A Big Question: Can Explosive Ideas Start Small?

Cai Guo-Qiang seeks grandness with emptiness

There’s so much in this life that we cannot control, so expressing your thoughts and ideas and ideals naturally can ease our state of mind. I look for the infinite within the very small. This is how the ancient Chinese experienced paintings and the aesthetic (美学的) experience. 【小题1】 It could be something that they hide in secret until it’s time to be displayed.

In the modern living room, you will display a work of art on the wall — your house may be full of different artworks that you can see and enjoy. 【小题2】 This is their museum — their collection. Over a conversation, the host will see where your interests lie and determine if you are worthy of a certain work — a painting of a Chinese landscape or calligraphy — and unroll a scroll in front of you, opening a whole world up to you. 【小题3】 Sharing an artwork with guests and friends is also the way the host experiences a work.

This is perhaps a bit opposed to what I look for in my work. I look for something grand in scale, but I also look for that emptiness too. 【小题4】 After the viewing, it’s rolled up and it’s empty again; but this emptiness also holds endless possibilities. Sometimes I consider my explosion projects like these scrolls. 【小题5】 What you hold in your mind is a world that’s limitless. Art doesn’t need to be verified. It doesn’t have to look like anything. Anything is possible.

—— Cai Guo-Qiang

When you think of Chinese food in the US, fried rice, or General Tso’s chicken may first come to your mind. But a new museum exhibition in New York City is trying to expand visitors’ palates (味蕾). It features stories of famous cooks like Martin Yan and home cooks whose food represents 18 different regional cooking styles of China.

“I think it’s unfair to just classify Chinese cooking as one,” says Kian Lam Kho, an organizer of “Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy: Stories of Chinese Food and Identity in America” at the Museum of Chinese in America. “Even with the same dish or same cuisine, every family has a different variation.” That’s why the organizers say if you want to taste the full range of Chinese cuisine in the US, you’ll need to go beyond restaurants and into home kitchens, which can play a central role in many immigrants’ lives.

“The kitchen itself is kind of a comfort when you come to a new country. That’s the one place where you set up as your home base, and you cook things that you remember from your past,” explains Audra Ang, another organizer.

One of the home cooks showcased in the exhibition is Ni Biying, 80, of Manhattan. She worked as a live-in babysitter for years before she could finally afford to rent a home with her own kitchen. These days, you can usually find her moving around her one-bedroom apartment as a sweet smell of vinegar and rice wine floats from her stove. For Ni, a small dinner for friends and family means preparing almost a dozen different dishes. She learned some of her techniques from her father, who made most of her family’s meals when she was a child. “I still miss the beef with stir-fried celery my father used to cook,” she says. And it’s the kind of comfort food that defines Chinese food for Ni.

How old is too old to go trick-or-treating? Chesapeake of Virginia says the answer to that question is anyone over the age of 12.

City officials recently announced that doorbell-ringing candy seekers over the age of 12 could face a charge, up to six months in jail, and $25 to $100 fines. They're far from alone. Meridian of Mississippi, Bishopville of South Carolina, and Boonsboro of Maryland, also have set the age at 12. The phenomenon isn't limited to the US: In 2017, Bathurst, a town in Canada, banned anyone older than 16.

Officials say they won't be actively looking to catch teenage trick-or-treaters in the act. The age limits are part of a broader push to limit pranks and tricks. Some parents think that preventing older kids from participating in Halloween traditions will have the opposite effect. A Facebook post last year argued that all kids, regardless of age, should be allowed to take part in trick-or-treating. It was shared more than 4,000 times, with close to 700 comments.

Some parents argued that kids shouldn't be spoiled. Others argued that even older kids should be encouraged to take part in it in the sense of wonder and excitement, and most said they were willing to give candy to whoever dressed up. That seems consistent with the scientific studies that play is essential to help children develop into healthy, well-adapted people, and that play encourages kids to develop collaboration and creativity.

Given how over-scheduled, anxious, and unhappy today's teens are, maybe a little Halloween magic is exactly in order.