By Zoe Sua-Kay (MFA 2014)
After a week in the Chinese capital and having soaked up
some of the local culture and scene close to our hotel, we decided it was time
to put our tourist hats on and see some of global tourism’s most famous sites –
The Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and of course, the Great Wall of China.
The Forbidden City
Probably somewhat unwisely, we chose one of the hottest days
we’d yet experienced to explore the Palace. Without trees and with it’s
relentless expanses of brick courtyards
we were rarely offered any relief from the glaring sun as we trekked the 3,153
feet from the entrance (Meridian Gate) to the Imperial Gardens at the very end…
and back again.
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Forbidden City, view
from the Meridian Gate.
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The Hall of Supreme
Harmony
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Girl with Chinese head wear
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Elliot Purse strikes a
pose in the Forbidden City
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The Summer Palace
The Summer Palace was a nice contrast to the flat, scorching
and exposed layout of the Forbidden City. Located forty minutes from central
Beijing by subway, the Palace is arranged over leafy hills and at the bank of
the large Kunming Lake.
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Lady in an old-fashioned
Chinese outfit inside the Summer Palace
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| View from interior |
The following day, and having delayed what we had deemed to
be the climax of our cultural education in China, the time had finally come to
undertake the epic experience of taking a hike along the Great Wall of China.
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Elizabeth Shupe,
Elliot Purse and James Adelman on the Great Wall
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And what a hike it was!
We had the good fortune of visiting a part of the wall that
had only just recently been opened to the public. Thus, we hardly encountered
any tourists outside of the group we had gone with. We were able to explore the
ancient, unreconstructed sections and happily take photographs without the
reputed hoards of tourists at other, more well-known sections of the wall.
However, this also meant that we had to be on guard of the
loose, uneven terrain of the ancient wall. Without any kind of railing (or
safety precautions of any kind at all), the possibility of miss-stepping and
falling off the steep, isolated wall was imminent. But we made it.
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Elliot conquers the
wall
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| Beth conquers the wall |
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| I conquer the wall |
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James conquers the
wall
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Last weekend in China
Our final weekend in China was spent with Ian, our guide on
the Beijing side. He took us around CAFA’s/China Academy of Fine Art’s museum
of ‘Excellent Student Work’. And excellent it was - we all left a little mind
boggled (a.k.a downright intimidated) at the quality of work these Chinese undergraduates had produced.
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Ai Wei Wei’s studio,
exterior view
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A word of sincere thanks.
On behalf of James, Elliot, Beth and myself, I would like to
thank everyone who has made this trip possible. It has, with all honesty, been
a life changing experience.
While we have now all finally
separated to our respective homes, I think my fellow residency compatriots will
appreciate the quote I quite simply could not have signed off without:
I've seen things you
people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched c-beams glitter in the
dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those... moments... will be lost in time,
like] tears... in... rain.
- Roy Batty
On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.
