GLIMPSE | vol 2.2, summer 2009 | China Vision, Part II by M. Hurst

volume 2 issue 1

the art + science of seeing

Glimpse is an interdisciplinary journal that examines the functions, processes and effects of vision and visionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s implications for being, knowing and constructing our world(s). Each theme-focused journal issue features articles, visual spreads, interviews, and reviews spanning the physical sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.

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China Vision, Part II

Contents

China Vision, Part II

The Dandelion School Transformation Project

What will happen next? Visualizing a Personal Future in China

A Conversation with Lily Yeh

POLITICALLY AND GEOGRAPHICALLY COLORFUL Revolution, Regime and Color in China

Han-Teng Liao

Dr. Charles Stafford

34 MYTH AND MODERNITY

Mary Ting

Front cover image courtesy of Dr. Chandra Reedy. Back cover image, 1933 Chinese health poster, “The ear is like a telephone and the eye is like a camera.” Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

RETRO(SPECT) On Chinese divination by dissecting written characters

J.J.M. DeGroot

Situ Panchen, 1700-1774 Tibetan Encampment Revivalist Patron and Painter Interview with Dr. David Jackson

seeing history Rediscovering the art of Tibet through modern imaging technology Dr. Chandra L. Reedy

(re)views Mahjong, Not One Less & Green Snake Lauren Cross & Ivy Moylan

Contributors

Lily Yeh

Han-TENG LIAO

Yeh emigrated from China to the US in the early 1960s to study art. A successful painter and professor at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, Yeh returned to China in 1989 to show her work at the Central Institute of Fine Art in Beijing, where she witnessed the events at Tianamen Square. Yeh pursues her sinceevolved artistic vision of “doing the right thing without sparing onself” through her organization, Barefoot Artists, Inc., which teaches a model of grassroots transformation in devastated communities worldwide.

Liao is a student of various disciplines whose research aims to reconsider the role of keywords (sociolinguistics) and hyperlinks (webometrics) in shaping groups (governance) as bearers of ideas (political communication). He is currently a D.Phil. candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford and holds an MSc in Computer Science and Information Engineering, an MA in Journalism, a BSc in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures, all from the National Taiwan University.

CHARLES STAFFORD

MARY TING

Stafford’s research has focused primarily on child development, learning, kinship, religion and economics. He has conducted research in mainland China on rituals and practices of “separation and reunion,” which help to structure the flow of social life in rural communities. Professor Stafford is currently developing a collaborative research project with colleagues at Nanjing University focusing on economic life from a cognitive anthropological perspective.

Mary Ting is a visual artist working in installation, sculpture, photography and drawing. Her recent exhibitions include Dean Project; metaphor contemporary art (NYC), and the 2009 International Women’s Biennale at Incheon, Korea. Ting is a recipient of numerous grants and awards. She lives in Manhattan and teaches at John Jay College and Transart Institute, New York/Berlin. Ting holds degrees from Parsons School of Design; Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing; and Vermont College.

J.J.M. DE GROOT, 1854-1921

CHANDRA L. REEDY

Religious historian and Sinologist, de Groot was an observer and documentarian of China’s religious, artistic, and material culture. His writings introduced numerous European and American scholars to the documented history of China at the end of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. His article excerpted and reprinted in this issue recounts for western audiences, numerous anecdotes in the Chinese historical record of perceived relationships between the written language and fortune.

Reedy is a professor in the Center for Historic Architecture and Design at the University of Delaware, with secondary appointments in the Center for Material Culture Studies, Art History, and East Asian Studies. She also serves as Director of UD’s Laboratory for Analysis of Cultural Materials. Reedy’s fieldwork is conducted in Tibetan areas of China, most recently in northern Sichuan province and in the Lhasa area of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Reedy holds a PhD in interdisciplinary archaeology from UCLA and is the author or co-author of five books and over 60 research articles.

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From the Editor

This issue, China Vision, Part II, is a continuation of our exploration of the visual multiplicity of historical and contemporary China, and of seeing within and across cultures. Several articles in this issue touch upon how geographic environment informs visual imagination, social, political and self-identities. Furthermore, themes of family, inheritance, animal symbolism, visible materiality and, as seen in the previous issue, written language emerge in varied ways. The children of Lily Yeh’s Dandelion School map their shift from rural to urban environments; Readers may be unaware, as we were, that despite the government’s emphasis on excellence in education, an estimated half-million school-aged children in Beijing are not permitted to attend government-run schools because of the policy that ties education rights to locale of birth. Enter artist and activist Lily Yeh, who, with limited private and community resources, has worked closely with the Dandelion School for urban children who fall through these cracks of China’s heaving transformation. Yeh and the children visualize their migration to reconstitute their lives and map their paths forward in uncertain circumstances. Han-Teng Liao, in his second article for Glimpse’s China Vision, takes us on a historical tour of political forces appropriating and internalizing iconographies of landscape and color. In his examination of visual evidence of China’s political fractures of the last century versus older models of an integrated diversity, Liao makes his case for a conceptual return to earlier modes of visual and political symbols. Liao leaves us with a vision for political symbols that might reflect the geographic, ethnic and cultural diversity of China and a more integrated collective identity. Dr. Charles Stafford shares his encounters with Mr. Zhang, who finds himself in a period of great flux,

where traditional systems of meaning and order are disrupted by uncertainty. Mr. Zhang’s future seems unclear and untethered from strong familial and geographic anchors. We are left with the unease of this historical moment and its impact on how individuals imagine their futures. Mary Ting’s artwork reflects belonging and unbelonging as she straddles her familial roots in China and her American upbringing. Adopting and adapting symbols from Chinese myths and folklore, she probes the arenas of personal and social identity. The ephemeral nature of the materials she uses belie the fragility of culture attenuated across continents and generations. J. J. M. de Groot posthumously provides us with his 19th-century account of still older accounts of fortunetelling based on the interpretation of components of written characters. Harkening from the further distant past, Tibetan monastic, patron of the arts and painter, Situ Panchen’s cultural corpus is restored in the 21st century. Multiple visual cues and a digital image library have helped Dr. David Jackson verify and reconnect paintings that were scattered around the globe. Dr. Chandra Reedy refocuses our attention on historical information in Tibetan artworks only visible with the aid of x-ray and microscope. Reedy shows us how scientific inquiry and tools, which extend our capabilities of seeing, are advancing the field of art history and deepening our historical knowledge of material culture and the ways in which artists of the past made objects. Finally, Lauren Cross and Ivy Moylan review the exhibition, Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Uli Sigg Collection and the films, Not One Less and Green Snake. Each reiterates elemental themes of geography, lineage, animal imagery or written language. We hope these two issues extend your “China Vision” as they have our own: the large-scale structure of the universe probed by the LAMOST project, to the microscopic scale of Dr. Chandra Reedy’s research, and the visible culture in between. As always, we welcome your comments, insights, and ideas. Megan Hurst, Editor editor@glimpsejournal.com

Glimpse Team Megan Hurst Founder, Managing Editor

Carolyn Arcabascio Acquisitions Editor

Nicholas Munyan Art Director

Christie Marie Bielmeier Copy Editor Lauren Cross Editorial Research, Reviews

Dane Wiedmann Image Research

Ivy Moylan Contributor, Film Reviews Brett Robinson Cover Design Adjunct + Alumni Christine Madsen Co-Founder, Editor (Europe) Matthew Steven Carlos Editorial Advisor Jamie Ahlstedt Logo Design

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Copyright and Acknowledgements Glimpse acknowledges creatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; copyright, and encourages contributors to consider Creative Commons licenses for their works. Many of the images used in this issue are Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr.com members, and others are public domain images courtesy of private collectors. The font used in this issue is Tuffy, a freely available font.

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The Dandelion School Transformation Project A Conversation with Lily Yeh with introduction by C. Arcabascio

“I am not afraid of not being able to carry out our ideas... my fear is that we might not be able to imagine.” - a Dandelion School teacher

ccording to current World Bank statistics, as many as 660 million Chinese citizens could be living in China’s urban areas by the year 2015. Driven by visions of opportunity and economic security, families from across rural China reshape their lives as they move into the ever-crowding cities. While China’s cities have grown, the government’s system of registration for its citizens has not. Seldom does China’s umbrella of legal protection and benefits expand wide enough to cover migrant workers. And the children of these workers, in the eyes of the government, are nearly invisible.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

All Images Courtesy of Lily Yeh and the Dandelion School

That migrant children cannot legally attend urban schools—their status of residency inextricably bound to their places of birth—drove Zheng Hong to found the Dandelion School in 2005. The school, which is situated in the DaXing District outside of Beijing, now opens its doors to over 600 migrant children seeking an education. One year before the establishment of the migrant school, Principal Zheng Hong met artist and activist Lily Yeh. Yeh is the founder of Barefoot Artists, Inc., a grassroots organization whose volunteers travel with a mission to rebuild struggling communities around the globe. It is this mission that has brought Yeh back, time and again, to the Dandelion School, where she encourages students to take an active interest in transforming their environment, physically and culturally, through art. Instilled with both a collective and individual sense of worth, the children have collaborated on murals and created maps showing their own unique journeys to the DaXing District. Under Yeh’s encouragement and guidance, the students continue to transform the school from a sterile and uninspiring former factory to a colorful place where China’s unseen children are seen. Here is Glimpse Journal’s conversation with Lily Yeh on the Dandelion School Transformation Project.

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G l i m p s e J o u r n a l : Y o u h av e b e e n r e c o g n i z e d f o r your work in transforming the environments and lives of the underprivileged through art. Can you talk a little about your own transformation from artist to artist/activist?

Lily Yeh: My first experience of working in inner city North Philadelphia in the summer of 1986 has impacted me so deeply that it changed my life. I was teaching full-time at the University of the Arts, but I managed to return each summer in the following few years to the community where the humble little art project evolved into a non-profit arts organization called the Village of Arts and Humanities. Eventually, I left the University to pursue my passion, transforming environment and community through art. Soon I realized that when I worked with people in struggling communities, I couldn’t just do art and walk away. When people share my dreams, when they come and help me and give me their stories, I have a responsibility towards them. When I see their suffering, I feel pain. When I see their needs, I want to help. When I see injustice, I want to take action to fight it. That is how I became an artist/activist. GJ: Has your (Chinese) heritage in any way shaped the way you think about the link between art and community? LY: One of the principles in Confucius’ teachings is ren, compassion in human relationships. The essence of Buddhism is compassion. They are powerful forces in shaping my life. GJ: What was the motivation behind the founding of Barefoot Artists? What does the name reveal about the organization? LY: The model of barefoot doctors in China during 1950s was my inspiration. They went to rural communities wherever in need and practiced their medicine. When the work was done, they moved on to the next place in need. This model has a simple structure that helped the barefoot doctors’ efforts in reaching their goals. After 18 years of development, the Village of Arts and Humanities had become a complex organization that sapped much of my time and effort. I realized that I needed to do creative work at the frontline situation to feel fulfilled. I founded Barefoot Artists, Inc., a non-profit arts organization composed of volunteers. Instead of being stationed at one place, it is an international organization serving wherever people are in need. Harnessing people’s expertise and desire

to serve, Barefoot Artists delivers multifaceted, multi-leveled and interconnected programs that empower communities and inspire people to take action. We organize when we have a project. The structure dissolves when the project is completed. Each volunteer group raises funds and manages their programs. Unburdened by staff salaries or heavy overhead, 90% of our funds go directly to projects that benefit poor communities. The rest is used to keep our organization and programs running.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 13

GJ: How did you become involved with the Dandelion School? LY: I met Zheng Hong, the principal of Dandelion School, in 2004. She was moved by my presentation about spending 18 years to build the Village of Arts and Humanities. She said that it helped her in her decision to create a school to serve the children of migrant workers in Beijing. I have been visiting the Dandelion School since the beginning of its establishment, helping the teachers and

students to understand the power of imagination and creative action. GJ: What kind of presence did Art and Art E d u c a t i o n h av e w i t h i n t h e c o m m u n i t y b e f o r e t h e Transformation Project took place? LY: Rather primitive, although Zheng Hong understands the power of art in education and its influence in changing environments. It takes time to cultivate teachers and broaden their mind-sets. Fu Tao, the art teacher, said that he used to teach according to art education books assigned by the

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse 14

establishment. He felt uninspired and unfulfilled. Not much creativity existed before the transformation project. But now he is full of ideas and eager to realize them. G J : H o w h av e t h e s e p r o j e c t s “transformed” not only the school’s aesthetics, but its culture as well? LY: It is very important to me not to just transform the school environment, but also to impact the mind and heart of the community. Yes, the transformed environment makes the community feel joyful and hopeful, thus helps to establish a harmonious community. More

importantly they understand that they must open their minds and imagine. As a teacher commented during a training session, there is “so much hidden beauty to be discovered. I am not afraid of not being able to carry out our ideas. My fear is that we might not be able to imagine.” The project demands cooperation and hands-on participation. It is effective in getting the children involved, so that they can imagine, create and carry out their goals. It builds self-esteem and encourages innovation. GJ: Why was the concept of mapping such an important one for the children of the Dandelion School?

LY: It turns their personal stories into a force that helps to shape the society. In this way, each personal story is not something that just happened to one person without much significance. Each story is like a tiny streamlet, which becomes a powerful river that shapes the

surrounding landscape when joined together with other streamlets. To make peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories visible empowers them. It makes them feel that they count. Their stories reflect a larger picture of the current Chinese society. Mapping makes this reality pressing, present and immediate. In addition, the Dandelion School is located in DaXing Districtâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an industrial, polluted, and underdeveloped area on the outskirts of Beijing. The disenfranchised community lives on the fringe of the society. Mapping personal journeys of the students moves the Dandelion School and DaXing District from the fringe to the center. Mapping shows the potency of the Dandelion School, the magnetic center that draws energy from all over China and abroad. Many groups of volunteers from the States and Europe visit Dandelion yearly. Mapping gives people a tool to redefine themselves, to understand and express their own potential and power. GJ: Do you expect the renewal, both internal and external, of the school and its students to continue after your involvement with the project is complete? LY: Yes. After four years of involvement and continuous teacher trainings and carrying out projects with the help of student participation, I feel that I have passed on the essence of my philosophy and methodology to the school community. They have digested the structure and intentions of my projects and utilized them in ways that address their problems and needs.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Each story is like a tiny streamlet, which becomes a powerful river that shapes the surrounding landscape when joined together with other streamlets.

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse â&#x20AC;&#x192;

I am completing this project this year, and am writing a book on the Dandelion School Transformation Project so that the purpose and methodology of my work can be documented to serve the school community in the long run and anyone interested in doing something similar. The Dandelion School community reflects the complex dynamics of the greater society of China. It is an unusual and precious place that encourages exploration, innovation and creativity. It aims to cultivate the whole person, not just the academic achievement. This is very precious and powerful. I will be coming back on a regular basis because there are many other projects I would like to carry out with the school.

16 G J : H av e y o u f o u n d a n y p a r a l l e l s between your own personal history and those of the children with whom you worked at the Dandelion School? LY: My father, Pei Kao Yeh, came from a very humble background. His childhood was difficult: orphaned at the age of six and tossed around from home to home of different relatives. He was mistreated and deprived of opportunity to get an education during those early years of his life. Although he got himself educated through entering military school and accomplishing heroic deeds during the Anti-Japanese War, he talked about the painful early years often when I was growing up. He established six schools for poor and orphaned children in different places in China. My mother, Helen Hu-Zhan Wang, grew up in a well-to-do family. She was the only daughter and highly educated. She was among the first group of young women to receive a college education in China. She graduated from YenJing

University, which became the Beijing University, the very top university in China. She understood the importance of education and ensured that all her children got the best education. All of our accomplishments are the results of the dedication, hard work and nurturing from our parents. Having great compassion for children from poor families, she established four Hope Schools in China during the last ten years of her life. To me, my parents lived their lives as expressions of love. Although they did not get along, they each, in different ways, showed me what is meaningful in life. G J : W h a t d o y o u e n v i s i o n fo r t h e fu t u re o f Barefoot Artists? LY: Recognizing that creativity and beauty are powerful means to bring on healing and change, Barefoot Artists will continue to work with poor communities around the world practicing the arts to bring healing, self-empowerment and social change. w

Lily Yeh has a forthcoming book from The Village Press about the Dandelion School Project.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

POLITICALLY AND GEOGRAPHICALLY COLORFUL www.glimpsejournal.com

Revolution, Regime, and Color in China

by Han-Teng Liao D.Phil. candidate, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford Background image courtesy of Flickr member David Wong

exploding (Pao)

INSULT

DESTROYS INS

CREA TE

crushing (Beng)

ROYS

WOOD

CREAT

DEST

FIRE

R VE

INSULTS

UL TS

STR

EARTH crossing (Heng)

theories, which contained five major colors: green, red, yellow, white, and black/blue. Within the Wu Xing (Figure 1), each color corresponds to one of the Five Elements of fire, earth, metal, wood, and water. Functioning as five corresponding movements, phases, directions, energies, etc., this material perspective has become embedded into folk knowledge, including Feng Shui, Chinese medicine, music, fortune-telling and agricultural calendars.1 Interestingly, in folk knowledge, no particular color occupies a higher status than any other. Though some dynasties throughout Chinese history elevated one color/element for political legitimization, the structure of equality of colors in folk knowledge remained constant. Another source of critique of a single color hegemony can be found in the modern idea of republican union, in which the ideal is to integrate diversity through multiple colors. With this idea in mind, to indulge in the friend-or-foe divisive wars for the hegemony of certain political colors that represent only a certain

S OY

O V E R AC

C RE AT ES

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A fascination exists within modern China of associating specific colors with political ideologies. Colors have represented political divides between the red Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the blue Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT). They have been included in terms such as White Terror and Black Elements to describe past atrocities. They have symbolized political and cultural dissonances across geographies with terms such asYellow Earth and Blue

S LT

RO YS

WATER

C TS ERA

STR

T EA

DE U NS

LTS

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Russia and China have successfully used the term “color

METAL

drilling (Zuan)

“Color Revolutions”

splitting (Pi)

O V E R AC T S

TE CREA

revolutions” to portray any domestic political opponents

Figure 1 Wu Xing

Seas. Understanding such colorfully described tensions helps reveal why the CCP has attempted to define certain human rights campaigns and political activities as “Color Revolutions” to maintain the color red as the color of Beijing’s republic, or People’s Republic of China PRC).

as having been manipulated

the United States, who supposedly hopes to enable regime changes in mostly post-Communist regions under the pretence of promoting democracy and freedom. Often-cited examples of these so-called “color revolutions” include

But prior to these modern associations that elevate a single color to an ideological higher ground, traditional Chinese folk knowledge housed the Wu Xing

the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia in 2003, the “Orange

army, party and republic would be unhelpful for building a political union in China.

alist KMT. Indeed, the flags of each party (Figures 2 and 3) match the same color contrast in the blue-versus-red Cold War context in which the countries belonging to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) identified with blue and those under the

Red Army and Blue Army

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

ed and blue were arguably the most significant colors of the Chinese Civil Wars and the Cold War. Furthermore, particularly in the military, they are currently used as indicators of the opposing Chinese republics of Mainland China (People’s Republic of China) and Taiwan (Republic of China, or ROC).

Figure 3 Early KMT flag

Figure 2 Early CCP flag

The red/blue struggle can be traced back to a simple global ideological split before the end of the Cold War when the red Soviet-supported CCP opposed the blue US-supported, nation-

19 Warsaw Pact with red. The following series of maps (Figures 4-12) highlight these differences and reveal parallel stories of political and geographical struggles through color. Even after the Cold War, each army continued the mutually-assigned red/blue color labels. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still founded a mock enemy troop called “blue army”2 whereas Taiwan’s military exercise had a similar mock enemy “red army”3 or “red force”.4 The global ideological struggle has left colored traces in representing different armies, parties and republics.

Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004, and the “Tulip Revolution”

vent “color revolutions,” or to maintain a certain political

in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. Authorities in Russia and China

color, thus becomes an issue of national autonomy: to pre-

have insisted that these revolutions are not genuine bot-

vent the influence of foreign schemes of regime change.7

tom-up efforts for political changes, but rather part of the By recycling the United States’ rhetoric of peaceful meaUnited States’ geopolitical strategies. sures advocated in the early Cold War period (Roy, 1998), The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 have also been

the post-communist authoritarian regimes such as Beijing

reframed by Beijing as part of the “peaceful evolution”5

and Moscow intend to reassert their political legitimacy by

scheme initiated by the United States government, citing the previous “color revolutions” as precedents.6 To pre-

“exposing” the true colors of these color revolutions.

Figure 4 Warlords, 1929

Figure 5 Nationalist China, 1929-1937

Figure 7 Japanese Occupation, 1940

Figure 8 Situation at the end of World War II

Figure 10 Communist Offensives, September through November, 1948

Figure 11 Communist Offensives, November 1948-January 1949

These figures summarize a series of historical events with geographical implications: Figures 4-6, and 9-12: The KMT’s forces represented in blue. Figures 6, and 9-12: The CCP’s forces represented in red.

Figure 6: The red CCP survives the KMT’s attack in the Long March.

Figure 6 The Long March, 1934-1935

Figures 7 and 8 : The Japanese Occupation, and subsequent changes in dynamics between parties.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Figures 4 and 5: The blue KMT based in southern China fights with warlords.

Figures 9-12: the KMT loses and retreats to Taiwan after World War II. 21

Maps courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy.

Figure 9 Chiang Kai-shek’s Strategy, 1947

Figure 12 Communist Offensives, April-October 1949

White Terror and Black Elements

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he terms White Terror and Black Elements have symbolized the atrocities and violence that took place under the blue Chiang and red Mao regimes, some of which have been suppressed or are yet to be fully reconciled.

White Terror originally referred to the attacks organized by the Royalists against radical Jacobins during the French Revolution8 and by the White Royalists against the Red Army during Russia’s 1917 October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. It was later appropriated by the KMT’s opponents, including the Red Army of CCP and the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) in Taiwan, to describe Chiang Kai-shek’s effort in crushing dissent. To the CCP, the workers and communists in Mainland China from 1927 to 1949 were the victims9 and to the DPP, some intellectuals/gentry in Taiwan from 1949 to 1989 were.10

The violence of the CCP bore a parallel label. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which aimed to cleanse politics, economics, ideas and organization from “rightists” and “revisionists,” the CCP persecuted and criminalized various groups including landlords, “rich peasants,” counter-revolutionaries and intelligentsia, calling these dissident groups Black Elements.11 The atrocities that took place under blue Chiang and red Mao have now received different levels of historical recognition and formal reconciliation. The acts that constituted White Terror were formally acknowledged and reconciled by the Communist government in Beijing after 1949 and by the democratically-elected government in Taipei after the Cold War. However, the events of the Black Elements, as well as the suffering of victims at the hands of the Red Guards, mobilized supporters of Mao who played an essential role in implementing Mao’s Culture Revolution, have yet to be formally addressed by Beijing. Yellow Earth and Blue Seas

River Elegy (Hésh-ng), a documentary that aired on Beijing’s nation-wide China Central Television in 1988, criticizes

River Elegy

yellow earth and celebrates blue seas while using these

terms as a set of metaphors calling for a change of mentality from the stagnant Yellow River to open sea waters.12 The Yellow River symbolizes not only Chinese civilization, but also the source of a conservative and isolated mentality. Through a self-reflective approach, River Elegy ends with a hopeful tone that the Yellow River must diminish its fear of

n Beijing’s republic, the color red has enjoyed a monopoly status as both the national and ideological color because of the political configuration of the party-state regime. But even so, the color blue managed to emerge in the influential documentary River Elegy, and the ideological shift that resulted after the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 was framed by Beijing as “color revolutions.” The blue referred to here was not entirely the old color of the KMT, rather it was the blue of river and sea water that represents openness. The notion that the Yellow River should embrace blue sea again shifted the political discussion of color symbols from blue and red (symbols of party) to blue and yellow (symbols of geography). I argue that the dynamic of the Yellow Earth and Blue Seas represents a deeper and longer political struggle between maritime/ urban progressivism and continental/rural conservativism (which is akin to the red/blue American politics during the US presidential election of 2008). The images of Yellow Earth and Blue Seas symbolize two “kinds” of China identified by Wang: the maritime China and the continental China.14 The continental views the richer maritime China as “self-serving” and the maritime may see the continental as merely reacting against openness and progressive materialism.

the great seas and retain its tenacity from the Loess Plateau, so that it can end a thousand years of isolation and meet the blue seas, or “the explorative, open cultures of the West and Japan” as Goldman & Lin interpreted.13

These politically colored divisions of south/north and urban/rural can also be seen in Figures 4-12. Recalling the locations on these maps of the KMT’s and CCP’s bases (as discussed in a previous section), one can see that the CCP shifted its focus from urban workers to rural peasants during the Yan’an period, which lasted roughly from 1935 to 1945 and came about after the Long March, when the CCP retreated to and settled in Yan’an after

Colors, Elections and Political Union fleeing the KMT. Yan’an is situated in the Loess Plateau (literally yellow-earth-high-ground in Chinese). It is worth mentioning that the political and financial centers of the KMT—Chongqing, Nanjing, and Shanghai—were located in the South, whereas those of the CCP—Yan’an, Shijiazhuang, and Beijing—are in the North. Such distinctions, though oversimplifications of a complicated history, nevertheless situate the later struggle between blue Chiang and red Mao into a broader historical and geographical context. In short, geography matters, and so do the colors yellow/red versus blue. Union of Colors

uring the Cold War, one’s allegiance to a nation cannot be easily separated from one’s allegiance to a political party. This fact is apparent in Figures 13 and 14, where each symbolic design of national flags unmistakably corresponds to one certain political party. Thus, by implication, forming a unified republic through a symbolic synthesis of different political colors would be difficult. When considering the colors that symbolize political and geographical tensions, one wonders: Is union of colors ever possible? Indeed, the historical debate over the constituent element of a political union can be demonstrated through the discussion of the national flag from 1910 to 1946 in China.19 Figure 16 shows a rare image where three major national flags coexist:

Figure 13 (top) PRC flag (officially used since 1949) Figure 14 (bottom) KMT’s blue sky/white sun/wholly red earth flag (officially used by the ROC since 1929)

Figures 15a and 15b features the resulting political landscape between the blue KMT and the green DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) in Taiwanese 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. Like those of the blue and red election districts in the United States, these colored maps are signs of e l e c t o r a l democracy. B a r a c k Obama’s 2008 presidential Figure 15a campaign slogan 2004 that there are no red states or blue states but the United States of America manifested in his logo, which combined blue sky, red horizon and a white rising sun in the center.15 A Taiwanese politician, Dr. Annette Lu, has made a similar attempt to bridge political divisions by creating symbolic union of colors by proposing a bipartisan alliance under the slogan of “blue sky and green land”.16 In contrast, the current national flag of ROC (see Figure 14) is not a perfect symbol for political union because it does not have any green color and its historical associations are with the KMT and republican China. It is thus regarded by some green DPP supporters as partisan symbol of pro-unification, pro-China and pro-blue.17 Similar colorrelated national identity issues can also be found in Hong Kong’s flag from the colonial Blue Ensign to the red background.18 The Democratic Party of Hong Kong uses the color green as an Figure 15b alternative to both 2008 blue and red.

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse 24

the Wuchang Uprising flag, the five-colored flag, and the blue sky/white sun/wholly red earth flag. The union symbolized in the Wuchang Uprising flag (see Figure 17) represents a union of eighteen provinces (symbolized with eighteen yellow dots), which excludes Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang (East Turkestan) and Tibet. It is a call for union among Han-Chinese, which geographically covers “China proper”—the historical lands of China under the Qing Dynasty where HanChinese are the majority. However, the Wuchang Uprising flag is not as popular as the five-colored flag (see Figure 18). Various military regimes, particularly the northern Beiyang government in Beijing, have used the five-colored flag as the national flag of China. It shows a union of five horizontal color stripes symbolizing the five major ethnic groups: the Han (red), the Manchu (yellow), the Mongol (blue), the Hui (white) and the Tibetan (black). The five-colored flag was replaced later by KMT’s blue sky/white sun/wholly red earth flag (see Figure 14), where the three colors represent three abstract ideals of republic: blue (nationalism and liberty), white (democracy and equality) and red (welfare and fraternity). This has become what is now the national flag of Taiwan. Thus, be it a union of provinces, ethnicities or republican ideals, the idea of using union of colors or symbols is not new in early modern China.

Figure 16 Three major national flags coexist

Conclusions

e it in Beijing’s Republic (PRC) or Taipei’s Republic (ROC), the symbolic separation of party and state seem unlikely, but desirable. Instead of imagining a change of color (representative of regime change), we should imagine the inclusion of other colors (representative of perfecting a better union). Colors should furthermore be seen as a means of understanding the geographic and historical diversity of China and even of various East Asian countries. Tracing the fading and emergent colors would result in a more informed mind-set that will only deepen our understanding of China’s politics. w

Figure 17 Wuchang Uprising flag (1911 and 1912)

Don’t miss C. Arcabascio’s interview with Dr. Karen A. Cerulo, “Flags, Color, Symbol, and National Identity” in Glimpse vol 1.1, “Is the visual political?” Also watch for the next issue of Glimpse vol 2.3, themed “Color.”

Figure 18 Five-colored flag (officially used from 1912 to 1928)

Endnotes 1.

Needham, J., & Ronan, C. A. (1995). The Shorter Science and

12.

Text (Reprint). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press

2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/02/arts/

People’s Daily Online. (2007, July 11). People’s Daily Online - Blue

china-calls-tv-tale-subversive.html

soldiers attack Red Army. People’s Daily Online. Retrieved June 4,

13.

2009, from http://english.peopledaily.com.

Press 14.

counterstrike. Taipei Times, 3. Retrieved June 4, 2009, from http://

IIAS lecture series. Leiden: International Institute for

www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2000/01/09/18851

Asian Studies

Griffin, C. (2008). Boom and bust: The strengths and weaknesses

15.

Campaign Stops Blog - NYTimes.com. The New York

Retrieved June 4, 2009, from http://www.armedforcesjournal.

Times. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://campaign-

Ong, R. (2007). ‘Peaceful Evolution’, ‘Regime Change’ and China’s

stops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/the-o-in-obama/ 16.

Bipartisan Coalition (呂秀蓮鴨子划水不排斥與王結盟).

10.1080/10670560701562408

New Taiwan Magazine, 543. Retrieved June 8, 2009,

Yongding. (2005, October 18). China’s Color-Coded Crackdown.

from http://www.newtaiwan.com.tw/bulletinview.

yale.edu/display.article?id=6376

jsp?bulletinid=62885 17. Taipei Times. (2002, November 16). Editorial: Taiwan

Roy, D. (1998). China’s foreign relations. Lanham, MD: Rowan &

needs a flag to call its own. Asiaweek. Retrieved June

Littlefield

8, 2009, from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/

Resnick, D. P. (1966). The White Terror and the Political Reaction After Waterloo (pp. 130-1). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

archives/2002/11/16/0000179785 18.

Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://web.archive.org/

Leng, S., & Chiu, H. (1985). Criminal Justice in Post-Mao China.

web/20071107174623/http://www.asiaweek.com/

Lin, S. L. (2007). Representing Atrocity in Taiwan. New York: Columbia University Press

11.

Hamilton, A. (2007, November 7). Asiaweek.com.

Press Albany: SUNY Press 10.

Lee, X. (2006, August 17). Annette Lu Considers

Political Security. Journal of Contemporary China, 16(53), 717. doi:

Yale Global Online. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from http://yaleglobal. 7.

Heller , S. (2008, November 20). The ‘O’ in Obama -

of Taiwan’s defense strategy emerge. Armed Forces Journal. com/2008/01/3106365 5.

Wang, G. (1996). The Revival of Chinese Nationalism.

Law, K. (2003). The Chinese Cultural Revolution Reconsidered: Beyond Purge and Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan

asiaweek/97/0620/hkorganizers.html 19.

Pan, X. (2006). A Historical Analysis of the Idea of “Five-Nationality Unity for a Republic”. SiXiang Zhangxian (思想戰線), 32(3), 1-6. Retrieved May 8, 2009, from http://www.ceps.com.tw/ec/ecjnlarticleView.aspx?atliid=4 58744&issueiid=32734&jnliid=1516.

Figure 19 The flag of the Qing Dynasty (used from around 1888 to 1912), which shows a blue/ black and green dragon and a red dragon ball on a yellow background (the color yellow has association with the earth, emperors, buddhism and gold). It provides an ironic contrast for any modern Chinese republic that claims one single color as its national color.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Hsu, B. (2000, January 9). MND planning joint operations for

Goldman, M., & Lee, L. O. (2002). An Intellectual History of Modern China. Cambridge: Cambridge University

cn/90001/90776/6213435.html 3.

Kristof, N. D. (1989, October 2). China Calls TV Tale Subversive. The New York Times. Retrieved June 4,

Civilisation in China: An Abridgement of Joseph Needham’s Original

What will happen Envisioning a personal future in China

next?

by Charles Stafford, PhD Asia Research Center, London School of Economics

In the early and mid-1990s, while conducting fieldwork in northeast China, I became friends with a farmer, Mr. Zhang. Although he was only sixty-one when we met, I thought at first that he might be a good deal older. He had a nervous disposition, and I later learned that he suffered badly from insomnia. It seemed he was worried about many things— indeed, about almost everything—ranging from the rising price of fertilizer, to whether or not Taiwan might decide to separate from China, thus provoking war. When Mr. Zhang thinks (with some anxiety) about what is going to happen next, he has the benefit of more than six decades of personal experience, some of it bitter and all of it presumably educational. But he can also draw on a Chinese tradition that is very strongly oriented towards both the past and the future. That is to say, this tradition stresses not only the extent to which the historical past (including the history of kin relations within and across ancestral lines) weighs upon and determines the present, but also the extent to which the future may be predictable, and in some ways, even controllable. To put this differently, this tradition holds that the sequence of events we confront in life is not entirely (or even predominantly) random. Those who can see the patterns in the sequences, and who can learn from observed regularities, have acquired a potentially important type of knowledge.

Top, right: Wedding Carriage; Above, center: Funeral Lion; Center: Funeral, Paper servants with vase; Bottom, center: Fortune Teller Close. All images from Sidney D. Gamble Photographs, Archive of Documentary Arts, Duke University.

Soon after I met Mr. Zhang he made it clear to me that he was against traditional Chinese ‘superstitions,’ and that he had basically supported the Communist effort to root them out once and for all. He is certainly not religious in any observable way. So I was a little surprised to learn that he is personally very keen on suan ming, i.e. on ‘calculating fate,’ and actually sees himself as something of an expert in it. In fact, this isn’t entirely surprising because there is something proto-scientific about Chinese cosmology which makes it attractive to people who wouldn’t be caught dead worshipping gods. One reason for Mr. Zhang to concentrate on what will happen next is that quite a few bad things have, of course, already happened to him during his lifetime. However, because he does not believe in gods—unlike many people in the world, including many people in China—a theodicy, as such, isn’t much use to him. That is, he can’t make use of a god-centered explanation of his (possibly unfair quota of) suffering. What he relies on instead is the naturalistic, or quasi-naturalistic, system for explaining fate that is found in Chinese cosmology/astrology.1

1895

The Chinese way of comprehending things may be characterized in mathematical orientation, and it certainly has a numerological tendency.2 For instance, fortunetellers often simply manipulate numbers of years or days or hours in order to ‘calculate’ (suan) the significance of a particular moment in time for an individual. If you visit a suanmingren, literally a ‘calculating destiny person,’ you’re likely to find that, among other things, he writes down sequences of numbers and literally does some calculations, before discussing the possible course of events. As practices of this kind illustrate, within the Chinese cosmology, numbers are held to reveal something profound about the nature of the universe and the position of individuals in it. So this is one way of pondering the future, and even quantifying it.

Beginning of the Japanese Colonial Occupation 1927 Chinese Civil War erupts between the CCP and the KMT 1932 Mr. Zhang is born

27 1944 11-year-old Mr. Zhang’s mother dies 1945 Japanese Colonial era collapses 1946 The civil war that began in 1927 resumes 1948 15-year old Mr. Zhang’s father dies ? Marries and moves in with wife’s kin in her natal village

But given that much of his life has already passed him by, what is its relevance to Mr. Zhang? In his house, he keeps copies of several different lunar calendars (almanacs), which contain a good deal

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Let me briefly explain [the logic of this system] as understood by many ordinary p e o p l e . Basically, what happens in the universe can be explained with reference to patterns. This is partly because the universe’s temporal cycles repeat themselves: year follows year, etc. But it is also because many other transformative processes in the universe (e.g. the process whereby one natural element is transformed into another) have their own repetitive logics. An individual, born at a particular moment in time, acquires a certain destiny. One can predict this destiny through analyzing the individual’s position vis-à-vis the natural cycles of the universe; but one can also manipulate it in certain ways. For instance, one can reckon which days or years will be especially dangerous for certain types of activities, and then avoid them.

? Adopts a daughter ? Daughter marries Chinese-Korean man, couple moves in with Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Late 1980s/early 1990s Two grandchildren born Early-mid 1990s Dr. Charles Stafford meets Mr. Zhang

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse

that the messy business of human intentionality will be kept out of the process.3 Given the tendency of humans to interfere in the plans and projects of others, perhaps this is a wise move.

of information used for calculating fate, along with at least one well-thumbed specialist book about fortune-telling. When he thinks of the future—e.g. when he sorts out his house-building plans—there’s no question that the cosmological framework I’ve described comes into play. One attraction of this style of divination, I’d like to stress, is that it might just about be immune to human interference. That is, by using quantification and randomization to try to gain direct access to the truth, one hopes—perhaps against hope?—

Now let me turn to [a] second ‘pattern-recognition exercise’ that has to do with patterns in interpersonal relations. [To explain] the schema in China for ‘the way things usually go’ in interpersonal relations would be hugely complex, not least because in China there are folk theories of many kinds about human relations, the life of the emotions and so on. Many of these, perhaps not surprisingly, are built around notions of reciprocity: for example, the idea that children should reciprocate for the love and care received from their parents, or that a family should reciprocate for the support given by neighbors and friends in times of need. But how are such patterns—the stuff of interpersonal and collective relations—actually conceived and articulated by ordinary people in China? And what gives them emotional force? In previous work on China and Taiwan I’ve stressed the organizing power of what might be called the ‘separation and reunion’ idiom or schema.4 To put it as simAbove: Image adapted from photograph by Paul Chu. Left: Fortune Teller Table, Sidney D. Gamble Photographs, Archive of Documentary Arts, Duke University.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 29

ply as possible, this holds that the normal thing in life is for people (and spirits) to go away and then to return again. This doesn’t sound very complicated, although of course the emotions connected with some of these arrivals and departures might be very complicated indeed. But what I want to stress—and it relates closely to these psychological complications—is that patterns of ‘coming and going’ (laiwang) have a great social significance in rural China. This is not only because they are intimately linked to the deep patterns of reciprocity between persons, but also because they fundamentally organize a substantial portion of Chinese social life both inside and outside of families. Among many other examples I could give, the lunar calendar is centrally framed around idioms and practices of separation and reunion, e.g. in the ‘sending away’ (song) and ‘welcoming’ (jie) of gods and ancestors at crucial moments, or in the near-absolute requirement that children should return home before each new year arrives. This spatial logic genuinely matters because relationships of many kinds – including those between friends,

between children and parents, between descendants and ancestors, and between communities and gods—are conceived, in great part, as products of separations and reunions. To put this differently: while reciprocity is seen as the foundation stone of proper relationships, without moments of separation and reunion such relationships might never be recognized or sustained—and could eventually fade away. It’s as if one needs a poignant departure (or at least a departure of some kind) in order to make a relationship real. How does the schema I’m describing relate to questions regarding what is going to happen next? First, as I’ve noted, the separation schema is a key organizing principle behind the annual calendar of festivals and events, which means that anticipation of the future is closely linked to it. Second, the schema gives people strong expectations about that patterns that interpersonal relations will follow over time. For

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse 30

example, even when loved ones die, we can anticipate future reunions with them through the procedures for worshipping the dead. Third—and for me this is the most interesting point—because the practices of separation and reunion help to actually constitute relationships, they are one way of actively trying to make a particular future happen. That is, through making certain that given relationships will continue to exist in the future, one can attempt to control one’s destiny. I’ve sketched out two very different pattern-recognition exercises. In the first, the patterns of the universe, as seen from the framework of Chinese cosmology/numerology, are used to speculate about fate. (There is something rather logical about this, and it has the advantage of short-circuiting human intentionality.) In the second, patterns of interpersonal relations, as organized around the separation and reunion schema, give people strong expectations about how life will unfold—and how it can be made to unfold. (There is something rather emotional about this, and it is clearly immersed in the world or human intentionality.) But how are these two systems of patterns actually recognized and learned, in the first place, by individuals such as Mr. Zhang? In order to consider this question, I’d like to shift focus and look at things, however briefly, from a developmental perspective. It’s relatively easy to imagine how Mr. Zhang’s grandchildren might learn the separation and reunion schema. For example, when their grandparents have gone away from the house and are about to return, the children are sometimes instructed by their parents to show respect by walking to the outside

Image adapted from photographs courtesy Paul Chu and Flickr member Domminikki

gate of the farmhouse complex in order to greet (jie) their elders. By means of a great variety of similar practices and injunctions, the importance of arrivals and departures, and their connections to patterns of reciprocity, is repeatedly stressed to children by the adults around them. They come to pay attention to the situations of this kind. Of course, what they actually learn from particular experiences (e.g. from observing the noisy rituals for ‘sending off’ gods) is likely to be extremely subtle. But putting it all together into a recognizable pattern—that is, seeing that people and spirits go away and then return, and seeing that a fuss is often made about this—shouldn’t be too complicated. By contrast, learning the patterns of the universe seems a trickier business. Few people in the countryside, let alone children, would claim to be experts in calculating fate. And yet, quite early in life, they are exposed to what I would call the Chinese ‘numericization’ of reality. Simply put, in this tradition, there is a strong tendency to think about and talk about reality using numbers and numbered lists. So, when people discuss rituals of banquets, the talk is constantly about numbers: how many sticks of incense, how many times to bow, how many tables, how many guests, how many dishes. Politics and political education are similarly numericized: we should support the ‘three represents’ of Jiang Zemin, we should live in ‘ten-star civilized households,’ and so on. Meanwhile, children learn

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 31

that the Chinese language is, itself, conceivable in numerical terms. Written characters are made of brush-strokes that are counted (and indeed most dictionaries are organized in a stroke-count order). An extension of this is that every person’s written name has numbers attached to it. In one popular type of fortune-telling, known as ‘calculating the brushstrokes’ (suan bihua), the number of strokes in an individual’s written name, when related to the ‘eight characters’ of their date and time of birth, are said to hold vital clues to their fate. Mr. Zhang’s grandchildren, somewhat

early in life—being constantly surrounded by talk of this kind—might reasonably decide that there is something numerical about the way the world is. But let me push this question of learning a bit harder for a moment. How exactly is it possible for children to acquire knowledge of the patterns I’ve been discussing? We know from psychologists that becoming numerate isn’t actually very easy, in that it takes children a long time to even use basic counting terms properly. However, we also know that processes of numerical learning among infants and children are assisted and guided by two things. On the one hand, there are cultural-historical artifacts (such as counting

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse 32

means that narratives of separation and reunion may have a natural resonance, both cognitive and emotional, for us. Mr. Zhang’s grandchildren, immersed in a social world, where the coming and going of significant others is a matter of importance, have repeated opportunities to master such narratives and internalize them as part of their own understandings of how the world works. terms in particular languages) that heavily mediate the development of numeracy. On the other hand, there are evolved cognitive abilities and constraints specifically related to the domain of number. A great deal of evidence suggests that seeing and responding to ‘numerocity’ in the world—that is, observing numerical patterns—is an evolved disposition not only in humans, but also in many other species (including, as it happens, pigeons and horses). It has proved to be useful for humans to be able to differentiate numbers of objects, events, and so on.5 Human infants are, therefore, able to manipulate ‘number’ long before they learn number words, and long before anyone teaches them anything at all about arithmetic. Of course, there is a huge distance between the minimal numerical skills of infants and complex historical artifacts such as numeration systems, not to mention numerological divination techniques such as the ones used in Asia and elsewhere. But our evolved number abilities may help explain why it is that numerical representations of reality have a kind of ‘catchiness’ for humans, and are widely distributed among human populations. One can make a similar argument, as it happens, concerning the separation and reunion schema. It may or may not be true, as some psychologists have argued, that human ‘attachment behaviors’ are a set of evolved dispositions. But human infants are of course highly dependent on their carers, and the argument—which I find plausible—is that we, as a species, have been selected to instinctively pay attention to the problem of abandonment. In short, this particular form of anxiety may be genuinely universal.6 It also

Of course, it takes a good deal of experience to make the change from being a grandchild—starting to see patterns in the world on the basis of intuitions and experiences—to being a grandparent like Mr. Zhang. But if Mr. Zhang has gone through this process, thereby becoming a wise old man, we are still left exactly where we started: with the problem of his anxiety. As I explained, he suffers from insomnia and everyone in the village of Dragon Head knows that he is an anxious type of person. He worries about money, about his wife’s health, about China-Taiwan relations. He worries about his nephew’s smoking, saying the young man should preferably restrict himself to just one cigarette per hour, no more. These days, he and his wife also worry about the fact that the Chinese government is insisting on the cremation of the dead. This costs quite a lot of money, he says, and is ‘inconvenient’ in various ways. In fact, the main inconvenience of cremation is that it threatens to complicate relations with the living and the dead, and to make it impossible, in the view of many, for proper ancestral rituals of reunion and separation to be held. Then what? It is yet another thing to worry about. Nor does the Chinese tradition, with its wealth of mechanisms for recognizing, and even controlling, the patterns of life, seem to have reduced Mr. Zhang’s sense of disquiet. Indeed, if anxiety is seen as a culturally constructed state, then one possibility is that the Chinese tradition is actually good at inducing it. At weddings I’ve attended in the northeast, for example, the bride and groom are sometimes made to eat what are known as ‘broad-hearted

noodles’ (kuanxinmian). They are served precisely eight such noodles, which are very thick, and which are bound together in bundles of four tied up with red string. I was told that the numbers here—four and eight—stand for the expression siping bawen, literally ‘four piece, eight stable.’ According to my dictionary, this expression means ‘steady and sure, over-cautious, and loathe to make the smallest risk.’ As a recipe for life (and for marriage), this is surely a very nervous-making philosophy. Endnotes 1.

I should point out that this system is also used by Chinese people who do believe in gods (including those who worship them fervently), and that even people like Mr. Zhang—who, for their part, would stress the ‘scientific’ nature of fortune telling activities—are inclined to shift back and forth between naturalistic and metaphysical explanations of events.

Cf., for instance, Stephan Feuchtwang’s detailed discussion of geomancy (2002), which illustrates the numerological orientation of Chinese cosmology.

I’m grateful to Maurice Bloch for drawing my attention to this important aspect of divinatory

But if anxiety can be seen as one product of Chinese culture, it undoubtedly also arises from personal experience, and from personal position. One can well imagine that as a young man Mr. Zhang must have learned that life is filled with risks and is very fragile indeed. In this world, ‘four peace, eight stable’ is but a dream. Mr. Zhang’s parents might have lived, he might still be in their village, he and his wife might have had a son, and so on. What, he might well ask himself late in life, could have made these things happen? w

practices. 4.

Stafford, C. 2000. Separation and reunion in modern China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press —2003. Living with separation in China: anthropological accounts, London: Routledge Curzon.

Cf. Brian Butterworth (2000: 153 ff.) on why numerical cognition may have evolved.

Stafford, C. 2000. Separation and reunion in modern China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

‘Number up for unlucky China cabs’, BBC News online, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-

This is an abbreviated version of an article which appears in R. Astuti, J. Parry & C. Stafford (eds), Questions of Anthropology, London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2007. Published here by permission. Don’t miss the GLIMPSE interview with Dr. Stafford at www.glimpsejournal.com

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Perhaps more to the point, many Chinese people feel precisely that the two patterns I’ve outlined above—the numerical one and the relational one—can easily become too much of a good thing. That is, the obsession with reading numbers as indicators of fate, and with manipulating interpersonal relations in order to control the future, are explicitly seen by many people in China as a kind of unhealthy mania. As I was writing this essay, I learned that taxi cabs in Shanghai with the number four on their license plates were being taken off the street during the period of college entrance exams. Parents—knowing that the word for ‘four’ sounds like the word for ‘death’—were apparently worried that their children might accidentally ride in such taxis, thus fatally harming their chances of success.7

pacific/4612869.stm

Glimpse

www.glimpsejournal.com

y work is layered with stories, memories and cultural metaphors—my own, my family’s, our ghosts—and animal and human sounds that were mumbled, screamed, overheard and imagined. My cabinet of curiosities includes luminaries such as a modern-day Chinese Ox Guardian of Hell; Baishe, The White Snake; and Multi-Limbed Beckoning Cat along with creatures of my own invention and various body fragments. Inhabiting the realm of temporality, private obsessions and the sensual, my images are both personal and allegorical, requiring more than one level of understanding. The work never adheres to or illustrates a particular story, but instead is developed via an onslaught of associational and discordant pivotal images, such as scenes from Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum, to the Chinese concept of “eating bitterness.” My compilation of images, both Eastern and Western, delve into our universal fears, superstitions and the demons that haunt us by day and night. I grew up in suburban Long Island—the bedtime stories of my mother’s childhood in Nanjing during the Japanese Occupation juxtaposed with the sounds of Lost in Space on our family’s television set in the background. My teenage years followed with the event of my father’s first return to China, where he reunited with his family and trained PhD students in Beijing at the end of the Cultural Revolution, which collided with the accidental death of my first boyfriend. The realization of the family purges and casualties was compounded by the later revision of history and ironic rise of those relatives to the Hall of Revolutionary Heroes. I eventually pursued my version of my father’s path, studying, working and living in northern China, and discovering more than I intended to about the countryside, superstition and myself. Naturally, my background of cultural dualities informs the work. In my studio, there has been an ongoing dialogue with varied materials, an abstract narrative, and both a visceral and literary approach throughout my twenty years of working as an artist. Cut paper installation has been a primary medium, though I also work in photography, sculpture, drawing and video. The edges and boundaries of sanity, nuances in the body, a sense of longing and shame are essential elements in the work. I have deliberately left a level of ambiguity in the work, the question as to who is eating whom remains. The vehicle of the transformed, masked, or monstrous figure allows for an outpouring of expression of the other, stranger, outsider. w

Devour from Baishe, The White Snake series, 2006, digital print.

Myth& Modernity volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Mary Ting

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse â&#x20AC;&#x192; 36

...delve into our universal fears, superstitions, and the demons that haunt us by day and night.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 37

Left: Bird Fairy from Witch, Whore, Widow, 2009, (installation detail). Cut paper, ink, watercolor, soot, 66 x 44 inches. metaphor contemporary art, Brooklyn. Right: Monkey Speaks of Evil, 2009 (installation detail). Paper, watercolor, ink, silkscreen, 33 x 18 inch section. DEAN PROJECT, Long Island City.

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse â&#x20AC;&#x192; 38

Snake Girl, from the Other Garden series, Watercolor, ink, silkscreen on cut paper, 18x22 inches. Nipple Enhancement Plant from the Magic Recipe series, Ink and graphite on cut paper, 18x22 inches.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 39

Evidence: 28 items demonstrating a questionable life, 2009. Wall installation of 28 sculptures, documents, photographs. 4ft. x 8 ft. x 4 inches. metaphor contemporary art, Brooklyn.

40 Glimpse â&#x20AC;&#x192; www.glimpsejournal.com

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

...inhabiting the realm of temporality, private obsessions and the sensual... 41

Left: Run-On Sentences, 2009, installation of drawings, sculptures, printed matter, objects, 10 ft x 9 ft x 5 inches, DEAN PROJECT, Long Island City. Above: detail of Run-On Sentences, 2009.

www.glimpsejournal.com Glimpse â&#x20AC;&#x192; 42

Ox Demon in Pink, 2009, digital C print, 24 x 20 inches.

On Chinese Divination by Dissecting Written Characters. BY J. J. M. DE GROOT. Among the numerous methods of divination, which the

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Adapted from T’oung Pao, vol. 1, number 3, October 1890.

Chinese have invented, that performed by dissecting written characters may be freely said to be well worthy of special attention. When anyone has recourse to a professor of that art, he is told by this man to take at random a slip of bamboo or a piece of folded paper out of a tube containing several of these, each inscribed with a character. Then, the diviner writes the character drawn on a piece of paper, dissects it by writing out separately its different lines and strokes, adds, if he thinks fit, a stroke here or a line there, thus making new characters out of the pieces, and finally draws inferences from the same with regard to the question put by the customer. Say, for instance, that the character

<<one>> is

drawn: the professor will then very likely foretell a case of death, as the figure is the last part, the end, of the character <<life>>, and the first of

<<death>>. Now let us sup-

pose further, that this prediction is not verified by events,

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and that the man calls on the professor again to demand an

explanation. This wise man may then, perhaps, learn from his client that he was born in a year, month or day which corresponds with the 0x (one of the twelve animals that, in a fixed series, compose the duodenary cycle by which the almanacs denominate the years, months and days in a perpetual sequence), and exclaim: “If I had known that before, I should have predicted otherwise, for the character <<0x>>, connected with the one you drew from my tube, makes

<<life>>. “

Instead of performing their art by means of a store of ready characters, thoroughly studied beforehand in all their component parts, many necromancers of this class operate on any character their customers are pleased to lay before them. Such men are, of course, the wisest of the wise; more than one of them have attained through their position in this respect to high repute, wealth, influence and social standing. It is a rule for customers, who apply to them, to give them characters with a good meaning to dissect. But such characters do not always afford good omens, as the following example shows. A smart client having written down <<abun-

dance, fertility, plenty>>, the diviner declared he would descend very soon into the grave, because the character repsels

upon a hill

with sacrificial ves-

underneath, in other terms, a grave.

The following amusing legend is widely current among the men of letters in the province of Fuhkien. Once upon a time, the last emperor of the Ming-dynasty ordered a

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resents two trees

famous necromancer of this class to try his anatomical wits upon the character yu <<friendship>>. “This predicts that rebellion

will arise”, said the sage. “But”, exclaimed the

emperor, greatly startled by those ill-omened words -- “I mean another yu, viz.

(to have). “This yu”, replied the

diviner, “is composed of and , and represents the Great Ming-dynasty ( ) torn into fragments, and in a greatly maimed and mutilated state”. “I do not want this

yu either”, now said the quick-witted emperor, “but ”. “This figure”, said the sage, “depicts the high and venerable one ( ) without a head, and without anything underneath to support him”. At this the sovereign resigned himself. Shortly afterwards he was dethroned by the Tatars, and his dynasty destroyed.

[T]his…method of divination…is cultivated as a most seri-

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ous art, and omens, obtained from it, are considered not a

whit less valuable than those derived from any other branch of necromancy. [W]ritten characters call to mind realities as much as spoken words do. Consequently they can, when fortuitously taken from a box or caught from other people’s mind, just as well serve for the purpose of divination. It is, indeed, generally known that lettered paper is never carelessly thrown away or trodden upon; that refuse paper and fragments of crockery are carefully collected by societies and private persons for the sole purpose of cleansing and burning the whole assortment and casting the ashes into the sea or into a river, with a good deal of pomp and solemnity. Desecration of characters is, in short, a real sin, especially dangerous to the individual who commits it. In literary language we find the mode of divination, now under our notice, denoted by three different terms: <<to sound characters>>, i. e. to fathom their occult meaning; <<to dissect, split, break up characters>>, and <<to thoroughly examine characters>>. In the different local languages the practice may, of course, be known by various other terms.

…[I]t is in the historical books of [the Han Dynasty] that we find the practice [of Divination] mentioned for the first time. kienlung edition) relates: <<Kung-sun Shuh dreamt that somebody said to him: ‘For Jih-sze-tsze-hi the years are twelve’. Starting from his sleep, he said to his wife: ‘Though this foretells greatness

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Chapter 43 of the Heu-Han-shu (folio 17 of the

and honour, the happy years to enjoy it are rather short; do not you think so?’ ‘If’, replied the woman, ‘a man hearing of a good thing in the morning may die without regret in the evening,1 how much the more then may he do so after a dozen years!’.... In the first year of the Kien-wu-period (A. D. 25), in the fourth month, he placed himself upon the throne as Son of Heaven>>.2 And twelve years afterwards he perished on a battle-field, as the same biography also states. The characters Jih-szetsze-hi , which form the nucleus of the story, are the components of Kung-sun, the surname of our hero. In chapter 56 of the same historical work (folio 12 of the Kienlung- edition) we have another episode of similar kind

in a biography of Tshai Meu , a contemporary of Kung-

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sun Shuh.

Soon after having established himself in Kwang-han, he dreamt that, while he was sitting in the great hall of his mansion, he perceived three stalks of grain on the ridgepole; — he jumped up to seize them, but only grasped the middle stalk, which thereupon suddenly vanished in his hand. When he consulted his Registrar-in-chief Kwoh-Ho about the matter, this man rose and congratulated him, saying: ‘The great hall represents a palace, the ridge-pole with grain upon it means the highest emoluments which pertain to ministers. You grasped the middle stalk: this intimates that the middle of the (three) highest dignities in the empire will fall to your share. The characters grain ( ) and to vanish (

) compose the character ‘official dignity’ ( ), and

though your dream makes the grain disappear in your hand, an investiture with salaried dignities will result from it. If there are any deficiencies that render you unfit for the ducal dignity, be careful to rectify them’.3 Ten months afterwards Meu saw the fulfilment of this prediction.4 We have not been able to find in Chinese books any notices

which would show that auguration from dissected characters was practised as a profession before and during the middle of the tenth century, is, so far as we know, the first work in which professors of that art are dimly alluded to. It relates how a Taoist of great age, Tshui Wu-tu by name, and deeply versed in arithmetic, was once called on by a certain Yang Teh-hwui

, who wished to have

his advice with respect to a plan he cherished, namely of travelling to the north, in order to attend a religious festival there. Wu-tu told him to draw characters on the ground, and Teh-hwui drew

<<north>> and

<<thousand>>, in refer-

ence probably to the thousands whom he expected to flock to the feast. The Taoist combined them into , <<unlucky, untoward>>, and told his client not to go, which advice was obeyed. Subsequently tidings came that the Taoists had been arrested during the celebration of the ceremonies and had to suffer hardships and miseries of every description.5 As an anatomist of characters nobody ever came up to Shé Shih of the Sung-dynasty. He is generally recognized

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Thang-dynasty. The Poh-mang-so-yen, written about the

as the patriarch of the art, and even worshipped by the

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professors as their patron-divinity. By the Yu-kien ,

written in the twelfth century by Shan Tsoh-cheh , we are informed in the 9th chapter, that he was a native of Shuh or Sze-chwen, whose predictions were all verified afterwards by events. When he had arrived in the then capital of the empire Pien , or the present Khai-fung-fu, the emperor Hwui Tsung (A. D. 1101-1125) wrote down the character <<imperial court>>, and ordered a guest of one of his grandees to take it to She Shih for dissection, without telling him, however, that it came from another person. But when the learned man beheld the figure, he prostrated himself before it several times, exclaiming: “This is a character from the asterisms Kwei and Pih of the highest heavens, and, consequently, an emblem of the emperor” . And thereupon he said: “The character means the tenth (

) day ( ) of the tenth ( ) month ( ); this is the

emperor’s birthday”. — His fame, continues the book, was so great, that he was paid ten thousand pieces of money for every

character

analyzed.

certain

Tshien

Yuen-su asking him to foretell his future from the character

<<to pray, to request>>, She Shih said: “You

will be a censor, for the character is composed of words ( ) and rebuke ( ) in an unfinished shape”. The man

…The most important inference to be drawn… is …that written characters … in China have spirit, life in them, and, as such, are intimately connected with the fate of man, who is so absolutely dependent on everything surrounding him…. ____________________________________

1) A saying attributed to Confucius, and preserved in the Lun-yü, IV, 8. 2)

3) This phrase is quoted from the Shi-king, ode

5) See quoted in the great thesaurus Kin-ku-thu-shu-

tsih-ching, ch. 748.

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was afterwards indeed invested with that high dignity.

SitU Panchen, 1700-1774 Tibetan Encampment Revivalist PATRON and PAINTER

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by M. Hurst with input from curators, Dr. David Jackson and Dr. Karl Debreczeny

ost, dispersed and erased by time or political upheavals, most historians of Tibetan art thought there to be no hope of connecting thangka paintings to known artists. However, a recent exhibit, Patron and Painter: Situ Panchen and the Revival of the Encampment Style, at the Rubin Art Museum in New York City, reunites for the first time in centuries a substantial grouping of artworks with a clearly identified individual. The exhibit amplifies written accounts from 18th-century Tibet that describe a period of prolific artistic production under the patronage of Situ Panchen, Buddhist leader and artist. The exhibit sharpens the perspective on that period provided by Situ’s own autobiography. The reassembled canvases, some of which were meant to be displayed in large-scale groupings or “sets,” reveal the cultural impact of one man’s spiritual, political and artistic vision. Together with works that preceded or followed the period, they establish a significant advancement for scholars of Tibetan art and religion. Situ’s corpus of paintings was borne of, and dispersed by, major regime changes in Tibet’s history. The mid17th-century Mongol invasion, which seated the Dalai Lama on the throne of Tibet, brought an end to the flourishing Karma Gadri painting style (known as the Encampment style), established by the Tibetan painter Namkha Tashi in the 16th century. In the 18th century, Situ, having been identified as a lama incarnate in his youth, studied with the great Buddhist leaders of his time and was steeped in the history of his tradition. He later sought, by diplomacy with governmental authorities, to reestablish a flourishing monastic community at Palpung, and to revive the native Encampment artistic style of Namkha Tashi by commissioning numerous paintings and sets. Two centuries later, the Chinese invasion and Cultural Revolution displaced the Dalai Lama and contributed to the scattering of Situ Panchen’s body of works.

Tibetan Buddhist paintings, like those of other Buddhist traditions, served to legitimize and represent the transmission of an unbroken lineage of spiritual gurus and their teachings. Often, the paintings communicate these teachings in vignettes. Revered teachers sometimes are depicted surrounded by scenes of influential moments in their storied paths to enlightenment. Paintings’ compositions were often copied from generation to generation. Innovation came in the borrowing of conventions from other sources: the introduction of landscapes in backgrounds and the incorporation of the blues and greens more prominent in Chinese court paintings; or the modes of brushwork, such as the pink, transparent “halo” effect surrounding enlightened subjects’ heads. The paintings were collaborative works by contracted professionals that specialized in specific aspects of painting (e.g. painting thin, gilded lines). David Jackson, historian of Tibetan art, has used visual imagery to reconstruct the cultural corpus of Situ Panchen. These depictions of the spiritual teacher’s lineages can be anchored to their well-documented life dates. Also, stylistic cues geographically and chronologically contextualize work based on outside artistic influences. The depictions highlight the distinct Encampment style favored, elaborated, and promoted by Situ in his commissioned works. Finally, no less important, the head gear depicted on the paintings’ subjects provides important information to establish time periods and influences for the paintings. Jackson’s work has been quickened by access to a digital library established in 1997 of over 35,000 images of Himalayan art from collections around the world. Research that once required travel of long distances to access collections in multiple countries and continents is now aided by the online library, Himalayan Art Resource.

Image right: The Thirteenth Karmapa as thirtythird master of the lineage. Late 18th or early 19th century. 38 1/2 x 23 1/4 in. (98 x 59 cm) C2005.20.1 (HAR 65494)

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Glimpse received a tour of the exhibit from the curators, Dr. Jackson and Dr. Karl Debreczeny. Our brief conversation follows: M H : T h e s e v i s u a l l i n k s o f l i n e a g e h av e s e r v e d a secondary purpose of preserving the relationships among the paintings themselves for scholars centuries later. volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

DJ: Yes. The lineages indicate a spiritual origin, which was their primary, original purpose. But for us, they also provide a historical framework, which can be viewed as secondary. That historical framework helps us reconstruct the relations between the pictures and related ones. MH: What led to your interest in Situ Panchen? DJ: I became interested in Situ Panchen and his art because the traditional accounts of Tibetan art history (such as that of Kongtrul) mention him as a very important patron/artist whose works were in the nineteenth-century still around and to be appreciated. But whe n I started studying them, nobody could identify any of his famous [multi-painting] sets with any certainty. I wanted to change that.

MH: Was there an “aha” moment for you in your research, when these visual “links” were apparent or confirmed? DJ: [The exhibition] catalog... mention(s) one such ...moment: “The turning point...came in winter of 1994, while I was still trying to identify a single Situ thangka. The crucial discovery occurred in Kathmandu, Nepal, when an old monk from Kham strolled up to me in a Tibetan bookshop in Bodhnath and peered over my shoulder. ‘Situ Panchen,’ he intoned with assurance as he looked at the illustrations of the recently published book that lay open in my hands. ”Since then, more than a dozen major sets commissioned by Situ Panchen or his circle have been identified, and more continue to turn up, not only outside Tibet, but also in Kham. One of the most fortuitous finds occurred at Situ’s monastic seat, Palpung, where it was believed not a single wall painting had survived the scourge of the Culture Revolution intact. Surprisingly, renovation work in Palpung revealed a large underground cache of thangkas.” w

Image left: Later copy of Situ’s commission, Eight of the Eighty-four Adepts. 19th or early 20th century. 48 1/2 x 27 1/4 in. (123.2 x 69.2 cm). Purchased from the Collection of Navin Kumar, New York. C2005.22.1 (HAR 65598).

Above: Akasagarbha, from Situ Set of Eight Great Bodhisattvas. 18th century. 14 3/4 x 9 1/4 in. Collection of Shelley and Donald Rubin .P1999.29.11 (HAR 916).

Patron and Painter: Situ Panchen and the Revival of the Encampment Style Smithsonian Freer-Sackler Gallery of Art Washington DC, March 13-July 18, 2010 Visit www.glimpsejournal.com for links to the online exhibit David Jackson’s accompanying exhibition catalog, which was used as a reference in the writing of this article, is available through the Rubin Museum of Art and Amazon.com Don’t miss Himalayan Art Resources a digital library featuring over 35,000 images www.himalayanart.org

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Seeing History

Rediscovering the art of Tibet through modern imaging technology by Chandra L. Reedy, PhD Center for Material Culture Studies University of Delaware

Figure 1 Accomplished Heroic Manjushri (Tibetan ‘Jam-dpal dp’wo grub-pa), Arthur B. Michael Fund 1978:23, 48.5 cm in height. Photo used with permission from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York).

o understand more about the artists and craftspeople of ancient Ti-

imaging systems. Visual perception has always been a foundation of art historical analysis, and studying art with high-powered imaging equipment gives clues as to the motivations behind design and fabrication choices.

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bet, art historians are reexamining Tibetan art objects with cutting-edge

Traditionally, carefully viewing works of art while referring to supplemental 57

documentary evidence has provided the primary data for scholars pondering who might have created a particular work, why, and for whom. This method of analysis has also informed art historians about how the larger artistic, political, economic, religious and social or cultural context affected an objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appearance. Standard art historical studies generally include detailed visual descriptions; investigations of how visual elements may have reflected a person, period or geographic style; and iconographic analysis, which highlights the meaning or symbolic significance of visual elements. But the wealth of modern imaging technologies now extends the traditional definition of visual perception in new and exciting directions, making new insights possible for art historians.

Binocular microscopy

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inocular microscopy allows the examination of the surface of an object with low magnification (10X-80X). The binocular microscope has a long history in art conservation, medicine and various fields of science; art historians are now beginning to use it to enhance their own data collection as well. This optical microscope extends the eye in its ability to discern surface details, which allows a fuller understanding of visual appearance. Furthermore, the technology leads to a better identification of materials, fabrication technology, original function and the history of alterations caused by deterioration, deliberate changes or past repair efforts. This tool aids in the iconographic analysis of the Tibetan sculpture shown in Figure 1. Art historians originally identified the sculpture as Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, whose right hand traditionally points downwards in what is known as “the giving gesture.” On the left shoulder sits a flower with a manuscript on top of the blossom. The naked eye sees that the Bodhisattva is a peaceful-looking youth who wears various ornaments. But using low magnification to enhance the details of the small figure seated in the center of the crown (Figure 2) leads to a more accurate identification of the artist’s intended Manjushri form. Manjushri is a deity of the family of Akshobhya Buddha. Therefore, the figure in the crown should be giving the “earth witness” gesture (the right hand placed on the knee and pointing downwards to the ground, and left hand palm-up in the lap). However, magnification reveals that the image in the crown is of the Vairochana Buddha, who gives the vajra gesture, in which the right hand holds the index finger of the left hand.1 This new information identifies the standing figure as the Accomplished Heroic Manjushri as described by the Sgrub thabs kun btus, a collection of teachings of the Sakyapa order of Tibetan Buddhism.2 Figure 2 (left) Magnified detail of the seated Buddha Vairochana image in the crown of the Accomplished Heroic Manjushri of Figure 1. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 3 (top, right) Copper rivets used to attach a figure to a separately-cast base, viewed under a binocular microscope. The unusual rivet design consists of eight segments per rivet. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 4 (bottom, right) A chaplet (iron nail used to prevent the clay core material from shifting during casting of a bronze) is visible on the inner cavity of the sculpture, with the aid of a binocular microscope used to exam the interior from the open underside of the sculpture. The chaplet was cut off on the exterior side level to the surface of the metal. Photo courtesy of the author.

Binocular microscopy is useful not only for examining conceptual elements such as these, but it also aids in the accurate identification of materials and fabrication methods. While the traditional focus of art historical research has rested on formal or visual factors such as the specific imagery depicted or aesthetic achieved, the binocular microscope extends the range of considered visual data to incorporate the artist’s technical choices of material and technique. This information provides clues as to technological style, or the deliberate choices made by artists that can reflect a personal or cultural style.3 While many technical details concerning materials and techniques have no impact on the visual appearance of a finished work of art, technovisual factors—the visual elements that relate to materials and fabrication methods—are more apparent with the enhanced vision of microscopy, and so can be added to the suite of visual stylistic data.4 For example, art historians can often see copper rivets on the underside of a sculpture’s base, indicating that the artist cast the base separately from the figure and attached it later (Figure 3). Binocular microscopy can also help to discern whether the artist used chaplets or iron nails to help hold the interior clay core in place during casting (Figure 4). Magnification can show their shape, placement and whether the artist pulled them out after casting or left them in place and trimmed the exterior surface of the bronze. If the artist pulled the chaplets out, he might have left the resulting holes as is, or he might have covered them with small patches. Binocular microscopy allows art historians to better discern the artist’s

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Matching this image to a text within the Sgrub thabs kun btus about the meditation practices of this deity has also given scholars a clearer idea about how the visual aspects of the sculpture relate to the philosophical ideas expressed by the meditation practice of the Accomplished Heroic Manjushri. The text instructs practitioners to visualize themselves as Accomplished Heroic Manjushri, with their body completely filled by the Nectar of Wisdom. Then they are to visualize another image of Accomplished Heroic Manjushri, along with all of his attendants, slowly becoming one figure—the Vairochana—and merging into the top of the practitioner’s head. The visualized image is now identical to this statue. At this point, the practitioner places the mind into a state of equanimity for a period of meditation beyond thought, followed by 400,000 recitations of a 34-syllable mantra. The purpose of this practice is to attain Wisdom.

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decision to use copper or bronze patches to cover casting flaws (Figure 5), as well as the number, shape and quality of such repairs. Whether or not to cover repairs and what quality of patch to make, might depend on whether the artist or patron could afford the extensive time such repairs could require, where the object was to be placed and used and the local cultural view of how disturbing casting flaws are when viewing a sculpture.

Scholars who use binocular microscopy can more easily characterize finishing efforts as well as repair efforts. Magnification provides a clearer visual description of whether the artist employed surface refinement methods like filing. It can also clarify decorative details like the thin silver foil hammered over the protruding eyeballs and fangs of the ferocious deity (Figure 6).

X-ray Radiography

-ray radiography allows an examination of the internal structure of a work of art.5 Depending on the thickness and density of the object, art historians may require industrial radiography units, which employ a maximum x-ray energy of 200-350 kilovolts to analyze metal, stone, and large ceramic artifacts. X-rays of lesser energy are sufficient for studying details beneath the surface of paintings and wooden objects. The energy of the x-rays should be only high enough to penetrate the object, but not too high, as the contrast in the radiographic image would decrease. Thin lead screens, which emit secondary electrons upon impact of x-rays, intensify the image for analysis. To see the interior of a bronze widens art historiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; understanding of the work. Deliberate decisions that the artist made about materials and fabrication methods that originally had no bearing on the analysis of the visual appearance of a finished work are now accessible to scholars, since x-ray radiography provides more evidence for stylistic analysis. For example, during the lost-wax casting process, the artist must make a fundamental choice: when first carving the details of the sculpture out of wax, he must decide whether to use a solid wax model or to carve a layer of wax over a sandy core. In either case, the artist would then form a layer of fine clay over the model with the inner surface of the clay forming an impression of the carved wax. He would then melt the wax out and either pour the molten metal into the resulting cavity to produce a solid metal casting, like the sculpture in Figure 7, or he would produce a hollow casting, such as the sculpture in Figure 8, by pouring the metal onto the clay core. Clockwise, beginning left, center: Figure 5 (left, center) A repair patch on the inner arm of a sculpture was used to repair casting flaws. Since the edges of the patch are obscured by corrosion, magnification under a binocular microscope helps to make the patch more apparent. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 6 (left, top) Examination of the face of a ferocious deity under a binocular microscope helps to clarify that the silver in the bulging eyes and fangs consists of a thin silver foil that was hammered onto the surface of the bronze. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 7 (right) A typical X-ray radiograph of a solid-cast Tibetan bronze. The homogeneous white appearance indicates the presence of solid metal. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 8 (left, bottom) A typical X-ray radiograph of a hollow-cast Tibetan bronze. The solid white areas indicate the presence of metal. In many places this is simply a thin layer of metal over less-dense clay core material (such as in the torso, legs, and head), or empty areas where the core was removed (such as in the base). Those less-dense areas appear dark in the radiograph. Photo courtesy of the author.

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The choice of which kind of wax model to create would have been rooted in a variety of technical, economic, and cultural factors, as well as in the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s training and preferred working methods in a casting workshop. The workshop would usually revolve around a master craftsman, who would direct his team of apprentices to follow his preferred casting methods. If the artist opted to create a hollow casting, he then needed to make additional choices including whether to use an iron armature to support the clay core (Figure 9), whether to use a simple or complex armature system (i.e. a single iron rod in the center of the sculpture or multiple iron rods extending into various areas of the sculpture), and how to place the iron chaplets that would have prevented the core from shifting during casting. X-ray radiography makes these choices visible to scholars so that they can incorporate them into stylistic analyses.

Sometimes x-ray radiography can also reveal something surprising inside a bronze, providing unexpected information, as is the case with the seated yogi in Figure 10. The sculpture gives an exterior visual impression of a meditator of great control, concentration, and raging internal energy. Even his hair seems to radiate upwards from the energy, which also swells his abdomen and widens his eyes. The x-ray radiograph in Figure 11 reveals another result of this internal energy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an erect phallus, previously hidden from view before a radiograph of the sculpture became available. Polarized light microscopy

Figure 9 (above) This hollow-cast Tibetan bronze (of a deity with multiple arms, heads, and legs) has an iron armature system that includes armatures in the torso, heads, arms, and legs. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 10 (right) A seated male figure, probably a yogi or mahasiddha, western Tibet, 11th-12th century, 33.7 cm in height. Photo courtesy of Robert H. Ellsworth, Ltd. (New York).

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any materials have optical properties that vary according to the structure of mineral crystals and with the orientation of entering light. Polarized light microscopy harnesses the light and uses it in a controlled manner to reveal the visual characteristics of a sample. If one takes a small sample of material for observation under a light microscope, polarizing filters control the light vibration directions and reveal a variety of properties for observation.6 A study of the small Sino-Tibetan clay object in Figure 12 incorporated this analytical process. Such clay objects, or tsha-tshas, can have a variety of forms, images, and functions. This one, from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is part of a set of 37 tsha-tshas, each depicting a different deity, identified on the back of each in Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian and Manchurian.7 By eye, one can see that they are made of red clay covered by red paint, which has then been covered by gold paint on the front of the object. Damaged areas on some of the tsha-tshas in this set of 37 permitted sampling. Scholars studied these samples under plane polarized light, using one polarizer to filter out all light except that which vibrated in a single direction (Figure 13). The resulting image showed that the sample contained a significant sand component comprised of mainly quartz (the round and angular white grains) and micas (the elongated white grains). The sample also contained an additive of tiny linen fibers, which would have been used to improve the drying properties of the clay. The linen fibers were easier to identify in crossed polarized light, which uses two polarizing filters (Figure

Figure 11 (left) X-ray radiograph of the image in Figure 10, showing what appears to be a metal phallus in the interior. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 12 (upper right)A Sino-Tibetan stamped clay image (tsha-tsha) painted red and covered with gold on the front, M.71.26, 7.6 cm in height. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Figure 13 (center) A small sample taken from the image in Figure 12 was examined under a polarizing light microscope (in plane polarized light, with a single polarizer). The image reveals a significant amount of sand component (with round and angular quartz grains and tabular micas), and tiny linen fibers that were probably added to improve the drying qualities of the clay. A thin clay slip is seen, apparently made by refining the same clay as was used in the body of the tsha-tsha. It serves as an interface between the porous clay body and the red paint layer. Photo courtesy of the author. Figure 14 (right) In crossed polarized light (using two polarizers), the characteristics of the fibers are more visible. The series of parallel nodes segmenting the fibers are typical of linen. Photo courtesy of the author.

14). The parallel nodes segmenting the fiber are typical of linen. The image also revealed that the artist applied red pigment over a finegrained clay slip layer, which appeared to be a more refined and smaller-grained version of the same clay used to form the body of the tsha-tsha. Viewing the sample under reflected light clarified that the upper red pigment layer was hematite (ferric oxide), which usually has a deep reddish glow in reflected light. This material would have made a good bonding base for the layer of gold applied to the front of the tsha-tsha. This knowledge about the fabrication method provides information about the technological style of the workshop where the tsha-tsha was made. The data is valuable for identifying other objects that may have been made in the same workshop. Digital image analysis

ew comprehensive digital image analysis computer packages that recently emerged within the discipline of art history provide a wealth of new ways to visualize and analyze works of art.8 Using these packages to render high-quality, uncompressed digital images, one can quickly highlight or mark for analysis specific features of a certain size range, shape, color or contrast. One can then rapidly and simultaneously collect a wide variety of data on those highlighted features. These computer pack-

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ages emerged during the last decade in several scientific fields, and art historians are just beginning to use them in their own field of study.

Art historians have used this approach in technological style studies of materials, such as the clay used to make Tibetan tsha-tshas or the clay core material from inside bronzes (Figure 15).9 Using image analysis packages to highlight or mark certain components with different colors allows for the computer measurement and analysis of specific elements or particle types. In Figure 16, the sand grains are highlighted in red and have been selected for measurement. The green represents empty background space on the microscope slide, the yellow areas mark clay, and the black indicates carbonized organic material. The histogram in Figure 16 shows the size distribution of sand grains and presents only one of many possible aspects of analysis. After marking the components, one can measure any number of variables simultaneously to compare and characterize an object among other objects. For example, scholars can compare the percentage of sand present in a sample of clay with other samples from different workshops. This technology also allows for the comparison of the percentage of organic material, the size of sand additives, the porosity of the material, the degree of roundness or angularity of sand or any number of other characteristics. The collected data can then inform comparative technological stylistic analyses. Digital image analysis is versatile and is not restricted to the examination of samples viewed under a polarizing microscope. Rather, it allows for a quantitative analysis of surface images obtained by various instruments, from digital cameras to binocular microscopes. Conclusions

n a rapidly changing technological environment, new imaging methods continue to emerge each year. For the field of art history to remain current, it needs to embrace these new technologies and incorporate them into its standard working practices. These new imaging technologies are continually expanding the parameters of visual perception, which makes new art historical insights and discoveries possible, and increases the depth of our understanding of works of art. w View supplemental illustrations for this article at www.glimpsejournal.com

Endnotes 1.

Beer, R. 2003. A Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Boston: Shambala Publications.

Figure 15 (top) Clay core material from inside a hollow-cast bronze is viewed under a polarizing microscope (in plane polarized light). The blue area is the empty background of the microscope slide (since the core material was mounted in a blue-dyed epoxy); the large white grains are sand components; and the black areas are a mix of clay and carbonized organic material.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Figure 16 (lower left) A digital image analysis of clay core material from a bronze. Each component has been identified and marked for analysis. Here the sand is highlighted in red, the slide background in green, the clay in yellow, and the carbonized organic material is black. Once a component has been highlighted, any number of parameters can be quantified simultaneously (such as size, shape, amount present, size range, etc.). Such data can then be incorporated into comparative studies of the working style of artists, workshops or regions.

67 2.

Reedy, C. L. 1991. Two Himalayan examples of the Accomplished Heroic Manjushri image. Oriental Art 37(1): 35-41.

Lechtman, H. 1977. Style in technology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; some early thoughts. In Material Culture: Styles, Organization, and Dynamics of Technology, edited by H. Lechtman and R. S. Merrill: 3-20. St. Paul: West Publishing. Lechtman, H. 1988. Traditions and styles in central Andean metalworking. In Beginning of the use of Metals and Alloys, edited by R. Maddin: 344-78. London and Cambridge: MIT Press.

Reedy, C. L. and T. J. Reedy 1994. Relating visual and technological styles in Tibetan sculpture analysis. World Archaeology 25(3): 304-20.

Middleton, A. and J. Lang 2005. Radiography of Cultural Materials [Second Edition]. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.

Reedy, C. L. 2008. Thin-Section Petrography of Stone and Ceramic Cultural Materials. London: Archetype Publications.

Pal, P. 1990. Art of Tibet: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Hetzner, D. 1998. Quantitative image analysis, Part I: Principles. Buehler Tech-Notes 2(4): 1-5.

Reedy, C. L. and P. Meyers 2007. New methods for analyzing thin sections of casting core materials. In Studies of the Sculptural Arts of Asia Using Scientific Methods, edited by J. Douglas, P. Jett, and J. Winter: 191-212. London: Archetype Publications.

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Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA February 14-May 10, 2009

by Lauren Cross

At the time of China’s Cultural Revolution, art produced in China was required by the government to ”serve the people.” The images of Chinese citizens were to be represented as servants of their country and the cultural identity was strategically uniform and implemented by the State. This dictate limited the rest of the world’s access to the individuality and independence of China’s citizens. Yet during this time a group of Chinese artists began to look at Western artists’ contemporary art practices and sought to remove themselves from the traditional styles of art-making that were organized by the State. These artists began to produce works that articulated other issues within their culture. Some had to live and work outside of their native land in order to freely make work that questioned Chinese cultural identities and traditions. Many artists who remained in China during that time were not able to create the art they desired. In the exhibition, Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, former Swiss ambassador to China Uli Sigg’s personal art collection presents the triumph and hardships that Chinese and diaspora artists have faced during the course of their country’s renewal. The exhibition, divided into two parts, emphasizes recurring conceptual themes evident in the artworks.

scape of its cities. Hai Bo’s They Recorded for the Future shows the impact China’s cultural revolution has had upon its people. The museum’s wall text describes the images as conveying an “uncertain future” while being influenced by age and mortality, which affects one’s ability to experience a certain type of future—whether good or bad. The work records the effects of the Cultural Revolution by constructing two portraits: one of a group of Chinese women during the Cultural Revolution and the second of the same group of women after China gained its cultural independence. The subjects of the photographs remain in their original positions, yet time has changed them. With the future (in color) juxtaposed against the past (in black and white), the images convey more then just the technical advances of photography. The more recent image shows the emergence of the subjects’ varying expressions of individuality by their hairstyles, clothing, and expressions. By comparing both images, one is able to consider the changes that have occurred in their lives, as well as the political and social conditions that haven’t changed at all.

Part One of the exhibition features artists dealing with issues of individuality and society—specifically, the ability of Chinese citizens to become their own person. Other works illustrate Mao Zedong’s influence on Chinese culture, as well as the transformation of the physical land-

Hai Bo, They Recorded for the Future, 1999, 2 photographs (1 color, 1 black-and-white), 40 x 60 inches each, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.

The artist Zhou Tao brings another conversation to the forefront in the film Onetwothreefour, where the artist shows us a glimpse into staff development and training in China. Each clip shows employees from a range of businesses in China (from corporate office to fast food) doing morning drills, in the manner of a military army. Each scene shows groups of employees shouting “One..two...One...two” in unison. Tao gives us an understanding of the prominence of this strategy in the Chinese workplace as clips of a number of businesses in China uphold this standard of drills for their employees. It is believed that doing these drills benefit the infrastructure of the workplace, impact the quality of their work ethic and strengthen their ability to work as a team. Though the clips of drilling employees look as if they are staged, they aren’t. These employees show the evidence of discipline and practice. The employees’ chants and unified movements affirm ideals (or stereotypes) about conformity and discipline. In Cao Fei’s RMB City: A Second Life City Planning, the artist uses cultural references to China, such as the flag, the panda, the fish and traditional architecture to

construct, through virtual reality, the experience of a new Chinese city that is constantly changing and being reborn. The video feels like investigating the cityscapes within a video game, as each view allows us to go deeper within and out of this ever-changing space. The new structures forming in the city, replacing the former buildings give a sense of the significant scale of the urban changes occurring. The controversy over major projects like the Bird’s Nest for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing seem to relate to Fei’s evolving city. RMB City condenses the view of a modernizing China, where the landscape stretches itself into a space very different from the “traditional” China that the world used to know. In contrast, Lu Hao’s Recording 2009 Chang Street, shows the effects of Western influence on Chinese architecture, as the sequences of buildings and the presence of a highway interpass impose on the traditional view of China. Only when the scroll-like drawings emerge to the traditional Chinese palace do we see an appreciation for keeping the symbolic nature of traditional Chinese references of culture. Other works more directly reference the struggle between the Cultural Revolution and the desire by many contemporary artists to break out of tradition and the rule of Mao Zedong. It is here that we see examples of the traditional Chinese art from which many artists want to depart. Because Zedong imposed artistic conformity,

it seems natural that contemporary Chinese artists would begin to make work referencing his visibility and ideologies. Artists like Yu Youhan [Untitled (Marilyn/Mao), 2005; and Untitled (Chairman Mao), 1996], Shi Xinning (Duchamp, Retrospective Exhibition in China, 2000–01) and Wang Guangyi (Untitled, 1986) help contextualize the power to which they were subject. Part Two of the exhibition focuses on the works of Chinese artists that have integrated traditional artistic practices into their work. In the installation, Whitewash, the artist Ai Weiwei presents tradition being stripped away. Weiwei creates a space full of neolithic storage jars in both their original state and also washed in white paint. The “washed” jars, still showing evidence of their traditional form, leave us questioning the need for a modern “upgrade” to replace the authenticity of the old. The space evokes a sense of nostalgia as the intermingling of the old and new vessels remind us of what used to be, while yielding to what is now present.

Above: Lu Hao, Recording (2005) Chang’an Street, 2005, ink and color on silk, 19 inches x 164 feet, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Right: Ai Weiwei, Whitewash, 1995-2000, dimensions variable, aprrox 49 x 49 feet, 132 Neolithic vases and white paint, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.

This page: Zhang Huan, Family Tree, 2000, 9 color photographs, 50 x 40 inches each, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Next page, clockwise from top left: Shi Xinning, Duchamp, Retrospective Exhibition in China, 2000â&#x20AC;&#x201C;01, Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Wang Guangyi, Untitled, 1986, Oil on canvas, 60 x 51 inches, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Yu Youhan, Untitled (Marilyn/Mao), 2005, Oil on canvas, 63 x 48 inches, Sigg Collection, Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II

Zhang Huan’s Family Tree, 2000, shows the impact of his Chinese heritage upon his life through performance and calligraphy. The project begins when Huan has calligraphers write his family history on his face for three days, which eventually produces an “ink mask” that ultimately makes him featureless. A series of color photographs record the process of blotting out Huan’s past and cultural heritage. In the end, tradition (calligraphy) for Huan has made his identity unrecognizable, bringing a new irony to the purpose of cultural traditions. Weiwei and Huan suggest that tradition can change us more than the future, and by learning from the past we can begin to understand our destiny.

Though it is evident that the world is still coming to understand the developments of China, our exposure to China’s politics and culture helps us to push past the old views of China. Whether using tradition or inventing new methods, the artists in Uli Sigg’s collection help us understand facets of contemporary China from Chinese perspectives, to engage with the circumstances the artists faced, and to reflect on the fruits of their struggles. w Go to www.glimpsejournal.com to link to the

The artists in this exhibition present an interchanging of meaning of “Chinese-ness.” Each of the artworks in Sigg’s collection was chosen for the artist’s articulation of something distinctly contemporary about Chinese culture. While some of the artists live and work in China, Sigg also collects the work of Diaspora artists who communicate through their cultural heritage. He maintains that being absent from one’s country of origin doesn’t hinder the urge to enter into its debate. Yet their absence also tells a story in itself, like the son who has moved away to find a different life yet still communicates with his family. The Western-based Chinese artists in the collection allow us to begin to enter into that dialogue and reflection across cultures.

Peabody Essex Museum’s online version of this exhibit.

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GREEN SNAKE

Not ONE LESS

Tsui Hark (1993) Starring: Maggie Cheung, Joey Wong, Zhao Wen-Zhou

Zhang Yimou (1999) 106 min. Starring: Wei Minzhi, Zhang Huike

For viewers familiar with Zhang Yimou’s historic Chinese dramas (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad, and Hero), Not One Less will be a big surprise. Instead of a lush, historic film with a mythical bent, Not One Less is set in a contemporary, poor village in the Chinese countryside and shot in a neorealist, documentary style. 13-year-old Wei is hired to substitute teach in a small, rural village while the regular teacher leaves for a month to visit his family. The title of the film comes from the fact that Wei is told that she cannot have one less student when Teacher Gao returns or she won’t be paid for her work. Inevitably, one of the students leaves to find work in the city and Wei goes after him to bring him home. The geography of China is used in the film as a physical and cultural barrier for Wei, an obstacle of size—vast and daunting. Whether it is the remoteness of the village or the density of the city, this is a world that must be traversed and bravely overcome. Filming on location in Zhangjiakou city and the Hebei province, Yimou exclusively used amateur actors from the area. He insisted on capturing natural reactions from the cast and, to achieve this, often used hidden cameras and microphones. This technique enables the viewer to witness infinitely simple moments in the characters’ lives, like writing out posters by hand or preparing for bed. And where his earlier films used emotion and melodrama to engage the audience, here Yimou uses intimacy and humanity with the same skill. Not One Less is challenging in its slowness and simplicity, but worth watching because it is also endearing, delightful, and heroic. Image courtesy of Flickr member Mike Bowler

Tsui Hark’s Green Snake is a unique vision of a famous Chinese myth about the conflict between a heroic monk and two beautiful sisters who happen to be snakes. From the first shot under the credits, the viewer is asked to travel into another realm as we watch fabric flow down a river. Hark is one of the most popular Hong Kong directors from the 1990s. He is known for producing entertaining and actionpacked films. With Green Snake, he delivers on his reputation. In addition to having great action scenes, it is also sexy, funny, and magical. We are introduced to a Buddhist monk haughtily looking down upon regular folk as they toil, grapple, and fight. Shown through the eyes of the monk, the people have distorted faces with beastly attributes. Our first introduction to the snake sisters is also through his eyes: as monsters he is fighting. Through an act of mercy the monk allows the snakes to escape, to battle with them another day. White Snake (Joey Wong) is determined to woo and wed a man so that she can finish her transformation to humanity, by giving birth to a human child. Meanwhile, Green Snake (Maggie Cheung) struggles with her human body, easily slipping back into her beast form—catching flies with her tongue, slithering across the floor, and allowing her legs to turn back into a tail. As they work to meet their goals, the monk works to expose them for the non-humans he suspects them to be.

After many conflicts between the three, the final battle occurs when the Buddhist monk steals White’s husband away from her. The scene plays out like a Greek tragedy, including flood, birth, and death. Green Snake is one of Hark’s most memorable films, not only because of its gorgeous stars and accomplished filmmaking but also because it so effectively translates this myth into a film that can entertain audiences all over the world. w

volume 2.2 China Vision, Part II 75

Explore China’s Architectural Heritage Open Hearts Open Doors Reflections on China’s Past and Future ELIZABETH GILL LUI

AFTERWORD

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“Lui’s photographs of rural China transform photojournalism into visual poetry. The places they feature are living spaces imbued with feeling and memory. Seemingly timeless, these beautiful images also convey a subtle sense of transformation, telling a familiar legend with a fresh voice.” —WU HUNG, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 250 PAGES / $50.00 CLOTH | 160 COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS

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