Its 8.30am and freezing cold but astonishingly beautiful as we arrive at Mutianyu, at the Great Wall.
We have the choice of hiking up to the Wall or taking a rather dodgy-looking chairlift but the latter gets our vote. We are the first on and there is almost nobody else here, except for the sweepers and stall owners. Its eerily quiet as we look up at the 23 watch towers on this segment of the Wall, some of which we later reach after climbing the imposing steps.
I decide winter is a great time to visit a site that has always been on my bucket list, with snow on the mountains in the distance.
My hotel, the Sofitel Wanda Beijing, has organised the day tour for me and my fellow tourists are an interesting bunch of businessmen from all over the world. On the way back we visit a jade factory and a silk showroom, the compulsory stops that always seem to get slipped into tour itineraries. But I enjoy both, in particular talking to the saleswomen about their lives.
The next day, back in Beijing, I am lucky enough to get into the last group of the morning to visit the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong and see his embalmed body.
Later I visit the converted state-owned factories of the 798 Art District to the northeast of the city in the Dashanzi area.
Teeming with art lovers, the complex is named after Factory 798 which originally produced electronics. But from 2002 artists and cultural organisations began to divide, rent out, and remake the factory spaces, gradually developing them into artists' studios, design companies, restaurants, bars and galleries. While not as edgy as the early days its still a very cool place to wander around and drop in on openings.
The art coming out of China today is said to be some of the most interesting and compelling of our time made known to many in Australia via the White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection in Sydney.
Some of the credit for the international knowledge of this exploding art scene over the past 25 years must be given to Brian Wallace, originally from Taree, NSW. In the late 1980s there was no traditional market for the art so artists would exhibit in their own homes or the hotel rooms of foreigners. Wallace would mix with them and help them organise showings.
Some were teachers from the art academies where they had been strictly trained in drawing, sketching and other techniques.
Wallace opened Red Gate, the first private contemporary art gallery in China in 1991 in the historic Southeast Corner Tower at Dongbianmen, one of the few Ming dynasty towers to survive the destruction of the city wall.
He explains that for nearly 30 years now he's witnessed young people really observing and explaining what's going on in contemporary China in this space that is changing so fast. How do you make sense of it? How do you be critical? How do you analyse it? They're doing all those things.
Another Australian, Luise Guest, an art educator, writer and artist, who has been travelling regularly to China since 2011, was the recipient of a Red Gate writers residency in 2013.
Although Beijing has terrible pollution and apocalyptic traffic, that combination of grey walls and roof tiles, and the red gates and willow trees, it has grabbed her heart, Guest says.
She is the director of education and research for Judith Neilsons White Rabbit Collection, and believes contemporary art in China is unlike anything in the rest of the world. After meeting many woman artists she felt their stories were not being told. She has righted that with her new book, Half the Sky, which contains interviews with 32 woman artists.
My last day I take a slow walk through the Forbidden City, peering through windows into its closed rooms, and then go on to some of the hutongs, the narrow alleyways where people still live and which give a taste of old Beijing.
Dusty bicycles lean against grey walls and red doors open into captivating courtyards I would love to enter. I begin to understand why people are entranced by this sprawling, polluted but wonderful city.
* The writer was a guest of the Sofitel Wanda Beijing.
We have the choice of hiking up to the Wall or taking a rather dodgy-looking chairlift but the latter gets our vote. We are the first on and there is almost nobody else here, except for the sweepers and stall owners. Its eerily quiet as we look up at the 23 watch towers on this segment of the Wall, some of which we later reach after climbing the imposing steps.
I decide winter is a great time to visit a site that has always been on my bucket list, with snow on the mountains in the distance.
My hotel, the Sofitel Wanda Beijing, has organised the day tour for me and my fellow tourists are an interesting bunch of businessmen from all over the world. On the way back we visit a jade factory and a silk showroom, the compulsory stops that always seem to get slipped into tour itineraries. But I enjoy both, in particular talking to the saleswomen about their lives.
The next day, back in Beijing, I am lucky enough to get into the last group of the morning to visit the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong and see his embalmed body.
Later I visit the converted state-owned factories of the 798 Art District to the northeast of the city in the Dashanzi area.
Teeming with art lovers, the complex is named after Factory 798 which originally produced electronics. But from 2002 artists and cultural organisations began to divide, rent out, and remake the factory spaces, gradually developing them into artists' studios, design companies, restaurants, bars and galleries. While not as edgy as the early days its still a very cool place to wander around and drop in on openings.
The art coming out of China today is said to be some of the most interesting and compelling of our time made known to many in Australia via the White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection in Sydney.
Some of the credit for the international knowledge of this exploding art scene over the past 25 years must be given to Brian Wallace, originally from Taree, NSW. In the late 1980s there was no traditional market for the art so artists would exhibit in their own homes or the hotel rooms of foreigners. Wallace would mix with them and help them organise showings.
Some were teachers from the art academies where they had been strictly trained in drawing, sketching and other techniques.
Wallace opened Red Gate, the first private contemporary art gallery in China in 1991 in the historic Southeast Corner Tower at Dongbianmen, one of the few Ming dynasty towers to survive the destruction of the city wall.
He explains that for nearly 30 years now he's witnessed young people really observing and explaining what's going on in contemporary China in this space that is changing so fast. How do you make sense of it? How do you be critical? How do you analyse it? They're doing all those things.
Another Australian, Luise Guest, an art educator, writer and artist, who has been travelling regularly to China since 2011, was the recipient of a Red Gate writers residency in 2013.
Although Beijing has terrible pollution and apocalyptic traffic, that combination of grey walls and roof tiles, and the red gates and willow trees, it has grabbed her heart, Guest says.
She is the director of education and research for Judith Neilsons White Rabbit Collection, and believes contemporary art in China is unlike anything in the rest of the world. After meeting many woman artists she felt their stories were not being told. She has righted that with her new book, Half the Sky, which contains interviews with 32 woman artists.
My last day I take a slow walk through the Forbidden City, peering through windows into its closed rooms, and then go on to some of the hutongs, the narrow alleyways where people still live and which give a taste of old Beijing.
Dusty bicycles lean against grey walls and red doors open into captivating courtyards I would love to enter. I begin to understand why people are entranced by this sprawling, polluted but wonderful city.
* The writer was a guest of the Sofitel Wanda Beijing.
Source: AAP
