《新的旧会谈A New Old Conversation》 is an art piece about the love and hates relationship, the difference and similarity, the funny and the pity of the two greatest people in modern Chinese history, Mao Ze Dong and Chiang Kai Shek.

These two people had been important roles since they were young. They knew each other through cooperation and also war, these historical events all contribute to the situation between ROC and PRC now. Though Taiwan and China are usually regarded as conflicting, Mao’s and Chiang’s relationships are much more than simply enemies. This artwork offers a new way to see and think about their thoughts, themselves, and their position in history.

They are said to be wanting to meet each other for a long time but never made it before Chiang died in 1975. I combined their quotes together using N-grams to create a fake newspaper about their virtual last conversation that they had never been able to have in the 21st century. That is why it is called 《新的旧会谈A New Old Conversation》. A newly formed conversation using new forms of media talking about old topics that maybe should happen before they all past away. 

I classified their quotes into three main groups, Politics, War, and Youth and Education. Each click will generate a new newspaper page with different titles and the contents related to the title. The text is interesting and fun to read. Sometimes the comparison in the combination makes people see clearer of these two people; sometimes the works are ironically funny. On the other hand, to see the piece as a whole, it gives people a satisfying feeling of potentially changing the pity of a dead conversation in history in a somewhat modern way.