Artist Zheng Chongbin Carefully Merges Conceptualism and Tradition

Artist Zheng Chongbin was born in Shanghai in 1961, and has been based in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1988. This condensed biography might at first glance suggest a straightforward equation for understanding his diverse practice: Chinese roots plus American modernity. Yet even as this succinct breakdown offers an opening into his work, it fails to capture the complexity of the paintings, installations, videos, and more he has crafted over the past four decades. Merging techniques from traditional Chinese ink painting and Western abstraction with conceptual thinking inspired by Daoism, the California Light and Space movement, and New Materialism, Zheng’s art blurs distinctions between styles and orthodoxies, inviting viewers to embrace the innate qualities of his materials and their interactions with light.


Zheng came of age in the 1980s, as China’s art world went through a period of radical change, leading to the birth of Chinese contemporary art. However, his early artistic education was grounded in tradition: he studied ink painting with masters Mu Yilin and Chen Jialing before heading to the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (today the China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou. In these years, he learned to use maobi (soft-bristled narrow brushes) to subtly control the flow of ink of across xuan paper, the medium of choice for Chinese painting and calligraphy for more than a millennium.


Young Zheng Chongbin

A young Zheng Chongbin in China.


Graduating in 1984, Zheng would teach at his alma mater for the next four years. It was a time of creative ferment. As new cultural influences flooded into China, artists, critics, and curators coalesced into the ’85 New Wave movement, with the art academy in Hangzhou serving as a key node for intellectual debates. Zheng himself moved towards abstraction, experimented with wider and stiffer paibi brushes to break out of established patterns of painting, and mixed white acrylic and ink to create what he called “white ink.”


Another State of Man No. 24 (1988), held in the collection of Hong Kong’s M+, provides a snapshot of his style at the time: though still based on vague, surreal figuration rather than pure abstraction, the nearly three-meter-tall painting’s dimensions and wide elemental brushstrokes seem to foreshadow the massive installations he would make in the years to come. Indeed, not long after staging his first solo exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum in 1988, Zheng received a fellowship to study for his Master’s at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he would dive into installation, performance, and conceptual art.


Working from his new home base, Zheng’s art was shaped not only by the contemporary mediums he encountered in his Master’s studies, but also the Bay Area’s natural environment — its unique interplay between land and sea, light and atmosphere. Today, these influences are fully incorporated with insights gleaned from Daoism and pre-modern Chinese thought, namely the idea that world is in a constant state of flux. Zheng’s conceptual thinking has fuelled the creation of artworks in which ink and other materials become art in their own right, imbued with a sense of agency and mutability, taking on different aspects depending on lighting and the perspective of the viewer.


Zheng Chongbin painting

Zheng Chongbin at work.


In the 2015 video installation Chimeric Landscape, evolving topologies emerge out of blots of ink, metaphorically transforming the substance into the legendary hybrid creature of the title, while Wall of Skies, an installation featured in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale, juxtaposes ink on paper with semi-reflective floors and custom slanted walls to create an ethereal, immersive experience that shifts according to each viewer’s vantage point. More recently, for “I Look for the Sky,” a 2020 solo exhibition at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, Zheng presented an installation of the same title, using transparent textiles and acrylics to alter light conditions in the museum and craft a quasi-virtual space in which visitors could imagine new possibilities.


Speaking on the occasion of the exhibition, Zheng commented, “Sometimes I use the words ‘living paintings’ […] I look at this entire process of building this work, constructing this work [as] a process of how to sort of treat the light as a really living form.” It seems fitting that for Zheng, even a bracingly contemporary art installation links back to painting, and with it, an approach towards perspective shaped by New Materialism merged with Daoist convention, all reflecting the philosophical underpinnings of his work.


Banner image shows I Look for the Sky (2020). All images courtesy Zheng Chongbin.

How China’s Coffee Revolution is Slowly Spreading to Smaller Cities

In the past decade, China’s coffee industry has experienced a remarkable boom: over the 2022-2023 crop year, the country consumed approximately 5 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee. This significant increase in demand for whole bean or freshly ground coffee over instant varieties has been driven by the proliferation of coffee shops across the nation. By 2023, the Chinese mainland hosted around 132 thousand, surpassing all other countries in the world. Shanghai stands out as a prime example of this caffeinated craze, with approximately 8,500 cafes on its streets. Like most other major Chinese cities, Shanghai boasts an almost equal distribution between independent and chain cafés. Major brands like Luckin and Manner have strategically targeted office workers, predominantly concentrating their outlets in megacities’ Central Business Districts. At the same time, many coffee-drinkers still prefer to visit independent cafés, savoring their high quality brews and curated environments.


Defying expectations, independent cafés are now also taking root in lower-tier cities across China. While it’s not exactly surprising that entrepreneurs would want a slice of the booming coffee market, moving into smaller cities, where consumers have less disposable income as well as less globalized tastes, certainly comes with risks. So who are the individuals behind these independent cafés? And who are their customers?


Local Fish Coffee Quanzhou

Local Fish, with historical buildings visible through the window.

Global Quanzhou, Local Fish

Balangyu Coffee (巴浪鱼咖啡馆) or Local Fish, situated in Quanzhou, Fujian province, stands as a pioneering establishment in the city’s growing coffee scene. Long before Quanzhou gained traction as a tourist destination propelled by media coverage, celebrity endorsements, and recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Local Fish’s owners Yasan and Amei embarked on a journey to establish a coffee shop in their hometown.


Their venture dates back to 2017, when, after each of them ended their previous jobs in Xiamen and Quanzhou, Yasan and Amei established Chizi Space, a cultural complex in the city’s historic Licheng District. The space is now a focal point of public artistic expression in the city, boasting an array of art books and zines, designer apparel, handmade lanterns made by local craftsmen, and even a corner for traditional barbers. Chizi Space intermittently hosts events in their physical location and elsewhere across the city: reading sessions, exhibitions, and performances.


Chizi Space Barbershop quanzhou

Chizi Space has a barbershop corner, run in collaboration with neighborhood barbers who lost their previous space in 2017.


Gradually, the couple started experimenting with coffee drinks again on the second floor of Chizi Space, leading to the birth of Local Fish Coffee. Notably, their menu features two signature beverages: a shihuagao latte (石花膏, a kind of seaweed paste) and youtiao affogato (油条, fried dough sticks). The seamless integration of local ingredients with coffee has spread the café’s name around China’s coffee scene, and patrons often queue up for the freshly prepared youtiao from a 30-year-old shop at the entrance of the lane where Local Fish is located.


Reflecting on Amei and Yasan’s journey, it’s evident that the essence of Quanzhou resonates deeply within their café. As Quanzhou’s status as a destination for cultural tourism has grown, Local Fish and Chizi Space have become something of an institution. Though coffee is a relatively recent arrival within Quanzhou’s millennium-long history as a cosmopolitan trading port, they’ve found a way to tie the beverage to the city’s cultural identity. Amei and Yasan seem as excited about local senior citizens stopping by their coffee stand at a temple as they are about Chizi Space participating in a Quanzhou-themed exhibition at London’s Oxo Tower Wharf.


Shihuagao latte Local Fish

A shihuagao latte and cold brew coffee at Local Fish.

Smaller City, Bigger Challenges

But not every coffee shop outside of Tier 1 and 2 cities has the same market opportunities as Local Fish — though less developed than its coastal neighbors, Quanzhou is still a relatively large city, and gets a major boost from tourism. Drunk Coffee (壮可咖啡) in Yangzhong, Jiangsu province, faces a distinctly different environment from Local Fish.


Zhuang Zhuang, the one-time owner of Drunk Coffee, returned to Yangzhong last April, after working at a coffee company in Shanghai. Her father’s health was in decline, and she planned to take responsibility for the family business. However, her coffee habit connected her with the owner of a café in the town center. When the owner mentioned he was thinking about subletting the café for six months, Zhuang Zhuang seized the opportunity. From August 2023, she took over Drunk Coffee for half a year.


An island on the Yangtze River, Yangzhong is a county-level city under the administration of the larger city of Zhenjiang, known for its black vinegar. Though there is some tourism in central Zhenjiang, in Yangzhong pour-over coffee proved to be a tough sell beyond Zhuang Zhuang’s circle of friends. She admitted that the island’s location limited customers, but shared her love for Drunk Coffee’s community atmosphere. When she was busy, her regular customers would sometimes bring coffee beans and milk to the café and use the espresso machine to make their own drinks.


After her six months running the café, Zhuang Zhuang started to work as a freelancer. Looking back on her time running Drunk Coffee, she’s grateful for her prior experience in coffee supply chain management in Shanghai, which enabled her to quickly adapt to the role of a coffee shop owner, rather than simply feeling like a daydreamer lacking any business acumen. At the time she tried to view other cafés in Yangzhong as allies rather than rivals, aiming to collectively elevate the quality of coffee. She emphasizes that cooperation over competition will be the way forward as people try to navigate the untapped coffee market in China’s less developed urban areas.


So despite what some Chinese urbanites might hope, starting a café in one’s hometown often isn’t exactly an escape from stress. It involves confronting market challenges and figuring out how to foster a connection with the local context, whether by building community or crafting recipes that resonate with tradition. Before taking the plunge, aspiring café owners should seriously consider whether their love for coffee outweighs the challenges of entrepreneurship, ensuring they’re ready for the adventure that lies ahead.


Banner image of Drunk Coffee courtesy Zhuang Zhuang. All other images by Mia Fan.


Visit Drunk 壮可咖啡 at No. 29 South Huancheng Road, Yangzhong City, Jiangsu Province, and Local Fish 巴浪鱼咖啡, on Chengtian Lane, Licheng District, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province.

Zhao Hongcheng’s play “Be Seen” Shines a Light on Accessibility Issues in China

On May 1st, Zhao Hongcheng, a Bilibili influencer who uses a wheelchair, started another run of her 2023 play Be Seen in Shanghai.


Zhao’s path from online influencer to playwright and performer started when theater producer Shen Lujun noticed her videos on Bilibili, posted under the account name 大程子好妹妹. With an audience of more than 200,000 across Chinese social media, Zhao shares her daily life as a person using a wheelchair: work, journeys with her abled husband, and vlogs from her vacations around the world. Shen wanted to share Zhao’s unique lifestyle, but at first, the influencer did not want to put herself on display on stage, fearing that her experience as a person with disabilities might be reduced into merely an “inspiring” story for others. However, with encouragement from her husband she decided to take the opportunity to represent herself on stage.


The premise of the play is based on Zhao’s sense of conflict between the two versions of herself that she wants to present to the world: “The humorous, eager, brave version of myself. The nonsensical, weak, self-sabotaging version of myself. Whichever one I present, I am not lying. Yet, whichever I present, I am also lying.”


As such, the play shows both version of Zhao. She brings her optimism on stage in terms of how she faces daily inconveniences — the unneeded stares, the unwanted help, and the accessible bathroom occupied by cleaning supplies. Yet she also reveals a source of pain that she has never shared online: after undergoing ground-breaking surgery in 2015 that allowed her to walk, Zhao faced a lack of support from her loved ones and ended up back in a wheelchair. When RADII attended Be Seen, the audience was left teary-eyed by the end of the show, their applause resonating around the theater.


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The play’s set with the sign language translator at the bottom left corner. Image by the author.


Just as the subject matter of Zhao’s play broke new ground in the entertainment industry, the play’s May Shanghai run marked a step forward for accessibility in Chinese theater. A performance on May 4th was accompanied with Chinese sign language interpretation, one of the first theatrical performances in China to do so.


Beyond this, the play’s creators have taken further measures to welcome audience members with disabilities. The background music and Zhao’s lively narration help evoke visual elements on stage for people with visual impairment. In addition to the sign language interpretation, lighting design helps translate the play’s music for deaf or hard of hearing people. There is even a special seating section for those using wheelchairs.


While the Chinese sign language showing of Be Seen has already taken place, audiences can still enjoy Zhao’s show until May 19th at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center.


Banner image via playwright Chen Si’an.

The Old Chinese Neighborhoods That Are Now KL’s Hipster Havens

If you ask a local to describe Kuala Lumpur (KL), you’ll likely hear phrases like “a melting pot of cultures” and “it’s a bit of everything” — because well, because it’s true. The capital of Malaysia is indeed a lot of things; there is history, culture, architecture, nightlife, shopping, and lip-smacking food.


The usual points of interest, like the KLCC Twin Towers and National Museum, are still priorities on the tourist attraction checklist, but lately, it’s the age-old neighborhoods that are turning up the charm by bridging the city’s heritage with urban sensibilities.


While KL’s vivid diversity has always been its core identity, many shophouses of old were set up by Chinese traders who came to Malaysian shores seeking greener pastures. One notable figure was Yap Ah Loy, a Chinese tin mining businessman who was instrumental in shaping the city’s commerce and infrastructure, notable for setting up the first Chinese school and temple in KL.


Remnants of the past in the form of buildings and streets are going through phases of evolution (a case can be made for gentrification but that’s a story for another day) to make room for a new wave of tourism, one that’s balancing the scale between progress, preservation, and tradition. In other words, keeping the history alive with new blood.


On this list, we feature three locations worth adding to any traveller’s KL itinerary. They encapsulate the city’s storied past and accurately represent youthful subcultures rooted in creativity. Truly the best of both worlds.

Petaling Street

Petaling

Image via Malaysia Tourism Board.


Jalan Petaling, fondly known by its English moniker Petaling Street, is KL’s most recognizable thoroughfare. Rich in history and lore, it was where Cantonese and Hakka immigrants settled down in the late eighteenth century.


Long known for its namesake market where shoppers haggle with peddlers over anything from clothing to gadgets, Chinese and Indian temples, and a melange of local cuisines, Petaling Street has continued to not only remain relevant to locals and foreigners, but has flourished from the opening of trendy joints for eating and drinking, creative hubs, boutique hotels, and watering holes.


While staples like Hokkien-style fried noodles, herbal teas, fresh seafoods, chargrilled chicken wings, and tau foo fah (soybean pudding) are failsafe options for chowing down, don’t miss checking out modern restaurants Pickle Dining and Chocha Foodstore.


Both champion progressive cooking — think open fires, dry-aged meats, and housemade aiolis — using locally sourced ingredients and produce. Dishes are for sharing so bring a party of at least two, unless you’re famished! Meanwhile, the decor is Instagram-worthy, with open bricks over raw cement walls and tasteful wooden furniture as the backdrop.


After dinner, walk to Penrose, an intimate cocktail bar decked out in steampunk vibes that sits only 25 guests. Helmed by star bartender Jon Lee, Penrose snagged a spot on the Asia’s 50 Best Bar 2023 list within the first year of its opening. So it goes without saying that reservations are highly recommended.

REXKL

REXKL

Image via REXKL.


A short walk from Petaling Street sits REXKL, a multi-storied community hub for events, retail, and F&B.


The original Rex, as it was called then, opened to the public in 1947 as one of the first movie theaters in KL. It burned down in 1972, but was rebuilt and continued to operate as a cinema for decades, before another fire shut it down for good in 2002, leaving the building as a shell of its former glory.


Almost two decades later, a group of creative entrepreneurs breathed life into the Rex, reviving the building to its current form as REXKL. And it has never been more alive.


REXKL is always buzzing with something. Whether it’s an art exhibition, open mic sessions, DJs on spinning duties, flea markets, or film screenings, you’ll never run out of new things to see, do, and buy here. When you’re done partying or shopping, take a bite at The Back Ground, a food hall that cultivates many of KL’s emerging F&B entrepreneurs under one roof.

The Zhongshan Building

Zhongshan Building

Image via The Zhongshan Building.



Covered in striking white with splatters of graffiti on the edges, the Zhongshan Building, a significant independent arts and research hub, stands tall in the otherwise quiet Kampung Attap area. But before it became a tour de force in the local creative scene, it was once the meeting grounds for the Selangor Zhongshan Association, a community of people with ancestral links to Zhongshan, a city in China’s Guangdong province.


Now, besides holding art showings and workshops for independent artists at The Back Room, the four-storey structure is also the home to a curated list of tenants. There’s Gentle Giants, a natural wine bar and bottle shop, fono, a music space with a rotating list of resident DJs, and ana tomy, an award-winning stationary shop known for customizable journals.


When it comes to all-day dining and drinking, head behind the building to the neighboring Triptyk for tangy Tex-Mex and boozy cocktails. On weekends, expect trivia nights and kitchen takeovers. For light bites, curated concoctions (both boozy and non-boozy alike), and the occasional costume party, pay a visit to the neighbouring Kantata.


Banner image by Haedi Yue.

How a French Arthouse Drama Sparked a Major Moment in Chinese Feminism

This March at Peking University, the premiere of French arthouse drama Anatomy of a Fall — Oscar-nominated but hardly the type of film that usually garners attention in China — generated a sensationalist stir amongst young Chinese netizens, sparking new round of gender debate. Within days, the “mansplaining” comments of the event’s master of ceremonies and male guest speaker garnered significant attention and became a daily top ten trending topic on Weibo. The controversy revolved around how the male speakers completely hijacked the screening, leaving little room for director Justine Triet and a female guest speaker to voice their opinions. Audience members actually heckled the host, calling on him to “let the director speak.”


The plot of the movie follows the trial of Sandra (Sandra Hüller), a wife, mother and acclaimed novelist, who is suspected of murdering her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis), following a tragic fall at their home in the French Alps. The movie moves from the discovery of the fall to courtroom hearings, gripping the audience at each sequence through well-paced tension each part of the way.


Some might be curious as to how a French arthouse “whodunnit” has attracted so much attention and such a following in China, where one would expect that the different cultural context would ensure a lack of relatability. But as you dive deeper into each scene, it becomes unsurprising that Sandra’s trial hit hard in the hearts of educated Chinese women.


In the film both husband and wife are creative writers, but in an unusual flip of stereotypical gender archetypes, Sandra is the more successful of the pair. Whilst her books are read around the world, Sam is stuck on getting his first book published and can’t seem to move from ideation to draft. We see Sandra being almost disproportionately penalized at court, because of her success. Do women need to be apologetic for being successful? Should they indeed pay for their “crime” of being unwomanly specifically because it’s emasculating for everyone else involved?


In China, women make up more than half (53 percent in 2020) of Chinese university students, and often graduate with better performance. Official statistics also indicate that the proportion of female entrepreneurs in the internet sector reached 55 percent in 2019, and there’s no shortage of female CEO and founders across China. Despite the plenitude of personal success stories, and the plethora of milestones young Chinese women have been able to achieve, the question of marriage and children remains an unavoidable quandary for women.


Many unabashedly choose singledom, whilst their more optimistic peers take the plunge.


College-educated women of this era are no longer willing to compromise, nor live with men who do not support women’s rights, whether in or out of the household. This “woke” movement seems to have arrived a few years later than its Western counterparts, but is no less muted in its intensity.


At one point in the film, Sandra’s lawyer says “I don’t give a f**k about what is reality … the trial is not about ‘The Truth.’” A central part of Anatomy of a Fall is also about choosing the reality you want for yourself. Both parallel realities are often true, in the movie: whether Sandra did or did not kill her husband. And in the audience minds, whether it is the right decision to marry or stay single. Anatomy of a Fall isn’t the only piece of media to have caused such a stir in recent years: the Taiwanese televsion show Imperfect Us and the American films Marriage Story and Revolutionary Road have all become cultural staples in the internet rhetoric of young Chinese women.


Beyond the walls of Peking University’s Centennial Memorial Hall, it wasn’t just voices and questions which echoed, but also the discourse raised by French director Triet and her loyal supporters, which is adding a new note to the eclectic symphony of feminism in China.


Banner image by Haedi Yue.


Rescuing Zhoushan: Preserving Heritage Amidst Modern Challenges

Zhoushan archipelago, located in the northern Zhejiang province, is the largest island group in China and is famous for its urbanized fishing villages. However, since the 1990s, many small islands have been deserted due to environmental changes and new maritime policies. In contrast to the early years of the Reform and Opening Up era, when the fishing industry flourished and attracted a surge of migrant workers to Zhoushan’s fishing ports, today’s landscape tells a different story. However, there is a growing push from young creatives with roots in the area to revitalize Zhoushan through collaborative projects and the arts.


One of the most noticeable transformations of Zhoushan since the 1990s lies in the demographic makeup of the islands. Young people have left home to seek job opportunities, while the elderly with no skills for employment beyond fishing were left at home. Today, these seasoned islanders, some in their 80s and 90s, find themselves navigating the challenges of aging and solitude in a rapidly changing environment. This narrative is poignantly captured in Chai Shan Lu, a recent documentary by a Zhoushan native, Liu Fan, which sheds light on how the islands’ elderly residents face aging and mortality.


Still image from Liu Fan’s 2024 documentary “Chai Shan Lu.”


Amidst a backdrop of change and uncertainty, questions loom about the islands’ future. Can alternative avenues such as tourism and art residencies breathe new life into their economy? Advocates propose initiatives like collaborative “co-building” projects to help revitalize the islands


One such endeavor is “Dream in Nature,” a project harnessing the power of social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and WeChat to solicit proposals for the islands’ development. With Huanglong Island as its canvas, the project aims to resurrect forgotten spaces, as exemplified by the modernist house refurbished with the involvement of actor Daniel Wu in 2018. Soliciting input from experts in the entertainment, arts, food and beverage, and architecture industries, the project aspires to draw wider attention to the island. However, doubts linger regarding the long-term impact of short-term residencies and how newcomers might alter the island’s cultural identity.


The first “co-building” roundtable on Huanglong Island. Image via Dream in Nature.


As Zhoushan navigates these turbulent waters, the search for sustainable solutions continues. While challenges abound, there remains a glimmer of hope that innovation and community engagement will chart a course toward a brighter future for this once-prosperous archipelago.


Banner image via Dream in Nature.