Written by Laurence Brahm - Published by Hongkong Culture on 07/06/2002

Yunnan means `south of the clouds'. Beneath the clouds is red clay, which the ethnic minorities of Yunnan have carved with their hands across millennium into rice and coffee terraces. If you flew in a low plane or took enough hallucinations to believe that you were flying somewhere between the clouds and clay, you could see in this spectrum of sun and rain which in convergence is south, the level of plateaus, terraces carved by hand, by those who still care for clay. In the sunlight, after rain, they become a spectrum of color. This is caused by the contraction of sunlight touching a thin water surface which rest between banks of soft dirt and red clay beneath.

As the truck dumped me off walked across a tread-run dirt road. I found myself standing before high clay walls. This was the address which Xing Dong in Beijing had given me. He said I would come to a place which was not a really place because it could only be identified by high clay walls. When I found these walls, I would find Luo Xii's studio. Luo Xu had spent his entire Life working with clay. He had done so as artists, and before that as construction worker. In the Cultural Revolution he had to dig mud. So when I found high walls which were not made of cement covered with bathroom tiles and blue glass of every single construction site in China being developed by either government or government corrupting developers, but rather a wall made of just soft, reddish, brownish, yellowish hardened clay, I knew that I had come to the right place, Luo Xu's studio.

I found Luo Xu Iíving behind the high walls surrounding his studio. The studio was also his home. Behind the walls was a beat-up 1950s era car, the type used by Stalin or other communist leaders, covered with a hallucination of spray pain colors. Inside the compound was a garden, with wild Howlers growing uncontained. Vast seemingly beehive structures dominated the garden. Each was constructed of clay bricks. I was to discover that these were catacomb structures built by Luo Xu to permanently display his art. In each catacomb stood towering figures, legs of women interwoven creating huge terrifying insect images, clay torsos and bodies in positions of pleasure and pain. And everywhere one could see Luo Xuo trademark heads, ceramic extended necks with heads, mouths open laughing, screaming and crying. The heads were stacked together like crowds in a city, going to work, jammed on a lunch break, leaving work, but never leaving the city.

I had seen all the museums in New York, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, but never had I seen such a creative, ingenious museum as the huge beehive catacombs single handedly constructed out of brick from his own kiln by Luo Xu. But this was not an art gallery, not a museum. People were not invited to come to see Luo Xu’s art. In fact, he did not want to be bothered by people at all. He was purposely displaying art, for nobody to see at all.”

“How long ago did you move here to establish your studio?” I asked.

“Yes, about 6 to 7 years ago,” He thought for a moments, sitting cross-legged on a Chinese stool. He poured some tea and lit another cigarette which puts one in the motto think. After thinking some more he added almost as an afterthought, "I came here in 1995.”

"I can see that not many people visit your place now,” I said out loud without thinking. 0nly alone mule Luo Xu kept as his "friend" stood in the garden. The mule had full reign over Luo Xu's space. He would eat some wild flowers, walk among the talking or screaming heads, and sometimes nudge Luo Xu who affectionately peck the mule's short fur on the flat area between its eyes. "Maybe you do not like them to visit here," I thought more clearly. "Is that correct?"

"I am not a very social person. I cannot be calm with too many annoying people around. However, if someone can bring something of interest to me, I can sacrifice a bit of time. The problem is that people normally bring nothing to me except noise. I have no interest in noise."

"A lot of people are trying to escape nnoise nowadays. Many Beijing artists are coming to Yunnan, seeking a quiet, calm environment away from big busy city life," I took a sip of tea. The mule nudged his nose into my cup.

"In our history Yunnan was lost in High Mountains, far away from the emperor," Luu Xu explained. "So for thousands of years the emperor really did not know what was happening in Yunnan. The court in Beijing only knew there was a place called Yunnan which was a part of the empire. For centuries it was isolated, depending entirely itself: In the o1d days, the emperor banned the Chinese he did not like to Yunnan because it was considered wilderness, a distant outpost, the last place to be banished. Many of the ethnic Chinese here today are descendants of those Left over from then. At that time there were only ethnic minorities in Yunnan, each with their own small kingdoms, 1ots of what we call in Chinese to huangdí Iocal dirt emperors, basically warlords. To a great extent the psychological framework of this time persists today. There is big different between Yunnan and the rest of China:' In these words, Luo Xu explained why so many artists were congregating in Yunnan, each in a way banished by the mainstream, seeking distance From the centre, escaping all the noise.

The mule began wandering toward a n old Yunnan style courtyard home which had been re-assembled and restored on one corner of the property "Luo Xu, is that your old house?" I asked pointing ac the courtyard.

"Yes. When my home town started what they call 'city construction', they wanted to destroy it. I brought it here and restored it. Now the entire o1d town is destroyed, everything torn down. At that time I felt terrible. I did not have the means or capital to save more. I really wanted to keep them all. Move them to another place to keep them. There were many very grand old houses. This one was just an ordinary one"

"Of the entire ancient town, at least you were able to save this one home, while developer and corrupted officials were busy destroying the rest. This is happening al1 over China," I pointed out. "Look at Beijing. They have lliterally obliterated the city’s heritage."

"I think Chinese people are very interesting," Luo Xu sighed, drinking his tea, one eye thoughtfully watching his mule chewing wild flowers, moving gradually closer to his old restored home. "A powerful energy lies hiding within them," Luo explained. "If there is a direction, everybody will follow. The situation is like when Chairman Mao waved his hand, everybody would start to destroy things, start to criticize their own parents. This aspect of Chinese people's energy is quite terrible, however it is still growing. Maybe many years later, the next generation or the generation after the next generation, there will be an explosion of energy among the young people who will tear down all the architecture of the 1980s and 1990s. 'This is energy will make the whole country crazy which is a very interesting side of the Chinese people. Look at the classic architecture of old Beijing and even Cumming. This energy allows them to tear down both the good and bad. In their eyes this old architecture is poor and backwards. One day, when the future generation sees what we have now, they may dismantle all these houses too. It is quite possible. China’s several thousands of years of mass movements have witnessed this kind of terrible thing, especially in modern times. Today you have tired people and wasted money. They only know how to dismantle one thing and put up another thing. "They do not know how to use it, protect it, and feel for it. In my mind the past architecture and culture are like my parents. "Think of an old man. No matter how senile this o1d man is, he is your parent. The old house is the same. Despite the lack of modern conveniences, it is still your parent. You cannot kick out your parents because they are o1d. Nowadays, people tear down the o1d houses just like kicking out their o1d parents, thinking they are old, ugly, a burden. In fact, an old man sitting there quietly, does not disturb anybody. He is just sitting there happily and quietly, he didn't disturb you, and moreover he brought you up.”

Luo Xu pointed out that Chinese culture always promoted respect for e1derly people, taking care of small children, respecting parents. In turn, he could not understand the rapid and accelerating erosion of such values over recent years. Maybe it was caused by the wild rush to become western. Maybe it was caused by newfound love of money and all the things it can buy. "You dislike and look down upon these old houses," he said of developer’s andLocal officials alike. "You want to decorate yourself like European rich family, not a Chinese farmer. A farmer, an old man, old houses have natural self-grown flowers, self-grown grass, free flying birds in the sky, animals in the woods. The roots of all these things are the same. They are living together. In fact they are very comfortable. Now some cultural and economic phenomena violates the basic rule that many things must live together to survive in this world, which makes the world interesting. Now the new ru1e is to only allow one thing exist. But only seeking one thing is too simple. China for the past few years has crazily used porcelain tiles, smothering all new concrete buildings with these tí1es. This is a big joke. “The demand for porcelain tiles in China must be the greatest in the world."

Luo Xu was referring to the phenomena of old historic buildings being torn down by developers, only to be replaced by cement blobs covered with bathroom tiles. Such structures now were standard. You can drive through almost any city or town in China and see them everywhere, one building after another, all the same, covered with bathroom ti1es and b1ue glass. "In foreigners' eyes, these kind of white porcelain tiles are used to decorate toilets," I pointed out. Yes, it seemed too many foreigners that China’s urban planners had in Freudian terms an infatuation with designing building exteriors to look like public rest room interiors. "This kind of thing represents the current mood in China, blindly copying western things without understanding what they're all about."

"China is trying its best to learn from the west. Hong Kong has learned from the west. So China thinks Hong Kong is the closest to the west, so they learn everything from Hong Kong. I have a thought about this thing, as with anything, first you have to have a feeling about it, be familiar with It. It is like a bird buildings its little house. It is built very scientifically because a bird is very familiar with a piece of rattan, how to use sticky dirt. The reason is it deals with these elements everyday. So we can see a birdhouse is done casually and elegancy, because it is so familiar with the elements it uses. Unfamiliar means it has no feeling for something, so it can only blindly admire it. The unfamiliar image will not fit you. Western people have been using stee1 and cement for many years. It took so many years in Europe to create modern architecture in the context of their history and cultural changes. They are very familiar with these elements of theirs. They have feeling for it. Do Chinese people have such feeling? Over the course of' thousands of years of Chinese history, we Chinese people have slept with wood and bricks. Ask yourself, how come we have the Forbidden City? There is no Forbidden City in Europe. Likewise, there are no good modern cities in China." Luo Xu leaned over. His donkey was strolling back for more attention. He began petting the donkey on its forehead between its eyes. Its ears perked. Any animal knows itself why it needs to grow a certain color of fur. There is a reason for him into grow such fur. Because it has gone through severa1 thousand years of evolution, it looks like this. It is just as if I suddenly changed the color of my skin. I will still not be Like white people. A flower is a flower, a tiger is a tiger."

Luo Xu then asked me why I had come to Yunnan to hang with artists. I explained that 1 had started my trip in Lhasa hanging with monks, traveling through Qinghai hanging with nomads. He understood, nodded, and lit another cigarette. I explained that "Not only Chinese artists but a lot of foreigners are getting fed up with the fatigue of u urban values."

"This is a current direction, a trend. However," he sipped tea petting his donkey. "I think differently. Actually, a quiet place can be found anywhere. I think quiet place can be found in cities too. Of course, this requires seeking energy within oneself." Luo Xu observed three kinds of Shangri- Ia seekers. "There are many big-shot city artists, who buy houses to rest here and then go back to the city. They have not actually moved to this place, they do not really feel the earth here. However on the surface they find this place to be very quiet. This kind of person’s on1y escaping reality. Another kind of person is really fed up with city life from the bottom of their heart. They want to completely change their working and living style. In the process of doing so, they eventually found it impossible to leave this place. The third kind of person has no idea of what this place should look like; they do not know why they stayed in the city in the first place. They saw other people coming here, so they followed too.

I thought about what Luo Xu was saying. Yes, Yunnan's ancient towns of Da1í and Lijíang had become not just artist colonies but backpacker paradises as well. Both Líjíang and Zhongdían County had been embroiled in conflict over which place was the original Shangri-la described in Hilton’s novel 'Lost Horizon'. Should I go to Líjíang, or Zhongdían County?" 1 asked Luo Xu.

"Most people do not dare go to these places because they are afraid of high altitude sickness. Europeans who came here did not feel comfortable, even Chinese people do not, even in their own country. In fact, Chinese people's life is getting better now, so they are especially afraid of getting sick. They are afraid that they will step on something and Full down, so they are afraid of the possible and most don't dare go off to Zhongdían. In having a better life, they are now afraid of loosing what they have. Actually, you should go there. Reaction to high altitude is nothing, maybe a bit difficult to breath, but not as serious as people say." It was clear materialist in had become the single paramount va1ue of China. While the material west was seeking something spiritual in the east, China had already lost what it had to give. Chinese would not go to Shangrí-la for fear that it might cost them their and materialism, both literally and spiritually. Pondering this thought left me shocked, feeling quite empty inside.

"You are from Yunnan originally. When did you first go to Zhongdian?

My First time to Zhongdian was 5 years ago, Late summer, same season as now. One moment it rained. Another it cleared. When I arrived there was a glimmer of sunlight scattered on top of some small distant hills. Because of rain, it was not very clear, creating a pattern of strange colors in the sky, hard to describe. If Lamas saw this, they would think such colors as a gift from heaven, lie down, prostrate themselves and meditate. They respect pure natural beauty very much, and express their feelings toward nature with the totality of their emotions. They might stand there nervously, shaking with emotion, even write poems oil the spot. I think at such moments, one's eyes are no use as communication with nature is already coming directly from one's heart communicating. In such situations, don't bother taking photos. You take a photo, go back and look at it. Then it has no meaning anymore. Why? In such moments a human being merges with nature. At that very moment, I melted, disappeared, and was digested into chat place. This was my first trip to Zhongdian."

Luo Xu then led me into one of the beehive catacombuildings exhibiting his work. The cavernous brick room was round, like an auditorium. On one side were rows and rows of the heads which he sculpted from ceramic. Some were laughing, some crying, others screaming, or so it seemed to me. The figures a11 faced him in rows one tier upon another, in a half circle, like singers in a choir. "Do you know what I Like to do more than anything else in the world?" Luo Xu asked me with a look on his face of forlorn sincerity, or unrepentant intention.

"What?" I asked win curiosity.

Luo Xu pointed to the heads facing us. He then pointed to a CD player in the corner. "I like to play music very loud in this room, classic music. I then stand in the centre before al1 of these heads I have created, and conduct. I can do this for hours."

On any given day, at an undetermined time, Luo Xu will stand before the heads he had created, exploding with expression, some laughing, some crying, others screaming. Luo Xu will then put the music up loudly, and wave his hands slowly, like a conductor before a choir. He will conduct for hours. But the heads will remain silent. On such occasions, his pet donkey will sit there attentively, and listen. Aside from the donkey, no one listens.

Laurence Brahm is a global activist, international mediator, political columnist and author. He is the leading advocate of a fresh development paradigm - The Himalayan Consensus - an innovative approach to development.

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