[唯美] Palais de Fortune, the absolutely beautiful and the conceptualization of time in China
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Advertisement of "Hodohodo no Ie" from the March 2009 issue of Serai, a magazine which deals with topics such as the Noh, classical Japanese literature and the traditional fine arts. "Hodohodo no Ie" means a "so-so house". The large white caption on the upper right-hand corner says (perhaps paradoxically), "the luxury that is living with fire". I am a loyal reader of this excellent magazine and buy it every month.
When I first came across the Japanese advertisement posted on the right, the following three points were my knee-jerk reactions:
- “This looks rather like the house that the professor of German in the Kurosawa Akira’s film Madadayo (1993) lived in.”
- “Perhaps it is a modern reincarnation of Kamo no Choumei‘s ten-foot square hut?”
- “Well, what would the developers of Beijing’s Palais de Fortune say to that?”
Palais de Fortune (财富公馆), for your information, is a recently-built gated community of 172 chateaus inspired by 18th-century French architecture in general and by the palace of Versailles in particular. You may Google around for more information and have a look at this video on their official website. Many things have been said about this residential project and I have nothing to add to those – instead I would like to concentrate on the Chinese aesthetic concept of wei mei [唯美] and the Chinese conceptualization of time in artistic styles.
Being beautiful is a prerequisite to being considered wei mei, but wei mei refers to a very specific kind of beauty. It is not easy to explain in a straight forward way what it is because it has no English equivalent, though a good starting point would be to decide what it is not. “Hodohodo no Ie” for instance, would probably not be considered wei mei. Houses like that are like zen gardens in that the beauty lies in the austerity and restraint, which takes time to sink in and to reflect on. The beauty of zen gardens leaves wriggling room for argument if you just don’t “get” the austerity and restraint. Wei mei has no room for differing opinion – it s always obviously beautiful.
Features of Palais de Fortune include catering at the clubhouse, butler and maid service, enhanced security and various amenities.
Wei mei tolerates no defect, but it is far from having the same meaning as the English word “beautified” – the proper Chinese word for that would be mei hua [美化]. I think a fair distinction is that the emphasis on “beautified” is in on hiding ugliness away, whereas the emphasis on wei mei is about having everything that meets the eye look aesthetically pleasing. The two words are like the faces of Janus, bound together like Siamese twins but each looking the other way. Wei mei is complimentary and does not have the same negative connotation as “beautified” in English seem to have. 唯美圖 [wei mei tu] means an “absolutely beautiful picture”. 唯美風 [wei mei feng] means an “absolutely beautiful style”. 唯美風景 [wei mei feng jing] means “absolutely beautiful landscape”. Wei mei is absolute.