Exhibition on China and Fashion Attract 0.7 Millions

“中国：镜花水月"Damon Winter/The New York Times

A dress by Guo Pei at the “China: Through the Looking Glass” exhibit.

The talk of Wall Street over the last week may have been Shanghai’s plunging stock market, but many blocks farther uptown, where commuter traffic gives way to verdant sidewalks, a different set of numbers related to China was making news. As it entered its final week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring Costume Institute show, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” was attaining blockbuster status.

As of last Friday morning, 735,000 people had attended the show, with a week to go before its close on Sept. 7, including a final Friday and Saturday with viewing hours extended until midnight. That has already made it the most-visited Costume Institute show in the museum’s history, displacing “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” which pulled in 661,509 attendees, as well as elevating it to No. 7 — and climbing — on the museum’s top-10 most popular list, on a par with other 700,000-plus-visitor shows such as the “Mona Lisa” (1963), “Origins of Impressionism” (1995) and “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” (2010).

Andrew Bolton, curator at the Costume Institute and the man behind the show, said there have been more positive responses left in the visitor’s comment box than ever before. (“Usually people use it as an opportunity to vent displeasure,” he said. “Often at the lighting, or the signage.”)

By any objective measure, this will be the most successful fashion show the Met has ever had. The question is: Why?

“Honestly, it totally surprised me,” Mr. Bolton said. “I was prepared for it to be polarizing. We were predicting around 500,000 visitors. I never expected this level of response. ”

“No one expected it would surpass McQueen,” said Maxwell K. Hearn, the Douglas Dillon chairman of the department of Asian art, and Mr. Bolton’s collaborator on the exhibition, which is in the Asian art galleries on the second floor, some Egyptian galleries on the first floor and the Anna Wintour Costume Center on ground level.

A visitor photographs a Dior dress by John Galliano at the Met exhibition.
/Damon Winter/The New York Times

A visitor photographs a Dior dress by John Galliano at the Met exhibition.

I didn’t expect it, either. Not because I didn’t like the show (it’s visually engrossing in its mix of luxury, whimsy and point) but because it doesn’t have the single iconic hook that can transform a purportedly high culture meditation into an extended pop culture moment.

After all, it isn’t, as Mr. Bolton said, immediately obvious from the name what the show is about. (Answer: the way a received fantasy version of China engages the imaginations of Western designers.) And the subject itself was ripe for criticism from those who thought the approach played to a now-discredited stereotype of the East. You can’t attribute it to the sheer size of the exhibition, the largest ever, or it’s length, because size does not equate to allure.

There wasn’t the sort of human gossip element that helped drive interest in the McQueen show, held a year after the designer’s suicide and days after Kate Middleton married Prince William in a dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.

There was, to be fair, lots of striking use of mixed media, which made it seem both very contemporary as well as historic. And it included film — Wong Kar-wai, who wrote and directed “In the Mood for Love,” was the exhibit’s art director, and clips from movies like “The Last Emperor” and “The World of Suzie Wong” abound — always a popular medium.

But Mr. Wong is an independent director as opposed to a household name, and when Baz Luhrmann, a much more recognizable Hollywood figure, was the creative consultant on an earlier Costume Institute show, 2012’s “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” it wasn’t nearly the same hot ticket.

When I first saw the show in May, I was struck by the facile nature of the fashion when juxtaposed against the antiquities. No matter the clothes’ beauty — I remember the runway impact of Tom Ford’s pagoda collection for Yves Saint Laurent and being amazed by the broken blue and white china shards of porcelain on an Alexander McQueen bodice — they pale when compared with the source of the inspiration, in part because the latter has a creative integrity the former only borrows. Often too literally. Please go to The New York Times read more about this story.

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

I just happened to read the book this week. I am impressed by Yang's power of telling a story using her graphic talent. 

When Belle Yang was forced to take refuge in her parents’ home after an abusive boyfriend began stalking her, her father entertained her with stories of old China. The history she’d ignored while growing up became a source of comfort and inspiration, and narrowed the gap separating her—an independent, Chinese-American woman—from her Old World Chinese parents.

In Forget Sorrow, Yang makes her debut into the graphic form with the story of her father’s family, reunited under the House of Yang in Manchuria during the Second World War and struggling—both together and individually—to weather poverty, famine, and, later, Communist oppression. The parallels between Belle Yang’s journey of self-discovery and the lives and choices of her grandfather, his brothers, and their father (the Patriarch) speak powerfully of the conflicts between generations—and of possibilities for reconciliation.

Forget Sorrow demonstrates the power of storytelling and remembrance, as Belle—in telling this story—finds the strength to honor both her father and herself.

Master of Peking Opera Mei Lanfang

Mei Lanfang,  opera-beijing.com

Mei Lanfang (1894 – 1961) was one of the most celebrated artists in the history of Peking opera. His specialty was qingyi – a young to middle-aged female singing role.

He was responsible for the worldwide recognition of Peking opera as an exquisite form of performing arts.

Mei is considered the first of the Four Great Dans – Dan meaning Peking opera artist in a female role – in the early 20th century, widely regarded as the golden age of the art form. The other three were Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu and Xun Huisheng.

A family of operatic talent

He was so popular that an honorary Doctorate was conferred on him by the University of Southern California.

Born Mei Lan in Beijing, he later adopted his stage name Lanfang. He came from a strong lineage of Peking opera artists, with a famous qingyi grandfather, Mei Qiaoling. His parents passed away when he was a young child, and he was raised by his uncle, a Peking opera instrumentalist.

He started learning Peking opera when he was eight, and made his stage debut at 10. At the age of 19, he shot to fame performing the opera Mukezhai in Shanghai. The key to his success was his solid training in body movement, which he refined to perfection, coupled with soulful interpretations of his roles, which he created to improve on the hitherto perfunctory rendition of characters. Mei was credited with combining singing and acting into a uniquely artistic style – the Mei style.

International fame

Mei Lanfang

Mei’s first tour in Japan was in 1919. In 1924, he returned to Japan to perform at charity concerts as part of the relief effort in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake. In 1930, he was invited to tour the US, covering Seattle, Chicago, Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

He was so popular that an honorary Doctorate was conferred on him by the University of Southern California. 

Among his foreign acquaintances were such showbiz luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford. His art also left a strong impression on German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.

Passive resistance in wartime

He moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong in 1938. During the Japanese occupation in the Second World War, Mei refused to perform for the Japanese military and grew a moustache. His defiance resulted in his assets being frozen so that he and his family were caught up in dire financial straits. Yet he persisted and eked out a living by selling his paintings.

He returned to the stage only after the war ended in 1945. In 1951, he moved back to Beijing. In 1956, he visited Japan again to enthusiastic reception. The great master died in 1961 at the age of 66. His life has inspired Chen Kaige, the director of Farewell My Concubine fame, to make the 2008 biopic Forever Enthralled.


Learn more about Beijing opera, please go to BGTime.

I.M.Pei, Born Being A Greatest Archtect

I.M. Pei's Pyramid from Below, photo by John Weiss

I can not remember when I started interesting in Mr. Pei's life story and his architectural works. You may not believe that when visited the Louvre thirteen years ago, I even didn't know he designed the beautiful glass pyramid entrance for the iconic building. But I am always fascinated by the beautiful architectures most likely because my uncle, his son and my older brother all work in this professional field, even my young nephew right now.  

Several years ago, I went to New York City attending my graduate school. And the big apple opened my eyes for the wonderful architectural world! By accident, I discovered one biographic book of Pei at a library, and then I started strolling around the whole Manhattan from uptown to downtown to find out the buildings designed by him. I went to Kips Bay area where Mr. Pei started his architectural career in New York City. I went to see the Four Seasons Hotel, the tallest hotel building in NYC, which was also designed by Mr. Pei, I looked around the uptown where Mr. Pei is living...I agree with him that New York City is not the most beautiful city but it's the most vibrant city in the world.  

I. M. Pei(full name: Ieoh Ming Pei, 贝聿銘) was born in China on April 26, 1917, Canton, Guangzhou. When he was 17 years old, he traveled to the United States, initially attending the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1940.

Pei soon continued his studies at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where he had the opportunity to study with German architect and founder of the Bauhaus design movement Walter Gropius. During World War II, Pei took a break from his education to work for the National Defense Research Committee. In 1944, he returned to Harvard and earned his master's degree in architecture two years later. Around this time, Pei also worked an assistant professor at the university.

Kennedy Library and Museum

 
In 1948, Pei joined New York-based architectural firm Webb & Knapp, Inc., as its director of architecture. In 1955 he left to start his own firm, I. M. Pei & Associates (now known as Pei Cobb Freed & Partners). One of his first major projects was the Mile High Center in Denver, Colorado. Pei also devised several urban renewal plans for areas of Washington, D.C., Boston and Philadelphia around this time.

In the years following the death of President John F. Kennedy, Pei met with his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, on the designs for his presidential library. The project, built in Dorchester, Massachusetts, met several challenges over the years, including a change in location. Completed in 1979, the library is a nine-story modern structure that features glass and concrete. Pei also designed a later addition to the site.

The Entrance of the Louvre, Paris of France

 
Following the dedication of the Kennedy library, Pei continued to create wondrous buildings around the world, including the west wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1980) and the Fragrant Hill Hotel in China (1983). In 1983, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his contributions to his field. In their official announcement, the committee recognized his ability to "draw together disparate people and disciplines to create an harmonious environment." Pei used his prize money to create a scholarship for Chinese students to study architecture in the United States.

During this time, Pei also began work on revitalizing Paris's Louvre museum. The new, and controversial, entrance he created for the world-famous structure has since become one of the most iconic representations of his work. Pei had visitors descend into the museum through a large glass pyramid, which took them to a new level below the existing courtyard.

The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha Port, Doha, Qatar

 
Pei continued to design impressive buildings during the 1990s, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. 

For more than 60 years, Pei has been one of the world's most sought-after architects and has handled a wide range of commercial, government and cultural projects. He created Chicago's Hyatt Center, completed in 2005, and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Kirchberg, Luxembourg, completed in 2006.

Now in his 90s, Pei still maintains an active work schedule. In India, he has several designs in process, including Mumbai's Lodha Place. He is also working on Los Angeles's Century Plaza, Fordham University's Lincoln Center Campus in New York and the Charles Darwin Centre in Darwin, Australia.

With a unique west-east perspective, Mr. Pei see the world differently. He said in one book: “In the West, a window is a window, it lets in light and fresh air. But to the Chinese, it's a picture frame. And the garden is always there.”

    
Learn more about I.M.Pei, please go to Bio.

The Odyssey of Shen Congwen

Odyssey discusses Shen Congwen（沈从文，1902-1988）in terms of several pertinent questions in modern Chinese history and literature.

Shen is already well known to many readers in these fields as the young solider from West Hunan warlord armies who escaped what might literally have been a dead end in that career to become a celebrated writer, editor, and educator, until he turned to a third career as an antiquarian in the late 1940s.

The scope of Odyssey as a biography is inclusive in presenting all this in an authoritative account, scrupulously compiled fro a host of documents and interviews, many of the latter with Shen himself. The results should stand as a valuable reference on many facts and a judicious presentation of speculation on them.

Shen Congwen and his wife

As Kinkley states in the Introduction, he is after facts more than explanations, and the levels of detail which emerges gives the reader plenty of room to test speculation about the author against what can be documented.

As a dispassionate biographer Kinkley often summarizes relevant facts in an admirably cogent form, as when exploring Shen's situation on the eve of his suicide attempt in 1949. At other times, in doing justice to, for example, a myriad of possible motives Shen had for leaving West Hunan and going to Beijing, Odyssey demands more patience from the reader. Unprecedented as this study is in its scope and detail, it is not altogether fair to call it a pioneer biography, given the available biographical work done by earlier scholars.

The Odyssey of Shen Congwen, by Jeffrey C. Kinkley
Stanford University Press, 464 pages

The Incarnations:Past Lives Haunt Beijinger

British writer Susan Barker's remarkable new novel is ambitious in scope, scholarly in depth and absolutely riveting.

The Incarnations works on a number of levels, pulling together so many strands of history and perspectives and drawing them into a compelling and convincing tale. Part history, part love story, with good doses of horror, comedy and philosophy, it is ultimately a thriller and a page-turner. In less capable hands, such a daring undertaking could so easily have flopped, but Barker has polished it well and the reader never so much as glimpses the cracks in the magic that is fiction writing.

The book begins with a letter written to middle-aged Beijing taxi driver Wang Jun. The writer claims to be his soul mate and to have known him for many lifetimes. But this is no love letter. As with the ones that follow, there is a chilling undertone to the correspondence: "I pity your poor wife, Driver Wang. What's the bond of matrimony compared to the bond we have shared over a thousands years?"

Wang is rattled. Who is stalking him? What do they want? The identity of the letter writer is kept secret until the closing pages but we are treated to intimate details of the lives the writer claims to have shared with Wang.

 The letters - short stories within the framework of the novel - make for compulsive reading. Each tells of a life the two have shared, dipping into the vast pot of China's history and revealing the details of their lives against a rich historical backdrop. The stories run in chronological order from the time they are young slaves struggling through the Gobi Desert to escape the Mongol invasion, to the Ming dynasty where Wang is a concubine plotting the murder of a sadistic emperor all the way through to their lives as Red Guards during the 1966 Cultural Revolution...

The research Barker has done for the book is phenomenal. She was almost 30, but already with two books under her belt, when she moved to Beijing in 2008 to work on the novel. It took her six years to write and the hard graft is visible in not only the scope of the work but the detail...

If you want to learn more about the book, please go to South China Morning Post.

The Incarnations, by Susan Barker
Doubleday , 384pages

Fortunate Sons:American Documents the Country’s First Exchange Students from China

Many thousands of Chinese are studying at schools in the United States. And writer Liel Leibovitz says the students are following an example that began in the eighteen seventies.

Mr. Leibovitz and writer Matthew Miller joined forces to tell the story of the students in their book, “Fortunate Sons.” The book says China sent one hundred twenty boys to America to learn about developments that could help modernize their country.

Mr. Leibovitz got the idea for the book about the boys a few years ago when he was traveling with his wife in China.

LIEL LEIBOVITZ: “One afternoon it was raining in Beijing, and so we decided to stay in our hotel room and flip through television stations. And we came across this very arresting photograph of a young Chinese boy dressed in what appeared to be traditional Chinese dress. And he was standing next to a building that was very clearly Yale University.” 

Mr. Leibovitz learned that the Qing government sent a whole delegation of boys to learn the ways of the West. The goal was for them to return to China and help their country.

LIEL LEIBOVITZ: ”A little bit later on, I was delighted and amazed to discover that these boys, who later turned out to be very, very remarkable men, had left behind an archive of letters, of diaries, of clothing articles detailing their entire journey and also what happened to them once they finally returned to China.” 

The book says the boys received their American training in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It must have been a very good education. Mr. Leibovitz says the first prime minister of the Chinese Republic completed this program. And so did the first engineer to build a large-scale railroad without foreign help. The same was true of the fathers of Chinese education, diplomacy and the Navy.

The book-writers had only to open some boxes containing the writings of these men to learn about them. Their notebooks, journals, letters and postcards were in English. Mr. Leibovitz said he was lucky to have so much information from events that took place long ago.

LIEL LEIBOVITZ:  “It was an unbelievable gift. I was expecting a lot of piecing together.  And instead, we were amazed to find how meticulous these men had been about documenting their lives.”

The students returned to China after about nine years. They no longer spoke Mandarin well enough to answer questions. Police welcomed them home by putting them in jail. The young men were released after about a week. But they were given low-level jobs.

Mister Leibovitz says it took about ten years for them to rise to higher positions. He said their story continues today with large numbers of Chinese studying in the United States.

From the VOA Special English Education Report

Lisa See And Her New Book "Dreams of Joy"

After publishing three Red Princess series (Flower Net, The Interior, and Dragon Bones), and then two in-depth studies of the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love), the Chinese American writer Lisa See wrote a novel Shanghai Girls. In the book, Pearl and May escaped the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in the nineteen thirties. The sisters fled to California. Lisa See's new book Dreams of Joy continues the story of the two Chinese sisters : Pearl is forced to return to Shanghai on a search for her daughter.

Dreams of Joy takes place in the nineteen fifties. Pearl’s nineteen- year-old daughter, Joy, is angry at her mother and her Aunt May. So she runs away to China to find the father she has never met. She not only finds him but becomes involved with the changes taking place in the country. Lisa See says this situation was not uncommon at the time. She says many young Chinese were sympathetic to the country’s new government.

LISA SEE: “Actually, there were a lot of Chinese going back to the People’s Republic of China at that time, ninety thousand in one year from Fukien province alone. But also a lot of other people who weren’t Chinese, who were going to China kind of inspired by what was going on there, or even hoping to start a business.”*

Lisa See has written several best-selling novels about Chinese-related subjects. She says those themes have special appeal for her.

LISA SEE: “I’m part Chinese. But I have red hair and freckles so I don’t look very Chinese, but I did grow up in a very traditional Chinese American family. I live in Los Angeles and today, in Los Angeles, I have about four hundred relatives, of which the majority of them are still full Chinese and there there’s this spectrum with me on one end – there are about a dozen that look like me – but then, sort of, this spectrum all the way up to the majority being full Chinese.”

She says she is also part Irish. Like most Americans, she celebrates her ethnicities.

LISA SEE: “I think all of us here in the United States, we all had someone in our families who was brave enough, scared enough, dumb enough, crazy enough to leave their home country to come here. But there is still a part of us that is tied to our original homeland and we all share in that feeling no matter where you came from.”

Lisa See is already at work on her next book. It deals with Chinese American culture from the first half of the twentieth century. Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. And one of her books has already made it to Hollywood. “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” will be released in movie theaters across America on July fifteenth.

* All quotes from VOA
Find more about the author and her works, please look at her site