jeanne boden

tear down － 拆

Picture from the Venice Biennale website

In my post 'Qianmen area before the tear down 1' here, I refer to the Chinese character 'chai' '拆' which means 'to tear down'. Before an area is being demolished the buildings in that area are plastered with this character. Big parts of ancient Beijing have faced this 'big hammer' and have disappeared altogether. Several Chinese artists have criticized this in their work. Here is a work by Wang Jinsong  王劲松 called 'One hundred signs of demolition' 'chai'. 

Pictures from chancery lane gallery.

Another artist referring to this is Huang Rui 黄锐. He produced a series of works called 'Chai-na' '拆那'  alluding on the big tear down of 'China'.

225 million migrant workers 农民工

Research on the situation of migrant workers in China resulted in a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics on March 25. It shows some interesting figures.

At the end of 2008 China had about 225 million migrant workers; 140 million worked in the cities. Due to the economic crisis 70 million people returned to their villages around Chinese New Year. 14 million of them stayed in the village after the New Year holidays. 71% of these migrants move from Central and West to East China. Astonishing figures hard to imagine in our small countries in Europe. 

shanghai museum

The Shanghai Museum 上海博物馆 - displaying a great collection of ancient treasures - opened it's doors on October 12, 1996. Like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing it's architecture is based on the traditional Chinese cosmological concept: 'round heaven, square earth' 天圆地方, an example of how traditional Chinese cultural concepts are still applied in China today.

keeping fit - with 'comrades'

In the morning and evening many Chinese go to the park to dance and to do exercises. Usually there is one person who 'leads and instructs' the group. This women in black t-shirt with coca cola brand enthusiastically engages in animating her friends whom she in 2008 still addressed as 同志们 'comrades'. In communist times everyone called each other 'comrade', but it has become a very rarely heard term in China nowadays. 

yi woman in yunnan province

The Yi are one of the 56 Ethnic groups China officially recognizes. The Yi live in the mountains in the North of Yunnan province, close to the border of Tibet.

fire extinguish tools

The little paper bags on the window sill contain sand: in case of fire... 

also guangdong has to follow beijing's central policy

China's holidays are chosen by Beijing and all of China has to follow that central policy. For a number of years China had the three 黄金周 Golden Week system. That meant that all of China had one week of holidays at Chinese New Year, one week at May First - Labour Day and one week at October First - Establishment of the People's Republic of China commemoration day. 

In January 2008 a new schedule was launched: Chinese New Year (7 days), 清明节 Qingming Festival (3 days), May First Labor Day (3 days), 端午节 Duanwu Festival or Dragon Boat Festival (3 days), 中秋节 Mid Autumn Festival or Moon Festival (3 days), October First (7 days), Gregorian New Year (3 days). 

The rehabilitation of a number of traditional festivals in this plan fits perfectly in the contemporary discourse of 'connecting modern China with ancient Chinese culture'.

Yesterday the South China Morning Post reports that Guangdong province in the South of China wanted to reinstate the golden week of May First, but is denied by Beijing. Even the richest parts of China need to follow the central policy!

and these are the real ones in chengdu

It is really very cute to see them playing these young pandas. I visited the Panda base in Sichuan a few years ago when my friends from Chengdu drove me up to the Panda Breading and Research Center. Driving through the mountains they told me that some of the vegetation in this area is thousands of years old and a lot of herbal medicine can be found there. As we circled along the mountain path we met hundreds of workers constructing a new road all the way to the Panda center - to make it easier for tourists to drive up there. 'Why can't we humans keep some respect for nature?' was what went through my mind. Isn't this a ridiculous contradiction: trying to save the Panda and at the same time destroying it's habitat?

zhao bandi and his 'bandi panda' - 赵半狄 － 半狄熊猫

Picture: shanghart.com

One of the icons of Chineseness Zhao Bandi often stages in his art work is the Panda.

lin junting 林俊廷 - beyond the frame 化境

The techniques and methods of composition used in traditional Chinese landscape painting result in movements throughout the painting that do no stop at the frame of the painting. The spectator makes a mental journey through the landscape; his gaze is taken along the 'dragon veins' that run through the painting like invisible treads.
In this interactive media installation Lin Junting builds further on that idea involving the spectator as an active agent. By touching the screen the spectator can make his own painting.