I Don’t Want to Get Sucked into the Quagmire of Contemporaneity and Tradition
 
An Interview with Peng Wei



Because I work in the medium of Chinese ink painting, I am always asked about the grand ideas of “tradition, contemporaneity, life, art, eras, and individuality…” However, when interviewers ask me about these things, I often want to flee, but because I’m too polite, I feel obligated to come up with an answer.

Who’s really thinking about all that when they’re painting? My half-conscious, half-forced answers reveal my rejection of and resistance to these questions. Frankly speaking, I don’t like interpreting artworks, especially my own, but I still get trapped in this web. In my view, grand, expansive words are no more convincing than tiny spots of ink on one of my paintings. I would rather directly engage with an artwork, then return to my studio to paint, because things that inspire me to paint are rare as shooting stars.

I like to flip through books, Western and Chinese, ancient and contemporary, as well as fashion magazines, gossip magazines, and restaurant menus. These printed materials are there to be used as I please.

Only when other people ask do I discover that I get most perplexed by the words used to justify the image, not the appearance of the image itself. I find myself more concerned with the balance between painting and description, or how to free my paintings from the boundaries established by language. I’m not terribly good at interviews, or answering specific questions. Sometimes, it feels like bathing in a quagmire; even after you get out, you’re still covered in mud.


 

 
Song: Could you talk about the letters and poems of Western writers and artists that you have used as inscriptions on your landscape paintings?
 
Peng: I do not see ancient paintings simply as paintings. When I look at an ancient painting, I don’t simply look at the painting; I look at the entire scroll or album leaf, including the mounting (because this is part of its material presentation). Almost all ancient paintings and album leaves have long inscriptions, which are seldom read today. For me, the inscription is an indispensable part of the painting, so I transcribed the letters of Western writers, in my own densely-packed handwriting, to replace the traditional Chinese inscriptions. By removing old cultural function of the inscription, I emphasize the necessity of the image and posit a riddle for those who like to read inscriptions. First, the texts are unrelated to traditional Chinese painting. Second, these inscriptions are long, dense texts, and reading them really tests the viewer’s patience. Third, these texts appear to have no relationship with landscape painting, but to me, they have the same atmosphere as Chinese landscape painting; they are both distant objects that have entered into my world, influencing me and becoming a part of my work.
For me, this transformation is aesthetic, but it is also an interest of mine, and something of a joke as well.
These texts come from the poems, letters, and other writings of historical figures that have interested me. I might choose them because their words have a vague link to the painting, or because I believe that they best represent the circumstances of their times. It might even be that the emotional tone of the words forms an amusing contrast with the content of the painting. For example, the letters between Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, and Rainer Maria Rilke are so emotional that you want to stop after a few, but they are so sincere. I thought that this would be fun to copy on to one of my paintings, because Chinese people very seldom express emotion in this way. What I find most interesting about copying these letters is that you can clearly see the people, things, and daily lives of the past. For example, Manet’s letters talk about how Monet was nearly bankrupt, and he talked about wanting to sell Olympia for 10,000 francs. He said that he wanted to sell the painting and spend the money on a trip to see Velazquez’s paintings. (The painting never sold during his lifetime. After his death, friends bought it from his widow for 20,000 francs.)
 
Song: He devoted his life to selling this painting, but he never managed to do it?
 
Peng: I think that he loved the painting too much, and even he must have thought that 10,000 francs was too high. At the time, Manet was not as successful as he is today; at the time, those sickly sweet salon paintings were what sold well. Even though he had support from the likes of Charles Baudelaire, Emile Zola, and Stephane Mallarme, Manet’s paintings were only hung in the worst places in the exhibition hall, almost near the ceiling. Andy Warhol once said that if one of his paintings were to sell for 5,000 USD, then he would be in heaven.
 
Song: Today, Chinese paintings selling for 50,000 USD is very normal.
 
Peng: Living in an era in which paintings sell for such high prices isn’t necessarily a good thing. Copying these letters sometimes makes me feel more satisfied with my reality, but isn’t that the Ah Q spirit? One day I met a French gallery owner and discussed Chinese contemporary art. Here, artists that are popular sell for a lot at auction, and the market influences the academic world, because these auction prices more or less decide whether you’ll be written into art history. The gallerist replied that this is not at all the case. He said his father liked to collect art magazines, from the 1920s or 1930s to the present. The people who appeared frequently in magazines from the 1960s are never discussed today. At that time, Alberto Giacometti was just making small prints, but he is now considered a great master. In the intervening thirty or forty years, people have forgotten artists that were popular back then. Even Balthus was relatively unknown in his time.  It seems that those who stay outside of the trends are better appreciated later.
 
Song: So most of our contemporary art trends are superficial?
 
Peng: I think that history is like a soap opera; the characters are constantly reshuffled, reappearing intermittently. Time carries away the good and the bad, but what we see first is the stuff that floats on top. I don’t really know if China is like this. For example, the most influential painters of the Ming Dynasty, such as Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin, Qiu Ying, and Dong Qichang, were already famous during their lifetimes. However, the cultural environment was better in the Ming Dynasty than it is now, because the people who promoted them were very educated, such as big collectors like Xiang Zijing. The market in the Ming Dynasty was also a pre-consumer market.
 
Song: So, contemporaneity cannot be defined by superficial contemporary trends?
 
Peng: I’m not sure why, but “contemporaneity” has become a trendy word. To my mind, “contemporary” actually has nothing to do with trends. It is very contemporary to use artistic methods to describe very real, personal experiences that no one else has articulated. Contemporaneity isn’t really related to form and medium, and it doesn’t really matter if you paint the things around you. You can also describe something ancient in contemporary terms. The few artists I found very contemporary 10 years ago are the same. Their works haven’t changed, but the circumstances have. I really don’t believe that these kinds of ideas are important for artists.
 
Song: Compared to the popular symbols they use, I think that your work reflects a very individual taste. You seem to be rather interested in the processes of making things by hand.
 
Peng: Since I was a child, I’ve loved making things by hand; at its core, painting is a craft. I have always thought that paintings are not simply pictures; paintings necessarily have a relationship with space, because they have to be presented. As in my new series, Distant Letters, I continue to see each piece as both a two dimensional painting and a three-dimensional scroll or album leaf, but I like them better as three-dimensional objects. I’m really intrigued by ancient book-making methods.
 
Song: Is there an interaction between these processes and your everyday experience?
 
Peng: I don’t really understand. Which aspect of everyday experience do you mean?
 
Song: The relationships between normal life and art.
 
Peng: That’s hard to say. I think I’m very materialistic, but I care about artistic things. I listen to classical music while I buy things on Taobao. Books, brushes, paint, makeup, and clothes… I buy what I can on Taobao, but I work every day at a steady pace. I go out less and less, and my studio is my own little world. Couriers are always knocking on my door.
 
Song: Do your painting methods influence your feelings about daily life?
 
Peng: It has a hidden influence. Can you be more specific?
I can’t bear to have my studio too chaotic. I don’t like asymmetrical skirts, or what people consider “artistic” clothing. I don’t like men with beards. I don’t like lively places. I don’t like designs that are modern or simple to the point of being useless. I don’t like grand, impressive words. I like intermediate, blended colors. I like vintage cars, bags, and shoes. I like interesting people and I like ancient paintings, precious stones, and brilliant jades, but this is just a hobby… I really like some contemporary art, certain works by certain people. I have a lot of interests, and not all of these interests are necessarily traditional. I like things that are fun and beautiful, and I don’t really care whether those things are from the past or the present. Like in my work, I add to and subtract from past and present forms because it’s fun or because it will look nice. I haven’t entirely followed the traditional scroll or album formats when it comes to the borders, the wrappings, and the inscriptions; I make these decisions according to the paintings. Everything serves my interests and aesthetics.
 
Song: So you design them yourself. Can you talk about the relationship between the traditional and the contemporary?
 
Peng: This is a big question that I’m asked a lot. When I create, I don’t really think about the contemporary or the traditional. If we really must discuss it, I think that it’s a very private relationship that is refined into every detail. It’s difficult to capture. Sometimes, I think that the true nature of tradition is, as Woody Allen said, “a mirage.” No one can provide a unified, fixed definition of tradition or contemporaneity; they are related to personal experience, education, and visual experience, and they gradually change with experience. If a tradition cannot influence you, then it is not true tradition for you. For example, when I was 15 or 16, I saw tradition most in Wu Changshuo. In my twenties, I liked Ni Zan, and in my thirties, I liked early Renaissance frescoes and Duchamp. Duchamp’s work is nearly 100 years old, but I think I like Duchamp’s attitude more than his work.
Whether traditional or contemporary, I hope to make these ideas into something specific. For example, when I look at a painting, I evaluate the lines, the writing, the expression, the mounting, and even the frame, but I don’t think this has much to do with the traditional or the contemporary. These evaluations are the sum total of a person’s ideas, techniques, experiences, and talents. From this, you can see a person’s attitudes toward an artwork and toward art. I think that this is most important.
 
Song: We often define tradition as the art and life from a certain period that is usually completely cut off from us. That life and thought are meant to represent something drastically different from our present.
 
Peng: Yes, now everything is on the computer. Could ancient people have imagined this? At this point, I can’t even imagine life before the year 2000. A decade ago, going to an internet café was a fancy thing. That hourglass felt like it turned on the computer screen for an eternity before a Yahoo page appeared. I painstakingly registered my first email account and had the thrill of communicating with the outside world. At the time, a large advertisement, with words “.com,” was placed along a road near Nankai University. Every time I passed by it, my heartbeat quickened. But now, we use our mobile phones to email, shop, take pictures, microblog, and WeChat. At that time, shopping online was nearly as difficult as going to the moon. I remember a report on a website’s trial program, called “Living Online for 10 Days.” At the time, no one could actually do it. Back then, toilet paper could be bought online and delivered in more or less 10 days. Now, things are far easier.
Of course, there are people today who don’t use computers and mobile phones. They say they want to live like the ancients, but I’m always suspicious of that sentiment.
Ancient Chinese painting is very interesting, because the mountains are not like real mountains, the rivers are not like real rivers, and the people are not like real people. This type of painting seems intended to inspire recollection and imagination. It is not at all suspicious, and it represents no opinions about any era. Neither indifferent nor enthusiastic, it keeps an appropriate distance. I think that this is why it can be used in contemporary art.
 
Song: In this era, tradition is likely related to the lives of scholar-officials.
 
Peng: I don’t think that tradition only refers to scholar-officials. Tang Dynasty painting was so much more; you also had the religious art in the Dunhuang murals and the Yungang Grottoes. In the Yuan Dynasty, Qian Xuan didn’t think of his own work as scholar-official painting. Didn’t he discuss what qualified as amateur painting with Zhao Mengfu? Qian thought that amateurs were different from professional painters. Professional paintings required careful work and strict technique; scholar-official paintings were amateur. In one of Zhao Mengfu’s letters, he said that one should use the methods of the literati, entering into painting through calligraphy. Clearly, tradition is also a passageway.
 
Song: What is the psychological experience behind your painting process?
 
Peng: I don’t think too much about psychological experience. When I paint, I’m too busy to think it. When I paint, I hover between despair and complacency. The results are never entirely as I imagined them. Often, in the beginning, I think that the painting is a complete failure, but if I continue playing with it, sometimes it turns out OK. Other times, I have painted a good painting without even realizing it until someone else points it out. I think that this is what I like about painting; if I were to paint it exactly as I imagined it, then it wouldn’t be interesting anymore.
 
Song: That is to say, you can’t know how the painting will look until it’s done.
 
Peng: I have a general idea, but the final result never looks as I imagined it, but it might even be a bit better. Many times, when the paint is still wet, I add water. I’m not particularly skilled at various saturation effects, but I also have a lot of control. Painting is like cooking, because you intuitively adjust the heat on the pot, the amount of salt, and the amount of sugar. If you think it’s too salty, then you add sugar, and if it’s too dry, you add water.
 
Song: So, painting is an unknown state.
 
Peng: Between the known and the unknown.
 
Song: Because you can’t foresee these things, you must always have new feelings and make new discoveries about materials and techniques.
 
Peng: Some things are unforeseeable, and things do change with accumulated personal experience. When I was just beginning the Distant Letters series, the first few paintings didn’t have letters. When I got to the third painting, I thought that my previous paintings were too full, and that they couldn’t be further expanded, so I left a border. It didn’t look good; it was missing something, and this made me think of the inscription. I grabbed a nearby book of Paul Gauguin’s letters and copied two. Because something was missing, I wrote more densely. Whether or not this counts as a new discovery, I’m not sure. Gauguin’s letters talked about seeking freedom in the Atlantic Ocean, and my painting was of a boat tossed in the waves.
 
Song: So, little by little, new and different elements entered into the series. How do you think the use of Western writings as inscriptions differs from traditional methods?
 
Peng: But this is not a traditional method.
 
Song: But if you don’t look at it carefully, you’d think it was traditional.
 
Peng: I think that this is a lot like my personality; obedient on the surface, but not at heart. I’m a little bit rebellious and sarcastic, but I’m also sensible and accommodating. It would be great if my works were like me. The text is so densely packed that very few have the patience to read it all the way through. If someone did, then they would discover that it didn’t have any relationship to traditional inscriptions. It’s almost as if I’m intentionally thwarting people trying to reading it.
 
Song: So it’s like you’re playing tricks on tradition.
 
Peng: A little, but these are not outrageous acts that defy the laws of man and nature. The inscriptions on the “Stones” series are similar; I affixed calligraphy practice strips to the paintings, but the words and images are unified in the structure of the painting. I don’t really care about the relationship with tradition, but I do care whether the painting is good and complete.
 
Song: But I get the feeling that your playful attitude towards tradition is actually a relationship to tradition. By changing tradition, you form a relationship with it.
 
Peng: You could say that.
 
Song: However, the tastes that ancient people conveyed in painting was linked to the real lives of those people.
 
Peng: In ancient times, people also got married, had children, courted one another, traveled, and built collections; it’s just that they didn’t do it online. The essence of life hasn’t really changed. My enjoyment of ancient paintings does not mean that I like ancient lifestyles, but I do like the people behind the paintings. For example, you can tell what kind of person Qiu Ying was from his paintings. When you look at Wen Zhengming’s work, you can see that he was a kind and gentle person. From Ni Yunlin’s paintings, you know that he was an obsessive perfectionist. It’s very interesting that people’s personalities are seen in their paintings.
 
Song: What’s different about your work is the changes in your interests.
 
Peng: There’s actually something conceptual about my work, because I don’t completely follow the path laid out by Chinese painting. Perhaps because of my enjoyment of Western literature and contemporary art, my paintings really aren’t based on the ideas of Chinese painting.
 
Song: So the intervention of Western elements suddenly transforms the direction of the traditional tastes?
 
Peng: But I think there’s still something traditional about it.
 
Song: There certainly is, but the intervention of Western elements creates something new, something that is different from both Western and traditional things.
 
Peng: What?
 
Song: We cannot find perfect kinship in tradition, especially in terms of emotions and tastes. Your painting process reflects the influence of your moods and memories.
 
Peng: You could say that, but that would seem to mean that my process could rely on anything.
We seem to have fallen into the trap of calling things traditional or contemporary, Western or Chinese. However, I don’t think about painting that way.
The art of an era reflects that era, and that imprint can’t be washed away. But I believe that really good artists forget these big questions when they do things; they’re simply immersed in creation. These artists can transcend the restrictions of language or their times.
 
Song: Your painting process certainly has an artisanal quality to it.
 
Peng: At my core, I am an artisan, but I often pray that my work will be seen as more than simply a craft.
 
Song: But your process still retains the feeling of moving forward very carefully.
 
Peng: Really? That’s great! For me, art is a truly playful endeavor. My interests drive me to work diligently. Enthusiasm and wonder are great, but you can’t be casual and naïve forever; no one stays innocent and pure. However, when I look at some people’s work, it does seem that their childhood has gone on for too long. For example, Paul Klee was truly as Picasso said, “He pretended to be a child rolling an iron hoop for too long.”
I have an amateur’s mindset as I do professional work, because this fits better with my personality. I continue to work calmly; because of time and experience, I cannot continue to scribble like a child, looking for a flash of joy. Sometimes I continue to try and save a painting because I have to finish it. Only once I finish it will I know if it is good or bad. At the very least, I need to finish the details to know how the painting will be. Delving deeper is very important.
 
Song: In the process of making these series, have the techniques you learned in school and the methods you use now changed? Are your techniques the same as they were in your college days?
 
Peng: When I was in college, I stupidly took four years of drawing and color classes. After I graduated, I wanted to do a master’s degree at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Tian Liming couldn’t recruit students at the time, but he took me to their studio. He pointed to a sketch of a room, and said that the early drafts of ink sketches require at least two weeks to finish. This hit me like a thunderbolt, because from my childhood, my father always said, “Be quick with the brush.” It would seem that that is not acceptable at the academy. Moreover, I couldn’t understand the link between sketching and Chinese painting. With that, I put aside the idea of studying Chinese painting at the academy, and I promptly transferred to the philosophy department at Nankai. At the time, I was truly awestruck by the academy. After that, I thought about changing my profession. I wanted to change my master’s degree focus, find work, and then paint in my spare time. Looking back now, it’s actually good that I wasn’t too influenced by academic Chinese painting, which seems to breed slavish imitation. After I graduated, I didn’t paint academic figures. Later, it was only as I painted that I discovered that the techniques I used were the ones that my father taught me as a child.
 
Song: So you think that your present techniques have little to do with what you learned in school?
 
Peng: They’re not really related. When you see certain paintings, you know the painters were from the Central Academy of Fine Arts or the China Academy of Art. I don’t rely on any of that.
 
Song: So you’ve had a painter’s sensibility since you were young?
 
Peng: Yes, I understand the variations in water, color, and ink, and this feeling has been with me since I was young. My father taught me a lot. He always emphasized the use of traditional Chinese painting materials, and so do I. At art school, the teachers don’t really teach you to mix colors or make ink. It was very strange that our teachers were accustomed to using paint in tubes. At the time, Fan Zeng also used these kinds of paints.
 
Song: Was Fan Zeng your teacher at the time?
 
Peng: Yes, he had just returned from France. He was very calm. He taught us for about four years, and then took us to Yellow Mountain for more than a month to sketch. He also taught line and figure drawing, and did numerous demonstrations. However, my father was more influential in my choosiness about my materials.
 
Song: You’re still rather picky about colors and materials.
 
Peng: Picky, picky. Because this directly influences the effect of my work, I have to be picky.
 
Song: So you’ve had a clear awareness of materials since you were young?
 
Peng: Yes, and materials have directly influenced my ideas and techniques.
 
Song: You only use mineral pigments?
 
Peng: I use natural mineral colors with some gum. I don’t use rock pigments, like in Japanese painting. There weren’t too many colors in traditional Chinese painting, just indigo, ocher, gamboge, ultramarine, malachite, and vermillion. The others need to be mixed. When ink can be divided into five tones, you don’t need very many others.
 
Song: You’ve made many different series. Do you think that these series are linked?
 
Peng: It looks a lot like they were painted by the same person. You don’t get the sense that someone else did them. The tone is similar and the forms are different, but they reflect my unified language. I’ve used a brush in all of my series, but That Time, That Place is a little different. In the piece, I painted a watch on my wrist, and this is the only time I’ve used something modern, whether formally or conceptually.
I’ve never thought of traditional images as too lofty or great; I just see them as things around the house for me to use. I see detailed Persian paintings, early Renaissance frescoes, and traditional Chinese painting in the same way.
 
Song: How do you understand transposition and appropriation? I think that it’s a mode of replication.
 
Peng: It was only after people pointed it out that I learned about this. For me, it’s not a problem to be understood, but it’s also not mere replication. Regardless of what it is, I bring my own system into the use and multiplication of images. Is this a type of representation?
 
Song: Regardless of what method you use.
 
Peng: Yes.
 
Song: Post-modern artists have a slightly different approach to their subjects, and they don’t really stress originality. As you said, transposition and appropriation are like that.
 
Peng: I don’t like the word “originality,” because it makes doing things sound like invention or creation. New technology is merely the multiplication of previous technologies, so how can art be any different? Originality is actually a measure of sensitivity. The materials are all there, waiting for you to use them. When Andy Warhol came to China, he instantly found the image of Chairman Mao. At that time, Chairman Mao’s portraits were on every street in China, but no one had ever thought to use them. He turned them into artworks, with Chairman Mao as China and Marilyn Monroe as America. It’s very sensitive, but that may not have occurred to him.
 
Song: Perhaps your methods have an interactive relationship with tradition?
 
Peng: A little. I haven’t researched tradition for many years; I am always collecting and using texts, researching traditional texts through images. I use these pictures and texts according to personal taste. Pictures are actually texts, so I am simply transforming them. Almost everything is taken from printed materials, but I don’t necessarily want the print quality of Song Dynasty albums. A small picture, or part of a picture is often enough to seduce me. I like Painting Style because sometimes you pick really great parts of the pictures. This is the re-use of a text, because cropping an ancient painting transforms it into another painting. I do something similar; I often take portions of ancient paintings, and turn them into other paintings.
 
Song: I think that this could be important. In the course of painting, you make small changes, which actually make the piece completely different from the original and reveal parts of your personality.
But I think that any text is actually a symbolic language, but paintings are symbolic as well. What does all this symbolism really mean? I think that you simply have a different way of interpreting your work.
 
Peng: I get impatient with interpreting works, especially my own. If I say too much, I feel rather stupid. Interpretation is a trap, just like the games from my childhood. Other people may draw circles on the ground, and say that you can’t leave. Are you really unable to leave? I can only politely draw these circles for myself.
 
Song: Conceptually, do these series form a single entity?
 
Peng: Do you think so? In the beginning, I didn’t paint flowers. Instead, I painted stones. I started with single stones, then I moved on to shoes, clothing, bodies, and scrolls. I have always had an interest in individual items, which are continually more complex and interwoven.
 
Song: I think that your “Stones” series reflects a pure interest in objects, such as the mastery of texture and quality.
 
Peng: Yes? I just enjoy painting this way. I don’t really think too hard from the first to the last stroke. After three or four months, I look at the paintings again, and having ten good ones out of fifty isn’t bad. After another period of time, I bring them out again. Some of them, I didn’t finish with texts until four or five years later.
 
Song: With each series, do you have the concept in mind before you begin?
 
Peng: It’s not that I get the idea first. I usually have a nearly fatal burst of intuition. Conceptual stuff becomes outdated so quickly.
 
Song: From these images, from an interest in specific images.
 
Peng: I begin with solid, substantial thing. For example, the shoes series stemmed from my interest in shoes, and shoes were the beginning of the images. Clothing was the beginning of my paintings of clothing and accessories, and the Distant Letters series was inspired the forms of scrolls and album leaves. In the beginning, I wanted to make a bunch of really fun books, and the forms of Chinese scrolls and album leaves were most appropriate for this purpose.
 
Song: Do your series contain these kinds of links? Do you connect things close to us, such as things we wear or use, with cultural references? In our daily lives, making thing is very common, and in the post-modern era, we emphasize the links between life and art. John Cage said that his music is life and his life was music. Do you have any thoughts on this?
 
Peng: Am I like that? The things that are closest to my life are my mobile phone, my computer, and my car. Of course, none of my series have been painstakingly thought-out; they just sort of appear. These things rush into my life, and I grab them. These strange occurences are fated, because I am attracted to the feelings of distance, unfamiliarity, and closeness.
I don’t like John Cage. “No boundaries between art and life” is simply an eye-catching slogan. Isn’t that just pushing art into the abyss of life? 4’33’’ deceived that generation of artistic young people, if it was played for a long period it would have been very boring. People are intelligent, and all aspects of life can be presented as art, but life and art are still very far apart.
 
Song: Whether you are painting shoes or clothing, you have focused on items used by ordinary people. I find these paintings very interesting; have the interests reflected in these paintings influenced your life? What role do these interests have in your life?
 
Peng: Interest influences everything. From Li Jin’s paintings, you can tell that he is interested in eating and drinking. Some of his interests are similar to mine, such as pearls, Buddha statues, and stones. He gave me this stone, but I didn’t love it so much I had to have it. For example, when I painted the stones, all I needed were pictures; I didn’t want to expend too much time bringing stones over to the studio. I’m not like Xu Lele, clipping images out of magazines, organizing and summarizing them into a book. I very envious of this interest. In life, I’m very playful and casual. Painting is like playing; although I paint every day, I think that work and rest are more or less the same. They are not terribly serious, and I don’t find my work tedious. Before, I watched TV as I painted, but now, I don’t have a TV. I just listen to music, watch movies, or read books.
I work hard to have my life serve my work, and not the other way around: I don’t want to accept the lot of the artist, and spending every day painting.
 
Song: This is your predicament as an artist; do you feel the conflict between East and West?
 
Song: How do you blend two different interests, one contemporary and one traditional?
 
Peng: I don’t think that there is a conflict. If everything comes down to interest, then there can be no conflict; everything coexists more or less harmoniously.