We Visit the New Artists' Community
Today the children had their "homestay," the day that they go home with their conversation buddies for a taste of how regular Chinese kids their age live. Ryan and Sam went together, which was a relief to me because I've been concerned about this event. In recent days, the director of the program, Bai Fan, seems to be vague and sometimes inconsistent in her answers to questions about the families. It became clear that many of the buddies' families were reluctant to bring our kids to their homes, perhaps because they were embarrassed about how modest their living quarters are. It certainly isn't because it's too much trouble to clean the place, which would be my excuse. In the morning I emailed Ching ching to let her know that even though we left her yesterday saying we would probably be too exhausted to see her today, I could get away to see her if she needed some girlfriend time.

She emailed back that she, too, was exhausted. But knowing the importance of seizing the moment, she offered to show us around the new artists' community in Beijing and take us to lunch there. We agreed to rendezvous at the Lido Hotel where Chingching would then direct us to the artists' community, because "you're never gonna find it." It was tucked away in a section of old factories, some still in use, near the airport. The taxi could only go as far as street and we had to walk the rest of the way into a village-sized cluster of high-ceiled industrial buildings. The places were very much like SOHO lofts, painted white inside with lots of windows and exposed pipes. One of the first large studios we entered was an abandoned factory that still had quotations of Chairman Mao painted on the rafters in big red Chinese characters. Underneath the fading slogans was one particularly provocative painting of nude, young, Chinese men curled up around each other -- kind of like a Klimt painting or that famous old nude of John and Yoko in bed. I later found out that this ironic juxtoposition of Mao sayings or images is a very common sight in new China, if for no other reason than the fact that there too many old Mao references and too little time. In other words, new China is moving so fast, it hasn't the time nor the inclination to erase the past to make way for the future.

The next gallery blew me away. It contained rows and rows of headless wire mannekins wearing every color of tattered Mao jackets and work pants. Empty suits. They resembed a unit of those ghostly terra cotta soldiers in Xian.

There was a terrifice pair of comic book statues of Chairman Mao holding hands with Karl Marx. We mugged it up in front of them as chingching took pictures. Then the moms decided that chingching and I ought to pose together in front of the statues to echo the student-mentor relationship between the two men. I was supposed to stand in front of the mentor Marx while ching ching stood in front the Mao, the student, but that would have meant exposing the right side of my face (henceforth to be called my "bad side,") to the camera. So we did the opposite, but I think the any viewer who cares will get the point.

We had a great 2 1/2 hour lunch in which we touched on many important subjects such as .