I arrived two days ago to this, the hot busy dirty different capital of China, to work at a magazine. For the first half of summer, interning at a paper, I enjoyed the playground of New York City. I saw friends and jazz shows and movies, ate delights and shopped for things that made me feel good.
Now, in the mirroring second half of vacation, and perhaps partly out of guilt for my easy time in New York, I am boiling in the craziness of a city twice its size with a small fraction of its money. And one that is in a perpetual state of revision.
I’ll be blogging as a consumer of the awkward teenage years of Chinese’s modern cultural development. This means plenty of misses, but many signs, too, of promise and brilliance. I plan to review not only the primary (the art itself) but also the secondary (its reception) in my entries. The inspiration for this blog’s name is Beijing’s famed (and bureaucratically demarcated) 798 Art Zone, the hub for modern art here, and the location of my office. I’m excited to find out what’s happening here, and to record my thoughts with the Sun. I hope you enjoy.