Summer in Beijing

Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3


Adorned with imperial color, the roof evokes the scales of a Chinese dragon

Leaving for Beijing next week and look forward to seeing and going through the newly opened Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport. According to the New York Times, it is twice the size of the Pentagon and it is the largest building in the world. (Click here to see the full article).

No, not for the Olympics. I'll be working with our jewelry designers in China for the next two months. Cannot wait to get an optimism boost and will be glad to watch the presidential election from a far distance.

Highest Priced at Christie's Spring 2008 Auction in Hong Kong

Yue Minjun "Big Swans" HK$54M (US$7M)

Zeng Fanzhi "Masks Series 1996 No.6" HK$76M (US$10M)

Two of the highest priced works from Christie's Spring 2008 Acution of Comtemporary Asian Art in Hong Kong.

Modern Chinese Figurative Paintings

Traditional Chinese figurative paintings, as a beginning reference


Modern interpretation of Chinese classic figurative paintings


Again, this is a modern interpretation of Chinese classic figurative paintings


Contemporary Chinese figurative painting

The Chinese accent came from the vases and the flower arrangement




This painting goes beyond traditional culture symbols and

looks for basic commonalities in metropolitan life.

Image Source: http://www.artscenechina.com/

Ancient and modern, East meets West and fast changing - that's today's China. Many forms of art expressions are being experimented, and a new generation of artists are getting strong attention from the world. It is no surprise that contemporary Chinese art works often fetch millions of dollars in international auctions.

The burning desire for freedom, achievements and the wisdom of happy life.

Hu Tong Details

Decoration Details, Symbolizing the Wealth and Taste of the Owner

A Private Court Yard

Typical Roof of the Entrance

Beijing Hu Tong Today

Beijing Hu Tong in the 1800's.

Right after I graduated from college in Beijing, I went to work for a company located right across Guo Zi Jian, one of the most famous Hu Tongs in Beijing. Guo Zi Jian used to be the home of the administration department for national tests. For hundreds of years, elites are selected from these standardized national tests, and officials at many levels of the government are groomed from these pools of talents.

It is important to notice that these tests often focus on calligraphy (an important form of art in China) and literature, and the elite class have therefore become instrumental to the continuity of Chinese culture heritage. It is also believed that this is one of the reasons that China virtually stopped science and technology advancement since 1500 because of such bias on the national selection system.

Beijing Hu Tong

Hu Tong is a type of alley where private court yards line up next to each other. Some court yards are for high rank officials, and many others are for ordinary people, sometimes shared by several families. Deep bonding between these families often last for generations. If you have ever visited Beijing, you may have taken a Hu Tong tour. You are more than welcome to share your Hu Tong photos here.

Beijing Financial District

There is at least one benefit when there is no comments to my postings - that I could take my own pace and don't feel too much responsibilities. Here again, some modern architectures on the west side of the Forbidden City. Ancient and modern, as fascinating as you can imagine.

Beijing - Summer Palace

It's been a while since the last post. I have increasingly felt that it is a huge task for me to present Modern China without turning this blog into an academic project. Well, since I haven't heard from any of you, I would just keep going, sharing with you some pictures and hopefully that makes your interpretation easier.


Here is a group of pictures of Summer Palace, one of the most visited places in Beijing.

By the way, my rough plan for this blog is to present you the ancient and modern elements of Beijing first, as a proxy of whole China, then we take a look at some Chinese art, and next we can summarize some "Chinese elements" and how they are functioning in Chinese people's daily life. Hopefully that would give us enough background information for Modern Chinese Chic.

With that foundation, and hopefully your input, I will start to focus on current topics that you are interested in about China. It would be my privilege to see my little contributions to our on-going conversation.