(To make up for the paucity of recent entries, I’m dusting off this old post, which I think I rejected as “too political” or something. Xizhou is just outside of Dali, so this took place about a month ago.)
I biked along the narrow cobbled streets of Xizhou, following the signs to “Yang Long, traditional Bai painter.” When I finally found the gallery, on the second floor of a large private residence built around an inner courtyard, what I saw took me by surprise.
I have a notion of what traditional folk art is supposed to look like: bright colors, flattened perspectives, strong outlines, and rustic subject matter. Folk artists worldwide churn out these crafts by the truckload, and their handiwork invariably finds its way to Western living rooms, where Quechuan ceramics conspire with Burmese tapestries and Ghanaian weavings to clash horribly with the drapes.
Yang Long’s paintings did portray rustic subjects, but they were done in a naturalistic style. Daubs of pastel oil paint captured a diffuse light. In short, his paintings were Impressionist. More specifically, they were Monets.
I was also surprised by how competently they were executed. A glance at the price tags — $3,500 for some of the larger works — indicated that I was not the first to discover the gallery. I explained to the attendant that I was not in the market for an oil painting, but that I would like to meet the artist. I arranged to come back after lunch.
In an hour, I sat down for tea with the artist, his wife, and his daughter, a university student in Beijing who spoke reasonable English. Brashly daring to unmask my ignorance, I suggested to the artist this his paintings showed a French influence. “Yes, Claude Monet,” he said. Ha! That sophomore art history class wasn’t for nothing. This conversation was going much better than the time I had tried to impress a waitress in a coffee shop by asking if the painting over the bar was a Diebenkorn.
Talk turned to the war.
“We don’t like Saddam,” said the wife. “We like Bush.”
I struggled to comprehend these last three words. I checked them against an internal database of known opinions about the American president. No match. Are you pulling my leg? You like him? You really like him?
“Bush is freedom,” she elaborated.
Do most Chinese favor America in the war? “Most Chinese don’t care. They think Iraq is far away.” But your government opposes the war. The birdcage-worthy China Daily publishes incessant attacks on America’s motives. Don’t the Chinese people support the government?
This question just earned me a scornful look. Sensing my incredulity, she asked me if I liked Bush.
This is a tricky question. Not because I don’t have a strong opinions on GWB, but because language barriers and cultural differences make nuanced political discussion difficult. How could I convey the shifting tides of anger, worry, and occasional grudging respect that the current administration provoked in me?
More importantly, my qualms about the American government are very different in flavor than a local’s dislike of the Chinese government. On a fundamental level, the American government works. I do occasionally set down my latte, put aside my Sunday Times, and marvel at how well the system all hangs together. My grievances simply don’t compare to those of a Chinese intellectual who lived through the Cultural Revolution. (And in fact, the couple was reticent to talk about this period. When prodded, the wife simply said, “Most Chinese think Mao is great hero, but we disagree.”)
How then to translate all this into terms the artist and his family would understand? At last I hit upon a formulation that was likely to get through and also had the appeal of being an enjoyably provocative statement back in the States.
“I don’t like Bush,” I said. “I like Clinton better.”
They brightened. “Clinton is beautiful,” said the wife.
There you have it. Clinton is beautiful. Bush is freedom. Rock ‘n’ roll and the Bill of Rights. America does still have an iconic significance in much of the world where wealth and liberty can’t be taken for granted.
I don’t want to overplay this. “Bush is freedom” is no more nuanced a political statement than “No blood for oil.” Personally, Bush makes me fear for my freedom. I have nightmares in which John Ashcroft pistol whips me for writing Jacques Chirac/Britney Spears slash fiction.
Still, it was remarkable to come across a pocket of pro-American, pro-war sentiment, particularly in this small bastion of Chinese liberalism. What came next caught me even further off guard.
“Many customers are French and German. They like America.”
I looked around for hidden cameras. French and German? You sure you don’t mean, um…Kuwaiti and Polish? What on earth do the French and Germans say about America?
“Freedom. Rich. Healthy. Clean.”
Perhaps these Gauls and Teutons were struggling with the same language and cultural barrier that I had run into earlier. Perhaps when faced with the difficulty of conveying their displeasure with the policies of a nation that is, when all is said and done, an ally, a frequently positive force in world events, and a partner in liberal democracy, these French and German tourists had simply punted and admitted that America’s not so bad.
Or, more likely, they were simply American tourists posing as French and Germans to get cheaper prices on Chinese Impressionist paintings. Who, after all, would ever accuse Americans of being healthy?
