What the art historians had forgotten is that in Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and Indian art, they never painted shadows. Why did they paint shadows in European art? Shadows are because of optics. Optics need shadows and strong light. Strong light makes the deepest shadows. It took me a few years to realize fully that the art historians didn't grasp that. There are a lot of interesting new things, ideas, pictures.
There is the specter of "realism" that is still haunting Chinese contemporary art - that art is only an instrument, an instrument to reflect society, that it must be useful for society. Also, I have noticed many Western media outlets are very insistent on understanding contemporary art in China through this kind of realist approach. Sometimes I even sense that they are intent on, as we say in China, "picking bones of politics out of an egg of art. " Or perhaps they see art as merely an instrument to reflect society.
Every other word out of every other Chinese mouth is "development, development, development, development. " And that's what they're talking about it - because they believe it, A, enables them, with development, to have the kind of status they want in the world, and B, it enables them to deal with their internal problems, having to do with poverty, urban-rural as well as the environment.
There is no Croatian dream. There is no European Union dream. There is no Chinese communist dream, except maybe to get out. But there is and always has been an American dream. And the dream is possible. The dream can become real.
One time he was asked if he believed in an afterlife. After a moment's hesitation he said no, that he thought there was only "some kind of velvety cool blackness," adding then: "Of course, I admit I may be wrong. It is conceivable that I might well be reborn as a Chinese coolie. In such case I should lodge a protest. "
If I need to buy a TV, I'll definitely buy a Japanese TV. A Chinese TV might explode.
I'm fed up with Britain being condemned to this future where we borrow the Chinese in order to buy from the Chinese the things that they make for us.
The Chinese five-spice works really well in the quantity that I used. It makes it almost imperceptibly just a little bit sweeter without making it really sweet or really even that Asian flavored.
It is not wise for Chinese to do things to artificially disrupt relations with the U. S.
In 1924 Mao took a Chinese friend, newly arrived from Europe, to see the notorious sign in the Shanghai park, 'Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed'.
Chinese architecture has a complete organic structure; it contains both sensibility and purpose.
Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back. ” - Chinese proverb
My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist in pre-war Paris Smuggling bombs for the underground. And she met my father at a fete in Aix-en-Provence; He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis.
You're birthday reminds me of the old Chinese scholar. . . . . Yung No Mo
California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?
I think it's very important to follow the lead of the South Koreans and the Chinese and not back North Korea even further into a corner, because that's when they'll be dangerous.
It's a good thing that it is getting simpler to register a company in China, it is good that the exchange rate of our currency is getting more flexible and that it's getting easier for Chinese businesspeople to travel. All of this opens up our economy.
We (the Chinese) eat food for its texture, the elastic or crisp effect it has on our teeth, as well as for fragrance, flavor and color.
Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer. He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy. In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues. And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?" And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia. " Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.
You know, the Chinese don't like to be photographed because they believe that a part of their life is being taken away by the photographer. And in a way, they're right. The photographer is trying to get the prettiest moment of a life in his camera.