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Packed and ready to go
How do you pack for nine weeks abroad when all you want to take is good chocolate?I left Minnesota on May 25th, flying into the future, arriving in Beijing Thursday, May 26th.
After much planning and arranging I finally arrive in Beijing. I am a little apprehensive about the catalog for my exhibition. I have been working with Li Xiaowen, who I met last summer at Sanbao, on the design. We have been trading emails, sending images and ideas back and forth for a month. Before I left she sent me her design and it looks very nice. I am most concerned about the language translation of titles and statements. I know it is difficult to translate certain words or phrases between languages.
The flight over was relatively easy. Having a three-hour layover in Seattle broke up the long flight as compared to past years where I flew to Tokyo then transferred to a China flight. I did get bulkhead seating and because the flight was not full did not have anyone sitting next to me. Delta rearranged the seat structure on international flights and I had abundant legroom (about a foot to spare…no pun intended). Got in early and took a taxi to the Sunrise Hostel where Xiaowen had arranged a reservation. She said
Beijing Sunrise Hostel
Li Xiaowen arranged for me to stay at this hostel only two minutes from her home. Very reasonably priced (240 yuan = $35) considering it is only a block from the Forbidden City. she walks by it every day and is only a minute or two from her apartment. At 240 yuan a night ($35) it is a good price for the location a block away from the Forbidden City. It is off a side street and down another small street so does not have the presence of other hotels near by. There are many young travelers staying here, some sharing rooms for a very low price. They have a small bar/restaurant where I had breakfast with Xiaowen one morning. The French pancakes were excellent. I would definitely recommend this place for someone wanting to be centrally located and needing very simple accommodations. I called Xiaowen when I arrived and we chatted for a while at her home while making plans for Friday.
Friday, May 27th, Slept about six hours and could not go back to sleep. Went to Xiaowen’s apartment for breakfast, 包饺子 bāojiǎozi or dumplings she cooked. What a nice way to have a first meal back in China, sitting outside of her apartment in a quaint courtyard with warm sun. I had made plans to visit a friend, Anran, at Tsinghua University to see her graduate work exhibition. I
met Anran at Sanbao four years ago while she was a student at Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Institute. She rode bicycle out to Sanbao and stopped in the studio. I remember her being very shy, still is, but happy to meet a foreigner. I have kept sporadic email contact with her and other students I meet over the years. I had emailed her a week ago saying I was returning to China and she happened to be online at the moment. She said her exhibition was ending on Friday at noon and offered to share her work and give me a tour of their art department. Xiaowen joined me as we met Anran at the University gate. I enjoyed seeing her exhibition but did not have time to see many other student works because of time constraints. Anran’s table with porcelain birds and flat vessels has a lighting system that is to be illuminated to show the translucency of the porcelain and echo sitting outside in rain. The flat vessels have concentric rings and a knob in the center as water hitting a puddle. It would have been nice to see it as intended with the lights on but the room
Breakfast with Li Xiaowen
My catalog designer friend set me up in a hostel a two minute walk from her home and had me over for breakfast my first day in Beijing. was fully lit so impossible to be displayed that way.
We then received a quick tour of the facility seeing the sculpture and ceramic studios. The art school recently merged with the rest of the campus and received some big money to redesign and buy equipment. It seemed very well laid out and active. I had asked in my email if it was possible for me to meet her professor. She did not arrange anything in advance but called her professor to see if he could meet. He was not in his office but said would be there soon. When he did arrive we chatted for maybe five minutes and I asked about possibly returning next year to do a lecture or have an exhibition. He contacted the department head who then came down to join us. They thought it may be possible, but both desperately wanted to go to lunch. Xiaowen later told me they were a bit miffed for the meeting should have been arranged in advance. Protocol! Very important in China! We exchanged information and I will follow up. I am looking for opportunities to lecture and have other exhibitions next summer and into the fall
Tsinghua University art building
Xiaowen and I visited Tsinghua University to see the graduate exhibition. when I plan to take a sabbatical leave from teaching and stay in China for five or six months.
Had a nice lunch with Xiaowen at a restaurant specializing in Yunnan Province food. I felt at home for the tablecloths are the batiks that I have in my studio. I would love to travel back to the Yunnan again someday.
We then headed to the printers office to finalize the catalog and get it into their hands. We arrived at 3:00pm and did not leave until midnight. Xiaowen and I sat for the first time together and go through the full document. Every time we went through the document we would find another error. Then the printers were transferring the info to the format for printing and would skip a letter or put something out of place. It was making me very nervous to think somewhere along the line someone will change something when we are not there to catch it. She had first contacted a big printer in town that she thought would take the time for a project like mine. She said many small shops would do it for less money but would just print quickly
Anran and her graduate show
Anran was a student at Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Institute four years ago when she visited Sanbao one afternoon. She invited me to see her graduate exhibition and tour the facility. and be sloppy. She found this shop through another designer and we both had a good feeling about the care for the project. They worked late into the night with us to get a proof that the color was balanced correctly and everything was the way we wanted. Their price was also less then the big printer. They sent Xiaowen a copy after printing just yesterday (June 3) and she thinks it turned out great. It is being shipped to Jingdezhen and should arrive in a day or two.
Saturday, May 28th, Xiaowen came to the hostel for breakfast and we spent the day shopping and preparing for the barbecue she had arranged for the night. I was hoping to go the Salsa Caribe nightclub and do some dancing that night. I had contacted someone from MN who is living in Beijing and dances, hoping to connect with her at the club. I had told Xiaowen but she forgot. I had to beg off the dancing to respect Xiaowen’s efforts to have this party for me to meet her friends. It was very fun doing day-to-day things with her like going to the local market to buy fruit and
Anran's piece when lite
There is a built in lighting system the shows the translucency of the JDZ porcelain. vegetables. I got a lot of stares as I followed her around with a little cart, loading our purchases from the different vendors. There are many foreigners in Beijing but my six foot five frame walking next to Xiaowen at about five foot two is a sight for many peoples’ eyes. I enjoy not being a tourist but just a visitor to the country.
I had also been in contact with a former Macalester student, Justin Chan, who is now living in Beijing. He is Chinese but lives in the U.S. He is in Beijing learning Chinese. We have also kept in touch so I invited him to join the barbecue giving us an opportunity to chat. I love staying connected to past students. Two Swedish friends of Xiaowen’s attended the barbecue, another friend she salsa dances with, Anran, Justin and I. It was a fun evening enjoying the food, chatting and topped off my some dancing in the courtyard.
Sunday, May 29th, I had one more breakfast at Xiaowen’s courtyard, lots of left over fruit from the night before. I am anxious to get to Jingdezhen, see friends, prepare for the exhibition and do some studio work
Anran's installation
Made in Jingdezhen during the summer of 2010, she created a table environment for someone to sit and think about nature and the rain. at Sanbao. Instead, I decided to fly to Jinan for two days to visit an old friend, Wan Xing (Ivy), who I met five years ago when she worked in the office on a project at Sanbao making objects to sell in the Forbidden City. We have not seen each other for three years but keep in touch once in a while via Skype. She wanted to introduce me to some people in Jinan that are interested in foreigners artwork. I decided to rethink the summer in China. Last year, with the help of my student Gu Jia, I was very prolific in making work to show this year. Perhaps I need to allow myself time to travel, see new places and keep connections with friends outside of Jingdezhen. It is also a different paradigm to think about buying an airplane ticket the day before flying and not be thought of as a terrorist! So I decided to visit Wanxing, meet her husband and let her make the connection for me.
I took a 1:20 flight from Beijing and arrived in Jinan at 2:20. Wanxing greeted me at the airport in her businesswoman attire. She had been working all
morning and showed up in a big black car. She had a friend with the big car drive out to pick me up. They dropped us off at a Marriot Hotel downtown Jinan. I said, “Ivy I cannot afford this!” She said we are using a big hotel downtown as the drop off and pick up place when meeting the officials. She wanted them to think I was very important and staying at the expensive hotel, when in fact I stayed in a nice small hotel near her business. It is one of those white lies told to impress while doing business. We decided we were actors and creating a performance. We then took a taxi to my actual hotel, checked in before walking over to see her shop in the nearby shopping mall. Six stories high and filled with shops selling home furnishings, it was overwhelming. We went up a couple floors and into a department store where she had an area for her ware. She wanted my opinion on the display and what she sold. At the same time she was either talking on the telephone or texting the whole time we were there. I needed to be
diplomatic because I found most of the things not to my taste. I gave her my opinion on opening up more space between objects for it had a garage sale feel. As I think of it now that would be the analogy I would make to most of the work as well, the things someone is trying to get ride of at a garage sale……bought for it had temporary interest and appeal but not lasting value. There were some ceramic vases made in Jingdezhen but made trying very hard to be unique but ending up having no sole.
We then walked a block to an office space she is renting for a new venture, selling things that can be used as business gifts for foreigners or Chinese business people. She had wide variety of choices from Chilean wine, porcelain pens, coolers, tea sets….a mix. She would like to sell the two furnishings stores and put all her time and energy into this new business. She is paying about $2000 a month to rent the store spaces and having a difficult time breaking even. Her husband Xue Tao works for a manufacturing factory and helps with their business. They have
high goals of earning money to travel but also want to be free to go to small countryside villages and help teach the young people. Xue Tao is a farmer’s son and Wanxing also grew up in the countryside. They both worked very hard to get an education. She said her mother did not have the extra 500 yuan a month to allow Wanxing to attend a better high school. She has a friend who did and now is very successful for she then went to a better quality college. Wanxing and her husband would like to help the young children in the countryside better themselves by helping teach and being able to give gifts of money for education. I appreciate their noble cause.
At five o’clock we went to a restaurant nearby that specialized in Shandong Province food. Three of her best friends were to meet us there. We arrived first and the others trickled in. Cui Xia is Wanxing’s best friend, Mr. Huang and Yu Hong Lian good friends, all met through a small business organization they all belong to. Shandong food is not spicy but good. My favorite two dishes were a plate of tofu rectangles
about three inches long and an inch wide. They had been hollowed out with a little lid on top while being filled with pork and vegetables. I want to try making this. I see often this combination of tofu and pork. At home we think of tofu as the alternative to meat but in China they are combined. The other unique dish was lotus root slices with a salami type meat between, making a lotus/salami sandwich. This was lightly battered and deep-fried. Quite tasty! The meal had a bizarre feel for there were four good friends having dinner together…all with cell phones. They all put their phones on the table next to their plate. One by one, someone would get a call then get up from the table and go out the door of our small room to take the call. This went on constantly for about an hour and a half. I was getting dizzy and a bit of a cold from the swinging door opening and closing. Nothing…..I mean NOTHING….could be that important that you needed to take fifteen telephone calls during dinner with friends. And the calls were coming from others that would be eating their dinner
at the same time. I just do not understand cell phone culture. I told Wanxing my observation and from then on would make flushing sounds every time she picked up her telephone because she said she wished she could flush hers down the toilet. After dinner we took a taxi to a beautiful park in the center of town and walked for a while before stopping at a UBC Coffee for ice cream. Wanxing had never had Hagen Daz ice cream so I convinced her to try while I had a mango shaved ice smoothie.
Monday, May 30th, Slept in while Wanxing worked then we went down the street for lunch and ate la mein, the spicy Muslim stretchy noodles. OH SO GOOD! I swear if one of these shops opened in Minneapolis it would make a fortune. I would build the restaurant with a glassed in kitchen in the center where you could watch them pulling the noodle then sit around and eat, drink beer and enjoy the atmosphere. Google la mian or stretchy noodle to find a video and see how they are made if you have not seen before. I would ad a link but I
cannot access YouTube here in China.
After lunch we headed downtown to the Hotel Sofitel where we were to be picked up by the people from the Jinan Yuanboyuan International Convention and Exhibition Center. Wanxing has had contact with them before when Jackson Li had visited Jinan last fall. We again pretended I was staying at this hotel so officials thought I was a V.I.P. (I told Wanxing I was a V.T.P. – very tall person instead). I had no idea where I was going for Wanxing could not tell me in English the name of the place or what its function was. I was still going under the pretext of meeting someone wanting to sell foreigners artwork. I looked through a brochure in the car about the convention center and found it to be huge. It is a combination convention center with exhibition space, a large lake surrounded by gardens. They, the local government, are creating this and will charge the public money to go through their gates. We roll in and are met by a small delegation of people who lead us to the far end of the convention center, up an elevator and into a room
with two lines of big chairs. I was introduced to Mr. Yang who is the director of the conference center. We exchanged cards and then with some of the others as they arrived. Wanxing whispered directions to me all afternoon of how to interact in Chinese culture. Those sitting closest were the higher official and I should try to interact most with them. The man on my left never gave a name card (business card) and I still have no idea what his name is. I was told later many government official do not hand out name cards. He (Mr. X) had a very suspicious look on his face as he was trying to sum me up. Wanxing talked with them for a while and passed on a couple questions about the facility that I had and I answered a couple questions. All but the director where then sent out on carts to be driven around the complex. Thinking I was going to see beautiful natural gardens we were whisked by plaques with name of different provinces in China fronting Disneyesque arrangements of plant material or artificial rock facades with some tie into the region it was to represent. Another
section was then Shandong Province cities and another nations of the world. We drove on and on and on, all with the same sterile, dumbed down aesthetic. I was nearly nauseous as I thought about how much money had been put into this project and how many people they could have helped around the province and country with that amount. Pure flaunting of wealth and self-importance! There is really nothing there, just like the objects in Wanxing’s shop. I was asked what I thought and only could reply, “BIG” when in actuality I would say it was one of the biggest wastes of money I have ever seen.
We then stopped at a building down the road from the convention center that was a resort hotel. I found out we were all gathering here to have a dinner. Before we ate I shared images of my work with all interested. Mr. Yang sat next to me. Wanxing translated my comments. I showed them the image of the piece the Smithsonian purchased and Mr. Yang said, “We should have one as well.” Who knows were this will lead. He and Mr. X wanted a copy of the images so I
gave them the power-point presentation file. As I think of it now this may not have been a good idea for I may see replicas of my work in their gift shop if I visit again! We next sat down to a multi-dish dinner accompanied by toasts and prompts to drink the whole glass of beer each time. Not really being a beer drinker I have tried to stay away from these situations that I had heard and read about. I just kept hearing “it is Chinese culture”. I respect the Chinese culture but I am also not Chinese. Drinking beer during the meal is not because you are thirsty but as a social gesture and to be friendly and honor someone at the table. I was also whispered to by Wanxing to try to keep my glass lower then the person I was toasting to show your respect that they are higher then you. This was really getting tiresome and I wanted to barf. Mr. X was warming up to me now but was also the one who insisted on downing the whole glass each time. Wanxing was red in the face from having too much to drink. As
the youngest at the table she felt obligated to keep up her end, but she does not like beer. They finally did one last group toast and the beer glasses were taken away and a cup of yogurt was given to all. There was to be an artist friend of Wanxing’s joining us but she said he was in the hospital after drinking too much the night before. He must have attended a function like this.
Thinking this strange evening was over we were now all put into cars and driven to an outdoor Chinese barbecue for more food and beer. I am whispering to Wanxing that this is getting a little too much for me. We decide to devise a way to make this less painful and leave as soon as we think possible. The group of ten at our table started ordering fistfuls of skewered pork, shrimp and chicken wings plus a small keg of beer. More toasts with now large mugs of beer. Another official who had left earlier to attend his nephews second day of marriage when the family all gathers at the brides house returned with his two brothers. All big burly guys who
wanted to make up for lost toasts with me. I could only take a sip at a time. Wanting me to down mugs of beer I told Wanxing to tell them I just had surgery and could not drink anymore. I did have double hernia surgery in January so we were not exactly lying. This seemed to do the trick. I could beg out of toast but only raised my glass. Wanxing was now excused from large slugs of beer as well. She told me the gathering would end when I decided, so I stood up for one last toast and said I was still on U.S. time which would have made it eight in the morning and needed to sleep. Begrudgingly the party ended. All said, I think I was accepted and told I should return and find a Jinan girlfriend so I would stay longer. The director also said I could stay at the resort if I wished in the future. My final impression is I NEVER want to go through one of those dinners again. I NEVER want to see another glass of beer. I DO WISH they would buy one of my sculptures. I crashed early
and slept through the night.
Monday, May 31st, Got up around nine and waited for Wanxing to call. She did not until 11:30 saying she slept to 11:00. She and her husband came to the hotel to take me to lunch. This was the first time I met Xue Tao. His English is pretty good and very friendly, but detached easily by reading a paper or going to his cell phone. I asked for regional food and was taken to a cafeteria style fast-food place. Yuk! Bad food and bad environment! Glad they are not reading this blog. After lunch Xue Tao left to work and Wanxing and I walked to another big mall, this time selling furniture. She has a Jiangxi Province friend, Zhu Xiu Lian, who runs a shop with her artist husband, Yuan Min. He is a painter and displays and sells his work amongst the bedroom and dinning room sets. We chatted through Wanxing for about art, then she talked about an hour to him as I fought nodding off out of boredom. Both very nice people and this was the first time Wanxing had met her friend’s husband. After we take a taxi to
Fo Shan Yuan, a vegetarian Buddhist restaurant. Wanxing said they make tofu dishes to look like meat. We met one friend from the first night dinner, Cui Xia, who had invited me to eat at this place. The three of us had an amazing dinner of healthy and interesting dishes….see photos. I loved the fact that we could choose to eat off of biodegradable dinnerware made from corn.
The evening ended with a trip to the big Quanchang Square downtown. Jinan is known for natural spring, the friendliest people in China and drinkers. They have an underground grocery store beneath the park where we went to buy a gift for Wenying Li at Sanbao, some Shandong Province snacks. Wanxing said a few years ago Jinan had a big rain that flooded the grocery store killing several people as they were trapped below ground. Horrible! After we walked around the park and were attracted to the discoism music playing nearby. As with most parks there is line-dancing to different kinds of up-tempo music. Usually this is older women getting their exercise but we found this group mostly twenty something males and females. They played a Cumbia style song so Wanxing
and I danced off to the side. That was followed by a couple merengues. She kept laughing because the style dancing we were doing was so un-Chinese. I always stand out in China but Chinese tend to want to always blend in.
Wednesday, June 1st, Up at 8:00 to check out of the hotel, had a KFC breakfast with Wanxing and Xue Tao before they took me to the airport and my flight back to Beijing. I waited at the airport for about five hours before catching the 5:30 flight to Jingdezhen. I am glad I went to Jinan, mostly to keep my friendship with Wanxing alive. When I gave her some dark chocolate as a thank you gift at the airport she said she felt bad she had nothing to offer me (after treating me for two days). I told her, “Your company is enough for me.” She looks at me and says, “You want my company?” I realize she thought I wanted her business company and I had to try and explain that I meant her hanging out with me. Oh, the dynamics of language is so facinating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next entry about Jingdezhen and my exhibition on
Gary and Justin Chan
Justin was a Macalester student of mine who graduated two years ago and now lives in Beijing. We were able to catch up as I invited him to the barbecue. June 10th.
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Tina
non-member comment
Blending in
You are beginning to look a little Chinese --aside from the six foot five thing. :) Excited to see photos from Sanbao.