Contradictions in Beijing

There is, judging from appearances, a palpable sense of things loosening up in Beijing. There are flashy cars aplenty on the streets (and an accompanying recklessness in driving habits, echoing Manila), men and women walk about clad in the latest in fashion, and the number of shopping centers, stores, restaurants, and coffee shops has bloomed in a dizzying array.

In his desire to show how the economic boom has also given way to a blossoming of creativity and contemporary art, CNN bureau chief and Pinoy expat Jimmy FlorCruz brought us to the 798 Art District. It can best be described as Cubao X on steroids—a few blocks of once-drab industrial buildings composed of warehouses and factories, that have been transformed into a warren of art galleries, artists’ studios, stores, cafés, and restaurants.

One can espy on random walls a welter of graffiti as well as of installation art. We spotted two huge “headless” Maos, which could be interpreted variously as a commentary on the “headless” political leadership, the collective leadership of the people, or the yawning emptiness of a system teetering between capitalism and communism.

In one gallery, we met a self-described “artist of the screen” who said he creates montages of images gathered from the web and projected on screens of all sizes and media. An ephemeral art form, indeed!

On the other extreme, we encountered a street artist vending “bottle art,” artistic images painted inside miniature bottles where one could have the name of the recipient in Chinese or Roman script written inside.

Straddling the middle ground was a store devoted to “Mao era” artifacts, including enamel mugs bearing such retro images as Mao’s visage imprinted with a revolutionary slogan, or even a defiant Che Guevara. I also spotted copies of the iconic Red Book.

There was a palpable energy and restless vibe in the 798 Art District, populated mainly by slouchy student types and curious tourists, attesting to the artistic energy unleashed by material prosperity. Indeed, said a gallery owner, prices for contemporary Chinese art these days are “ridiculous,” such as one “headless Mao” in his courtyard whose value had risen over 10 times in the last few years alone.

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Quite a world away from the 798 Art District is “Lan,” a club/restaurant located at the LG Twin Towers in the Chaoyang District that is in itself a work of art by world-renowned designer Philippe Starck.

One walks into a labyrinthine space of long corridors dominated by tables flanked by silver high chairs, elaborate chandeliers, and walls occupied by glass cabinets of curiosities that hark back to old-fashioned Chinese merchant shops and apothecaries: bottles and vats of various teas, Mao memorabilia, Chinese herbs and concoctions, porcelain and painted fans.

There is a restaurant to one side, as well as private function rooms dominated by huge murals and paintings of both Chinese and European themes as well as crystal light fixtures. Even the restrooms are destinations in themselves: One enters a room with a spacious wing chair flanking a square, modern commode with a marble-topped table that bears a sink over which hovers a silver swan that serves as the faucet.

Even the way the food was served and arranged evoked artistry and whimsy. A dish of fish in a sweetish sauce had the slices housed in a miniature basket mimicking those used by fishermen. A special menu item was the hairy crabs, an autumn seasonal specialty served in bamboo baskets and accompanied by water scented with lemon. And dessert was no less than rolls with durian filling!

Lan Restaurant used to be filled to capacity every meal time, we were told, but the recent anticorruption campaign had served to dampen the “appetites” of the ostentatious elite who must have found the place’s whimsical interiors the best place to display their evolving taste. Well, those days are gone, it seems.

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If there’s one realization that dawned on me on this recent trip to China, it’s that I can really only live in a democracy.

By the second day of the Hong Kong “Umbrella Revolution,” authorities in Beijing had taken to literally “blacking out” every report on CNN on the Hong Kong protests. Every time the words “Hong Kong protests” were said, the TV screen would go black, returning to normal only after the report or feature shifted to other topics. Sometimes, an entire show would be blacked out, telling me that it had been devoted to the tumultuous events in the former Crown Colony.

Ironically, on Bloomberg Channel, the only other English-news channel aired in our hotel, I chanced upon a roundtable discussion of the implications of the events in Hong Kong. But since there weren’t any street scenes or dramatic footage, the show was allowed to proceed.

But even before the news blackout on Hong Kong, we all had a hell of a time logging on to most Internet sites—Google, Gmail, YouTube, even Facebook! Only Yahoo was accessible, aside from Chinese sites which, so I was told, were heavily monitored.

Which is why, despite all its ambitions to be a major economic power (which it is), China, I believe, will always be constrained in doing business. Information is the lifeblood of business, as well as of responsible citizenship. But if people are deprived of information which they need to form opinions and make decisions, then its economic—and social and cultural—life will be limited in scope and narrow in perspective. And as a journalist and believer in free thought and speech, I know I can never live under a system where access to information is so severely limited. In this, and their desire for more say in choosing their leaders, I stand with the “Occupy Central” protesters of Hong Kong.