Every now and again people ask for my opinions about Beijing or China in general, or the art scene in this neck of the woods. If I’m replying by email then I tend to put a lot of thought into what I write∗, and I probably take it a bit more seriously than I should. So these responses usually end up becoming mini-essays (probably not what the interlocutor expected or wanted, but they asked for it), a lot of which gets edited out towards the end of the process. I’m now thinking I shouldn’t be wasting all these pearls of wisdom which I spew forth—they’re relevant to my time and work here and may provide some kind of insight into one person’s experiences—so I’m going to repurpose them for the blog as they occur. I don’t expect them to change the world, but I post them in the hope they will be a mild diversion for others.

∗ There is of course no difference between my textual and verbal processes, just that with face-to-face communication, I can usually tell when I’m boring the other person.