I am feeling sad that it is only two nights back until we head back to the UK.
This trip has been really important for me, with more than regards to having an opportunity to make work and have a show. It may sound odd but I feel like I have rebuilt a relationship with Asia. After living in Japan for 18 months, in a very rural area, for most of my time there I swung from a love/hate relationship with living in an Asian country, leaving on very much hating it. Sure, the old feelings of being stared at, feeling overweight, and hostesses giggling with nervousness when a foreigner walks in the restaurant gets tiresome, but I think I would like to come back for another project, especially Japan. With regards to undertaking a residency, I think it is wise to choose a country where you can speak a good grasp of the language, so I think I am going to research into Japan, Italy and France for residency opportunities.
We have seen some fantastic sites since we left Chongqing. We stopped off in Chengdu for a couple of days where we enjoyed the slower way of life, teahouses, and traditional streets and took a trip to the panda reserve. We then took an 18 hour journey by sleeper train to Xian, which was an adventure to say the least, and we arrived here to a thunderstorm, little sleep and hungry tummies. Xian is a wealth of history, a walled city that follows the same Ming layout as Beijing. We have also been learning about town planning in different ages in China at various museums, and we also visited the terracotta warriors today. It is a mind-blowing mausoleum that reminds of you of the importance of physicality, memorials, craftsmanship, and that a project that is worth doing takes a long time, and may need to involve many people.
We have just one night left in Xian before we head back to Chongqing to stay with YanYan, and then fly back to HK and home. Life awaits us there, I need to find more teaching work, and we need to find an apartment in Manchester. We will be staying with my partners parents temporarily, which will be another culture shock for sure. Although they are lovely, as this month has proved, I am stubbornly independent girl at heart, and want to get everything sorted asap when we get home. Two days of holiday/de-installing the exhibition in China, and funny strangeness left though, so I will be enjoying them. Here are pictures of some of the things I have seen.
