Individual; that means he has his own special way to communicate, which creates the form of him. In the information age, this expression and communication has become so different.

If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That's why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.

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.

I think Donald Trump should cool down a little bit. To pay more attention to the history. To really understand what U.S.'s value is about. I think, as a president, those things you always have to ask.

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.

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.

Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that's the 1980s. New York in the '80s was not so interesting. I think it's quite narrow-minded. There wasn't much encouragement or opportunities for any artist - not just Chinese artists.