Journey No.15: Touching China - lee wen 李文
"Journey of a yellow man no.15: Touching China"
Pengshan Hotel + on the street at Pengshan county
13 Aug. 2001
The 2nd Open Art Festival in Sichuan, China
Pengshan County - Leshan - Chengdu 8--17 Aug.2001
Just a few weeks before I arrived in Beijing, the International Olympic Council announced Beijing the winner to host the Olympics in 2008. The sky was gray with smog and the streets decorated with colorful flags and banners as if the Olympics had already started. Chen Jin picked me up from the airport and we sidetracked to the Honda agent as he had knocked his brand new car into a bus just two nights ago for lack of sleep organizing and running this Open Art Festival. As matters developed and all the artists collected in Chen Jin's Beijing suburban house, we headed down to Cheng du, Sichuan (36 hours!) by train instead of Kunming, (which would have been further!) as originally announced to dodge the police.
We settled in Pengshan a small county outside Chengdu and made an unused old brick factory location for the event and artists proposing immediately a 3 days program was drawn up.
I proposed to present my work, "Journey of a yellow man no.15: Touching China", on the second day, as I needed to order tofu. As it was the first time most of the foreign artists, I felt that our short stay was like that of touching a giant country harbored with preconceived exotic perceptions that we need to re-adjust day by day. It’s attraction to outsiders especially it’s market potentials reminded me of the Chinese idiom “to eat tofu” has synonym of having ulterior flirtatious motives rather than real interest of friendship. Some claim the origin of this idiomatic expression came from a real tofu seller in Chengdu whose beautiful young wife attracted so many male customers more by her beauty than the average tasting tofu on sale.
Chen Jin one of the main organizers brought me to a tofu maker in the dark farming village outside the town in the evening. We had no time as the first day had a full program of 10 performances. Unfortunately there was heavy downpour in the morning that flooded the grounds of the brick factory. With permission from the management, the organizers decided to present the performances in the hotel. There were quite a number of interesting spaces we could use although it was a modest hotel including a Chinese garden, mezzanine space and quite spacious lobby.
My tofu was laid out on the lobby floor like a bed or a welcome carpet almost directly in front of the main entrance. Starting from my room I came out as the yellow man with a fishing rod with line attached and hooked with a hundred Yuan currency note as bait. Walking up to the tofu, teasing it with the money bait on the line i kept asking, calling out almost proselytizing, "Eat tofu, do you want to eat tofu? Come and eat tofu” Realizing that the rain had slowed into a drizzle I went out of the hotel and walked into the street outside the gates of the hotel. Just for a few minutes and not much further than twenty meters, the organizers got nervous and whispered a request to return to the hotel. Heading back while I continued my call, "Eat tofu, do you want to eat tofu? Come and eat tofu” Reaching the tofu, I teased it once more with the red note and laid down on it. I got up after a minute or more and tried eating as much raw tofu as I could bite like a starved animal until it was too much and choking in nausea I vomited them out.
13 Aug. 2001
The 2nd Open Art Festival in Sichuan, China
Pengshan County - Leshan - Chengdu 8--17 Aug.2001
Just a few weeks before I arrived in Beijing, the International Olympic Council announced Beijing the winner to host the Olympics in 2008. The sky was gray with smog and the streets decorated with colorful flags and banners as if the Olympics had already started. Chen Jin picked me up from the airport and we sidetracked to the Honda agent as he had knocked his brand new car into a bus just two nights ago for lack of sleep organizing and running this Open Art Festival. As matters developed and all the artists collected in Chen Jin's Beijing suburban house, we headed down to Cheng du, Sichuan (36 hours!) by train instead of Kunming, (which would have been further!) as originally announced to dodge the police.
We settled in Pengshan a small county outside Chengdu and made an unused old brick factory location for the event and artists proposing immediately a 3 days program was drawn up.
I proposed to present my work, "Journey of a yellow man no.15: Touching China", on the second day, as I needed to order tofu. As it was the first time most of the foreign artists, I felt that our short stay was like that of touching a giant country harbored with preconceived exotic perceptions that we need to re-adjust day by day. It’s attraction to outsiders especially it’s market potentials reminded me of the Chinese idiom “to eat tofu” has synonym of having ulterior flirtatious motives rather than real interest of friendship. Some claim the origin of this idiomatic expression came from a real tofu seller in Chengdu whose beautiful young wife attracted so many male customers more by her beauty than the average tasting tofu on sale.
Chen Jin one of the main organizers brought me to a tofu maker in the dark farming village outside the town in the evening. We had no time as the first day had a full program of 10 performances. Unfortunately there was heavy downpour in the morning that flooded the grounds of the brick factory. With permission from the management, the organizers decided to present the performances in the hotel. There were quite a number of interesting spaces we could use although it was a modest hotel including a Chinese garden, mezzanine space and quite spacious lobby.
My tofu was laid out on the lobby floor like a bed or a welcome carpet almost directly in front of the main entrance. Starting from my room I came out as the yellow man with a fishing rod with line attached and hooked with a hundred Yuan currency note as bait. Walking up to the tofu, teasing it with the money bait on the line i kept asking, calling out almost proselytizing, "Eat tofu, do you want to eat tofu? Come and eat tofu” Realizing that the rain had slowed into a drizzle I went out of the hotel and walked into the street outside the gates of the hotel. Just for a few minutes and not much further than twenty meters, the organizers got nervous and whispered a request to return to the hotel. Heading back while I continued my call, "Eat tofu, do you want to eat tofu? Come and eat tofu” Reaching the tofu, I teased it once more with the red note and laid down on it. I got up after a minute or more and tried eating as much raw tofu as I could bite like a starved animal until it was too much and choking in nausea I vomited them out.