Topics in Contemporary China

Photograph by Rian DundonI am going to leverage some creative discharge and write about a number of readings and lectures from NYU in Shanghai’s Topics in Contemporary China course. This mandatory 2 credit course meets once a week and features a different prominent guest speaker each week. One of the more memorable lectures was a showcase by Rian Dundon, a former Tisch photography student who traveled China and documented his journey. He was able to capture such intense photos (dunnflicks.com) of the Chinese youth cultural movement because he lived amongst them and naturally befriended them. As someone who was born and raised in New York, the only things I knew about China, even as an ethnically Chinese person, were things I heard about in mainstream media or read about in biased social studies textbooks. I had no idea that chinese youth in contemporary China was struggling for identification, for an artistic medium and self expression. Dundon showed us photographs of a graffiti artist known as “ren”, the Chinese word for people. Ren was the most prolific graffiti artist in China and tagged every inch of his mother’s house with spraypaint, including her leather sofa. She approved of this and encouraged it because she wanted him to be happy, it was a way of showing support for her only son. Putting his artistic expression above material goods. Dundon also showed numerous photos of Chinese dropout skateboarders who made journeys to a province in China were marijuana grew naturally. He showed us a tattoo artist who dropped out of school to pursue his dream and was now running a successful tattoo business, making an equivalent of a high American salary.

Gary Wang was another memorable lecturer who shed light on the artistic cultural movement of China’s youth. Gary was China’s first hip-hop DJ and a true pioneer in bringing the genre and culture to China. He won numerous international DJ competitions and is the godfather of hip-hop in China. He spoke of China not having a true hip-hop movement and needed such to truly identify with itself. It couldn’t keep borrowing from others and had to innovate and foster creativity to truly succeed. He was featured in a documentary that also included MC Webber, China’s premiere MC, and a prolific female graffiti artist. Gary has since opened a club dedicated to the hip-hop movement and features international DJs and MCs. He founded The Lab which fosters young DJs and teaches anyone willing to learn for free. Topics in Contemporary China was one giant learning experience, the readings and lectures from it completely flipped my image of youth in China.