SARA POOLEY (photography) writes:
It’s interesting to imagine what the equivalent of Columbia College would be in China. Could there be a school controlled by communist regulations echoing the mantra, “Create Change”?
Sure, Tongji University may not be making the same lofty claims with their slogan, but their curriculum seems similar enough. Our visit with students from Tongji left me with so many nuggets of revelation to digest, even long after our short encounter was over.
After watching a few student video productions we were prompted to start interacting with the students. Everyone had stories about who they ended up talking to and what they learned, but I really think my guy was the most interesting. We first discussed our obvious similarity, photography. He expressed his disappointment with the program he had just started and his worry for the future of his work.
Of course I could relate to having felt this way at various points in the last four years. I wanted to know how he felt about the censorship on art and especially on information. He said that censorship affected the work of artists in China because they were forced to try and "see with blind eyes." This was the first person I’d talked to who seemed to actually be aware of the extent to which these constraints were affecting them. Then again, I guess it was the first Chinese person around my age I’d encountered who spoke English. I had expected to relate to a photo student on at least that base artistic level, though. Surely we were worlds away from each other in every other way, right?
We started talking about music like Slayer, Metallica, black metal, and specifically about Norwegian and Swedish metal bands. He was wearing an England jersey so I filled him in on my British heritage and my family’s insane passion for the team. About halfway through our conversation I realized that if we’d gone to high school together, we would still be good friends today, so it was incredibly appropriate that we ended up sitting together. I asked if he’d ever been to any shows in China or if they even had shows like we do in the U.S. He said that it was not allowed because the government doesn’t want anybody to hear those messages. It makes sense that a communist government wouldn’t be too partial to music with anti-establishment and free-thought themes. We agreed that we’d email each other about music and art because his exposure in China is limited.
At least he is seeking out new and different things. He said that a lot of the kids he goes to school with just do whatever their parents tell them and whatever the school deems appropriate without questioning anything. It is dangerous to question these things in China. It made me wonder how different I would be if I’d grown up anywhere else. I’m so convinced that it is my right to question everything and anything. What if I’d grown up without that right?
The whole encounter reminded me of the bird and cricket market in a strange way. This place was basically a warehouse full of animals in cages. There were crickets, rabbits, birds, cats, and dogs amongst others. All of these creatures are intended to be pets. As such they are paraded around the city and shown off. Birds in cages have always really upset me because I just imagine that if I had a set of wings I’d sure as hell wanna fly! That’s kind of like the students at Tongji. From what the student said, parents just want their kids to follow the rules and be successful and well respected. They don’t want their children to spread their wings, but rather they want to keep them in cages so they can show them off to all their friends. I would really like to see the cage door left open for this kid so he can one day liberate himself. Caged artists are as sad as caged birds to me.
Sara Pooley is a photography/art history major.
