Follow Him (2010) and Follow You (2013) take their title from the popular English-language-teaching program introduced by China State Television (CCTV) in 1982. These were the early days of economic reconstruction, and many Chinese citizens glimpsed the Western lifestyle through the program— how Westerners ate, dressed, and lived. During the 1980s, Qingsong explains, ‘The English teaching TV program’s significance went far beyond learning English. It helped Chinese people learn about the West and the world, just after China emerged from its closed-door policy.’ Mischievously critiquing China’s development and perhaps the Western discourse of development itself, Qingsong constructed a huge blackboard on which he scribbled Chinese and English slogans with words mainly taken from China-based English-training textbooks and manuals.
Follow Him speaks of the issue of education in China. Things are taught but not learnt, according to Qingsong. Facts are transferred by teachers and regurgitated by pupils and many people fail to understand the real meaning of things. Qingsong’s work depicts a vast amount of discarded textbooks, placing a lonely figure in the middle overcome by the material.
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