No Questions China And A Book From The Sky Summary

“No Questions, No Answers: China and A Book from the Sky” by Stanley K. Abe is a short text centered around Xu Bing’s A Book from the Sky exhibit and how it affected/caused various ideals in both China and foreign environments. Abe starts off with a story about Yang and how her inadequate skills at Chinese calligraphy caught up to her when she came to the west for a book signing. Thus, giving a sense of how it is to be Asian and entering western society. This story is told in order to give an little background in understanding how the west views Asian culture/people and gives a lead in to how this notion would affect A Book from the sky. Afterwards, Abe begins talking about the background of A Book from the sky and some of the methods in which it was created; such as following tradition

However all forms of text printed within A Book from the sky are invented and illegible, as it was written in a made-up alphabet. Albeit, with many similar elements of Chinese characters. It was first shown off in October of 1988 Beijing and was exhibited with other new wave artists. When it finally came to the west, it exhibited with three other Xu Bing pieces and led to a misunderstanding of the phonetic aspects of Chinese characters. Abe feels like the most important aspect of A Book from the sky are that the viewer can fill in the inscription with their own readings and put meaning into it themselves. This is a notion that can be similar for both the Chinese and westerners alike. This is true because even if you are familiar with the Chinese language, A Book from the sky was created using made up characters and therefore is unable to read what the inscriptions might be. If you are a westerner and