Word: wu
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During this time, Wu Hung began to believe in Marxism. For him, its appeal lay in seeing beyond the personal concerns of the individual. He recalls, "I criticised myself. I thought my interest in Western art was selfish. It wasn't really very mature thinking and I realized when I got out what an illusion...
...Before the Cultural Revolution, I felt very insecure. Afterwards I was confident. Before I was alienated by my orientation to Western culture. I was a very marginal person in Chinese society. My insecurity was rooted in feeling myself to be a different person from those around me," Wu Hung says. "But after the camp I felt a very deep connection with people, not just with books and academics...
...Wu Hung also turned to traditional Chinese philosophy in his search for some stability in a "country that was like a madhouse." He studied Taoism, which holds as its central principle that power lies in the mind, in the self, and not in action. "I don't think I achieved the inner peace of the Taoists, but I tried," remembers Wu Hung...
While in the labor camp, Wu Hung wrote four books about his experiences, but then destroyed them, for fear of disastrous consequences if they were discovered by officials...
After several years of organizing exhibitions, and researching and writing catalogues and books for the Palace Museum, Wu Hung decided to return to Beijing's Academy of Fine Arts to get his Master's in Chinese art history. "It was a personal choice to leave the museum and go back to school. My work had stimulated an interest in Chinese art and I was tired of just dealing with ancient objects; I wanted to talk to people again," he says...