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Ann
Huss
Department of Chinese, Wellesley
College
"Ways of
Looking"
In his recent historical
study The Chan's Great Continent: China in
Western Minds, Jonathan Spence argues that "one
aspect of a country's greatness is surely its
capacity to attract and retain the attention of
others." China is then a truly great nation, one
that has fascinated all of us, from Marco Polo and
Christopher Columbus to Jane Austen and Eugene
O'Neill, from John Steinbeck and Franz Kafka to
Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Despite this
fascination, China remains as amorphous to many as
the moon was before 1968; others see it
one-dimensionally as the land of the panda, the
world's most populated nation, a burgeoning
economy, a repressive regime.
These stereotypical views
have developed from the various representations of
China that have come to the west, ranging from the
popular to the journalistic. A person reading
Robert Ripley's syndicated newspaper cartoon
Believe It or Not in 1932 might have learned
that "the heathen Chinee…laughs when he is sad
and cries when he is glad, wears white instead of
black when in mourning, shakes hands with himself
when he meets a friend, drinks hot tea to keep cool
and carries a fan in cold weather, wears skirts and
puts his vest on over his coat, and is one year old
the day of his birth." Another person reading
The Boston Globe on a warm spring day in
1999, discovers that China has "curbed contacts
with [the] US; arms, rights are at issue;
protests rage."
It is difficult within all
this difference to notice the similarities, to
revel in any sense of universal understanding. The
photographs taken by Yunnanese women are a
challenge to our seemingly indelible "ways of
looking." As visitors travel through the gallery,
certain questions should resonate: Are these
pictures representative of China? And if so, why?
What does the word "China" mean for each of us? And
how have we been taught to look at this nation some
still refer to as the Middle Kingdom?
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While centuries ago
readers relied on the tales of travelers
and the textures and flavors of imported
silks and spices to inform their images of
China, today we base much of our knowledge
of China on information gleaned from film,
food and the news media. China has become
a commercial product, a sometimes feudal,
sometimes Communist nation of polygamous
households and scantily-clad courtesans
who share the stage with television chefs
and exiled dissidents. Are these the
images purveyed by the photographs of
Village Works? Look closely and
question as you travel the
kiosks.
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There are many ways of
looking; question how the village works.
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