I never think any place is better than others.

The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.

A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.

We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.

What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.

Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.

We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.