Our group from the field school, which includes Sam, Jo, Yuting and Rosalynn, will focus one of our upcoming posts on cultural tourism. We will examine cultural tourism through a restaurant in JianGao which severs traditional farmer’s food from the area to cultural tourists. Jiangao is a tourist site due to its religious significance, associations with red tourism and rose tea production. The increased popularity in these types of tourism is evident in the village, especially since the number of restaurants in the village serving food from the area to tourists has increased from three to twelve in the past ten years. We will specifically focus on an interview with the restaurant owner Mr. Wu. Our interview with Mr. Wu, the owner of the restaurant the field school visited and had lunch at, will offer some insights into the role cultural tourism is playing in this community and the relationship community members have to visiting tourists. We will also produce a video portrait of the artist Wei Ligang, a contemporary calligraphy artist. We interviewed the artist in his studio in Songzhuang. an artist’s community outside of Beijing. We will pull out excerpts from an lengthy interview with Mr. Wei where he develops his personal practice of calligraphy in the context of the contemporary art world, his relationship to Western artistic practices and his relationship to the fast developing Songzhuang area. Through this portrait of an individual artist’s practice we can examine the role of traditional Chinese art forms in the international contemporary art market. If you want to see some more of Mr. Wei’s work, start with this link to a gallery which represents him.

Finished work at Mr. Wei’s studio.

Materials in Mr. Wei’s studio including calligraphy inks and spray paint.

A group of tourists approaches Mr. Wu’s restaurant.