ChinaDaily (970618-8)

[Big Jim]

China Daily

97 / 06 / 18 /

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1. Private museums show Chinese culture
2. Life getting better for Salar people
3. What's on (Page 10, Date: 06/18/97)
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Private museums show Chinese culture

VISITING Guanfu Classic Art Museum in Beijing's Liuli-chang is like a
journey back to the past.

Amidst gentle and sometimes whispering traditional music, rough-hewn
big desks, brown armchairs of fine textures and fluent shapes, tersely
shaped redwood tables, elaborately carved window panes, time-worn
wooden bookshelves containing moth-eaten classics take one back to the
years that would never be.

The museum, which opened on January 18, is one of the first three
private museums in Beijing. The other two are He Yang and Wu Xi Modern
Art Museum and Ancient Pottery Art Museum. Another extant tablet
rubbing museum is yet to open.

"It is the reform and opening programme that has made private museums
possible. In the past, however, a critical attitude was adopted
towards the old culture and everything related to it. This amounted to
a ban of private collection of antiques, old furniture and porcelain
included," said Ma Weidu, curator of the Guanfu museum.

Private museums should be a supplement to State ones, in Ma's view.

In Beijing, there is barely one museum for every 100,000 people. This
average, which is an important indicator to gauge the degree of
culture of a society, is probably the highest in the country, but is
still not enough.

"What people need are some small and yet endearing museums, so far as
I understand it. We are very particular about making our museum
friendly and endearing. There are no signs such as 'no touching' and
the audience is not separated from the exhibits by railings. On the
contrary, you can feel the furniture and play with the antiques for
appreciation," Ma said.

Sometimes, the Guanfu museum serves as a window and medium for relics
and antiques from remote places.

For example, relics of Gao'an County of Jiangxi Province will be
exhibited in Guanfu museum in October. "The place is out of the way
and few people bother to come all the way to the place to see the
precious relics. So the pieces are forever locked in the basement. Now
we are giving them an outlet," Ma said.

This is in contrast with public-owned museums, which are generally big
in size and grand in appearance but need large amounts of money to
keep going.

"Since the museum opened in January, the audience's response has been
better than I expected. In the first month, more than 1,000 tickets
were sold although the ticket is priced at 20 yuan ($2.4), which is
not cheap for the average Chinese," Ma said.

A visitor, for example, wrote down his feeling in the visitors' book:
"Genuine! Genuine! Genuine!" meaning everything on display shows the
quintessence of Chinese culture.

Shi Ran, a 7-year-old boy, wrote in unsteady strokes: "I'm glad to
come here and see."

Another visitor wrote, "Play up the traditional Chinese culture;
enrich the inner world of the contemporary Chinese."

Besides the general social atmosphere favourable for private museums,
Chinese people, who are getting better off financially and culturally,
are in the mood for collecting antiques and relics and can afford it.
Hence the fledgling "collection craze." This facilitates the coming
into being of private museums and reflects that the country enjoys
prosperity and the people are living in peace, in his view.

"In the last 150 years or so since the Opium War (1840-42), Chinese
relics have been flowing out of the country. But now some Chinese
relics and antiques taken overseas are starting to come back. I myself
have bought more than 100 pieces from abroad. See that pottery
figurine and the pottery pig of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220)? They
are just two of my purchases," he said. "One dared not even dream of
this kind of thing in the past. This is a signal that the strength of
the country is on the rise."

In view of this, the State should encourage involvement of private
citizens in collecting relics and antiques. "It is the country that
ultimately benefits. Think that the scattered relics become relatively
concentrated through purchases of numerous private buyers. More, it is
not uncommon for private collectors to donate their hordes of valuable
things to the State," he said.

Ma used to be an editor at China Youth Publishing House, doing editing
work, reporting and writing fiction and all. "I'm a kind of 'man of
letters.' Now I'm running Guanfu museum and also the Beijing Classic
Art Co Ltd. The museum is purely an undertaking for the good of
society and it naturally loses money. Our company is, however, a
financial support for the museum while the museum is a kind of
'signboard' for our company," he said.

Ma started collecting antiques and relics in 1980, focusing on
furniture and porcelain. "I've never bought a single piece of new
furniture. Even my wedding chamber was furnished with a classic bed,
cupboards, chairs and tables," he said.

He Yang and Wu Xi Modern Art Museum, which is situated near
Chaoyangmen in Beijing, is a different story.

"Other private museums in Beijing mainly collect and display antiques
and relics, which belong to the past. Mine, however, focuses on
contemporary times," said He Yang, who is curator of the museum which
opened on February 1 this year and exclusively exhibits his modernist
works and the ink-and-wash paintings by Wu Xi, his wife.

Asked what prompted him to set up his art museum, he said there are
hundreds of potential art collectors in Beijing, which is also the
country's "cultural capital" and this might provide private museums
with a kind of living space.

"We mean to make the museum a window of Chinese contemporary art, a
vehicle of Beijing culture and a place of exchange between artists,"
He said.

In the museum are displayed a few dozen of He's passionately coloured
pieces that tell of Beijing legends or just give vent to the painter's
feelings and also Wu Xi's quiet ink-and-wash paintings that are
sometimes reminiscent of primitive and desolate beauty.

Lang Shaojun, a famed critic, says of He Yang's style: "In general,
his works are brimming with fantasy, burning with passion, wild in
tone and strongly exciting."

Commenting on Wu Xi's art, Lang says Wu is in pursuit of the
underlying moods, spirit and an aftertaste for the viewer to relish
after seeing the picture. "Her powerful strokes are suggestive of
masculine temperament," Lang says. Her "Night" was selected to be
displayed at the Monte Carlo International Exhibition of Modern Art a
couple of years ago.

There are some difficulties for the museum, however. "We have to pay
rent, charges for water and electricity and we have to hire some
people to look after the exhibition hall. All this costs us 40,000
yuan ($4,820) or so each year." They have to sell their paintings and
teach art students, some of whom are foreigners in Beijing, to keep
the museum open.

"We'll stick to what we're doing now and are glad to be in the
vanguard in this regard," He said.
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_Date: 06/18/97_
_Author: Hua Jia_

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Life getting better for Salar people

XINING (Xinhua) -- For centuries, peace and order of the agricultural
community of Xunhua in Northwest China's Qinghai Province were
maintained by the simple principle: Men plough the fields and women
weave.

One couple here still weave and plough, but local people envy their
production abilities.

Han Haqimei, a 45-year-old woman, heads a knitting mill with five
workshops and 80 employees, while her 48-year-old husband, Han Yibula,
manages a large tract of farmland and raises livestock.

They belong to the Salar ethnic group. The wife has become a
well-known entrepreneur of the province, sitting in an office equipped
with modern office equipment. She wears the kerchief worn by Muslim
women, but other people say that her family "no longer lives on a
small piece of land, with a single cow, and a pile of needles and
thread."

In the 1960s and 1970s, the couple led a life typical of other local
farmers. To get food, they planted vegetables and traded them on the
sly.

But, when the country began its reforms and opening up in 1979,
changes began to take place in the hometown of the couple. Today the
Salar people have become one of the wealthiest groups on the
Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Flags indicating Salar stores or hotels can be seen in small towns on
the Gobi, at the foot of snow-capped mountains or in remote corners of
the plateau. A transportation service run by Salar people, which owns
300 passenger buses, now serves tourists travelling from the city of
Golmud in Qinghai to Lhasa in Tibet Autonomous Region. They also
organize trips to Dunhuang in Gansu Province, Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, Chengdu in Sichuan Province and other distant
areas.

The group also mines gold, collects medicinal herbs, builds houses and
bridges, and sells vegetables, fruit and livestock.

In March of last year, Han Haqimei spent 2 million yuan ($242,000)
setting up the knitting mill she heads. Its yak-hair sweaters now sell
in Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi and Heilongjiang provinces; Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, and even in Russia.

Before she became manager of the mill, Han Haqimei planted vegetables
and fruit, and raised chickens. Her husband worked the land, mined
gold, handled building projects and studied the Tibetan language,
after having travelled to most parts of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Four years ago, he invested in 167 hectares of barren land in a
mountainous area. Last year the land produced 50,000 kilograms of
wheat and 15,000 kilograms of rapeseed and peas. He also raised 550
head of cattle and goats, earning 100,000 yuan ($12,000), and used
their manure as fertilizer for the barren land. He also hires workers
during the busy farming season.

Their son and daughter and son-in-law also have several jobs, such as
running a department store and a long-distance transport business.

Through several years of work, the family has gained much business
experience and a large amount of capital. Han Yibula said the reforms
and opening up have given them "the key to the gold warehouse."

Sociologists say the family reflects an agricultural community's ideal
of peace and order --the men ploughing the fields and women weaving --
but also fundamental changes in the Salar ethnic group.

There are nearly 70,000 people in the Salar ethnic group, who are
Muslims with their own language. In the late Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368),
they migrated from central Asia to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. It
took them 700 years to change their undertaking from animal husbandry
to farming. It is only in the past 20 years that industry and modern
management techniques have begun to affect them.

Xunhua County now has 1,200 town and township enterprises, with an
annual output worth 130 million yuan ($15.7 million). It is known as
China's largest yak-hair production centre, with a third of the
Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau's yak-hair production. It has 40 knitting
mills, producing more than 300,000 sweaters each year.

Han Shangwen, the county magistrate, said Xunhua has undergone rapid
and profound changes in recent years. The Salar are "flexible,
innovative and persevering," he said. In an age of reforms and opening
up policies, the Salar are taking to them like "ducks to water."

The county has even set up an industrial zone and plans to set up a
yak-hair production group with 4,000 employees. Han Haqimei's knitting
mill will also expand production and produce 100,000 sweaters this
year.

It also plans to develop new techniques for planting soy beans,
potatoes and broad beans. Han Yibula has bought 490 kilograms of
plastic sheeting and has hired agronomists to consult with them on
vegetable planting.

With help from the World Food Programme and the International Fund for
Agricultural Development, the county has developed an 80-million-yuan
($9.6 million) agricultural project on 2,000 hectares of barren land.
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_Date: 06/18/97_
_Author: _

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What's on (Page 10, Date: 06/18/97)

EXHIBITIONS

Australian Artist -- Sponsored by the Australian Embassy, Australian
artist Gregory Pryor and Chinese artist Feng Yong are presenting a
joint exhibition of paintings which are based on their experience of
travelling through Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces. The exhibition is
entitled "Yellow Earth, Black Hole."

Despite language difficulties, Pryor and Feng Yong felt sufficiently
in tune with their response to the land that they decided to work on a
collaborative installation for the exhibition. Both artists paint in a
free-flowing way, building up a visual rhythm which recreates the
motion of travel.

Using traditional Chinese painting materials, Pryor has focused on
single images drawn from the minutiae of everyday activity in rural
China.

Time: 9 am-8 pm, through June 22

Location: Gallery of the Beijing International Art Palace, 48
Wangfujing Dajie, Dongcheng District

Telephone:6505-2266 ext 6821 or 5729

Key-chain Show -- A key-chain show is being held at the Zhihua Temple
until July 7.

More than 1,700 foreign and Chinese key chains collected by Xie
Jinghua are on display at the show.

Xie has collected more than 5,000 key chains from 70 countries. Most
of them are gifts of large companies which cannot be bought at stores.

Time: 9 am-4:30 pm, through July 7

Location: Zhihua Temple, 5 Lumicang, Chaonei Nanxiaojie, Dongcheng
District

Telephone: 6513-5027

Landscape Paintings -- Painter Sun Rixiao's one-man show opened on
June 17 in the China National Art Museum and will run through June 22.
More than 80 landscape paintings by Sun are on display. Sun, born in
1935 in Shandong Province, started his painting career by imitating
masterpieces from Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties and took Guo
Chuanzhang and Song Wenzhi as his teachers. He travelled far and wide
to sketch the landscapes. In the past few years, he held one-man shows
in Canada, the United States, Japan and Singapore. Sun is a member of
the Chinese Artists' Association and a director of the Chinese
Landscape Painting Research Society.

Time: 9 am-5 pm, through June 22

Location: China National Art Museum, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng District.

Jingdezhen Porcelain -- An elaborate porcelain art show from
Jingdezhen, known as the "porcelain capital," will be held at the
China National Art Museum to usher in the return of Hong Kong to the
motherland.

The exhibition, in four parts, will feature more than 400 exquisite
porcelain art works by Jingdezhen artists in different historical
periods. The highlight is a 200-kilogram porcelain ding (tripod)
specially designed for the historical occasion.

Besides the porcelain art works on the theme of Hong Kong, the
exhibition also has porcelain statues or pictures of Mao Zedong, Deng
Xiaoping and other elder-generation revolutionaries; representative
porcelain art works done by masters, professors and senior engineers,
which cover different schools and styles of porcelain art; as well as
ancient porcelain art works since the Song Dynasty (960-1279)
collected by private individuals.

Time: 9 am-5 pm, June 24-July 15

Location: China National Art Museum, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng District

Telephone: 6429-4274, 6420-7261 ext 411

Show on Hong Kong -- A large exhibition featuring 240 photos and 400
documents and objects on Hong Kong's history and its return to China
is running among nationwide activities to hail the return of the
territory to the motherland.

Also on display are more than 20 charts and wax figurines. Some of the
exhibits are being shown for the first time since they were collected
in State museums or archives. A waxwork of late leader Deng Xiaoping
is among the exhibitions.

Sponsors of the exposition include the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs
Office of the State Council, State Archives Bureau and China Museum of
Revolutionary History.

Time: 9 am-4 pm, through June 30

Location: China Revolutionary Museum, east of Tian'anmen Square

Telephone: 6526-3355, 6512-9347
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_Date: 06/18/97_
_Author: _

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