Day 6: Back in Beijing everything takes on a new perspective. After 5 days in the countryside I am almost too happy to back in the city! We head out to a super trendy restaurant in the evening for a bit of decadence. Pure Lotus serves great vegetarian dishes with names like 'I love you, no discussion' and 'endless sensuality', one a spicy eggplant dish and the other a tofu appetizer. The dessert takes the cake however as the waiter comes in with a bowl of mandarins overflowing with dry ice.
This city never sleeps - the construction sites work around the clock and I'm pretty sure the face of the city has changed significantly since we were last here 5 days ago. Not that I have much time to be out of doors, in the daytime we are busy meeting with the different artists in our groups trying to figure out what we will present in a few days time. A theater venue has been hired for us and we expect 200 - 300 people to attend our final presentation. Even though this should be an 'informal showing' we can't help feeling like people are expecting a big show. This puts a lot of pressure on us to produce something interesting. The trip has raised a lot of questions for most of us and we are all just at the stage of trying to figure out how to respond. But in art difficult questions are vital to producing anything worthwhile and so the discussions feel like a necessary and very stimulating part of the process.
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