798 Art District

In Beijing, a rich and vibrant art scene has developed in a former communist military factory complex. The area was vacated right around the time when Beijing's contemporary artists were looking for a new home. And so began the artistic rebirth of this factory district.

'798' denotes the government identification number of one of the factories for which this area became known. Now, artists set up their galleries in renovated factory space.

The 798 Art District is one of those trips we'd been planning on doing since the first week in Beijing. We finally made the journey there on our last Sunday, emphasis on the word 'journey'.

As usual, we took the bus into Wudaokou and hopped on the subway. After the subway, we walked for what felt like miles to the bus stop, waited, and then rode the bus hoping to figure out where we were getting off. Eventually, we did, and, after still more wandering, we managed to find it! Success!

We walked in and out of the galleries, each of them a cool reprieve from the hot, sticky air outside. Most the art was avante-garde and very striking, but sadly most galleries didn't allow photos. The artist (pictured right) had a fondness for inflatable pool toys. The galleries were interspersed with block after block of gift shops and trendy bars and restaurants.

The 798 District was definitely the place to be seen for the Chinese well-to-do who could afford to shell out 20,000 ¥ on a floor-to-ceiling portrait of Mao Zedong. There were hordes of men and women proudly displaying their designer labels (which I'm going to go ahead and guess were not fake).

We had appreciated the art, we'd purchased our souvenirs, and now we were ready to eat. We made our choice of restaurant based solely on the fact that one named Helen's had a shady outdoor patio with an industrial-sized fan blowing a cool mist over diners and passers-by. Dinner was a giant hamburger slathered in mayonnaise and desert was a refreshing lemon crepe.

Our meal was quite long, partly because we were still recovering from our early morning in Tiananmen and partly because our waitress kept disappearing for 30 minutes at a time.

After the check finally arrived we began the long journey back to Tsinghua pleased with having experienced two very different aspects of Chinese culture in one day.