Faces of China

What is the most striking aspect of modern Chinese society? Or rather, what is the first thing you notice when you spent some time in China? The presence of money. Not the money we all have or intend to obtain, but the kind of money that smells.

A lot has been said about the influences of capitalism in China. One can see what it does to the landscape, for instance. Take a train from Beijing to Shanghai and you will pass a landscape so horrifying that you’d rather not leave the train. Every inch of this country seems filled with power plants and coalmines. Drive through Beijing, or any other major city in China for that matter, and one can see the other end of capitalism. I don’t think I ever saw so many shopping malls in one city in my life. The influence of this capitalism also shows itself in more subtle ways. The TV-screens in the Beijing subway cars display an obscure mixture of propaganda and advertisement. It must be confusing for Chinese to draw the line between government statements and the promotion of products that you can buy, if you wish to. Capitalism doesn’t bring along freedom or democracy, this is an old argument but no sane person can hold on to this argument after visiting China. However, the whole concept of capitalism does contain a certain free choice. Which brand do you buy? Which store do you go to? I presume this is Chinese freedom. Global concepts of this magnitude, like freedom and capitalism, do not exist. It is a fairytale to believe that ‘our’ freedom is applicable on Chinese society, just as ‘our’ capitalism didn’t make it to China the way we thought it up.

The injection of money, on a scale as mind blowing as in China, has some very peculiar consequences. Especially in China, one should add. I will not go into the way capitalism is used by the regime, or how Chinese feel about this sudden commercialisation of their system. For now, let us stick to the explosive presence of money in a small street in Beijing.

I am not an expert of the arts. If I was, I probably wouldn’t call it ‘the arts’. But I like to visit museums, galleries and expositions whenever I can. Beijing’s most famous and most discussed art district is the ‘798’-street, in the north-east of the city, outside the forth ring road. It is what some people call a “Lonely Planet destination”, because of the busloads of foreigners that come here everyday to see what the real Chinese ‘underground art’ is like. They drink their ‘latte’s’ and eat their bagels while listening to Norah Jones and speaking about the changes in China. Oh yes, there are also galleries. Quite a few actually, and some of the art on display is very interesting. For us, that is. One of the biggest problems we experience trying to find common ground with Chinese is the difference in concepts, just like mentioned above. Art is another good example of something that just isn’t quite the same in Beijing as it is in Berlin. The Chinese have a artistic tradition that goes back 5000 years, this is not just a Chinese textbook riddle but it is actually true. But what they consider to be art is probably something Homer or Picasso would look down upon. The other way around, Li Bai (China’s most famous poet, and a known alcoholic) would never call what Dante Alighieri wrote ‘poetry’. In modern Chinese art you end up smashing into the same wall you always do when trying to make up your mind on what you think of it: the works we like are suitable to our taste, but the Chinese will definitely not like them. In Europe, China’s most respected filmmaker is Jia Zhangke. But in China the man is hardly known. People who do know him will tell you that his work is boring and too negative. This is not because the Chinese don’t understand cinema, or have bad taste. Their concept of cinema is different. Their approach to a movie is different.

Why is it then, that ‘we’ the foreigners all love 798? Because the most of what is on display there, is what you would call western Chinese art. For example, a lot of artists who hold expositions there went to art school in Europe. Or grew up in the United States. Most of the owners of the galleries in 798 are Europeans. We think we are looking at the expressions of a new generation of Chinese who represent the spirit of this changing country. Even though the artists on display are young and Chinese, there is something very contradicting in this (however beautiful) statement. The 798-complex started when artists entered the deserted factories that were of no use after the privatisation movement. This movement brought economic activity but also caused the bankruptcy of most of the government run industries. The few artists who used these inspiring spaces to paint art were soon spotted by the foreigners who invested in the complex, and made it what it is today. A thriving art business, with everything that accompanies such a place (coffee and bagels, bookstores and dance clubs). By the time it became a famous tourist spot, it had already imploded, mostly because the regimes hands were all over it. Obviously, because there is no such thing as free expression in China, especially not in the arts. So even though you will see exciting art, young people expressing what they see, it is all within the realm of CCP-thought. But I am drifting here. Let us go back to the presence of money in modern Beijing.

For a lot of people, money in Beijing is one of the symptoms of progress. They will point out the expensive cars driving through the streets of Beijing and tell you that change is in the air. This argument is hard to loose, unless you really start looking who drives these cars. The same goes for places like Block8 (blockade), one of the most expensive bars in Beijing. You enter this luxurious bar by elevator. When inside, you can easily forget you are in China. Everything shines, everything looks immaculate and chique. The cheapest drink is 80 yuan, or 8 euro. But the people who come here don’t order the cheapest drink. They will go for the table in the corner, an investment for the whole night because you pay 2000 yuan just to reserve it. Then the champagne comes, and the Japanese sushi, and the exotic fruit. A security guard will stand next to the purple velvet rope surrounding the table to close it off for those who didn’t pay to sit. The Chinese people who sit here, who go out in these places, do they really represent the new China? Is this the progress?

In 798 I witnessed an event of the same degree of decadence. Just to relieve us from the illusion that the ‘art-street’ was actually about art, Aston Martin opened it’s China Showroom in the centre of the street. So next to Chinese modern art, you will also be able to look at cars. What struck me was the fact that they made it seem so natural to put a car showroom in an art gallery. The opening night was so extreme that it took away the attention from everything else. They had photographers, girls in short skirts playing violin, celebrities walking in over a red carpet and huge coolers with Fleuve-Cliquot champagne.

The saddest things of it all, is that I wasn’t even surprised. I have been in China long enough to realise what it’s all about. Not for everyone, and not always, but often. No one can legitimise an Aston Martin showroom in the 798-street, and I would assume that especially the artists themselves are quite offended by it. Because if Aston Martin actually believes that what they are making is on the same level as the artists on display, it is disturbing. And if they built their showroom there because they know that 798 attracts a lot of rich and ‘creative’ investors, then it is just wrong. But this is something that happens everyday in Beijing. The wealth of the few has no limits, and they have no shame.

I as a foreigner, a westerner, feel ashamed, because this is what we bring to China. The Chinese mention progress and westernisation in the same phrase. But the things we should be exporting to China, like freedom and democracy and civil society, are mistaken for luxury cars, bagels and bad music.

Thomas de Groot,
Beijing
2008