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InstItute of Current World AffAIrsI C W A L e t t e r sI C W A L e t t e r sI C W A L e t t e r s

Based in southwestern China, ICWA Fellow Chi-Chi Zhang is working in an urban-izing landscape impacted by incredible social change, mass migration, and a growing yet potentially problematic economy. She will be writing about China’s next generation and its role in the country’s political, economic and social development. As a producer for CNN in Beijing, Chi-Chi covered ethnic dilution in Inner Mongolia, traveled to the North Korean border for Kim Jong-il’s death and documented Tibetan unrest in Sichuan Province. She previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press in Beijing.

CHONGQING, China— A neon pink and blue, Warhol-esque oil portrait of Kim Jong-un hangs on Zhou Can’s studio wall, prominently placed center-stage, begging to be noticed by visitors like gallery owners and art professors. The North Korean leader’s cotton-candy-colored face is meaty and ac-cented with thick eyebrows the shape of cartoonish rain-bows. Even with eastern elements like Chinese writing and woodcut techniques incorporated, Zhou is keenly aware that her painting is a Warhol rip-off. Like many of her classmates at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Zhou struggles with devel-oping original ideas.

As China invests billions of dollars in technology parks, research grants and art programs, the government has stressed the importance of innovation-driven growth amid an economic slowdown. China is recognizing that it is no lon-ger a cheap place to manufacture other countries’ products as wages rise and the nation needs to cultivate its own cre-ative minds to remain globally competitive. But the path to transforming industry from “Made in China” to “Invented in China,” has long been choked with challenges, such as over-coming a rote-learning system and a ruling Communist Party that has long discouraged creative thinking for fear it would lead to confrontations with authority. Even in the most cre-ative industries such as fine art, students like Zhou are find-ing it difficult to think outside the box.

The Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, known to locals as “Ch-uan Mei” (translates into “Sichan Art”), was founded in 1940 and is considered one of the most prestigious art institutes in China after the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. The school is split into two campuses: the original campus, close to central Chongqing and known for one of the longest streets in the world that is covered in graffiti art, and a new campus about an hour west of downtown in University City,

By Chi-Chi Zhang

CCZ-10 • CHINA • JULY 29, 2013

Education in China Part II: The Creative Hurdle

Graduate students and professors are provided spacious studios in new complexes such as this one.

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a new development area packed with dozens of colleges and vocational schools. Winning a place at Chuan Mei is coveted. Each year, tens of thousands of students compete for a spot at Chuan Mei, and fewer than ten percent of those who apply survive after enduring a rigorous exam that includes the gaokao (national entrance exam).

To prepare for the application process, thousands of students like Zhou enroll in entrance-exam boot camps in Beijing to hone their basic drawing and painting skills. Zhou paid thousands of dollars to spend two months sleeping in a basement apartment she shared with five roommates in Beijing while taking art classes. She spent eight hours a day in a freezing classroom drawing bowls of fruit and practicing portraits until they were up to her teachers’ standards. At the boot camp, any student caught indulging in creative license would be yelled at by teach-ers for not following directions.

Ever since she was five years old, Zhou knew she wanted to be an artist. Her parents, who had stable gov-ernment jobs, had supported her creative endeavors since art is considered a respectable major. Zhou stopped taking art classes shortly after elementary school because time taken to pursue extracurricular passions outside of gao-kao preparation was frowned upon by her teachers. She disliked the endless hours spent on calculus equations and memorizing scientific formulas, which did not em-phasize creativity or critical-thinking skills. After six years

of rote learning, Zhou yearned to paint again. She begged her parents to enroll her in boot camp in Beijing and was quickly accepted as an undergraduate student at Chuan Mei. Another six years later, Zhou now feels stuck as a graduate student about to face the real world next year.

I first met Zhou in November through her professor, Feng Bin, an established artist in his 50s who found suc-cess incorporating traditional Chinese ink painting with contemporary oil portraits of couples dancing. He grew up in the 1970s, when contemporary Chinese art was still emerging and artists were lucky to sell a painting for a couple of dollars. Feng’s brightly lit studio at Chuang Mei is the size of a luxurious Manhattan loft, filled with paint-ings of dancing couples bursting with bright reds and yellows. His artwork is reflected in his teaching style, an experimental mix of traditional and modern techniques. He loves to reminisce about his graduate-school days at Chuan Mei, when hungry artists gathered around to discuss Marxist philosophies while chowing down on steamed buns and pickled radishes. Feng is as talkative as he is quick to criticize China’s “get-rich-quick” generation which lacks depth and is too afraid to fail. He talked of Chuang Mei’s modern legacy, which was built during the mid-2000s during China’s red-hot contemporary-art mar-ket, when ordinary students became millionaires over-night. Some even zoomed around campus in Porsches.

Feng puffed away on his cigarette as he explained that

Zhou working in her Chuan Mei studio.

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China’s education system and social pressures were part of the reason he sent his daughter abroad for college—to open her eyes and her mind. Feng is critical of his own graduate students, most of whom are from middle-class families. He says their approach to art is timid and not daring enough produce the great art that his “starving-artist” generation created.

In July, Zhou looked even more distraught than in November, when we first met. Her studio was in disar-ray. Puffy dark circles had formed in the porcelain white skin under her eyes due to a lack of sleep and stress over her artwork. Of all of Feng’s students, I was most taken with her woodcut, Warhol-esque pieces featuring North Korea’s Kim, China’s Hu Jintao and even Professor Feng himself. One would not have guessed that a 24-year-old with such a sweet smile and doe-like eyes could create such bold — sometimes even ugly — portraits. Zhou’s earlier work, featuring dreamy Chinese landscapes done in ink on rice paper, seemed more socially expectable from a young woman with conservative parents. But Zhou explained that she didn’t just want to paint what was “pretty,” she wanted to paint what was real, and show the uglier side of society.

Even though she took inspiration from Warhol, her Chinese elements were still unique. In the painting of Kim, Chi-nese characters such as “evil,” “woman-izer,” and “lecherous” were written on his face in the style of a traditional Chi-nese face-reading diagram. For thousands of years, Chinese feng shui experts have claimed to be able predict a person’s traits and situation based on the position of a mole, ear-size or face-shape. For exam-ple, even today some businessmen have growths removed because a mole on the nose is considered bad luck. Zhou had also researched how eyebrow and eye-shape play a role in a person’s wealth, family happiness and success. Her interest in traditional Chinese art has organically evolved into her woodcut pieces today. Zhou loves the freedom of exploration as an artist, whereas mathematicians search for a specific answer. She doesn’t know what her final product with be. While her artwork shows contemporary elements, Zhou still says she’s light years away from her goal of creating more avant-garde works.

On the outside, Chuan Mei provides an ideal setting for creative people to flourish. Graffiti art and abstract sculp-tures dot the school’s lush campus in what were rice paddies and vegetable fields less than a decade ago. As a campus installa-tion art, the school has allowed farmers

to maintain some of their crops year-round. Graduate students and teachers are provided with airy studios at a small cost. The studios provide artists with a stream of visiting artists and gallery curators who often drop by to cultivate and explore new talent. As we walked the halls of Chuan Mei during the height of Chongqing’s swelter-ing summer, I peeked into the students’ studios, where they were quietly plugging away at their thesis projects. “Where is the madness?” I asked Zhou. “Where is the loud music, banter and outward flow of creative juices?” She said because Chuan Mei is so competitive, sometimes the most out-there students and best artists are not the most studious, so they don’t have a shot at getting in. Unless a student is a prodigy, he or she won’t be admitted unless the gaokao grades meet the requirements.

Part of Zhou’s frustration with her lack of inspiration stems from societal pressure to start a family, as well as her upbringing in a civil-service family and a strict edu-cation system. With only one year left in school and no commercial success, Zhou’s parents are pressuring her to find a husband and/or find a job that can provide a decent living. Her mother calls her artwork, “ugly” and would prefer that she paint lily flowers and picturesque landscapes. Zhou’s family is an example of how China’s

Zhou’s “ugly” painting of Kim Jong-un.

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one-child policy has created an environment that discour-ages young people from taking risks, and instead seek a job that provides stability.1 Like any young person, Zhou struggles with the balance between standing out among other artists and conforming to societal expectations in a society where guanxi and money equal influence. Zhou feels that although there is a part of her that wants to let go and dare to take bold risks in her art, her upbringing and the stresses of finding a stable job will lead her to become a graphic designer or art teacher upon graduation rather than a successful artist. There’s also a part of Zhou, like many Chinese citizens, that feels no matter how hard she works, she will not necessarily achieve success.

Shortly after I met Zhou, I sat in on a class taught by Chuan Mei’s president’s son, Luo Dan. His father, Luo Zhongli, achieved fame as one of China’s leading realist painters and is well respected in artist circles. His son is a handsome, charismatic artist in his early 30s, who teaches undergraduate classes. His oil paintings, which have been exhibited nationwide, depict outlandish rock performers in neon colors jumping in mid-air, or striking a pose. The younger Luo told me he has little respect for young art-ists nowadays because they are too materialistic and prag-matic. He said this as he slicked back his gelled, jet-black

coif with one hand, showing off a pink-gold Cartier wed-ding band, just before we got in his Mercedes AMG coupe to drop me off at the bus stop. The irony did not escape Zhou, when I mentioned to her later that I had not been a huge fan of Luo’s works. “Who is?” she responded tartly. “Don’t you think everything comes so easily to him? He can get into any show he wants and how do you think he got a teaching job here right out of college? He even has assistants painting for him and he’s already a multi-mil-lionaire. Just goes to show what it takes to succeed around here.”

Zhou’s bitterness toward socio-economic inequalities and societal injustices are common themes among young Chinese, who take their opinions to micro blogs such as Weibo, as the country’s wealth gap widens. But the “if you can’t fight them join them” attitude has also fueled a desire for pragmatism among fresh graduates. Now, two-thirds of Chinese graduates say they want to work in government or state-owned firms, which are viewed as more stable.2 In 2012, about 1.4 million people took the civil-servant exam; only about 21,000 of them will be hired by the government. Such cushy nine-to-five jobs that offer pension, health benefits and sometimes hous-ing are becoming increasingly attractive in a competitive

1 Lorin K. Staats, “The cultivation of creativity in the Chinese culture—past, present, and future,” Journal of Strategic Leadership, 2011, http://bit.ly/14RyHc42 Bob Davis, “Chinese college graduates play it safe and miss out,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 25, 2013, http://on.wsj.com/ZnOZb4

Zhou walks along Chuan Mei’s paddy fields.

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job market where government jobs can open doors by providing guanxi to important officials and the upper echelon of society. Some say China’s lack of innovation is spawned by an emphasis on education at the expense of passion. One of China’s prominent angel investors, Xu Xiaoping, recently said that China’s traditional mindset of struggling to be accepted rather than encouraging people’s natural curiosity and passions, robs the country of its true potential.3 He predicts China will not be inno-vative for another 20 years. Zhou is just one example of how a person’s passions can be slowly ground down by societal expectations and pressures.

Just two years into graduate school and with only a few exhibitions around the country, Zhou has become dis-

couraged by societal realities. She has learned that even the art world thrives on guanxi and bowing to the govern-ment. Professor Feng had warned her it’d be a bad idea to show her Warhol-esque Hu Jintao woodcut in public (though it did not have any sensitive elements that could create unwanted controversy and make her life more diffi-cult). Zhou’s frustrations are characteristic of the challeng-es China faces along the road to creating an innovative society that would reach the ranks of the world’s devel-oped nations. As China remains an authoritarian regime that suppresses dissent, controls information, and remains a strong presence in every facet of its citizens’ lives, the country’s ability to foster a community of openness and cooperation will ultimately decide its fate as a global cre-ative power. o

3 Jason Lim, “Why China won’t be innovative for at least 20 years,” TechNode, Mar. 26, 2012, http://bit.ly/GRexqm

Undergraduate students in Luo Dan’s drawing class honing their portrait skills.

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© INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS 7

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Hannah Armstrong (2012-2014) W. AFRICA

Topic: State-building and security in the Sahel Region

Hannah is a recent graduate of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies with an M.A. Distinction in International Studies and Diplomacy. She previously worked as a freelance foreign correspondent, reporting on politics, economic development, and security from Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, and Haiti. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, the Christian Science Monitor, and Monocle Magazine, among others. Fluent in French and proficient in Moroccan Colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic, she served as a Fulbright Scholar in Morocco, where she researched tensions between Islamist feminism and liberal feminism in civil society. She holds a B.A. in Political Philosophy from New College of Florida.

Amelia Frank-Vitale (2012-2014) MEXICO

Topic: Unauthorized migrants en route

Amelia is looking at the intersections among the war on drugs, organized crime groups, party politics, and the varieties of violence faced by Central American migrants who are passing through Mexico in hopes of reaching the United States. Amelia graduated from Yale in 2005 with a degree in Anthropology. A former union organizer, she completed a master’s degree in Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs at American University in 2011.

Malia Politzer (2013 - 2015) INDIA

Topic: Internal and international migration trends, remittances, citizenship issues and identity in India.

Formerly a writer for Mint, an Indian business and economics news daily paper, Malia wrote on a variety of social issues including disability issues, internal migration, gender, social entrepreneurship and development trends. As a fellow at the Village Voice, she wrote primarily about immigration. She has won multiple awards for her reporting and published articles in the Wall Street Journal Asia, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy Magazine, Reason Magazine, and Migration Policy Institute’s monthly magazine The Source. She has also reported from China, the US-Mexico border and South Korea, and speaks fluent Spanish, conversational Mandarin, and working on learning Hindi. Malia holds an M.S. in multimedia and investigative journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a Stabile Fellow, and a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Hampshire College.

Shannon Sims (2012-2014) BRAZIL

Topic: Stakerholder involvement in the governance of South Atlantic Coastal Forest, the Mata Atlantica

Shannon is a 2011 graduate of The University of Texas School of Law. Shannon holds a B.A. in International Relations with Politics concentration from Pomona College in 2005 and attended Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey with University of the Aegean, Mytiline, Greece, in 2004. Following the BP Oil Spill in April 2010, she was nominated for an environmental law internship with the United States Coast Guard District 8 Legal Division in New Orleans, where she helped draft unique legal regulations defining the role of the Coast Guard during a drilling moratorium. In 2009, through the Rapoport Fellowship from the Rapoport Center for International Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law, Shannon completed a legal clerkship with the Attorney General’s Office of the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil (IBAMA). She researched concessions management in environmentally protected areas along the coast, and documented small Brazilian fishing communities.

Chi-Chi Zhang (2012-2014) CHINA

Topic: China’s next generation and its role in the country’s political, economic and social development.

Based in southwestern China, Chi-Chi will be working in an urbanizing landscape impacted by incredible social change, mass migration, and a growing yet potentially problematic economy. As a producer for CNN in Beijing, Chi-Chi covered ethnic dilution in Inner Mongolia, traveled to the North Korean border for Kim Jong-il’s death and documented Tibetan unrest in Sichuan Province. She previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press in Beijing, covering events such as the lead-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, the Xinjiang riots and China’s 60th anniversary. A Utah native who moved back to China in 2005, she has also lived in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Follow her on Twitter @chi2zhang.

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