Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

Mu Tian Yu – The Great Wall of China

Of course we had to see the Great Wall. Mr Shen, who drives for Brian and Red Gate, took us there and back. A great experience, up in the high hills that are to the north of Beijing. Lovely, clear moist air, bird and insect song. Hard climbing at times – high steps in some places and tiny low ones in others. We got there before the crowds and walked to a tip beyond the ‘official’ tourist route. Did a recording from this spot. The mist was thick and the hills were just visible as fading grey outlines receding in the distance.

Talking to locals in Tuanjiehu Park

I decided to try to find out what local people think of crickets and cicadas. I asked Kelly [Song Nan is her Chinese name] to translate a few basic questions and photocopied sheets of these to hand out in Tuanjiehu Park. I did this for a couple of hours today armed with clipboards, stools and pens. It was quite successful and I am eager to find out what people have written. I was doing this close to the water calligraphers, who were interested in what I was up to. One water calligrapher, one of the teachers, was telling me a lot in Chinese which I could not understand, of course, but then a younger man, Min, who has been studying water calligraphy at the park for 2 years, helped to translate. One of the questions I asked was whether there was a correlation between insect song [or natural sounds in general] and Chinese music. The teacher said there definitely was, and that I should look at poetry from the Tang Dynasty, which illustrates this well.

The cicadas – cryptotympana atrata [hei za chan] and platypleura kaempferi [hui gu].

Institute of Zoology

Cam and Jake came with me for a second visit to see Dr Liu this morning. Dr Liu had a number of specimens for me to photograph including gampsocleis gratiosa [guo guo’er]. Ai_ping sent over specimens of cryptotympana atrata [hei za chan] and platypleura kaempferi [hui gu]. Good to see what these creatures look like – particularly the cicadas, which I have not been able to spot in the parks. It is a shame that the colours of the insects do not preserve well in collections, however – the guo guo’er was a dark brown rather than the vibrant green of a living one. Cam helped set up and take the photographs in Dr Liu’s lab. Dr Liu then showed us some of the collection they have housed there. It is a brand new storage system with huge cabinets on rollers with geared handles for easy manoeuvring. Again, she was very generous with her time and took us for a tasty Chinese lunch afterwards – very kind.

Cameron and Jake arrive tonight, so the second phase of my residency will begin! You may notice a new blog on the list from another Red Gate artist – Cathy Busby. She is a Canadian artist and has decided to blog on this site too. We are living in close proximity in Tuanjiehu and are both here till the end of October. Incidentally, I can now pronounce Tuanjiehu well enough so that taxi drivers understand what I am saying and do not need to look at a map – a great achievement!