I never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years. We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet. Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.

I don't think it's worth discussing new directions in the context of Chinese art - there were no old directions, either. Chinese art has never had any clear orientation.

The society was so different [in China] - it was a feudalistic society. It didn't come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.

We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.

[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.

I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture.

The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.