Want to check out ice and snow sculptures but don't fancy an 11-hour train journey up to Harbin and -30 degree temperatures? Well, here in Beijing, 90 km from the city center, hundreds of ice lanterns of different sizes have been sculpted producing a display to rival Harbin's famous ice festival. Longqing Gorge's 21st Ice Lantern Festival kicked off on January 10, in Yanqing County. It is the biggest festival of ice ever held at such a low altitude, and the massive display features more than 400 sculptures including ice lanterns, ice-and-snow sculptures and ice slides. The ice sculpture spectacular spreads across 160 square kilometers of the gorge.
This year's theme is "colorful fairy tales". The 400 exhibits are divided into four sections depending on their different styles. The first section has a strong Chinese flavor, highlighting the gigantic sculptures of Nezha, the popular little hero in Chinese fairytales who defeats the dragon king, and 40-odd works like the 30-meter-long ice Great Wall, big Chinese knots, magic birds and other figures in Chinese fairy tales. There is also one big exotic Italian light sculpture, which is made up of more than 10,000 lamps.
The second section features a larger number of foreign characters such as Snow White and the seven dwarfs and Aladdin and his magic lamp. A five storey Disney ice castle in the third section includes the Flying Flower Fairies, the Three Little Pigs, the Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. The fourth section is arguably the most striking in the exhibition, with a real frozen waterfall hanging 70-meter-high before a big cave in the mountain (the less striking part is the many noisy and smoking! visitors in front of the waterfall, all waiting and pushing to get a picture taken)
Hundreds of silk lanterns hang in every corner, with colored lights inside the ice lanterns, turning the place into a psychedelic wonderland when night falls.
According to the organizing committee, to ensure the high quality of the ice lanterns, all the ice blocks from which they are carved are brought from the headstream of Longqing River, which is 20 kilometers from the gorge in Yudu Mountain. The temperature there is usually several degrees lower than in the gorge and the thickness of the ice blocks can reach 50 centimeters, a perfect size for carving ice sculptures.
Julia and I stayed at the small village in a cozy room paying 30Yuan each. This is the place to come back during the summer for some serious hiking, horseback riding or bungee jumping.
On another weekend, my friend Jonathan and I wandered the hills of Badachu mountains and explored Songshuang Artist Village in the east suburb of Beijing,where there are about 500 artists liveing in several villages around SongZhuang, forming the largest art community in the world, which is known as Artist Village. Since 1994,Artist Village has built its international fame for China contemporary art,and many works here are sold directly to the international art market and favored by museums and collectors.
This self-formed art group tries to build China contemporary art image in the world by using their unique language to express and explain their understanding of the reality and life. They wish to drive China contemporary art forward by their art experiments and to live on art.
Coming from different places of China, most of the artists don't have stable job, only living on selling their works. Some of them have their own houses and gardens, the others just rent houses from the peasants.To show their personality, their houses and gardens are different form each other, just like their different-style works.
ChengDanQing,a famous artist returning from abroad, said: The future of Chinese fine art is in Song Zhuang".
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