07-13-13 | Third Week in Review pt1: 798 Art District

It's finally happened. I'm sick. Not the usual kind of sick that everybody here gets involving a lot of time on the toilet, but the kind of coughy phlemmy sick that comes with a chronic headache and a desire to stay in bed and hand in tests without looking them over. (As a side note, I think the prevalence of stomach-related disturbances in China accounts for how liberally people talk about having diarrhea here. You 拉肚子, I 拉肚子，and pretty much everyone else).

I haven't been sick like this since the beginning of freshman year when our fencing coach informed us that sickness was a product of mental weakness. It's okay though; I'm drinking this Ginseng root dry mix thing.

Speaking of fencing, I don't think I've ever seen an ad like this. I think it's for a mechanical pencil?

Last week, we went to the 798 Art District in Beijing (north of Sanlitun) to view the galleries. Taking the bus there was a bit of a nightmare. First we lost Wen Si and then we found out we took the wrong bus. When we finally got to the place, it was nice although not as lively as I had imagined. Perhaps if we had walked through the entire complex...

Posing in front of the entrance. The thumb makes it artsy

798 used to be a (I think Soviet) factory

Some semi-traditional Chinese watercolor

 

Some street art

More semi-traditional art from the same gallery

I wish I had some pictures of this oil painter whose name I don't know. His work is essentially bright colors in large works with plenty of detail. This is hardly descriptive, but I remember a couple of paintings - one of America with every national symbol you could think of cramped into one painting (statue of liberty, bald eagles, the moon landing, the founding fathers, and the milky way galaxy in the background for some reason). There's a similar (larger) one of China.

The Silk Market

Afterward, we headed (by taxi this time) to the Silk Market, which is a multistory shopping mall that actually reminded me of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, except everything is fake and everybody is trying to rip you off. The entire time, I wondered if foreigners actually bought things at the 10x markups they were being sold for.

I must admit I bought a few things there. When I got back, I think I gave Zhen laoshi the impression that I like spending loads of money... I personally think I'm pretty conservative in that respect.


Anyway, that was Sunday of the previous week. Everything else, including 3-day weekend planning, gorgeous Chinese menu translations, and freaking out waitresses will get put up at some point when I don't feel like dying.

Cheers,
令鑫