The art gallery district is always full of eye candy and thought-provoking installations, but on Saturday afternoon when we took the kids to 798, this particular exhibition called “Elmgreen & Dragset: The Well Fair” at the UCCA got them excited with its bright colours and huge canvases.

My daughter has been showing a lot of artistic skill. At just four and two months old, she draws details into her work that surprise us all. Frills on dresses, eyelashes separate from eyebrows, braided hair on her princess drawings, etc. Then she painstakingly colours them with her tongue out, concentrating while gripping the pencils in her left hand. She is a lefty like her grandfather—my dad. And he is an exceptional visual artist. Genetics never seemed that amazing until I began to witness their power in my own children .

So, when their dad suggested we take the kids to see some galleries, my daughter was excited and she bounced around in the large gallery spaces taking in the colours and forms with a huge grin on her face. The fact that she rather matched the colour scheme with her bright yellow jacket had me smiling too.

Even though the art was interesting to her, the highlight of the excursion were the cupcakes, however. Even when we returned home, the feedback to her grandmother was all about the yummy white icing and the “cute box” that the cupcake had been packaged in. I suppose the craft of cupcake-making and its interesting packaging ought to count as a type of art too. After all, it was purchased in the gallery district!

All life is art, if you use your eyes.

 Photos: Courtesy of Ember Swift

After the Olympics, cities like Beijing go back to just being themselves – no flurry and fluster, no sweep and swindle, just cities without any need to impress themselves upon the global consciousness as something they aren’t. What remains are a bunch of Olympic ring installations – ghostly reminders to the façade they once presented.

In Beijing, these are plentiful still. It’s been 8 years since the Olympic games were here (8 years already?) and the park next to our house still features large plastic rings implanted in the cement at the park’s entrance. I use them to reinforce English color names with my kids.  “Let’s run through the red one!” or “Quick, let’s go get the green one and give it a green monster hug!”

But when I visit cities that have hosted the Olympics, like Vancouver, it doesn’t seem as prevalent as Beijing – this remaining symbolism, I mean.

Is it an honor to host the Olympics? I wonder these things. How honored do the people forced to move house for the construction of Olympic buildings feel? I wonder if the long-term foreigners who couldn’t get renewed visas during the 2008 summer Olympics felt the “welcome to China” that the Olympic athletes felt?  And, despite the benefit to the air quality, I wonder if the factory workers on an unpaid leave of absence were happy about the Olympic games?

In any case, it’s a memory constantly whispering to us here in modern Beijing, continually voicing itself in the lingering décor of the city. They may never take these down. After all, there’s another bid to host more games, no? 2022 — another 8 years away. And that time will come far too soon.

Photos: Courtesy of Ember Swift