beijing okay

798 or 大山子 (dashanzi; "the big mountain") is Beijing much praised art playground, covering an incredible amount of territory with literally hundreds of galleries, restaurants and shops. Yesterday I paid a visit after I was done tutoring and was completely impressed. Its endless; I only saw a fraction of it and I was wandering for hours. The feel is kind of like Chelsea, where galleries are tightly packed and you can hop around for hours. The whole area is in an old munitions plant, with huge pipes and exposed machinery laying amongst Yunnan teahouses, cafes and arthouse bootleg DVD shops. Good art, too.

I saw a gallery devoted entirely to art concerning the Long March, some rather strong anti-Mao stuff, a show of painting from students in North China, an opening of whatever painting that featured some surprisingly good free Chinese wine, etc, etc. I'm certainly going back next weekend to try to catch things I missed.

One of the less populated avenues. Some French gallery around here.

Cafe in a used bookstore

A large painting of the skyline in Beijing. Accurate, eerie and amazingly painted.

I actually live by this building; it's the Beijing Aeronautical School. It's one of the few buildings in this city that actually still has a tremendous Mao statue at the entrance.