get an idea for what I was dealing with. What I found was that you can begin using dozens of different character lists which are already generated and included in the app. Lists like:

• Frequency Rank
• Stroke Count
• Common Usage
• Lessons

Conclusion

If you have an iPad and you’re already studying Chinese characters, this app is a no-brainer at the $2.99 price. Upon release it was listed as an Apple “Staff Favorite”, probably due to its immaculate design and smooth performance (the app is built upon a game engine).

Check the links below to read more about Word Tracer or to download it from the iTunes App Store.

Youtube Clip of Word Tracer in Action

App Store Download Link

Word Tracer on iPad

Note: this isn’t a paid review, this app really is just great.

Are you using any other iPad or iPhone apps to study Chinese?