I have returned to campus after several days in Shanghai and Hangzhou. The images above are representative of the time I spent there. The image on the left was taken in Shanghai’s French Concession. The middle image is from the Shanghai Museum Calligraphy exhibit. There I encountered this man who was using a brush and water to trace on glass the calligraphy exhibited under the glass. The third image is from the historic Westlake area of Hangzhou.

Following are a couple of articles that you may find interesting. The first, “On Art in an Authoritarian Environment” is from The New Republic. I think this article will be of particular interest to the group who is profiling Zhang. The second article “Han Dynasty” is from the New Yorker. This article is about “novelist, essayist, blogger, and race-car driver Han Han.” Both address contemporary social and cultural issues in China.