More on Chinese Art in Kansas City

Frequent commenter on this blog and blogger himself, Ramesh, in the last post I made on the Nelson-Atkins Museum's Journey Through Mountains and Rivers asked me, "Why Kansas City? Why does Kansas City have such a great Chinese art collection?"

My generic response was that Kansas City is a great arts town. With the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (among others), it's safe to say that Kansas City is punching above its weight in terms of world-class art per capita.

That's not the entire story, though. Earlier this week, I was looking up some information on the scrolls currently being displayed at the Nelson and came across, what I think, are more specific answers to Ramesh's questions.

I'm going to post an entire article from the site viamei.com. I normally wouldn't post the entirety of an article like this, but ViaMei - a website highlighting the Xi'an/Kansas City sister-city relationship - appears to be a defunct enterprise. Their last post was in 2007.

Here is an article giving a nice introduction to how and why Kansas City is home to one of the very top collections of ancient Chinese art in the world:

Ancient China Lives in America 

By Scott Stuart 

 

Kansas City is the gateway to Asia.

From where Asian art expert Marc F. Wilson sits in his position as Director and CEO of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, this is not an audacious claim. Though situated in the center of the continent, Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins connects visitors with a comprehensive collection of treasures from China's long, unbroken artistic tradition spanning from Neolithic times to the 20th century. 　

Masterpieces among the museum's amazing collection of 7,500 works of Chinese art include:

- A polychrome wooden Avalokiteshvara, "Seated Guanyin Bodhisattva," possibly the best-preserved and most magnificent sculpture from this period of Chinese Buddhist art:

 

- A limestone frieze from the Longmen Grottoes, "Procession of the Empress as Donor with Her Court," whose counterpoint "Emperor as Donor" resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:

 

- A painting from circa 1049, Xu Daoning's "Fisherman's Evening Song," scholars hail as perhaps the greatest Northern Song landscape handscroll in existence:

 

- A rare, nearly complete earthenware "Tomb Model of a House" from the Han dynasty (25 to 220 C.E.):

 

- A precious ritual disk, or bi, some consider the most beautiful piece of jade to have come out of China:

 

Scholarly superlatives aside, what can visitors to the Nelson-Atkins glean from their individual encounters with these rare masterpieces and how did this amazing collection of 7,500 works of Chinese art in every medium and from every historical period, including tomb figures, sculpture, porcelain, furniture and scroll paintings, come to the American Midwest in the first place?

The short answer to this last question lies in the person of Laurence Sickman (1906-1988), the Asian art specialist who advised the Nelson-Atkins on purchases of Far Eastern art when the museum's collection was being assembled in the 1930s. Acting as the museum's agent in Beijing, a young Sickman exercised a keen eye and a shrewd business sense to send Chinese art works to Kansas City. Sickman went on to become the first curator of Oriental art at the Nelson-Atkins, and led the museum as its second director, from 1953 to 1977. His book with Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China, first printed in 1956, remains a classic work on the history of Chinese culture.

Sickman's legacy of collecting Chinese art of the highest quality is unmistakable in the Nelson-Atkins' holdings in two areas in which he specialized: ancient bronzes and Chinese paintings. A series of ceremonial bronze vessels, weapons and chariot fittings range from about 1200 to 500 B.C.E. The museum's collection of Chinese paintings is among the best outside of Asia, including Ming dynasty masterpieces by Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming and Lu Zhi.

Although the entire collection of fine Chinese art cannot be on view at any one time, a handful of star works representing the highest achievements can convey the creative impulse, cultural context and visual solutions across the ages.

Seated majestically in a reconstructed Chinese temple in the Nelson-Atkins, "Seated Guanyin Bodhisattva," is the destination for pilgrims from around the world. This monumental image of the deity of compassion and mercy appeals to those within its gaze today, just as it would have in the 11th to early 12th centuries. Designed to make supplicants feel enlightened, beings were accessible to the living, the Guanyin's emotional approachability offers a sense of calm and inspiration.

"Procession of the Empress as Donor with Her Court" is from the Binyang Cave chapel at Longmen, Henan Province. Besides being important as a work of sculpture, the large, 7-by-9-foot limestone frieze reveals clues about Chinese painting techniques in this early period of Chinese Buddhist history. The composition of the eight figures and the modeling that provides maximum effect from light filtering in from the cave entrance demonstrates the great skill of the unknown sculptor. Its Kansas City installation, anchoring the museum's gallery of Early Chinese Buddhist sculpture, attempts to recreate this sense of directional light.

The handscroll format of "Fisherman's Evening Song" allows a close-up encounter with the viewer. Although nearly 7 feet long, the landscape scroll was meant to be seen only about 2 feet at a time. By focusing on a single section, the viewer can appreciate painter Xu Daoning's virtuosity with ink washes and directness of line. Taken as a whole, the 11th-century painting has been likened to a musical composition, with calm passages swelling to dramatic crescendos, expressing the overwhelming vastness of nature.

The jade "Ritual Disc with Dragon Motif" is among the best-known objects in the collections of the Nelson-Atkins. Although its exact function or meaning is lost to the ages, the delicate, 6 ?-inch bi is remarkable from a technical standpoint. Jade, which the ancient Chinese valued more than gold or jewels, is so hard that it must be ground instead of carved. The space between two rings of nearly transparent jade is filled with small, spiral bumps the size of kernels of grain. Two tigers on the outer rim befit this object's likely role in the grave of a great prince or statesman.

Besides promising a rewarding experience of visual enjoyment, the Chinese collection in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art invites a better understanding of human nature and the creative impulse to Western and non-Western visitor alike. Via the Nelson-Atkins -- in the words of Wilson, who began his career there as a Ford Foundation Fellow under the tutelage of Sickman -- Kansas City is the gateway to Asia.

There's still a lot I don't know or understand about the Nelson's collection of Chinese art and Kansas City's relationship with China in general. Seeing that I'm a China news/history/culture junkie living in the middle of America, these topics are something I'll probably be exploring more in depth as time passes.

I was born and raised in Kansas City. It's also where Qian and I have ended up after moving from Xi'an to the US in 2009. Kansas City isn't the most amazing place on Earth, but it's a surprisingly interesting place in a lot of respects and I'm proud of where I grew up and currently live. I'm excited to learn more about its relationship with my other favorite place on the globe - China.

I'll surely be posting whatever more I find on these topics here.

Journey through Mountains and Rivers

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - probably the biggest treasure in Kansas City - has a wonderful, free China exhibit going on now until April 28th - Journey through Mountains and Rivers: Chinese Landscapes Ancient and Modern.

On display are some of the museum's most prized Song Dynasty (960 - 1279AD) paintings and scrolls that "because of their fragility, will not be displayed again for ten years." And then, as the centerpiece of their China exhibit, one tremendously large modern painting by Xu Longsen done on an epic scale.

I didn't try to take photos of the old Song paintings. I knew that they are sensitive to light and am pretty sure that they wouldn't come out well on this blog. Here is a video from the Nelson highlighting the pieces of this exhibit, though:



Several of the pieces on display are scrolls that span several feet when laid out. Moving from right to left, the scrolls tell a story. Mountains, rivers, pagodas: the paintings are the ideal that many think of when they envision centuries-old Chinese art. The detail and great condition of the pieces are mind-boggling. I could hardly believe what I was looking at. Having a dozen or so master works laid out in a small, quiet room (that Qian and I were the only people occupying for a few minutes) is simply awesome.

It was hard for me not to think when viewing these ancient works that it's a good thing that these pieces left China in the late-19th and early-20th century. It's much better, in my opinion, that these pieces be on display in Kansas City than burned up during one of Mao's chaotic, anti-intellectual campaigns.

The other highlight of the Nelson's China exhibit - Xu Longsen's contemporary piece - is similar in some ways to these ancient scroll paintings. Xu is strongly influenced by nature and the Daoism. His abstract work, which took years to complete, is quite a sight.

Below are photos I snapped of Xu's piece:

















If you'll be in Kansas City or the midwest over the coming few weeks, you need to come check out this exhibit. I'd be happy to go with you! Entry to the Nelson is always free and this special exhibit is as well. Qian and I are going to go on a tour of the museum to see these pieces again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to spending a little bit more time learning about these pieces since my first trip, when I snapped these photos, was a little rushed.

Edit - The Kansas City Star has two pieces today about these China exhibits. Here is the one on the centuries-old master works. And here is the one on Xu Longsen's mammoth painting.

1978 National Geographic - China's Incredible Find

Qian and I went to an estate sale in our neighborhood yesterday. Qian saw an old box full of National Geographic magazines on sale for $5.00 and began thumbing through them. Once she saw the third issue in the pile, she called me over.

This is what she saw:



Knowing how big of a China nerd I am, she guessed correctly that this vintage account of China's terra cotta warrior discovery is something I'd want.

The terra cotta warriors were discovered an hour east of Xi'an in 1974. This 1978 National Geographic account highlights the initial progress that the Chinese were making with the discovery and gives the basic history of the warriors. It's a very interesting read. It's definitely worth the $.50 we paid for it.

I spent a few minutes this morning scanning all twenty pages of the story. My scans aren't that great and I'm not sure the best way to display these images on the confined spaces of this blog. I put together a collage of the story below anyways. I think they're worth posting as is:

Behind the Red Door

When I heard that The Peking Duck blog's author, Richard Burger, had written a book, I knew it was something I'd want to check out. I found The Peking Duck in early 2006 after I'd just arrived in China for the first time. I've been reading it ever since. It was one of the first and most popular China blogs in the blogosphere and it has maintained its quality over the years. Burger has influenced my blog and my thoughts on China a great deal.

Burger, a trained professional journalist, chose a spicy topic for his book that is of interest to anyone: sex. Behind the Red Door: Sex in China, published last month, is a survey of Chinese culture, history, and attitudes towards sex from ancient times to the present day.



Burger's book is broken into the following parts:

Introduction
1. Sex in Imperial China
2. Dating and Marriage
3. The Sex Trade
4. The Family
5. Homosexuality
6. Education and Health
7. China's Shifting Sexual Landscape
Parting Thoughts

The book covers a lot in a little over 200 pages. The book discusses ancient China and a number of the dynasties before the 20th century, but most of the book is about contemporary China. Like really contemporary, as in the last ten years and particularly the last five.

Anyone who's read Burger's blog knows that he is a China news junkie of the highest magnitude. He weighs in on just about every noteworthy current event in China on his blog and has done so for a decade now. This deep and encyclopedic knowledge that he's developed over the years blogging turns out to be a great resource in writing a book. I consider myself a pretty hardcore China news junkie and Burger busts out all kinds of stories and events that I'd missed.

Two of my favorite parts of the book are about something right up Burger's alley: blogging. Burger uses two bloggers - China Bounder's (aka. David Marriot) Sex and Shanghai blog from 2006 and Muzimei's Left-over Love Letters blog from 2003 - as prisms through which to view sex in contemporary China.

China Bounder was the pseudonym used by a British man who slept with dozens of young Chinese women in Shanghai and then wrote about his sexscapades on his blog. After a few posts, the China Bounder blog went viral. Chinese people, in particular, were infuriated with this foreign devil who deflowered untold numbers of Chinese women with no regard for who he left in his wake.

Muzi Mei was the pseudonym used by a woman from Guangzhou who wrote of similar promiscuity (with Chinese men) on her blog. Readers of her romps initially measured in the hundreds and then thousands and then, before the blog was shut down, tens of millions. She was a pioneer in sexual liberation in China.

I was vaguely aware of both of these examples. They were a little before my time, though. I caught the tail end of the China Bounder fame but completely missed the controversy Muzi Mei created back in 2003.  Burger does a great job of telling the two bloggers' stories and how they are related China's ongoing sexual revolution.

Another area that Burger nails is prostitution. I really liked this following passage from pages 72 and 73:

Burger is right on with this passage. I found the same attitudes towards prostitution myself. There were pink light hair salon prostitutes all over the neighborhood where I lived. Prostitution was (and still is) rampant in Xi'an (just like it is in the rest of China). I like the way that Burger ties China's lax attitudes towards paid sex today to Chinese culture and history.

The final part of the book I want to comment on is the discussion of the male/female imbalance in the final Parting Thoughts chapter. I agree with Burger that China's skewed male/female ratio - somewhere around 118 boys born for every 100 girls - is one of the largest problems facing China and the world, for that matter. There are going to be tens of millions of men in China in the coming years who will simply be unable to marry. Burger has a nice analysis of what to expect with this looming disaster.

The only thing that I wish Burger had done differently with his book is include footnotes and references. Behind the Red Door is a non-fiction book with few personal anecdotes. A book like this should've had references in my opinion. It's not as if I would've checked many (or any, honestly) of the sources of information, but I feel that notes for the hundreds of references Burger made would've been helpful.

Behind the Red Door is a nuanced, thoughtful book about China. He's done a nice job with his first book. It's accessible and at the same time informative. Being about sex, it's also quite a fun read.

Chinese Art in Kansas City

A new exhibit of centuries-old paintings stored in Kansas City, Missouri and Lawrence, Kansas are now on display at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

From The Kansas City Star:

 

The most enchanting show of the summer is tucked away in the Chinese paintings gallery at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. 

“Faces From China’s Past” is a walk-in album of charming portraits from the 16th to the 19th centuries. 

Their subjects — imposing matrons and fetching young women, stately ancestors and learned men — seem remote from us in customs and dress, yet seeing them enjoy their pets and favorite pastimes in lovely gardens and elegant interiors, one immediately feels a sense of kinship. 

And there’s just enough of a “boy meets girl” theme to keep things interesting. 

That notion gets quite an airing in a series of exquisite illustrations for an erotic novel, “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” chronicling the amorous adventures of a rich merchant, Master Ximen. He’s a randy and at times cruel character, not above climbing a garden wall to have a tryst with his brother’s wife or punishing a wayward concubine with a whip. 

Nearby, “Listening to the Qin by Candlelight,” a 17th-century piece showing a man playing the ancient stringed instrument for a female companion, presents a much more civilized approach to romance. 

Drawn from the collections of the Nelson and the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, the artworks in this show were made for enjoyment and commemoration by mostly unknown artists. And many of the works have languished in storage for years. 

“Scholars weren’t interested in this type of painting; it’s not what Chinese consider mainstream,” said Colin Mackenzie, the Nelson’s senior curator of Chinese painting. The mainstream is landscape painting, he said, “created by the educated elite to express a philosophical view of art.” 

 

Read On  

The Nelson-Atkins Museum has one of the finest collections of Chinese art in the world. Here is a summary of the Nelson-Atkins' permanent Chinese collection:

Since it opened in 1933, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has actively collected, preserved, studied and exhibited works of Chinese art. Even before the Museum was built, its benefactors planned to include in it the first major gallery in America devoted solely to Chinese art. As early as 1930, the focus was to build a collection that would represent China’s highest achievements in every medium and from every historical period. As a result, the Chinese collection is one of the finest in the world. 

With more than 7,500 works of high quality, the Chinese collection comprises masterpieces from every historical stage and in every medium of China’s artistic activity – from Neolithic times to the 20th century. 

The collection of Chinese paintings is one of the best outside Asia particularly in the rarest and desirable period of early Chinese landscapes, the 10th through 13th centuries C.E. The richness of nature’s nuances can be seen in Xu Daoning’s Fisherman’s Evening Song, arguably the greatest surviving Northern Song landscape handscroll. Later period works include exceptional Ming and Qing paintings, such as Shitao’s A Landscape Album for Liu Shitou (K'u-kua miao-t'i). 

As a pioneer in collecting Ming furniture, the Museum’s collection is virtually unrivaled outside of China. The comprehensive ceramics collection spans 5,000 years and includes both sculptures and wares that chronicle the great epochs of Chinese ceramic innovations. 

Buddhist sculpture and wall paintings range from the Northern Dynasties to the Qing period and offer some of the best examples of Buddhist art in the west. A jewel of the Museum is the Chinese Temple Gallery (Gallery 230). Among Buddhist statues exhibited here is an 11th/12th-century C.E. polychrome wooden Avalokiteshvara, Seated Guanyin Bodhisattva, internationally heralded as the finest sculpture of its kind outside China.

Qian and I have been to the Nelson, which has free admission, several times in the three years we've been in Kansas City. The whole museum, on top of the Chinese collection, is just an awesome display.


The Nelson-Atkins Museum

The Chinese works of art are far superior to anything I ever saw in China. I haven't spent a lifetime checking out other cities' museums' Chinese collections, but I have to believe that the Nelson's is up there with any collection in the world.

If you ever find yourself in Kansas City, be sure to check out the Nelson-Atkins Museum's Chinese collection. Send me an email and I'll go with you. We can catch some BBQ after we see the museum too. Kansas City's BBQ, my favorites being Oklahoma Joe's and Jack Stack, is as good as it gets.

Invisible China

Invisible China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson is a really pleasant book. I randomly found it on Amazon. I'd never heard about it from the Chinese blogosphere or anywhere else.



The two authors - Legerton and Rawson - went on two epic backpacking trips in the summer of 2006 and spring of 2007 that covered a ridiculously large swath of China's territory:



Legerton and Rawson, who were already proficient with Mandarin before their big trips, studied up on Korean and Uyghur before they embarked on their gargantuan journeys.

Their rigorous study of minority languages says a lot about the duo. They have immense respect for the cultures that they saw and made the most of their great opportunity to see cultures that, for many of them, are on the brink of extinction. The authors handled the people and situations they encountered with great care and painted very delicate pictures of the individuals and landscapes they witnessed.

Invisible China introduced me to a wide range of ethnic minorities in China I wasn't familiar with before: the rustic hunting cultures of the Ewenki, Oroqen, and Daur of the northeast, the fishermen Kinh of the southwest, and the central Asian-influenced Tajiks of the far west.

I particularly liked that two-thirds of the book is focused on China's southwest and far west. I've said it many times, but for me, China gets more interesting the further west one goes. The jungles and Himalayas of the southwest and the deserts and plateaus of the far west made for great settings.

My only real complaint about the book is that it is too short. There is so much covered in only about 230 pages. I wish that the authors had laid out more facts and history about each ethnic minority they were profiling. Brief histories of each group were given, but not much more than the basics and then the duo's experiences visiting their homelands. Seeing that they profiled fifteen different peoples and had thirteen different chapters, 230 pages felt squeezed. It easily could've been twice as long and I'd have been happy.

Invisible China is a great primer to the surprisingly diverse peoples on the fringes of the People's Republic.

Americans in China

I don't think This American Life is going to have to have to issue a retraction for their most recent expedition in to China.

The radio program, produced by WBEZ in Chicago and distributed by Public Radio International, caused a huge stir this spring when it had to retract its program - Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory - by performer, Mike Daisey. It turned out that Daisey had made up many of the key points of his hugely popular monologue about witnessing abuses at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Watching the truth come to the surface was a wild thing to witness. I get a sick sense of enjoyment watching people get called out on lying and experienced a great deal of schadenfreude hearing Daisey taken to task as hard as he was by Rob Schmitz and Ira Glass.

Following up their piece from a pathological liar who admitted he knew "fuck-all about Chinese culture," This American Life redeemed itself this week by featuring a line-up of some of the most influential and knowledgeable foreigners living in China. This week's episode, Americans in China, is one of the better This American Life episodes I've heard (although I have to say that my favorite episode is still Somewhere Out There... do yourself a favor and listen to this one that's also China-related).

Kaiser Kuo is the main character in the most recent "Americans in China" episode. He's the host of the Sinica Podcast, a program I've touted numerous times on my blog. His story of being a Chinese American who completely fell for the land his parents came from, moving to China and literally becoming a rock star, having his Chinese band mates turn their backs on him after the Chinese embassy was bombed in Belgrade in 1999 because he's American, and ultimately raising his family in Beijing and working for Baidu is fascinating. I was quite moved by his passion for both China and the US.

The second act of the "Americans in China" episode is from Michael Meyer. His piece is about living in his wife's village in rural northeast China.

I read Meyer's book The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed last year, actually, but never got around to writing anything about it on my blog. I didn't really have anything to say about it. There was nothing overtly wrong or bad about Meyer's book, but I was just, for lack of a better word, bored by it.

My reaction to Meyer's book reminds me of my brother's reaction to Peter Hessler. After a huge amount of hype from me, I convinced my brother to read Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones a couple years ago. Oracle Bones is one of my all-time favorite books. I was so surprised when, a few weeks after he had started it, he told me that he couldn't finish the book. He said that Hessler's seriousness and humorlessness just got to him and that he couldn't continue reading.

I feel that way about Meyer's book and his piece on This American Life. I can't put my finger on it, but I haven't enjoyed his work as much as I have a lot of other prolific China hands'.

Despite not being enthralled with Meyer's piece, it was good to hear such quality programming on Americans in China. Kuo's story, framed by the excellent Evan Osnos, alone is worth listening to. This American Life has gone a long way in making up for whatever it egg it still had on its face from when it featured Mike Daisey.

AnDa Union

Back in November of last year, a group of Inner Mongolian musicians - AnDa Union - came through Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri on their US tour. The group performed at the Lied Center on the campus of the University of Kansas. In addition to their live show, there was also a screening of a documentary about the group at a library in Kansas City.

I want to share AnDa Union and their music here on my blog. They're awesome.



I'll first talk about their show and then the documentary about the group.

AnDa Union's show was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. They use instruments unique to the grasslands of northern China, belt out "Mongolian throat singing" for their vocals, and select their songs from a catalog of ethnic folk music from the steppes of the Mongolian plateau.

To get a taste of what they're about, here is a YouTube video of the song "Derlcha" from a performance they gave in January, 2011:



Very unique stuff. I'd never seen anything like the bowed instruments most of them are playing. That's not an er hu. It's an instrument native to ethnic Mongolians (that I don't know the name of). I found it interesting that, as you can see from the video, they're not pressing down on the strings when they play that instrument. Instead, they're pushing their fingers onto the fret board next to the string.

Here's a photo of what I'm talking about:



Below is another video of what was probably my favorite song of the show - "Galloping Horses." This song was the finale of the show we saw in Lawrence:



This song, and their whole show really, is so high-energy. In addition to unlike just about anything else in the world, AnDa Union's music is simply a lot of fun. I personally think having a good time is what going to see a music performance is all about and felt very happy after the show had ended.

I regret not getting this post written a few months ago when they were still on tour in the US so others would know about the group. Looking at their website, their next several shows are in Australia and New Zealand and they will be playing in London this summer. Their website also says that they'll have a UK and European tour this summer and autumn. If they're coming near where you live, I'd definitely check them out.

If AnDa Union isn't coming to your area, you should look out for the soon-to-be-released documentary about the group - AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City.

I was lucky enough to help organize the first North American screening of the film on November 2, 2011 at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Library. Several musicians from the band and the director/producer of the documentary were there to watch the film with us and then answer questions afterwards.

The premise of the film is to introduce you to the band in the city where they all live - Hohhot, Inner Mongolia - and then take you to each one of the band member's home towns/villages. If I remember correctly, all of the members of the group are from the countryside of Inner Mongolia (if they all aren't, most of them are).

Inner Mongolia, traditionally, was a nomadic place where life revolved around raising animals and surviving the harsh seasons. Now, there are big cities are popping up throughout the autonomous region. The growth rate in Inner Mongolia is one of China's highest as the region is flush with an abundance of natural resources. A lot of the traditions and culture native to the region are being lost due to the homogeneousness that comes with economic development.

The footage of going back to each group member's home and meeting their families is a wonderful thing to see. The viewer gets to meet their families, see the food they eat, and see the homes where they live. Seeing all of these things is not something you can experience through too many other mediums.

Between visits to different home villages, there's footage of the musicians in the group practicing their songs, teaching lessons to young Inner Mongolians interested in learning traditional music, fine-tuning their instruments, and performing their songs. The film shows how the music is intimately intertwined with the places that they are from.

I really liked "AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City." Not only is it great to see the group doing things related to their music, but it's even better getting to see the culture from which their music is derived. Being invited into homes deep in the Inner Mongolian countryside is not something that many will ever get to experience.

The Screenings section of the movie's website gives a number of film festivals that the film is being shown at in the coming months. If I ever see anything about the film's wide-spread release in the future, I will be sure to post it here to my blog.

I got a huge intake of AnDa Union back in early November. It's so cool that they - and a number of other China-related acts - came through Kansas this past year. The only thing I missed seeing during AnDa Union's stay in Kansas was their jam with local Lawrence musicians at a local coffeeshop. I couldn't make it to that night. I'm sure it was a sight to see.





Edit: Thanks to fellow blogger Ramesh for sharing that AnDa Union was featured on the BBC World Service on 2/14/2012. This is a really good interview with the producer of the film and one of the band members.

CNY, Foxconn, and Baijiu

Happy Chinese New Year!!



I love that video. So happy and joyful. China is a wonderful place to be during the days leading up to and the days following the lunar new year. Qian and I have missed China a lot the past few days.

Now that you've finished reveling in the awesomeness that is China in wintertime, listen to this hour-long This American Life podcast about an American guy visiting the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. This is worth your time.

And then finally, to all of you capping off this taking-in-some-Chinese-culture-session with a shot of baijiu, I say to you ,"Gan bei!"

Chineseposters.net

Someone I follow on Twitter (I can't remember who) linked up to a great website a couple weeks ago. The website is chineseposters.net. It features Chinese posters from throughout the 20th century up to today. My favorites are the iconic propaganda posters from the height of Maoist era in the 1950s - 1970s.


1966
Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong to wage the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the end - Revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified - link

You'll see these sorts of Mao-era posters at antique markets or at youth hostels and bars. But there really aren't too many remnants of these posters, or this era as a whole, in China today.

As a student of Chinese history, I find these posters so interesting. The height of Mao Zedong thought and the campaigns carried out during that era continue to fascinate me.

I'm going to post a few more posters from the site here. Go check out the site to see the wide array the authors have collected.


1958
Study the Soviet Union, to advance to the world level of science - link


1965
Fully engage in the movement to increase production and to practice economy to set off a new upsurge in industrial production - link


1953
It's glorious to take part, to oppose America, support Korea, protect the home and the nation - link