I just had dinner with the director of the Fine Arts Division in the Ministry of Culture and an art history professor from the Central Academy of the Fine Arts. It was the director’s idea to “chat and discuss” (liao liao tian tian) my research topic over a nice Sichuanese dinner. Realizing that this was an extremely adult invitation to dinner, I set out a couple of days ago to get a nice bottle of Californian wine (something I would not have personally done in the States because of my age) for my hosts. We ate at an amazing restaurant called Yuxiang Kitchen where the director asked me what kinds of food I especially liked and ordered like a complete professional. The wine was enjoyed and we slowly started talking about my topic, something we moved on to from the topic of dieting (seems like even Chinese women can’t escape the pressures to be thin). Pretty ironic given that we were sitting in front of about eight dishes though.
The two women self-identified as feminists and seemed confident, independent and?knowledgeable about the topics I raised. Despite the fact that they were both appointed to their current jobs twenty-some years ago, and haven’t changed jobs since, they seemed to feel passionate and invested in the current contemporary art climate. However I couldn’t help but think that they, as workers who have always benefited as government officials, were overly forgiving and unconsciously unaware of the biases that existed in the current art world and the suppression of controversial paintings in academic institutions.
Something I’m still trying to grapple with as an outsider is that what I see daily is great disparities between what might be a developing nation and the facade of happy, peaceful and problem-less society that the academics, officials and students tell me about. It’s a topic I try to tackle with every interview that I conduct.
That’s all for today!
–Miyuki