Yanjiao as a new destination for Chinese artists?

Just read this article in the New York Times today by Emily Feng about how more and more artists are setting up shop in Yanjiao, Hebei Province. In response, I write the following comments for the Modern Chinese Literature and Culture blog, and I'd like to circulate it around and see what kind of feedback I can get!

Yanjiao, in Hebei province, just across the Chaobai river from the eastern border of Beijing municipality, is a special place for me. I have a place in what Feng calls “North Side of Hawaii” (apparently she hasn’t been to Hawaii; I prefer to call 北岸 North Shore). The actual population of Yanjiao should be closer to one million; I believe it was 300,000 about 8-10 years ago after they started selling apartments in the rash of gigantic new developments built especially along Yanshun lu, which is where the CAFA satellite campus and the various Shores of Hawaii are (there’s also an Oriental Hawaii). I am very interested in this trend, and it makes sense, especially given the clever tactic of buying (renting?) a bare concrete apartment (maopifang) and using it as a studio. But the article greatly underemphasizes the importance and scale of the Songzhuang art district. Songzhuang has really created a cultural community, including galleries, museums, and some really good restaurants. It struggles and it ebbs and flows, but it really feels permeated with art. 798 is “quickly gentrifying”? Didn’t that happen 12 years ago? Compared to Songzhuang, Yanjiao feels more like an oversized north Chinese village that has become a gateway bedroom community to Beijing for hundreds of thousands of outsiders, particularly from the northeast. They are the ones who have created the atmosphere in Yanjiao, which I find very interesting, but it doesn’t have much of a cultural element at all. What’s more, if the apartments felt cheap over the last 8-10 years, they won’t for very long, especially if it’s set up in contrast to Songzhuang: the Beijing municipal government is moving to Tongzhou (about half way to Yanjiao from Chaoyang district), so Yanjiao is going to become a major conduit for transportation along the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei corridor. There will be a Yanjiao subway stop (probably the 1 train extension, but maybe the 6 train which already has stops in Tongzhou), a light rail station for a new line going to Tangshan, and they are building a major new bridge across the Chaobai river (dividing Beijing municipality from Hebei province at Yanjiao) that appears to link closely to Songzhuang. All of this is already beginning to push the prices for Yanjiao housing up, and once those new stations begin construction, it may push them up faster and higher. But if hundreds of artists have already settled in Yanjiao, I’m delighted to know it. Hopefully it won’t be long before we see galleries and a couple of decent bookstores there, because there certainly aren’t now. Charles A. Laughlin <cal5m@eservices.virginia.edu> University of Virginia by denton.2@osu.edu on October 31, 2016

As If (For W) 仿佛（给 W)

If life were different, water slow to boil
If going somewhere to die, peach petals fall on the southern slope
If the woods on the other shore were moving, we do not inform the bridge
If the skies were carried away, we could see the frog in the well
If when sound takes flight, butterflies rush to an ancient bloom
If a Tsangpa beauty at the mouth of the ideal, who would fulfill his desires with a woman
If shuriken speed about your palms, you sit serenely
If a sentence would be breached, if only there were enough lighting
If snow falling from the sky, we await our fate atop a tower
If an apple penetrates another apple, it takes not a thread of fat away
If making revolution to the bitter end, is just having sex to the bitter end
If a complete sentence, is one’s heart higher than heaven
If September were a dream, those on the bridge do not see those under it
If reality went from left to right, dark clouds meander in the moonlight forever
If the death of a poet illuminated our mutual loneliness
If in lifting a stone, it becomes cotton when it falls on our foot
If a monk who has come south, turns his head and smiles, and leaves with a wave of his hand
If we are aliens, and are just as lonely in our dreams
If using teeth to moan
If the butterfly’s life is metamorphosis, I don’t want you, I want your heart

仿佛生活是另外一个样子，如迟开的水
仿佛到别处去死，只见桃落南坡
仿佛树木在彼岸游动，我们不通知桥梁
仿佛天空席卷而去，我们才看见井地之蛙
仿佛声音起飞之时，蝴蝶正奔赴一朵古花
仿佛丹巴的美人在理想之口，谁和女人尽欢
仿佛暗器在掌心奔驰，你坐怀不乱
仿佛一个句子被攻破，只要有足够的灯光
仿佛雪从天降，我们在高楼等候命运
仿佛苹果穿过苹果，不带走一丝脂肪
仿佛将革命进行到底，也就是把性交进行到底
仿佛说一句完整的话，就是心比天高
仿佛九月如梦，桥头人看不见桥下人
仿佛现实从左到右，乌云在月光下漂泊终生
仿佛诗人之死，照亮了彼此的寂寞
仿佛我们搬起石头，砸到脚背原是棉花
仿佛南来的僧人，回头一笑，招手上路
仿佛我们是外星人，做梦一样的孤独
仿佛用牙齿去呻吟
仿佛蝴蝶一生变态，我不要你，我只要你的心

Several Ways to Look at the Sky

Several Ways to Look at the Sky 多种看天空的方法

1

The sky flows down like water; only a bird can take on

This cracked mirror

2

I live in Connecticut, where Stevens was looking at blackbirds

Is this a blessed Heaven or a pier that leads to seagulls?

I only know that autumn makes love to you

Autumn, crows and magpies each express the quality of the sky

This blackbird

3

This bird

Along the margins of tragedy, soars

Awaiting a vertical landing

Indescribable

4

The wind blows by, shredding you by the hand of God

Can you still shriek

Like a dove?

5

How do doves understand that clouds are the palm lines of the sky

Shuttling to and fro, with the movement of the earth’s strata

More distant than reality

6

Distant

A slight feather flies upward into the heavens

Such a scene on a snowy day, is unusually beautiful

7

Sewing myself up on a bench

Wrapping myself up on a piece of paper

Set on fire,

Desire and the sky

We are connected to everything

But no shadow can reap what he sows

8

Looking out from the well, it’s you

With a face as big as mine, now cold, now hot

The well is dry, its lips are sealed

The water has evaporated into wine

But there’s no need to toast its reflection

That ancient assassin has discerned

That my heart is blacker than darkness

9

With the thickness of a broach, like the moon

Tattooed on your body

As hollow objects

We know not depth nor understand borders

In this way, the starving don’t choose their food

Grasped in the hand you become a bird

10

We can only elope, we approach each other

Lightning strikes, tree-like, into the skull; the face splits

One becomes two

Representing a kind of direction, following a hidden weapon

Rushing

11

Heads fall to the ground as in the legend

And roll into the water

Their eyes are lamps, but

The bubbling foam speaks with one voice

In an uproar, burial clothes enshrouding the remains behind their pupils

12

Keep holding that slant

Under the buckets of rain

We see coins

Made within walls of bronze and iron

That coin floating in the air

Blown away because of our breath

13

Reflecting on abated pain, fingers to smear again

The dust, cutting off

The enormous surface of the sky

Every illusion is diffused in the transcendence of a bird

That little airborne mole

July 2, 1999, New Haven

多种看天空的方法

1

天空如水而下，只有一只鸟能够承受

这面破绽的镜子

2

我住在斯蒂文斯看黑鸟的康洲

这是受恩宠的天堂还是通往海鸥的码头？

我只知秋天和你做爱

秋天，乌鸦和喜雀分别表达过天空的质量

这只黑鸟

3

这鸟

沿着悲剧的边缘，飞翔

等待一个垂直角度降落

无以名状

4

风吹过来，以上帝之手撕裂你

你是否还能惊叫

如鸽子

5

鸽子如何理解云朵是天空的掌纹

穿梭往来，和地层的运行有关

比真实更遥远

6

遥远的

一根轻微的羽毛朝着天空飞升

这样的场景在雪天，尤其美丽

7

把自己缝合在一条登子上

把自己包裹在一张纸上

点燃，

欲望和天空

我们和一切都有关系

却没有影子能种豆得豆

8

从井里看，是你

和我一样大的脸，时冷时热

水井干枯，三缄其口

水蒸发成酒

但无须和影子对饮

那远古的刺客辩认了

我的心比黑暗更黑

9

以一枚胸针的厚度，像月亮

纹在你身上

我们作为空心物体

不知深浅、不懂边缘

如此，饥不择食

你握在手中便成鸟了

10

只有私奔，仰着面和你

闪电如树而立穿越头骨，脸破开

一分为二

代表某种方向，朝着暗器

疾走

11

人头像传说中那样落地

翻滚入水

他们的眼睛作灯，但

沸腾的泡沫，众口一词

喧哗，寿衣罩住了瞳孔后面的遗骸

12

继续保持倾斜

在倾盆大雨之下

我们看见铜板

在铜墙铁壁里打造

那块飘在空中的铜板

因我们的呼吸而飞逝

13

痛定思痛，手指再一次涂抹

灰尘，切断

天空巨大的平面

所有的幻景消散在一只鸟的超脱

那粒起飞了的痣

(1999，7，2。纽黑纹)

Life in a Day

In a few minutes the documentary "Life in a Day: The Story of a Single Day on Earth," directed by Ridley Scott and Kevin McDonald, will premiere on Youtube and at the Sundance Film Festival. It's a great idea, but not exactly original. In 1936, Chinese novelist Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing) initiated a call for contributions in major newspapers to a project called One Day in China; over 4,000 entries were received from people from all walks of life all over China, to use whatever form of writing they chose to convey their experiences, thoughts, and feelings on May 21, 1936. Mao Dun and his editorial board selected about 350 pieces from among these and published the book, along with illustrations, notices of film screenings and dramatic performances, to give a cross-section of life in China on that day. The collection was published in late 1936, and copies of it can be found in libraries around the world. There is an English translation of part of the book edited by Sherman Cochran entitled One Day in China: May 21, 1936. The project was reportedly inspired in turn by a Soviet Russian project, One Day in the World, which never came to fruition.

March 6 update: to these we must add the Simultania Project by Erin Cooney, in which the same minute for hundreds of different people worldwide is broadcast simultaneously and in sync. This also reminded me of Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film "One Night on Earth," which is a feature film that plays like a documentary, divided into 5 stories of taxicab rides on the same night in 5 different world cities.

In each case the gesture at dispassionate comprehensiveness belies the projection of the creator's world view, which varies greatly, from Mao Dun's depiction of the collapse of capitalism and imperialism and the rise of the working classes to Kevin McDonald's individual/universalism and rhapsody to harmony, peace and hope. Like practitioners of "found art," these filmmaker/editors adopt the images provided to them like the pieces of tile in a mosaic to ultimately cobble together their own version of the world. Ironically it is precisely because these projects reflect different visions and do not succeed in capturing a comprehensive and objective cross-section of historical reality that they each become interesting in their own right and fruitful to compare.

Poetry by Ma Lan: The hand and he 手和他

The hand and he

Translated by Martin Winter

he burns at the fingertips, night and day
no birds on the toy tree, no wind
to scratch off his name
in leaving i swallow my tears, returning i hang down my head
i arrange on the arm a new space for his name
the hand is my mask, and he is the other side of the mask
come raise your hand against yourself, and
push him away
i sleep on the ground, my bug net is torn
fingers play out the last bit of love between shadow and hunger
fingers crossed to point out the land, repeating my image
i represent the aim of the hand, while he appears from
time to time
the game will reach its climax soon, the hand will walk
in distant lands, the illusion of home
repeated again, he disappears in foreign grounds
i bury him under the hand, surrounded
by bits of smoke that roar and scatter

(Where to sit) 2004, p.68

手和他

他在手指尖燃烧，夜以继日
玩具树上无鸟，无风
擦掉他的名字
饮泣而别，掉头而归
我在手手臂上重新给名字布局

手是我的面具，他是面具的另一面
举手伸向自己，并
把他推开
我席地而眠，蚊帐破裂
手指在阴影和饥饿中演绎最后的爱情
手指交错指点江山，重复我的形象

我象征手的目的，他时隐时现
游戏快到达了高潮，手离我
远走，异乡，家园的迷梦
再一次重复，而他消失在他乡
被我埋葬于手下，突围
零碎的烟一哄而散

Poetry by Ma Lan skin--for Zhang Er 皮肤 --写给张耳

skin
- for Zhang Er

Translation by Martin Winter

who has moved away our skin
it is frivolous today
men, they're yours, or mine, their men
breathe me in another time, what a beautiful pain
it is too late for our skin to be lustrous
including skeletons and bloodstains
hardly flexible at ease
we can only get rid of the poison inside our body
i am setting free the words
a new word attached to a word that i know
truth and phantasy confused
no-one can escape from karma
from here, let's have our lust fall into traps
entering the laboratory
put in setup from the past, bottle base is full of air
in the room there is a lightbulb
let me set up this result
we are thirsting
once again, and for disaster, even if it's for our skin
please come weigh us down with stones

(Where to sit?) 2004, p.98

皮肤
--写给张耳

谁移走了我们的皮肤
今天格外轻浮

男人，你的，我的，她们的男人
再次呼吸我，多艳丽的疼痛

我们的皮肤成色已晚
包括骨骼、血迹
很难伸缩自如
我们只能在体内排毒

你看我把字放生了
一个生字连着一个熟字
真相和虚幻混淆
谁也无法摆脱因果

从此，让情欲掉进陷阱
走进实验室
置入过去的装置，盛满空气的瓶底
室内还有一支灯泡
让我假设这个结果

我们再次渴望
浩劫，即使为了皮肤

请把石头压在我们身上

2002，2，春

Poetry by Ma Lan: in sickness, a series 病中系列

in sickness, a series

Translation by Martin Winter

machines are surrounding the room
i am at the center, awaiting operation
falling ill is a case of practice makes perfect
to be washed by pain again and again
life is at the left side or at the right
out the window is a river and there are tall buildings
the river has an iron bridge
from august comes a light wind blowing
this is a scene in another land in a foreign bed
let us talk about the past
i like to stir up the water
to fish in troubled waters
i am ruled by the moon i come out at night
i ponder my fingers and my five senses
i recall everything i have ever eaten
the doctor examines the fluids inside
tears break through an apple sounding crisp
the tears
but i know he is still alive
he has food poisoning, like a heap of grains
right across the road
and many years later
my disease is in a dilemma and hurts
all of them are young and tender
everyday i swallow tablets we enhance each other's glory
i develop a disease
just like this

(Where to sit?) 2004, p.56

病中系列

机器围绕着房间
我在房间的中心，等待手术
生病是一件熟能生巧的事
被疼痛之水洗了一遍又一遍
生命是在左边还是右边
窗外是条河 以及高楼
河上有铁桥
淡淡的风从八月吹过
这是异域的风景和异域的病床

让我们谈点往事吧
我喜欢把水搅浑
浑水摸鱼
我受月光统治 昼伏夜行
我端详我的十指 我的五官
我缅怀我吃过的所有食物

医生检查身内的液体
泪水穿破苹果 声音清脆
泪水

可我知道他还活着
他食物中毒如一堆杂粮
横断街头
很多年以后
我的病进退艰难并且疼痛
他们都年轻多情
我每日吞服药片 和他交相辉映

我发育疾病
如此而已


（１９９５/９.纽约市表维医院）