“The mentality of students in the Chinese Painting Department was quite repressed, but despite this there were still some pretty special characters there, like Chen Tong, who was really into Western philosophy. Psychologically speaking, Chinese ink painting students also had a bit of an inferiority complex, because they felt that, compared to students studying sculpture or oil painting, it was much more difficult for them to be in sync with contemporary art trends. As a result, many of them clung to traditional ways of thinking. But I do think the Academy had one big advantage, even though others criticized it for being conservative: its ‘strong point’ was that it didn’t really have outstanding or famous people [on its faculty], and so students very quickly discovered that the academic level of its teaching was pretty poor. If you [intelligently] woke up to this fact, then you also soon realized that you had to find your own path, and a lot of us went outside the Academy to learn. If you study under a famous master, it’s a lot more of a mental hassle, because if you revere him, then it’s hard to get out from under his shadow.”