Tag Archives: exegesis

the sweetness and the people

Posted on by

royal jelly and fresh honey, straight ahead

yesterday walking in the lychee orchard section of shenzhen’s central park, yang qian and i stumbled upon bee farmers. they do the guangdong bee circuit–shenzhen, pingyuan, nanhai–following the pollen. they are from pingyuan and have been coming to the central park these past eight years. the honey is amazing. for those of you in shenzhen who happen on this entry they’ll be here for another week or so, before heading north. more bees, here.

at dinner, i was telling a friend about the 蜂民, i even tried 蜜民, before folks understood that i meant 蜂农，a phrase which (unlike 蜂民) shows up automatically in pinyin word-processing. yang qian laughed and said it sounded like i was talking about “crazy people (疯民)”.

then qingfeng joked, nobody wants to be 民　because that character has a negative connotation in chinese.

i said what about 人民?

no, not good. better to be an official.

who aren’t part of the people?

chuckle, chuckle.

i persisted, what about citizen (公民)?

that can’t be helped (无奈)!

everbody at the table laughed, reaffirming the unquestioned truth that as an american 公民 i couldn’t understand what it means to be a chinese citizen. we then started talking about the medicinal benefits of lychee honey, which helps develop anti-bodies to local strains of flu. it was a polite segue that suddenly seemed a portentious metaphor. now i’m wondering about social honey and culturally born strains of flu: what keeps the people healthy?

短信文化: text message culture

Posted on by

dinner with beijing friends led, as it inevitably does, to conversation about why beijing and beijing people are the best. this time, text message culture (短信文化) was our point of departure.

according to wan ning and hu lin, all of a sudden people are text messaging their new year’s greetings to each other, rather than calling (as in years past) or sending cards through the mail (as in their childhood). moreover, the telephone companies, especially china mobile, encourage this behavior because every message sent is money earned. to that end, the said companies have allegedly hired couplet writers to come up with messages that will be mass forwarded to everyone on a particular calling list.

wan ning and hu lin also pointed out that beijing pizi write independent/non-corporate messages. (皮子: does anyone have a good translation for this term, which i understand as refering to rebels in the james dean way–young, disgruntled, hyper-individualistic men, who are also passionate, appealling to the rebelious heart beating beneath everyone else’s staid exteriors. yang qian adds that 皮子 are darker and more cynical than 愤青, angry young men, who grow up to be 大愤, big angries, which puns the express, big shits…) anyway, they said that if you’ve lived in beijing, you can always tell the difference between “factory eggs” and the “farm fresh”. i can’t so i’ve posted a few new year’s greetings in no particular order (again with the caveat, loosely translated and always in need of friendly correction):

友情提示未来社会：朋友比领导重要，能力比成绩重要，健康毕业绩重要，水平比文凭重要，情商比智商重要，交友比结婚重要，节日比上班重要。祝生蛋，新年快乐！ (friendly reminder, future society: friends are more important than leaders, skill is more important than grades, health is more important than outstanding achievement, talent is more important than a diploma, making friends is more important that marriage, holidays are more important than work days. wishing you a merry christmas and happy new year!)

2007年到了。别忘了给孩子们讲讲很久很久很久以前的事：那时候天还是蓝的，水也是绿的，肉是可以放心吃的，耗子还是怕猫的，法庭是讲理的，结婚是先谈恋爱的，理发店是只管理发的，药是可以治病的，医生是救死扶伤的，拍电影是不要培导演睡觉的，照相是要穿衣服的，欠钱是要还的，孩子的爸爸是明确的，学校是不图挣钱的，白痴是不能当教授的，卖狗肉是不能挂羊头的，结婚了是不能泡MM的。祝你新年快乐！（2007 has arrived. don’t forget to tell the children about how things were long, long, long ago: in those days, the sky was blue, the water was torquoise, you could eat meat without worrying, rats feared cats, the courts listened to reason, marriage came after courtship, hair salons only gave haircuts, medicine cured illness, doctors saved the dying and cared for the injured, you could make a movie without sleeping with the director, you had to keep your clothes on in a photograph, loans had to be repaid, a child’s paternity was clear, schools weren’t profit-oriented, idiots couldn’t become professors, you couldn’t pass off dog meat as mutton, after marriage you couldn’t play around with young women. happy new year!)

wan ning’s commentary: this message had changed since he first saw it. he believes that people are editing and adding to messages before forwarding them to their friends.

忍养安，乐养寿，爱养富，善养德，诚养誉，礼养谊，正养胆，廉养义，古养今，和谐养文明，时光养友情，睡眠养容颜，运动养健康！恭祝新年好！(endurance nourishes tranquility, happiness nourishes longevity, goodness nourishes virtue, sincerity nourishes reputation, courtesy nourishes friendship, uprightness nourishes courage, honesty nourishes righteousness, the past nourishes the present, sincerity nourishes reputation, time nourishes friendship, sleep nourishes beauty, exercise nourishes health! happy new year!)

translation note: 养 is one of those characters rich in cultural meaning. in addition to meaning “nourishes”, it can also mean “breeds” as in endurance breeds tranquility. the important point is that whatever or whoever does the 养ing takes pride of place in that the 养ee (so to speak) depends upon 养er for its existance.

什么是爱情？色呗。什么是温柔？面呗。什么是幽默？贫呗。什么是艺术？脱呗。什么是仗义？傻呗。什么是朋友？你呗。什么人最记得祝你元旦快乐？俺XXX呗。(what is love? sex. what is tenderness? being a wimp. what is art? stripping. what is having principles? stupidity. what is a friend? you. who is most likely to remember to wish you a happy new year? me, XXX.)

hu lin: you can tell this is fresh off the beijing farm. only beijing people use the expression “面” to mean wimp.

translation note: 呗 (bei) implies a cyncial finality–last word on the subject. 俺 (an3) is funny because it’s a northeastern expression for “I”. northeasterners remain a source of constant amusement for the rest of the country, but especially beijing. as soon as they hear 俺, beijingers start laughing because they know the non-northeastern speaker is cracking jokes (耍贫嘴), a form of verbal spoofing (恶搞). one of the funnier practitioners of this art is xue cun (雪村) from jilin. his website includes the wonderful flash version of his breakaway hit “northeasterners are all living leifengs (东北人都是活雷锋)” as well as recent songs. a fun aside and in the spirit of xue cun is cui jian’s flash version of “net virgin”.

快年底了，地下的先烈们纷纷打来电话询问。江姐问：国民党被推翻了么？答：被阿扁推翻了。董存端问：劳动人民还当牛做马么？答：不劳动了，都下岗了。吴琼花问：姐妹们都翻身得解放了吗？答：思想解放了，都当小姐了。杨子荣问：土匪都剿灭了么？答：都改当公安和城管了。杨白劳问：地主都打倒了吗？答：都入党了。雷锋问：那资本家呢？答：都进人大和政协了！刘胡兰问：同志们都藏好了吗？答：都隐身上网了。毛主席问：大家现在都在忙什么呢？答：都在斗地主。毛主席：那我就放心了！(the end of the year will soon be here, and so the martyres from below are calling to ask about the current situation.

sister jiang,”has the kmt been overthrown?”

answer: by a bian (陈水扁, chen shuibian).

dong cunduan, “have the workers ceased to work like oxen and horses?”

answer: they’ve all ceased working.

wu qionghua, “have my sisters been liberated.”

answer: their thinking has been liberated and know they’re all young ladies (小姐 also means escort).

yang zirong, “have the bandits been erradicated?”

answer: they’ve changed status and jointed the security forces and city police.

yang bailao, “have the landlords been over thrown?”

answer: they’ve joined the party.

lei feng, “what about the capitalists?”

answer: they’re now in the people’s congress and people’s political consultative committee.

liu hulan, “are our comrades safely hidden?”

answer: they’ve hidden their identity and gone online.

mao zedong, “what is everybody busy doing?”

answer: struggling with landlords.

mao zedong, “then i can rest easy!”)

i leave it to the reader to make the relevant political and gender analysis.

玩品味: shenzhen antiquities market

Posted on by


yan ling shopping for jade

yesterday, i went with two friends to the shenzhen antinquities market (深圳古玩市场), which is located in huangbeiling (黄贝岭). now we hadn’t started out in huangbeiling, but rather langxin (浪心) and it took us an hour to get from langxin, which is in baoan district to huangbeiling, which is luohu. at lunch, a jun had offered to take me to the antiquities market because i was interested in old things. true enough, but i was content to prowl around langxin. only later did i realize that he had been wanting to go to the antiquities market all morning. a piece of jade had his heart itching (心痒痒) and he just had to have it. while at the market, a stone carving caused yan ling’s heart to itch and after much negotiating, walking away and returning to the peddler, she also just had to have it. i left with a small stone chop. yan ling promissed to introduce me to a man who could carve 马丽安, the characters for my chinese name into the stone.

a jun became interested in jade about fifteen years ago, and began seriously collecting about three years ago. i asked him what he does with his jade. he said he goes home, listens to music, brews some tea, and takes out the pieces to admire, rubbing them into oily smoothness. “jade,” a jun explained, “should be moist (润).” yan ling laughed, teasing, “you’ve started to play with taste (玩品味).”

as i understand it, “play with taste” means not simply to cultivate good taste, but to start consuming various items associated with good taste; learning through trial and error, which tasteful objects satisfy an itching heart. players need knowledge to distinguish fakes from the genuine and they need passion to take the time to sort through everything out there. and there’s a lot of it. two levels in fact.

on the first level of the antiquities market, peddlers spread their wares out on blankets, having paid 50 rmb to rent the space for the day. yan ling liked this area especially because she assumed everything was fake, and therefore cheap. however, she stumbled upon a fujian peddler, who had some genuine but low quality stones for sale. a jun encouraged her to buy if she liked because even if it cost as much as a dinner, it would give more than one evening of pleasure. a jun, however, shopped on the second level, where ostensibly song dynasty ceramics and expensive jades were on display. he had made friends with several dealers as well as with other afficionados. they would sit together with a dealer examining and debating the merits of each object. i stood on the side an listened, occassionally adding little to the conversation except to say, “yes, it’s nice,” or “how can you tell the jade is that valuable?”

my last visit to huangbeiling was in 2003 with fat bird as part of the “human city” series of guerilla performances. that particular day, we were interested in visiting the pet market and using the cages of inappropriately fuzzy dogs as our stage. what occurs to me know, is how pets have become a way that shenzheners play with taste. as are the paintings at dafen village, at least if the publicity is to be believed.

so i come to the point of this entry. eleven years ago, when i first came to shenzhen, not many people played with taste. most were busy pursuing the shenzhen dream: a shenzhen identity card, a full time job, and a house. however, now, those who have achieved the shenzhen dream are pursuing other interests, including the cultivation of good taste. as in other parts of the advanced capitalist world, shopping has become an important way for individuals to create, express, and experience themselves as both part of and different from society at large.

photos of us playing with taste are now up in my galleries.

玩: Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park

Posted on by

玩(wan)means to play, to goof around, sometimes just to hang out. Wan is allied to 放松(to relax)and opposed to 工作(to work). Children are said to crave wan (贪玩), which is not a good thing, but nevertheless natural. Youngsters who can overcome (克服) their impulse to wan have reached the age of understanding (懂事). In contrast, adults who crave wan are childish (幼稚) and unreliable (不可靠); rumor has it these party animals make lame (赖) spouses.

Most importantly wan connects people to each other; playing, goofing around, and hanging out are not solitary activities, but group events, which often require planning and time in order to bring everybody together. Here, wan becomes an important element of friendship. People think about activities that others might enjoy and invite them along. They also invite others along on activities that they want to do. Be warned, however. Playing together sometimes slips into forms of 陪 (pei), where the pleasure of one person becomes the point of the entire trip. I believe this to be true not only of business outings, but also family vactions. What’s more, there are moments when nobody is having a good time, but everyone thinks everyone else is, and so everyone plays until they exhaust themselves (玩累自己).

This summer, friends invited me to join them in a trip to wan Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park. And I went. There were about 20 of us, from seven different families. In the morning, we all met at the restaurant, took pictures with Mickey and Pluto, and then went to the Magic Kingdom, where we broke up into smaller groups based on the age of the children.

Hong Kong Disneyland is small. Indeed you can walk around it in a day. It does, however, offer four fantasies: shopping (on Main Street, USA), romance and shopping (in Fantasyland), exploration and shopping (in Adventureland), and science fiction and shopping (in Tommorowland). There are also many famous characters walking around for photo-ops.

Given the crowds, we spent our time waiting to get into rides or attractions, and then meeting up with the group for lunch.

I returned to Shenzhen and spent the next few days doing yoga and sleeping, necessary antidotes to too much of a good thing.

个人魅力：thoughts in progress

Posted on by

it has been a weekend of meetings and rain, which means few pictures, but many words. it was also a time of unexpected insight into the importance of charisma. i’m not sure yet where this might lead me theoretically. nevertheless, it seems worth writing down how i came to this insight because that may allow me to track which of my assumptions are blinding me to something everyone around me is taking for granted.

the school i work for is changing its name and leadership. previously, the school was a branch of a famous beijing school. on sunday may 28, the school announced that it will be working with one of shenzhen’s most famous and successful principals to develop an elite program. throughout the speeches given both during the meeting and afterwards at lunch, it became clear that the school board understood previous failures to be failures of leadership. one of the board members summarized the situation as, “we didn’t have a shepherd, but we’ve always had high quality sheep. now that we’ve got a shepherd, everyone can relax” this sentence suddenly clarified for me what actually took place the day before, when yang qian and i met with tian qinxin, wang hanyi, and dai yu for lunch and three hours of conversation.

tian, wang, dai, yang, and i are not only involved in theatre production, but also friends of long standing. these friendships provide both companionship and the social matrix in which fat bird nests. this is important. the kind of charisma that seemed stressed this weekend was the ability to both nourish these relationships and use them to create theatre.

in the early 90s, tian qinxin worked in a shenzhen advertising agency and yang qian was a new functionary in the recently established nanshan district ministry of culture. both had escaped from beijing to shenzhen. yang qian had just given up on his first marriage and the possibility of doing journalism; he turned to playwriting to express through fiction truths that just-the-facts often missed. in 1994, tian qinxin’s ex directed yang qian’s play “intentional injury” for the chinese national experimental theatre. she was in shenzhen recovering from that break-up. for half a year, tian qinxin and yang qian got together to drink, smoke, and talk about theatre and lost opportunities. the two also worked with xiong yuanwei on one of shenzhen’s first theatrical productions, “i love mozart”. xiong yuanwei produced, tian qinxin directed, and yang qian played a “fat white hooligan”. (the expression “fat and white” refers to corrupt officials who do nothing but stay out of the sun and eat.) yang qian finally encouraged tian qinxin to quit her job and return to beijing. he decided to stay in shenzhen, however. tian qinxin is now the only woman director at the chinese national theatre and has won all of china’s top theatrical awards.

yang qian and i met dai yu in 1997, when zero sun moon produced “eternal return” as part of the hong kong handover celebrations organized by nanshan district. (i wrote about the szm years and “eternal return” in “Zero Sun Moon: The Cultural Politics of Seeing Performance,” Theatre InSight 10:1 (Spring 1999), 27-32.) that fall, dai yu left shenzhen to study playwriting at the chinese theatre academy, where tian qinxin has taught. today, dai yu is a functionary in the shenzhen ministry of culture. she was the one who helped yang qian register fat bird with the municipal government. most recently, she arranged for fat bird’s inclusion in the 2006 cultural industries fair.

wang hanyi is tian’s partner and collaborator. the two came to shenzhen because as part of the cultural industry fair, shenzhen municipality invited tian to stage her play 生死场 (place of life and death) at the shenzhen grand theatre.

so on the day that life and death premiered in shenzhen, the five of us gathered to discuss the possibility of making theatre in china. the conversation circled around the question of how to make theatre in an environment where “reforming” china’s main theatre troupes means “no longer providing financial support”. although she has not publically commented on the reforms, tian qinxin has an interesting position in this debate because her recent (very influential) kunqu production of “peach blossom fan (桃花扇) with the jiansu performance company (江苏省演艺集团) has been heralded as an examplar of why reform works. in this case, the head of the company invited her and other outside artists to nanjing to create a financially viable piece. and they did. so whatever she thinks about reform, her work is now offered as an example of the benefits of reforming state subsidized art institutions, specfically theatre troupes.

tian qinxin emphasized that by establishing fat bird, yang qian had opened a possible site for making theatre in this new environment. indeed, it was early in the reforms and so he had a chance to take advantage of new conditions in ways that other people didn’t. dai yu commented that for this to happen, yang qian would have to become more active. he couldn’t continue to keep himself aloof from society and pursue “pure art”. tian qinxin agreed, that in order to have the opportunity to do art, it was necessary for yang qian to pay his dues and create popular works.

just a few notes on what “paying one’s dues” might mean in practice. in part it means doing things you don’t want to do, like creating popular pieces that don’t actually inspire you. it means garnering awards so that you can convince officials you are in fact legitimate. it also means, going from friend to friend and asking them to contribute some money for the production. wining and dining all the folks that you need to in order to get it up. going door to door to door in order to sell tickets (and tickets must be sold so that you can pay back your friends, otherwise you’re incompetant). going university to university arranging to have the play performed for students, who are the biggest and most receptive audience to new works. implicit in all this is that one pays dues in order to become big because only these people have the influence to make the kinds of work they want to make.

wang hanyi then pointed to the traditional model of chinese opera troupes, where all the members supported one main performer. that main performer was the star of any production by the troupe. she pointed to mei lanfang as an important example of that kind of star. when it was time to stage a large production, which had several main roles, several troupes would collaborate and then break up afterwards. it was the 个人魅力 (charisma) of the central character that enabled a particular troupe to both attract an audience and to keep the troupe together. tian qinxin agreed that individual charisma was fundamental to accomplishing anything in china, not just theatre. “after all,” she said, “we have idolized emperors for 5,000 years. the point is to use this to make theatre.”

at first, i didn’t follow the logic that jumped from making theatre through a critique of yang qian, who was called a little master, aloof, and lazy to a discussion of traditional chinese opera troupes. no one else seem lost, however. indeed, yang qian thanked them for their advise. but in retrospect, it now seems that for tian, wang, and dai, yang qian had a responsibility not simply to lead the troupe, but to make it happen. they believed that the troupe was yang qian, and his decisions would shape whether or not all other fat bird members could make theatre. in this context, each of their comments became reminders that if yang qian was to make theatre, he needed to take charge of the troupe in a direct and personal way; he needed to become a shepherd, so to speak.

perhaps i am working with a different folk conception of “individual” than are my friends and husband. for me, the individual is expressed through doing what he or she wants; cooperation is the practice that links individuals in creative activity. however, at lunch yesterday, there were two understandings of cooperation in play–one between friends and one between leaders and troupe members. both forms of cooperation were important. my idea of the individual tends to preclude consideration of groups, but dai yu reiterated several times that yang qian needed others to accomplish his goals; he was too “independent” or perhaps too willing to maintain his independence vis-a-vis others. i also tend to downplay the importance of charisma in these forms of cooperation. yet, according to tian qinxin 个人魅力 (geren meili) was fundamental to the success or failure of theatre specifically, and social projects more generally.

it now occurs to me that “force of one’s personality” might be a more colloquial translation of what was at stake in her comments. she assumed that collective activity could only be achieved through the force of an individual’s personality, including the ability to pay dues, endure, and inspire others to follow one. she also assumed it was desirable to become this kind of a person. is that the difference between how i was hearing and they were speaking? not so much a cultural difference as individual preference? i don’t want all the responsibility that such a position would entail.

another discription of what makes a good core person/leader: 三个硬 (the three hards). a leader should have hard earlobes, so they know when to listen and when not to; a leader should have hard shoulders to shoulder responsibility; and a leader should have hard hands, so they can take charge and not let go.

yet another example: a friend told me that if there was a fire, leaders would leave first and then everyone else. if the leaders didn’t escape, no one else would. i asked if this was policy. no, my friend replied, it would just happen naturally. we chinese would wait for the leaders to go and then follow.

questions to think about: how might these descriptions fit into the category of “natural leader” that americans throw around? and should i go back to my weber?

an after-the-fact update. sunday night, tian, yang, and i had dinner with wei ping, a functionary still working in the nanshan district ministry of culture. wei ping lived in the same dormitory as yang qian in the early 1990s. she also participated in the “i love mozart” production. during dinner, tian qinxin reiterated many of the points she had made before. wei ping echoed these thoughts and than added it would be relatively easy for yang qian to make fat bird fly because he had “人缘 (renyuan)”. renyuan also belongs to the set of ideas/words/assumptions that make up a good leader. basically, i understand it to mean that if you have 人缘 your life is smoother because people like you and therefore are willing to help you. tian qinxin concurred and then told us about how many dinners she had to host in order to coax the jiangsu artists to work with her. yang qian, she concluded, shouldn’t be so aloof from other people. he wasn’t willing to pay his dues. if you did this work with sincerity, she emphasized, even relationships that start out with instrumental intentions might become happy collaborations. renyuan could transform awkward situations into opportunities; this capacity was in fact a pre-equisite for doing collaborative art like theatre.

多一事不如少一事: regulating space

Posted on by

yesterday fat bird held its weekly workshop at shenzhen university. we had been rehearsing in one of the rooms assigned to the acting department, but decided to work outside the gym, where faculty and staff play badmitten, swim, and learn gongfu. the gym building has set-in doors that are well-shaded and because usually locked, these entryways provide semi-private outdoor rehearsal spaces.

as we rehearsed, some of the gym’s patrons stopped to watch, but most glanced our way and then moved on. however, the gym security guards kept circling past and one finally stopped to ask who we were and what we were doing. we said we were university teachers and students working on a project. the guard grunted and then moved on. about fifteen minutes later, he returned and asked to see our i.d. cards. several participants began arguing with him. fat bird asserted its right to rehearse in the gym space because (1) it was public space and (2) we were members of the university community.

to understand why the security guard came over a bit of background information is in order. during the sars panic of 2003, the university quarrantined the campus. students who lived on campus were not allowed to leave; if they did, they were not allowed back in. in theory, only staff and students who lived off-campus and had appropriate identification were permitted in and out of the campus gates. however, in practice, the university continued to let construction teams on campus. pre-sars, shenzhen university was one of the few, if only, campus to which the general population had free access. since sars, however, the university has tightened restrictions on entering the campus; security guards at one of four gates now regulate access to the university. indeed, in an important sense, they determine who the community might be. all this to say that the sars panic increased the guards’ power to regulate who comes on campus as well as the behavior of folks on campus. (it probably doesn’t need to be said that construction continues unabated as the administration fills in “empty” space with new, improved, and obviously expensive buildings.)

so at the core of the debate between the security guard and fat bird participants was the definition of public space within a space that had been re-designated as private space three years ago. fat bird insisted that “public” meant anyone who could get onto the university. we had, after all, been vetted at the campus gates. public space on campus was therefore available to anyone in the university community to use. in contrast, the security insisted on his responsibility and right to monitor the activity of anyone using the gym. he applied the logic of gates to the gym; one had to demonstrate one’s right to be there.

yet, what obviously drew his attention was how we were using gym space. it seemed that because he didn’t understand what we were doing he wanted us to do it elsewhere. he wasn’t asking us to leave the university, just the section for which he was responsible. there was no indication that what we were doing broke any laws, but rather, that it was inconvenient for us to be there. from the guard’s point of view “one thing less to worry about is better than the alternative (a very, very loose translation of the expression: 多一事不如少一事)”. fat bird has encountered this kind of monitoring public performance in other spaces. in the summer of 2003, fat bird organized a series of improvised responces to symbolically important spaces called “human city”. at several of these places, security guards interupted the performance and asked us to leave.

it is worth noting an important difference between security guards and the police. security guards are hired by private organizations to regulate and monitor use of private space. the police monitor and regulate public space. at one fat bird performance, the security guards actually called the police; we ran away before they showed up. so one of the morals of this story: we are more likely to argue with security guards than with the police.

a second and more sobering moral of this story has to do with regulation of expressive life in the prc. most of us are aware of the prc’s ongoing attempts to censor the internet. this very public battle is important. however, fewer of us are aware of the extent to which regulation takes place at the private level. security guards are just one symptom of a pervasive tendency on the part of private companies and organizations to pre-empt trouble by shutting down that which they don’t understand. throughout shenzhen, security guards monitor gateways into housing, commercial, and industrial developments. then within these spaces, security guards are placed at the entrance to each individual building within the development. the relationship between gate and gymnaseum guards at shenzhen university reproduces this all-too-common way of regulating space. the expression “less is more (多一事不如少一事)” in this context refers to the idea that it’s better to avoid trouble, than to take risks. this means that even if citizens aren’t breaking any laws, security guards nevertheless may (try to) stop them from using space in unconventional or unexpected ways.

unfortunately, the less is more approach to using space permeates our consciousness, so that censorship on expression goes all the way down. after the security guard left, i said that if we wanted to change the guards’ responce to us, we should report them. one of the fat bird members said that they would rather try to convince the guard to leave us alone because it wasn’t worth reporting them.

“what would the head of security do anyway?” she continued, “instead, if this keeps up, i would rather find someplace else to rehearse.”

sometimes, less is just less.

you be the judge. please check out a clip from the 13 may 2006 fat bird workshop. during the workshop, we continued working on new experiences of the body, specifically limiting the body in space.

what might street art be?

Posted on by

I’ve been thinking about the possibility of creating “experimental art” on Shenzhen’s streets. About a year ago, two Dutch artists led a two-day workshop here. They asked us to think about art as something that highlights the nature of everyday life. They suggested that by contrasting “unnatural” or “not normal” activities with quotidian routines, we could explore naturalized (but not natural) social forms and spaces. For example, a group of us sat on the steps of a building, playing with our cell phones. Normal activity for this space. However, every two minutes, we all looked up from our phones, stared straight ahead, and then turned our heads to the right. After a minute, we returned to playing with our cell phones. This kind of collective, planned activity constituted abnormal behavior for this space, highlighting the nature of “hanging out on steps” (among other things.)

At the time, I found this way of thinking quite useful, and have even used a version of it for my Found Objects series. However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder how much this strategy depends on the collective maintenance of social norms in order to be effective. What happens, for example, when the artist’s experiments can’t exceed extant uses of space? For example, walking from my apartment to a friend’s office in downtown Shenzhen the other day, I passed a woman eating out of a garbage can. She scooped handfuls of rice from a styrofoam container into her mouth. A child slept on her lap, his legs dangling near her left hip. Today, as I walked through the park, I noticed a man sitting on a park bench, legs spread, a limp penis in his right hand. Clearly, he intended to be seen because he was sitting next to sidewalk, rather than behind a bush. I’m not sure if he had just finished masturbating or urinating, but hand and organ both glistened in the afternoon sun. What kind of street art could say more about Shenzhen than these two performances? Or perhaps the question is, how might street art respond to these two performances?

Now, I’ve thought about photographing these and similar scenes, but part of me (and thus far the dominant part of me) resists. I don’t want to invade their privacy. This is the sentiment that prevents me from looking more closely and keeps me from snapping that picture. Clearly, they’re not worried about privacy in the way I’m used to thinking of it (behaviors that remain unseen, taking place behind closed doors). But I can’t convince myself that they would therefore welcome a photo shoot opportunity. At this moment, is turning one’s head away correct? Or would a more interesting form of art-response be to sit down and eat with the woman? Offer her food. Is the point to acknowledge the very specific reality at hand (so to speak), making street art a more explicit form of interactive improvisation? I’m as repelled by the idea of sitting down to eat from the garbage can as I am by taking pictures. Certainly, I had no desire to approach that man. What is it in me that turns away? Doesn’t want to look and yet wants to document this world?

It’s not even that these two performances are isolated events. I regularly see “abnormal” use of public spaces in Shenzhen. At construction sites and under park trees, workers take afternoon naps on woven bamboo mats. Beggars arrange themselves on most of the pedestrian overpasses throughout the city, while barbers set up shop underneath, placing a fold-up chair in front of a mirror that they have hung on the cement wall. At mealtime, many bring their rice bowls outside, squatting next to the road and people-watching. And I gaze, but out of the corner of my eyes, unable to bring myself to look directly at all this. It occurs to me that the reason they may have brought their lives to the street is that they can’t afford closed doors. So perhaps I am ashamed to look at poverty? But there may be other reasons they have brought their lives outdoors, just as there are other reasons I keep mine inside. If so, what then pre-empts a conversation? Or the possibility understanding? Is it that by looking away I am offering an exchange—don’t look too closely at me, and I won’t look too closely at you?

In Mandarin one of the words for “shameful” is “not fit to be seen by people (见不得人)”. What does that expression actually refer to? Is it the woman and her child? Is it the conditions that have forced her to eat out of a garbage can? Is it an American woman turning away? Is it how during public events police officers push her and others like her out of sight? Or is the question not what we look at, but how we go about looking? At that moment, is some kind of connection possible?