What an Interesting Painting!

This painting was done five years ago by a Toronto-based Chinese painter Liu Yi, but I just saw it tonight on Facebook. Am I out? What a beautiful painting! I mean just simply look at the picture, it's great. But after I read the description, I would say it is a fantastic painting. The description I have read is in Chinese. I found a translation version by using Google. It illustrates the main point, but still slightly different from the Chinese version which has more underlying meaning.

Critical review in World Journal (Toronto), via the 搞搞震 blog:

[in translation]

"Everybody knows that 2008 Beijing is where the Olympics will be.  Westerners call it the Olympic Games.  There is a game in this oil painting, but it is the traditional Chinese game of mahjong.

On the top left corner of "2008-Beijing," there is a standard head portrait of a man.  He seems familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.  He has Sun Yat-sen's beard, Chiang Kai-shek's bald head and Mao Zedong's facial features.  He symbolizes the one hundred years' of Chinese history and the sum total of the old and new democracies.

To the left of the painting, there is a innocent and focused girl who is probably celebrating because she has a good hand.

The girl in the middle with her back turned to the observer has three "east" tiles, symbolizing the unignorable reality -- the emergence of China.  But the girl is also trying to cheat with the tiles hidden behind her foot.

The girl in the middle facing the observer seems to be of mixed blood.  As she plays the games, she is looking at the source of the light (that is, the future).  She is nicely dressed, and she has a slightly worried look.

Then there is that foreign girl.  She is playing a Chinese game in which she has no confidence.  She is lying there, because she has one tile less than required.  She has lost already.

On the right hand side, there is a peasant girl who came to work in the city.  She is the fresh labor force that allowed China to rise.  On her face, there is a little bit of incomprehension and dissatisfaction.  She holds a shining fruit knife in her hand, indicating a resentment against wealthy people and a certain danger.

On the right of the painting, in front of the rundown building, there is a river and some rocks.  This symbolizes the uncertain future by which one can only cross the river by stepping on one rock at a time."