1. Man Ruled by Entertainment

In 1999, when we went to the United States as visiting scholars, we visited the famous city of entertainment, Las Vegas. Las Vegas by night was well illuminated with impressing pyramids, Eiffel Tower and all kinds of weird forms of architecture, the stature of liberty, Pharaon,singing stars, slot machines and billboards are at the same hight crossing frontiers, nationalities, times and space and everything,anyone who came upon this shining universe will be melted at once. For the first time in my life I felt“entertainment”was so strong that you ceased to exist before you had the conscience to realise it. The next morning we went about the city as a kind of tourists,Las Vegas under the sunlight was complete death.Most of those who were entertaining themselves all over the night were not yet awake, the extraordinary scenery at night looks like the very raffish and banal stage scene. I realised then how false“entertainment”was, we had hardly touched it, it had disappeared completely. Entertainment ruled man, it fooled man !

In 1980s, being dead against the biggest cultural change in the rising American TV epoch- all public words appear in the form of entertainment forming a cultural spirit - the American Neil Portsman wrote《Amusing ourselves to death》, analysing deeply that all the cultural content will be willing dependency to entertainment, with no complainte and even complete silence, 'As a result we have become a species which is amusing itself to death', this proved to be true what Huxley said in 《The Beautiful New World》in 1932 'Men lose freedom because of entertainment, we will be destroyed by what we love'.This has increasingly become the American reality and the reality of the whole world.I presume that the Americans must have felt the most deeply 'amusing ourselves to death'. Nowadays the Chinese have  entered the TV epoch too and are also experiencing most deeply the same thing ! Age of entertainment with excessive materialism and consumption, nothing is really cherished and valued.Entertainment is even more excessive with such an interminable variety of tricks,everying is made to look“beautiful ”,"harmonious"and"pure", men are so happy amusing themselves that they are almost insane with all these forms of amusement ! 

On the other hand, political power is tilting towards economic power, "money"has become as important a factor as power in the main trend,even the contemporary art which has flowered inside the wall but the perfume of which was mainly been smelled outside the wall for over 20 years, has suddenly become a beloved one inside the wall. The"main trend"which usually showed  cold face to the contemporary art suddenly offered a"smiling face"simply because"contemporary art has been sold at a good price"in the international  market. So the two trends gathered together and even played together. When art exposition has become daily arena for mirth, when works of art representing different values are on the same wealth ranking list,we can only feel the absurdity of it all !

2.Trend of No Trends
However, the"grassroots"class'individual right is much feebler even if this class has largely increased in number; the intellectual class has lost the power of speech both in terms of main cultural trend and in economy, has to a large extent fallen to the status of"cultural grassroots"with a sense of profound spiritual bewilderment. Being up againt the confusing value and aesthetic systems, culture, not willingly becoming tool for entertainment, is confronted with even greater embarrassment and pressure compared with the earlier situation in which it did not wish to become the political tool. 

The general attitude of the"grassroots"class is characterised by being playful and cynical, they make fun of themselves and of the world,they entertain themselves and the world and they are self-sufficient. The development of the network has provided them with a vast arena of freedom. China possesses the largest  number of net surfers and the most developped network culture. When we use the word"developed"here it does not mean"technically".The American entertainment is based on highly developped economic technology, entertainment is purely entertaining. The general public is willingly and passionately immersed in the sensual pleasure, the danger of“amusing ourselves to death”predicted by Portsman is real. The situation in China looks like that in the United States, but in fact, the technical development in China is not as overwelming as that in the States, the political element is still deeply involved in the individual life environment. Simplity of technology and complicity of psychological feelings stand out as main features of Chinese entertainment culture. People are using the forms of entertainment but refuse to be purely entertaining or entertained this is so called“amusing ourselves not to death”. 

As a consequence, the net culture is the territory for the most popular entertainment culture, inventing“anguage”and“works”full of intelligence, with many features in common and evoking wide sympathetic response. Four main common features are sumed  up as follows : 1. Abandonning the illusion of being recognised by the main cultural trend, you don't want to have us in the game, all right, we play by ourselves, you have your version, we have ours, it is a question of different versions. 2. Adopting a joking, cynical attitude and a grassroots stand, voicing individual logic, personal emotions, making fun of the reality, destroying order and mainly keeping away from the orthodox language and way of expression. 3. Creating sensations, trying to obtain the psychological and mental satisfaction not obtainable in the real world. 4. Mainly anonymous, concealing one's true identity so as to evade the constraints  of the rules and regulations in the real world, the mark of recognition being the wide response and free circulation on the net. This net culture does not belong to any trend, but it is so forceful that it is irresistable, it is a trend of no trends. But the net culture in China is so “spontaneous” that it is truly chaotic. It lacks restraint, the good and the bad are intermingled, to a large extent, it has become the dumping ground for bad personal mood. The intellectual class shares some common feelings with the general public, but it encounters a lot of practical restrictions and problems when it tries to lower itself and let it go as the general public because it wants to participate with a professional spirit and in a professional manner. This is the most difficult part and causing me much anxiety when I reflect upon the issue of “amusing ourselves not to death”.

3.Amusing ourselves not to death
In the past ten years, some artists have paid a lot of attention to this issue and their concern and thoughts are represented by their works. The language form of“amusing ourselves not to death”is to mix up all the elements and styles in the orthodox and the established language into the individual psychological sphere crossing all times and space and do a sort of“rewriting”in order to convey an extremely complicated sensibility and experience. Here neither criticism nor anger is involved, but here is the utter separation and the departure from the orthodox.

Dai Hua's work puts together distinct pieces of knowledge and information from China and abroad from ancient times to the contemporary world and by putting them all in the same space and reorganising them and piecing them together, he has rewritten a play according to his own understanding. In <I Love Tian'anmen In Beijing>，he has included all historical events in China within the past 500 years, especially the big events taking place in Tian An Men in the contemporary and modern history of China and also the current focus news. He put them all between Tian An Men and Zheng Yang Men- this 100 meter long historically symbolic scence : on Chang An Street,  the parade by the three leaders is going happily towards the east,the prisoner wagon of the 6 Wuxu Gentlemen and the hearse of Premier Zhou Enlai is going sadly to the west ; Confucius  is looking at the kylin-symbol of good luck; the honest and just superman and batman and the state treasure panda are killed shedding rivers of hopeless tears ; Yuan Shikai with the red hat on his head but otherwise completely nude is crossing the red carpet illustrating the“new clothes of the emperor”; marital procession and burial procession are passing by each other and in the middle of which is keeling a beggar...All serious politial, historial and social events are part of a“ play”, the orthodox history is overturned.In <Birth and Destruction> ,the whole development of mankind is put completely on one side of the structure, an almost invisible very frail“sky ladder”is hanging from top to bottom, mankind is building up without any restriction in the dangerous structure, it is amusing itself to death. Dai Hua's works are computerised sketches which could be modified and deleted callously, a feeling commonly shared by  men living in the net epoch.

Zhao Qin's work has always been“playful”and theatrical. In <Soldiers and belle> , the soldier and his woman are vacillating between the red revolutionary ideals and the yellow individual desires. It is like  what we played in our childhood -  fighting on horses, dreaming of marrying the bride etc it is an illustration of the revolutionary romanticism and modern fashion.All figures have large heads,small bodies, the scenery like that of ink painting and the random and free touch reminds us of the painting of the new cultural personnel in Nanjing. The tanks, cars, planes and artillery and the bright  red, grass,green, sky blue colours are the cultural memories to which he is specially attached. His new works in recent years have created some absurd huge scenes, In“Ark” series,  the warship is sailing into the romantic and melancholy lotus pool, through the glittering but desolating sunflower land, through the gigantic but lonely hero square,and finaly into the glacier lifeless land.The past glory can only be restructured in an individual's personal memory. In the “CountDown”the extraordinary achievements and the humdrum routine are equally set against the moon scene, the small “figures”wearing astronauts clothing with blurred faces are doing all sorts of irrelevant,humdrum and senseless things: holding a baby beside the warship, pulling out Chinese columes from the holes on the moon, carrying them and marching purposelessly in Tian An Men Square, brandishing picks in the Temple of Heaven, nursing a fire beside the tank,playing a flute beside the plane,standing guard and wielding sword under the Statue of Liberty,doing body building on pushing slant Pize Tower with flowers in it… All this is happening among the evergreen pine trees. The surroundings are painted with Pollock swashing method, depicting the atmosphere like that in literary paintings, using relatively more realistic forms for objects and figures, the result is that the sharp contrast between the dimly discernable and the real is reinforced. 

Since the<Lao Li Night Banquet Series> , on several occasions, Wang Qingsong have taken out the scenes from famous paintings in China and abroad, reorganised them and then taken photos of them thus reflecting the psychological reality under the current social, human and cultural conditions. <Han Xizai's Night Banquet Series> is a classical among the Chinese traditional portraits. It is said that the literary Han Xizai, when his political ambitions not being able to be realised, organised banquets at home every night, enjoying good food, songs and dances, giving the impression that he was completely indulged in entertainment so as to disarm his political ennemies. <Lao Li Night Banquet Series> immitated this design but putting Lao Li at the place of Han Xizai faceing the modern entertainment culture scene even more vulgar and more erosive than that in the times of Han Xizai  hand washing replaced by“foot washing”, beauties replaced by vulgar girls, wealth and honour replaced by the cheap and the banal. This illustrates the fact that the position and status of the intellectuals has not improved, on the contrary, it is even more embarrassing and hopeless. In <China Mansion>, scenes are collected from all the masters in the western art history such as Angres, Courbet, Monet, Gauguin, Klein, Jones, Boucher, Rembrandt,Rubens, David, Renoir etc.The scene is decorated with coarsely copied traditional Chinese furniture,cheap copies of the western small objects, the numerous figures are all modeled by the vulgar nude, strikingly raffish and vulgar, the ”nude“ and the “bed”are the only point of connection with the original paintings. This cross time and space“cultural exchange”is  utterly absurd creating many uncertain concepts (Wang Qingsong's words), but it is the portrait of the current blind cultural exchange. In 《Romantique》, the artist has created a forest garden filled with mist and flowers based upon his personal mood,reorganising many romantic stories in the famous western paintings.

Xu Yihui continued with his favorite “little red book”and“golden colour”. For him these two elements are the symbols for the”main cultural trends“of the two special eras. 《 Wandering on the Moon》 : Xu Yihui chose ”moon climing“as the symbol for the”main cultural trend“of the current times ; and then by combining the three symbols he invented an absurd scene : the astronaute wearing his professional clothing and a golden mask,is reading the little red book on the moon, every”small figure“is made from pottery with decorative designs on the body, it looks more like craftsman's work, as a consequence, the so-called“main cultural trend” symbols have become elements for games.

Wang Nanfei's work usually chose a somewhat strange angle to depict a street scene,the ordinary people seem to be frozen in this angle. Some make senseless gestures, some seem embarassed, some look bewildered... This is not a real angle in the actual life, rather it is the real psychological angle of the artiste. In her new work《Shake》, Wang Nanfei  stayed with her continued psychological angle to imagin the big scene of the earthquake. The front scene is covered with dry tree branches in the northern winter but on the branches crawling big pandas, resting coloured birds ; the middle scene is the rescue scene filled with mist and smoke, only the back scene still keeps a little bit of purple mountain, green water and the blue sky ; the figures are again frozen in a state of fluster and absurdity. There are also some small scale paper sculptures which is a prolongation of the painting scene to the cubic space,bringing alive the earthquake version at the heart of the artist.

Xue Wenwen's <Second Hand History> is composed of a group of“ordinary people in the 60s and 70s”, such“conclusion” is made, not really“looking like”in terms of traditional realism. On the cubic sculptures, he painted with the propaganda method the conceptual clothes and expression of“ordinary people in the 60s and 70s” portraying the conceptual image, the inter-relations between black, white and grey clearly transmits the calm message of distance. Xue Wenwen was born in the 80s, the 60s and 70s are utterly strange to him. His generation has grown up in the era of“image”,the past eras are known and understood through the images ;nevertheless, these images « have already been selected and sifted by the image makers,when circulated it is already a kind of second hand history (Xue Wenwen's words). His work is just a personal rewriting of the“second hand history”“already squeezing the individual to the extreme limit by the big events”.

Wang Yiqiong's <Never mind> is an only“voice”work. If you heard something unworthy, don't take it too personally. I swear to Sun Wukong and big panda that Wang Yiqiong is absolutely serious and noble !

4.From the Same Source Flowing Together
"Amusing ourselves not to death"is a prolongation of the three post 89 art trends which are"political pop","cynical realism"and"raffish art",all three trends are destroying nobleness and heroism but different in psychology, attitude and language form. Political Pop generally chooses images representative of the times and politics, by reorganising them reducing the original seriousness. Because they have once"cherished",they feel the pressure and need to destructuralize, with a sense of"critical"humour. But generally they don't put their personal feelings into their works. This is a generation of artists tempered with heroism. When the heros of the old times are dissipating, they still feel"themselves heroes".

Cynical realism faces squarely their real situation as an ordinary human being, depicting"absurd""senseless"and"banal"life episodes, or making fun of something originally"serious"and"with significance".They pretend to be minding nothing in the face of the reality, but inside they are filled with self respect. When destroying nobleness, they intentionally stress the creation of the"humdrum"and" alternative"images. In their works we find distinct personal symbols and strong personal emotions. 
"Raffish art"copies in an exaggerated way the raffish and stupid phenomena in reality, taking off the decorative mask,becoming highly ironic. These artists are not as obsessed with their own images as the cynical artists, very often they tend to be identified with their raffishness.

"Amusing ourselves not to death"situates itself at the level of"I am born to be a nobody", therefore it adopts a relaxed and playful attitude. In abandoning looking up to and giving a great deal of attention to the orthodox, it abandons at the same time the critical attitude and angry mood. It only stresses personal psychological angle, exaggerates psychological space, rewrites everything ignoring time and space difference, therefore it is even more theatrical. Based upon the destructuralization, it is as willful as it could be. 

5.Wu Li Tou
In other areas, “amusing ourselves not to death” are best illustrated by Stephen Chow's “Wu Li Tou” films, they rank at the top without any doubt because not only very popular among the grassroots people, they are also praised highly by the cultural grassroots. In China, Hong Kong films are well known for being"entertaining", and among them Stephen Chow's films possess the largest number of “fans” among the intellectuals (including many contemporary artists and myself), thus broadening the cultural intention and the influence of “Wu Li Tou”.

“Wu Li Tou” was a slang in Guangdong region which means a man's language and action lacks apparent aims and objectives, coarse and random, above one's comprehension. All main characters are very small potatos from grassroots class, unable to resist the pressure of survival and the oppression of the powerful in the society. They always find themselves in awkward and embarassing situations, pitiful and grotesque. However they remain themselves under any circumstances with persistent optimism and goodness. Certain classic lines in “wu li tou” films are widespread and deep rooted in people's hearts. Here are some of them."I just don't want to die, I just want to be a little bit naughty", they would rather be beggars than be tools of any kind  Wu Li Tou spirit. "Were you speaking just now ?" ,they hold in scorn everything including God, heroes and all the"upstream"people, no question of worship or belief."Any dog has the right to bay, small or big", they have the sense of self conscience and personal right."Do you want it ? If you do, you must speak out, if you don't say anything, how can I know that you want it ? Although you look at me with much sincerity, you should still tell me exactly what you want", they emphasize the importance of one's feeling and the need to express it.“Once there was  a sincere love in front of me, I did not appreciate it. Only when I had lost it that I began to feel the deep regrets. No suffering could be greater than this. If God could give me a chance to start all over again, I would have said to that girl the three words : I love you. If I have to say how long this love should last, I hope it would be …ten thousand years.” They are sincere liars and serious rascals.“Received”, their non attitude is their never-changing attitude under all circumstances.We call it tiger balm which is an useful ointment for any kind of illness.

The film《The King of Comedy 》is a perfect incarnation of the above-mentionned "wu li tou"features.《The King of Comedy》surpasses the popular martial arts film usually in which the characters are amibitious heroes with lofty ideals. In《The King of Comedy》, all the small potatoes living at the bottom of the society very cowardly, useless, narrow-minded and filthy and obscene.However when confronted with the invasion of the powerful ennemy, they show extraordinary goodness, solidarity, courage and capability, and the result was that their extremely arrogant ennemy was badly beaten and fled in utter confusion. From the design of each personnage to the martial arts battles until the evolution of the plot, it is so very much exaggerated that the seemingly realistic description was actually highly surrealistic and full of game-play mood.The《Lei Yu》thread incited the most emotional episode habitual in Stephen Chow's films. The hearts of all originally good people inside and outside the screen were inevitably deeply touched.

6.Versions for Confucius
When I was a little girl,my father showed me a portrait in a little book saying that it was Confucius, teacher for everybody under the sky. The portrait was done with very thin lines showing an ancient old man with bob hair style,loose clothing dragging on the ground,he was wearing a beard, big teeth, long finger nails, he looked like a private school teacher. That was the scholar version of Confucius.

My father also told me a joke : in a rich family,the parents were obsessed with vanity so they told their son that if someone paid them a visit and asked who was his teacher he should say"Confucius".The son was not very brilliant, he never seemed able to remember this. So the parents made a clay figure with Confucius's name written on it.

put it inside the pocket of their son telling him if he forgot he should take out the clay figure and look at it. One day a visitor did come, again asked the son who was his teacher, again he forgot. While he took out the clay figure, it was already squashed. So he replied "Confucius with squashed head".The story was so alive that even today I still have the lovely image of"Confucious with squashed head"in my mind. This was the popular version of Confucius.

My period of primary school was marked by criticizing Lin Biao and Confucius.The caricature Confucious No.2,thievish looking,showing grimace,hysterical and lunatic, being driven away by a huge broom with"history"written on it.He looked like a drowned mouse.This was the caricature version of Confucius.

While I was in the higher middle school, I read over and over again《the Analects of Confucius》and found that he was someone very concerned with the society, with ideals, knowledge and theory. But he was lacking practical capability, and from what he wrote I felt stubborness, introversion, prudence and cowardness in his character. This was my personal version of Confucius.

While I was in the University, I finally got a chance to go to Confucious' home town, Qufu in Shandong. When I went inside his temple, I was very much suprised to find a Confucius worshipped as bouddha, he was so serious and dressed like the"Qin Shi Huang“. That was the emperor version of Confucius.

Again while I was in the University, I read a story from《Collection of Excellent Words》. It is said that at times of Tang Dynasty, he ackonwledged Li Dan (Lao Zi) as the oldest ancestor, named Xuanyuan Emperor at Tianbao times.Tang Xuan Zong named Confucius as Wen Xuan Wang. Bouddhism had already been widely practiced since times of Wei and Jin and become deep rooted reaching Tang Dynasty. Numerous emperors mainly adopted Confucianism as the principal doctrine dominating over the bouddhist and Taoist ideas, adapting all these to conform to the needs of political control. The three trends were the favorite of the emperors representing the main trend therefore sacred, not allowed to be blasphemed. The “discussion over the three religions” became a habitual “programme”.

During the reign of Yizong, though, at one banquet, the “discussion” was over, it was  time for theatrical play. The actor Li Ke was dressed in large Confucian formal attire, went over to the distinguished seat dragging the skirts of the attire. He claimed that he knew well all three religions. The actor in the corner asked, since you know everything, I ask a few questions about these religions. Who was Buddha? Who was  the Supreme Sovereign, the alchemy immortal? And finally who was Wen Xuan Wang (Cultural Emperor Confucius)? The answer  to each of these three questions was: a woman. Why? Actually the actor used several famous phrases in《Jingang Scripture》《Ethic Scripture》and《The Analects》and played with the words by changing the meaning of certain  words pronounced in the similar way  to mean husband, pregnancy and marriage. Of course these words did not mean such things. Anyway this was the subverted version of Confucius.

Only based on my own experience there have already been so many completely different versions of Confucius. Which one resembles Confucius the most? Well even if the person lived right now, I am afraid that it will be rather difficult to agree among each other, everyone would insist that he had the genuine version,  let alone someone 2500 years ago. What is important here is not whether or not il resembles “genuine” Confucius, the important thing is that the latter generations use past people and history to “serve their own purposes”, the stand and key points being entirely different from the points of view of rulers and the ruled for example. It is impossible that the two wrote the same history book..

“Amusing ourselves not to death” is the official but non-main trend history written by the disadvantaged groups, grassroots class; small potatoes, independent of the main trend history,.by self-mocking and mocking the world, by self-entertainment and entertaining the world and being self sufficient. If the “Amusing ourselves not to death” could become a cultural spirit at certain cultural level at our age of entertainment, hopefully, our culture still has a future.