On Being a Conscientious Collector Zhang Rui in Conversation with Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker

Zhang Rui: I was born in 1962, so this year I’m 46. I graduated from middle school in 1980. This was a very important period in my intellectual development and actually perfect timing, because simultaneously—at the end of the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s—contemporary began to emerge. Just as my eyes were beginning to open to the whole world, so was contemporary Chinese art.

At this time I immersed myself in literature in the hope of finding inspiration for my own writing, and I lived for a period of time as a rootless wanderer. I began to look at everything in different ways, interacting with new kinds of things through literature. At that time we weren’t really paying any attention to the expansion of Chinese contemporary art. All we heard was that there was an artist group or community at Yuanmingyuan. At that point, we didn’t connect painters to contemporary art. In fact we didn’t know what contemporary art meant. So we just communicated and interacted with the artists in Yuanmingyuan. That was how we touched upon contemporary art. It wasn’t really clear to me what those guys were up to, what they were doing. Actually we really weren’t so keen on taking notice of the artists in Yuanmingyuan or their exhibitions. What really inspired us were the foreign exhibitions coming in to . It was the foreign exhibitions that really made an impression on us.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: Where were these exhibitions taking place?

Zhang Rui: One was the Rauschenberg show1 at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in 1985. We didn’t even know that some of these Chinese artists were actually exhibiting; we just thought of them as carefree spirits. It wasn’t something that we understood was taking place on the world stage. Three painters—, , Yang Shaobin—were in Yuanmingyuan. They are all the same age as I am, all born in 1962 or 1963, so there was this common age, and common lifestyle. Money was not an issue because everyone was poor. So, at the same time, we were all experiencing coming to terms with our own selves, and coming of age.

In 1988 I started my own mobile technology business and from then on spent the greater part of my time and energy investing in this new business. This meant that I stopped paying so much attention to literature as well as to the art scene. From 1988 to 2000, I was focused on the business. At this time, art wasn’t really having an impact on the lives of people such as myself; for my generation the real cultural stars at this time were the rock stars. Cui Jian2 was a super famous rock star in China. He influenced many generations, and even today he’s still very much respected. From 1988 until 2000 he was the most recognized, famous artist, and he was loved by Chinese people all over the nation. So if you talk about artists like Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun, if you look at them during the time between 1988 and 2000, they were all big fans of rock-n-roll. ’s ex-wife was also at the forefront of the rock-n-roll scene and opened Little Bar

38 in . Nobody knew who Zhang Xiaogang was, or Fang Lijun. They only knew the names of these famous rock-n-roll stars.

In 2000, I started to represent a French fashion label in China. I had two shops—one in the Palace Hotel and one in China World Hotel. Because of this French label, I gained exposure to other things. The owner of this line invited me to his home in , and through this visit I received something like a lesson in art.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: Was it contemporary art that he had, or historical?

Zhang Rui: That’s not the point. . . . It’s not important whether it’s classical or modern. I want to tell you this story because it had such an influence on me. I was invited to his home as a guest, and in France to be invited into a person’s home as a guest is such a huge honour. They lived in the sixteenth district in Paris, and so basically the boss wanted to let me know that he lived in the hottest district in Paris. This is where the most well-off people in Paris live, and so they introduced me to this world. From their window in the kitchen, they could actually see the Eiffel Tower. The boss said, “So you see, my house does have some value because you can see the Eiffel Tower from the kitchen.” “But,” he added, “nothing is as expensive as the hanging behind you.” I was really struck by this experience. In the past I had only seen artworks hanging on the walls of a museum. I had never imagined that this artwork could actually enter a private house. It doesn’t matter whether it is expensive or inexpensive; you would think such work belongs to the nation, and not be for private consumption. So until 2001 I had no idea that one could have art that would be treasured more than a house. It was unimaginable to a Chinese at that time. When I returned to China—I had bought a place in 1999—it occurred to me that I could actually design a new house. Up until that time, I used to go to Ikea to buy ready-made, little prints for my house. But after this experience of going to France, I was inspired to keep artworks at home. I started to visit art galleries and purchase art. But I purchased artworks only to enhance the aesthetics of my home. I didn’t consider what I should, or should not, purchase as long as the work was aesthetically attractive to me.

At the end of 2002, it was the first time that I came into contact with an artist from the artists’ village of Songzhuang [located in Tong Zhou District, an eastern suburb of ]. His name was Wang Qiuren. And so at a mutual friend’s party—since I had started to purchase art, I felt that I had a bit of knowledge—Wang Qiuren and I got into a debate about painting. But he felt that I didn’t understand art at all, and wasn’t willing to continue the conversation. Through his friend, he passed on a book to me titled Songzhuang. It was through this book that I first encountered the names of contemporary artists and what art could be.

So actually I found my way to these artists from a map in this book. I started to collect their works. And it was through knocking on the doors of these artists in Songzhuang that I reconnected with some of my former classmates from my high school days. For example, I reunited with my collaborator who also runs a gallery [BANG—Beijing Art Now Gallery], Huang Liaoyuan.3 At the time, Huang Liaoyuan was the manager of a lot of the rock-n-roll artists. Because of the emphasis on rock music at that time, his position in society was pretty high, and many famous rock stars were his good friends. Coincidentally, a lot of the artists who were emerging at this time were also good friends of Huang Liaoyuan and fans of these rock stars. Through Huang Liaoyuan, these artists were able to have contact with rock stars. At that point these artists had no money, so to thank Huang Liaoyuan for his introduction and support they’d give him artworks every year— at least six hundred . And among his collection, Huang had twenty-four paintings by Zhang Xiaogang.

39 The way I connected with Huang Liaoyuan was that I noticed he was writing critical essays on music, rock-n-roll, and the art scene. In 2002, after reconnecting with Huang Liaoyuan by knocking on his door, I realized he was very knowledgeable, and we started talking about opening a gallery. We started to pro-actively set up the gallery in 2003. Although China reached a low point that year because of SARS, it was actually an optimal time for artists because there was nothing to do during the SARS epidemic, so they all sat together talking, drinking, and learning from each other. It was really an optimal time to think about opening a gallery. From that point in 2003, Huang Liaoyuan started to bring me to studios to meet artists. Through this I started to buy artworks systematically. The reason I decided to do this was very simple: I wanted to give the contemporary Chinese art scene support because at the time when we were starting to build the gallery, I thought that by acquiring their works this would give them confidence to know there was a market among local collectors.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: This was certainly very important. . . .

Zhang Rui: Because at that point the majority of collectors were from abroad, only very, very few local Chinese collectors were buying. I actually acquired works that were quite large in size. The most significant works of a lot of the artists were very large-scale, but for some reason or other, foreign collectors were not acquiring them. I was driven to collect these large pieces, and I wanted to find a place for the collection that would be very significant and monumental in size and concept. This moved many of the artists. As well, because many of their earlier works had not been sold, I basically bought them and put them into my collection to preserve them.

There was a gallery in Chengdu that went out of business at the time, so I went to the gallery and purchased all their works, twenty-one pieces, to keep them in my collection. These are works by the whole clan of artists [graduates of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing] like Zhou Chunya [b. 1955, Chongqing] and Zhang Xiaogang [b. 1958, ], etc.—all very significant names. I spent over $200,000 USD to purchase all these works. I did this for two reasons: one was to protect the quality of the works in terms of preservation—how I took care of them was very good—and secondly, these artworks were produced during a very important time. Also, the prices for these artworks were very low. And so this gives you a general sense of the evolution of how I started to collect.

My collection is private and separate from the gallery’s collection, from BANG (Beijing Art Now Gallery). Both Huang Liaoyuan and I reached an agreement that while Huang was responsible for running the gallery, the artworks that I collect are separate entities from the gallery.

Things happened at a very fast pace. Within a year or so, suddenly in 2004, the market started to explode for contemporary Chinese art. And I noticed that the relationship between me and the artists also started to change. There was a real reversal in roles. In the early days, I would go to the artists and buy their works, and the artists would be grateful. But around 2004, when galleries and artists started to approach these artists, there was an attitude that, “Well, you only buy my work because this will lead you to financial success.” So, in my opinion, 2004 was the beginning of the boom in the contemporary Chinese art market.

You can see a difference in artistic production happening at the beginning of 2004. Prior to this, artists were really conscientious in their practice and in their artistic creation. After 2004, you see a drastic change in production from the artists and in their thought processes. This could be related

40 to the exponential increase in art prices. From 2004 to 2005, I started to go to auction houses to acquire works, but not works by those artists who were already big stars in the auctions. I was actually looking for works by significant artists who may be not as well known. I also have an eye for earlier works and try to pick up works from the 1980s and the 1990s—the very early works by artists who weren’t famous yet. So in 2005, in addition to buying works by artists who were not so well known, I moved my focus towards installations and new media art.

You can see a work over there [in the Le Quai Restaurant below BANG where the conversation took place] by Huang Min [b. 1975 in Tongjiang, Sichuan]. You can see that it’s a video installation, so this is an example of something that I started to buy. And I’ve also developed my own aesthetic judgment during these past six years of collecting art. At this point, when I look at an artwork, what concerns me most is the artistic, conceptual framework of the piece—from the conceptual framework to the process of creation—and these are the things that can broaden one’s intellectual horizon. So the purpose of my art collecting is not the market or the price of an artwork.

Something has happened to a lot of big names, the big stars, in the contemporary Chinese art world during these past three to four years. They have received such a strong influence from the market that it has affected their artistic, creative process. Some were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to sell their works if they broke away from the kind of work they are known for. They are not able to break away for fear that they would lose face, or for fear that they won’t be able to sell their works.

What I am saying here is that it isn’t that there’s not any great Chinese art; there’s a lot of good Chinese art still available, but it hasn’t reached market value yet. It doesn’t have a market—or hasn’t entered the market yet. So it’s actually a very good thing to see that they haven’t been tampered with, or touched, by the market. You could look at it from this perspective: the introduction of the market into contemporary Chinese art has positive and negative aspects. The negative aspect would be that for people who are coming and looking at the art, or acquiring it, they look at it more as an object, as a commercial object. They’re not looking at it for its artistic value. People are looking at an artwork like they would a piece of glass, or a table, or something, or, just, “Oh, will that sell?”

Looking at it from the reverse side, the positive influence of the market is that it allows the Chinese to realize that you can actually make money through art. And so it opened the eyes of many Chinese people to the art world. Of course there’s not a direct correlation between market and art, but the reality is that there’s a market that has opened the eyes of many, many more Chinese to look at art and to think about how to appreciate art.

The reality is that since 2006 I have actually shifted my vision, or expanded my vision, to collect beyond contemporary Chinese art. In 2006 I started to expand the collection to Asian contemporary art, including Japanese, Korean, and Indian artworks. These countries are all on the periphery of China, and there’s a very direct correlation and framework historically and culturally. And the reality is that the market for contemporary Japanese, Korean, and Indian art is now exploding in a way that Chinese art already has.

I actually just came back from India and would like to say something about Indian art. I went with the Arario Gallery, which is based in New York,4 Beijing, and Korea. They organized the trip to India. Some years ago, the executive director of Arario Gallery [Cheagab Yun] was sent to India for

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four years of training [where he obtained an M.A. in Indian Art History from the Visva-Bharati University, commonly known as the Tagore University5]. He received a lot of impressions and influences from Indian culture and history. So he seemed very trustworthy. I felt that I was in good hands if I went with this person to India. Because Cheagab Yun had maintained relationships with Indian artists, we met privately with about four or five artists in India through Arario’s connection.

The four or five artists we met in India are actually the equivalent of the four or five leading artists in China. After going on this trip, I made a comparative analysis of these four or five Indian artists, comparing and contrasting them with the four or five Chinese artists. And I am still thinking about this even now. Witnessing the evolution of Chinese artists like Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, and over the years, I would have to say—looking at their artistic practice and production from a conceptual framework—they have lost it! So the issue is—the main concern—for investors, for those people purely involved in art for investment purposes, is that they are willing to put their faith and money in these foreign names. Such people are called speculators. In China they are called investors, but it means the same thing; they are speculators. They are believing in these names, they are investing in these names, so the prices keep going up.

And I have also done a comparative analysis looking at those artists who are still in mainland China, at their lifestyles, and at how the market has evolved, and looking at those Chinese artists who have gone abroad. There’s an artist called Wang Du [b. 1956, Wuhan], who lives in Paris, who does really big sculptural installations. He’s an artist that I have followed. His work has so much power, and is very strong conceptually, but it is undervalued. I like this artist very much, not just his art, but it’s the explosive nature of the work which directly reflects his personality. It’s impossible for one artist to produce everything that is the best; it’s impossible for one artist to just pump out and create the best work each time. But if an artist has the capability to keep improving and surpassing his artistic, creative process, then this is what really matters.

Wang Du’s work, his focus, his practice, is always addressing society and creating something directly related to society. Wang Du faces society and thinks about the world. His work comes from what he has experienced, which pushes him to a level to create work that is thoughtful. So if you have an artist who is thinking every day, there is no way this artist cannot continue producing more powerful works. He is thinking all the time.

So, going back to the analysis or comparison between artists in India and artists in China, and overseas Chinese artists and China-based artists, there’s one thing that really struck me when I went to the artists’ studios in India. Their studios were small, but it didn’t mean the works weren’t expensive. The works also have market value, and they were expensive, but there wasn’t an over- concern with this type of consumption. What the artists, the media, are addressing is the society of India. They are addressing that and facing that. I feel this is a very positive thing and a sign that the creative practices and processes among all these Indian artists have the potential to keep increasing and growing in unprecedented ways. I am saying that it is a similar story with artists like Wang Du, who is outside of China. It’s a similar story when, again, their power lies in their focus on artistic and creative practice, whereas it is a different situation for the artists in China.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: Do you attribute that only to the market?

Zhang Rui: There is a direct correlation if you look at the idea of artistic practice/production and collecting. There is a conflict there. A collector, of course, has to have money to be able to buy these things, but when a collector has too much money, he is not really a collector anymore. And

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the same goes for the artist. An artist needs to have money and a livelihood but when he has too much money, it affects his production.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: As a museum person, my first observation is that you have put together an important historical collection. The quality of the collection, its timing, and the manner in which it was brought together reminds me of certain collections in the West, particularly in in the 1920s and in the 1930s, when, under very difficult circumstances, collectors worked with the artists to support them. These collections ended up in museums, as an invaluable record of the time and the ideas of that time.

Zhang Rui: In the 1980s and 1990s the intellectual environment in China was very vibrant, which was what happened in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: Do you feel the need to ensure, or wish to ensure, that your collection remains intact because of this aspect of circumstance, dialogue, and timing—that your collection would remain intact in China, in a public museum?

Zhang Rui: My standpoint is that I’m a very conscientious collector. I need to clarify that I have never sold, and I’m not selling any works from my collection. In the past six years I have collected somewhere between six to seven hundred works. My situation is a bit more difficult because I’m not a dealer and it has become more difficult to be a collector in China recently because the cost of collecting is much higher now. Especially when I’m not planning on selling anything and the prices just keep increasing. For example, there are young artists who have no international recognition but they’ll give you a price that will give you a heart attack!

In 2003 I sponsored an event at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing, titled The Future of the Academy and set up an annual exhibition at CAFA called The Future Light of China. The exhibition is still running at CAFA and is in its sixth year now. The theme and the focus of this annual exhibition are to provide a space for undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. students to showcase their works. The issue right now is that the art education system in China doesn’t necessarily provide a space for artists to reach their potential. Another issue in the art academies is the way that their professors are judging the students. Rather than letting them express their own creative feelings and letting them be as creative as they want, many of the professors tell their students how they should create, how they should work, so there’s this pressure. I created this exhibition with the hope of inviting curators, critics, and scholars from outside of the academy to come and look at the works, to talk about the works of these artists, and to give them a new platform.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: And a discourse that goes beyond the price of an artwork.

Zhang Rui: It wasn’t for my own interest that I created this exhibition. One part of what I’m doing right now is giving artists the kind of exposure and platform to experiment. The other part of my work is to allow more people to interact with, and to experience, my collection from a non- commercial standpoint. So, for example, I’m in the process, right here, next to the [Workers’] Stadium,6 of building Art Hotel. The idea is that the artworks will change; some will be from my collection, some will not. They will be displayed at the hotel, but they are not for sale.

So I set up a Web site with the idea of creating an alliance with about twenty galleries around China. Basically the idea is to call for artworks to exhibit in the hotel. If, for example, you want

43 to participate, the idea would be that there’s a limitation with art fairs because they are only held two or three times a year. But at Art Hotel, you come in the door, spend the night, and you can experience the extent of these twenty galleries in China that are doing programs that are quite interesting. You can get a taste of these artworks, and when you come back, you will have a different feeling. There will also be a focus on new media such as video art. So that would be the focus. The problem right now is that Beijing lacks this. There are too many galleries and not enough spaces for new media art. The idea is that people who come into the hotel will realize that this new media art can be applied to everyday life when they are residing in the hotel.

I’m not going to build a museum because the costs are too high and you have to keep putting money in. With a museum the costs never end. By putting up this hotel, more people will be able to experience art. And I love this visual metaphor that I don’t sell entrance tickets, I sell a bed for the night. The hotel will have forty-five rooms, and eleven of them are being specially designed by eleven designers from outside of China who are coming in to design one room each. So there are forty-five rooms in total, and three of them are created by German designers working for an American company with a production group in the Netherlands.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: Aren’t you concerned about the artworks disappearing from Art Hotel, or being damaged?

Zhang Rui: For each of these eleven rooms, the designer is working directly with a Chinese artist to do the design, for example, with Yang Shaobin. So you don’t have to worry because I saw the mockup of what Yang Shaobin is going to do. Yang’s idea is to take the portrait of one of the designers from this company and to somehow paint it on the wall, so you can’t take it away. And then for installations, the installation elements are actually connected to the design, or become part of the design, or part of the structure.

The external framework of the hotel is almost done, but the one thing I wanted to say is that the first floor is actually a gallery space, an exhibition space. So there will be four floors. The first floor is going to be designed so that before you go to the second floor, you will have to weave through the art spaces.

A lot of times when you walk into a hotel, you see Chanel or other big-brand names and you want to shop, whereas in our hotel you will have to walk through art spaces. The service workers of this hotel are going to have to blend art appreciation with check-in! So, for example, when you come in they’ll tell you, “Welcome to the hotel, I’ll take you up.” And as you walk in, they’ll give you a tour through the art spaces.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: You have been so open in talking about your very personal journey. Thank you! It seems to me that the model you are developing for the Art Hotel enables people to experience art in a way that has similarities to how you experienced art for the first time—in a private, domestic environment in France with somebody who guided you. And the very thing that brought you to collecting was a map in a book that was given to you by an artist. You had artists to show you the way. In a sense, this is similar to what you are now trying to do for others.

Zhang Rui: And so, for example, the service of the hotel includes giving people an art tour to different art districts.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: I also think creating opportunities for young artists outside of the market and encouraging debates and discussions regarding their works that are external from

44 the Academy is important. My only hope is that your collection—with its irreplaceable record of important art-historical moments—can be preserved in China.

Zhang Rui: I have a way to solve these concerns of yours. Last year, I renovated a house and set up the collection there. I now live in this house every weekend. The idea is to allow art to come into one’s life. So what I did in connection with the Art Fair last year, as part of their VIP program after the fair, was to invite a selection of the VIP collectors to the house and have a walk through. So this was just one way. And now, the hotel will also allow me to show the works to more people.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker: And the situation in India, as you’ve described it, in a country that borders on China, only underlines the importance of looking at Chinese art not only in terms of its relationship to Europe, but also within the pan-Asian context.

Taking your collection out of the commodity market and keeping it intact, as you say—not selling—is a way of preserving this moment in time between the 1980s, when you were a young man, and the twenty-year period which followed, with its enormous intellectual and artistic transformations inside China. This was a very precious moment, not only for China, but also for the world.

Thank you for this conversation today.

Interpreted by Megan Connolly

Notes 1 In 1984, the American artist Robert Rauschenberg inaugurated the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange, or ROCI, which resulted in a seven-year tour to encourage “world peace and understanding.” ROCI travelled to Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Japan, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Malaysia as well as to China, where exhibitions were presented in Beijing and Lhasa (Tibet). In each city he left a work of art. Rauschenberg also produced paintings inspired by each of these cultures, which were then shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1991. Rauschenberg’s exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, according to the museum’s current Web site, which cites artforum’s Chinese edition, influenced an entire generation of Chinese artists and directly led to the first radical departure of Chinese contemporary art, culminating in the ‘85 New Wave movement (http://www.mediartchina.org/events/newyorkmoma). 2 Cui Jian was born in Beijing in 1961 to a family of Korean descent. From 1981 to 1987, he played with the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra, and in late 1984 he released his first recording,Langzigui (Return of the Lost Son). In 1986 he became famous with the song Yiwúsuoyou (I Have Nothing). With the Beijing band ADO he released the first rock album in China in 1987: Rock and Roll on the New Long March. During the student protests on Tian’anmen Square, in 1989, his song “Nothing to My Name” became a symbol of the protest movement. Other albums include Solution (1990); Balls Under the Red Flag (1994); The Power of the Powerless (1998); and Show You Color (2005). http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_Jian. 3 Huang Liaoyuan is the director of BANG (Beijing Art Now Gallery), which he opened in 2004 with Zhang Haoming (also known as Zhang Rui). He has been a reporter, editor, columnist, music producer, and independent art curator. He set up the first private recording studio in China and was the agent of two major rock bands, Tang Dynasty and Secondhand Rose. According to a 2006 article by Maggie Ma in Artzinechina.com titled “Huang Liaoyuan’s Journey: From Rock and Roll to Beijing’s Art Now, “the cooperation [with Zhang Rui] is quite simple: each possesses half the gallery shares, and Huang is responsible for everything to do with art. ‘We prepared for bad times, and we expected that the hard times might last for many years,’ Huang says, laughing. ‘So we opened a restaurant under the gallery to make ends meet.’ . . . Unlike many galleries of contemporary art, which cater to foreigners, Huang says 90 percent of Art Now’s clients are Chinese. They are part of the new group of collectors. Indeed, many are from the entertainment world: concert investors and other friends who are now purchasing paintings. . . . Huang says this will help ‘keep Chinese contemporary art in China.’ He adds: ‘If Chinese art wants to find a foothold in the international stage, it depends on local collectors.’” 4 The Arario Gallery in New York held its inaugural exhibition, Absolute Images: Chinese Contemporary Art and Zeitgeist, on November 10, 2007. The participating artists were Fang Lijun, Ji Dachun, Liu Jianhua, Sui Jianguo, Wang Du, Yang Shaobin, Yue Minjun, Zeng Hao, Wang Guangyi, Zhou Tiehai, and Zhang Xiaogang. The new building with ca. 7,000 square feet of exhibition space was designed by star British architect David Adjaye. According to its Web site, the Arario Gallery “will now present the work of both major and emerging Asian artists, with a focus on China, India, and Korea, to a Western audience.” 5 The Korean-born Cheagab Yun had previously obtained a B.A. in art from Hong Ik University, Seoul. The Visva-Bharati University, located in West Bengal, was established by Rabindranath Tagore. According to the University’s Web site “the school was a conscious repudiation of the system introduced in India by the British rulers” and was designed to “bring into more intimate relation with one another, through patient study and research, the different cultures of the East on the basis of their underlying unity” and to facilitate approaching “the West from the standpoint of such a unity of the life and thought of Asia.” In 1937 Cheena-Bhavana, the department of Sino-Indian studies, was established. (www.visva-bharati.ac.in). 6 The Workers’ Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in the Chaoyang District of north-eastern Beijing. It is one of the Ten Great Buildings constructed in 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_Stadium.

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