ARTISTS TALKING

# 26 [21 August 2007]

Water Calligraphy

Met a young woman called Xie Chun Mei in Tuanjiehu Park. She was eager to practice her English which she had a pretty good grasp of I thought. I learnt some numbers and a few taxi directions – but the pronunciation is so difficult to get right.

On the way out of the park the water calligraphers were back practising. I think they start around 430pm each day for a few hours. It seems to be only men who do this. They walk backwards as they write, in the traditional top to bottom format of Chinese writing. One man uses two brushes and can write different characters at the same time. There are generally quite a number of appreciative bystanders watching. They seemed pleased I was interested and happy for me to take photos. Angela Zito who was in this flat before me was researching this practice for her project here.

# 25 [21 August 2007]

A bright clear hot day very like days during the southern Australian summer – but thankfully much more humid, which suits me even with all the sweating! I am still teaching during my residency – I teach online p/t at Swinburne University in Melbourne – and this makes things extremely flexible. I am actually enjoying having this commitment and structure as it can be daunting at times to be in a new place/culture without any of the familiar supports.

I have noticed the labourers working on the myriad building sites around the city live in tents on the pavement outside – hardly full of home comforts. The other night I was walking along Sanlitun Lu, a rather touristy street full of noisy bars on one side and darkened tents on the other with labourers presumably trying to get some sleep before an early start. Work starts early and finishes late for these workers. There are few safety harnesses, either, for those clambering up high along the bamboo scaffolding.

I have managed to get in touch with Professor Ai-Ping Liang at the Institute of Zoology who can identify my insect recordings for me on Friday, which is great.

There has been discussion afoot with Laurens, Yam, Christophe, Ise and I working collaboratively on a project after the laptop night on Sunday. It is hard to know how to approach it as Yam leaves on Friday, Ise leaves on Sunday, and Christophe is based in Tianjin anyway. Laurens has suggested a response to the Dong Yue Temple as a first step, which is where we all met for the first time,

# 24 [20 August 2007]

Guoguo’er

Kelly came to help me search out scientists for identification of the insects in my recordings. It seems that most people are away as this is the summer vacation here in China. May have to wait till early Sept. She tells me ‘guoguo’ means cricket, and I have since found out that it is probably referring to Gampsocleis gratiosa. In Pinyin [Romanised Chinese] this is listed as guoguo’er and I have found references to it in English as a katydid or long horn grasshopper or even a bushcricket. This is the one commonly sold in Northern China and they are kept as pets for their singing. It is carnivorous and will eat prey larger than itself.

I have also now noticed the singing of a cricket outside the front of these flats. The singing is certainly coming from a window and not outdoors, so I will keep an eye/ear out.

Refs

*http://www.bolingo.org/cricket/crickets_nametable.htm

*http://www.cyberbee.net/~huang/pub/insect.html

*http://pisum.bionet.nsc.ru/kosterin/miscel/gratiosa.htm

*http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&word=???&select=whole&search=Search

# 23 [19 August 2007]

798 Dashanzi Art District
Went to 798 again with Julie and Yam yesterday and some openings were on. Saw the Long March space plus Platform China’s 798 branch. We are all starting to talk about group shows/collaborations and the viability of applying for shows here. Apparently 798 has become an 'established' art scene now, and the cutting edge stuff is further out NW towards Bei Gao.

Tony Trembath was at the Japanese meal in the evening – just arrived. The meal was a Red Gate farewell for Isaac [Parker] who returns to Hawaii on Mon. Tonight a group of us are having a laptop show-and-tell at some bar in Sanlitun the name of which I have now forgotten.

# 22 [19 August 2007]

North West of the Forbidden City

Having checked out the Gulou or Drum Tower from the 15th century Ming period [though not the original building] north of the Forbidden City [the original time keeping device], I wandered around the hutong on the hunt for some cricket culture. Not much luck - some say it is too warm at the moment. I did hear two crickets in one house that were certainly pets, which were singing together. I made a recording of them. Interesting to record in a public thoroughfare. Most people were mildly curious and even quite interested when I gestured to the sounds and showed images of crickets. One man told me the crickets are known as ‘guo guo’ – a local name maybe, couldn’t find it in the dictionary. Hope to find insect markets at some point. I have found out about a cricket fighting association which I will look into but am really interested in the singing not the fighting.

Came across a lot more of the hutong destruction on this walk [and completely lost my sense of direction].  Some hutong are still inhabited amongst all the rubble, with radios playing and sounds of cooking indoors. Twice I was told not to take photos.

# 21 [19 August 2007]

Dong Yue Temple and Museum of Folk Customs

Went to the Museum of Folk Customs behind Dong Yue Temple with Laurens and Yam, and also met Christophe and Ise [filmmakers from Paris] and two of their students from Tianjin. Lots of interesting cricket paraphernalia although not much info in English or Chinese. Amazing gourds the acoustics of which are perfected for amplifying the cricket singing inside. Also fighting arenas and pocket cricket containers. These finely crafted wooden cricket containers were so like mobile phones or ipods in terms of size and portability it was uncanny. Nathaniel Mann in the UK passed on an undergrad essay he wrote drawing comparisons between ipods and singing pet crickets and he was certainly on to something. Other items which interested me were the pigeon whistles. These create a particular tone [or maybe song] as a result of the wind passing through them when the pigeons fly.

# 20 [15 August 2007]

Meeting up for a meal tonight in Sanlitun with other resident artists – Laurens Tan and Julie Bartholomew [both from Australia], Yam Lau from Canada and Denise once more. Tomorrow Laurens and I are going to check out the Toy Museum aka the Beijing Museum of Folk Customs along Chaoyangmenwai Dajie where Julie says she has seen cricket cages on display.

# 19 [15 August 2007]

Along Tuenjiehu Lu, the main street near my flat, sometimes large sometimes small groups of old and young men play mahjong. There seem to be regular pick ups of street hawkers by the cops here too. Today I saw a group of tree fellers cycling the parts of the tree away on their tricycles-come-carts – four of them, each carrying a large weighty stump of tree and branches. A lot of work is still done manually, without the use of large machines. In a tourist office in Sanlitun, I asked about sightseeing tour information – but none to be had! No bus map either. In a local hotel, quite small, no English was spoken, and the only tour information was in Chinese. I am getting more reluctant to use the taxi drivers here as they do not know locations much out of their own experience – maps and written instructions in Chinese are of little help, so you have to rely on your wits. Sometimes you simply have to get out of the taxi and hope the next driver knows more, or phone a friend on your mobile who speaks Chinese and ask them to help….

People tend to stare around here at Tuanjiehu but I find a big smile and Ni Hao goes a long way and people grin back. I am quite surprised that this is happening in the capital city. Some people even push their kids towards me so they can photograph us together – and some kids rightly protest!

# 18 [14 August 2007]

The other day got to 798, a huge and active place full of lots of galleries, towards the north west of the city – on the way to Bei Gao and all the artists’ villages out that way. Met Eileen Zhang and Tiger [who had helped me set up ADSL for the mac in the flat] at 798/Red Gate. The show there is Jiang Weitao’s abstract paintings – interesting work that he names ‘Art Documents’. In the catalogue Tally Beck, the manager of 798/Red Gate, discusses Chinese and Western abstract traditions, which is very interesting [my background is as an abstract painter]. Chinese abstraction emerges from the “philosophical link between Chinese calligraphy, painting and poetry. This trinity of expression, known as san jue, or the ‘three perfect things’ is a concept acknowledged…as one of the keys to understanding Chinese artists’ approach to abstraction” [Tally Beck – The Harmonic Abstraction of Jiang Weitao – catalogue essay].

Also found the Long March Space, which has some great acoustics and is a great looking space. Did a number of recordings here – the cicadas were top volume – deafening. At least two types singing. Before I got any further I bumped into Denise with Qu Zi Jian, an engineer here for a few days from down south near Hong Kong, and Sun Yu Ming, an artist who has settled here in Beijing to promote his career. Denise has some Chinese and Qu Zi Jian has some English, but Sun Yu Ming and I do not have either so we had some laughs communicating via drawing in my sketch book, not to mention the obligatory Tsing Tao beer.

Also got to the Natural History Museum the other day, in the pursuit of local cicadas and crickets. Kind of disappointing really, though a fair few specimens, hard to tell if they were local. Will try to contact an entomologist via this institution who could identify the species in my recordings. Came across my first experience of the wholesale destruction of parts of Beijing that we hear about – it was quite horrific. I was looking for Qianmen Dajie, a shopping street south of Tian’anmen Square and all that was left was rubble surrounded by billboards – shocking! I followed the crowd past this and found some hutong still in existence but surrounded by rubble on each side with the constant tap tap tapping of the manual destruction of all the buildings around. What happens to the people whose businesses are destroyed? Presumably they are ‘relocated’ but I can’t imagine there is a lot of compensation handed out.

# 17 [13 August 2007]

Got to the Forbidden City today - truly amazing to see, as amazing as Angkor in Cambodia; in the same vein, sumptuous design and colour and layout, so lovely to walk around and just be in such an ancient and highly refined cultural space. Lots of tourists but is so enormous you can find quiet spots quite easily - and would need several trips really. Huge grandiose spaces plus intimate/domestic small spots for wells and such like, all built with the same amazing attention to detail. The place is covered in glazed tiling.

Also Tian'anmen Square - which is really just an expanse of concrete pavement with Mao's mausoleum planted slap bang in the alignment of the Forbidden City's gates, a bad feng shui spot apparently. Didnt go in, it is shut till 20th Sept, so could go with Cameron and Jake if we want to see a waxy embalmed Mao! Apparently his request was cremation. The Vietnamese embalmers of Ho Chi Minh gave tips on Mao's preservation apparently. No reference to the 1989 massacre of course, the 20 year anniversary of which will come hot on the heels of the Olympics.