找寻别处：杰罗姆·桑斯访谈杨勇
采访：杰罗姆·桑斯
相关展览：《杨勇个展——光景》，尤伦斯当代艺术中心，北京，中国，2010
杰罗姆·桑斯：你的第一个作品是什么类型的作品？
杨勇：是我从小到现在吗？还是当代艺术的作品，是一张画吧。
桑斯：什么样的画？
杨勇：你的意思是我离开学校后，真正成长后的作品吗?
桑斯：就是第一件您认为称得上作品的，也可能是小时候的。
杨勇：那就是一张画，有些抽象的风景画吧。
桑斯：90年代时候，您曾就读于四川美院吧？那时候在画什么？
杨勇：新表现，就是德国的新表现。很喜欢基弗，或巴塞利兹。
桑斯：那你现在都在画些什么呢？
杨勇：画我看到的不同媒介世界，一些充满隐喻的世界。
桑斯：2010年的现在，您的画又想表达什么呢？
杨勇：其实我现在的画和那个时候的是蛮不一样的，因为离开四川到广东生活之后不短的时间里，我都没有画画，而是摄影，因为我对影像有一种特别强烈的兴趣。我会用很长的时间，把同时代的人在全球化冲击下的一些变化通过影像，导演和记录下来。慢慢地，我又重新开始对绘画这个表达方法产生兴趣。不过现在的世界和我喜欢基弗的时候已经不一样了，所以有作品里有我的个人判断和筛选，包括对影像以及生活里的图像，那时，我开始在不同的媒体里去寻找一些作品元素，然后把它们变成绘画。
桑斯：您回到了绘画，但其实是在利用影像和媒体作为材料，是吗？
杨勇：对。
桑斯：为什么会选择绘画的方式来重启这些图片？
杨勇：因为这些图片是能够影响到我们生活的视觉成像，我希望能够用绘画的方法，来改变人们对它的常规感知观念。而且重要的是，它不在一个画面、一块画布上，而是在不同的物体上。以这次为例，它们全部呈现在灯上，跟之前在家具上是异曲同工的。把我们庞大的世界语言放在一个最微观的生活物体上去，这就是有意思的地方。
桑斯：就是说您所选择的题材是“对生活造成影响的图像”？
杨勇：不仅是这些图像，而是当前阶段下，对我们生活影响最大的东西——媒体。
桑斯：您现在利用的图像很多都是比较刺激的，不管是体育、时尚、赛车，或是类似的，要不然就是足球场的霎那，是不是您在做一个比喻，或是有它们的象征意义呢？您觉得类似您所选的这些意象的，什么是现在比较流行的东西？
杨勇：对，就是试图在找一些新的感受，跟我们这个时代是有关系的，而且可能会暗喻这个世界的一些紧张，和对这个世界的紧迫感。
桑斯：对于你这个年代的人，过去旧时代（尤其是自改革开放后）里面有什么让你紧张的事情吗？像刚才所说的类似您隐喻的那些。
杨勇：你说的这个阶段是一个特殊的社会变动时代，特别是对我来说。生于70年代的我，见证了中国的两种样貌：今天看到的中国跟我很小的时候，也就是80年代时候的样子，是截然不同的。特别有幸的是，我在这两种不同的面貌中见证了它在全球化浪潮下的改变，并且体验了响应的影像变革。我父母他们并没有受到太多全球化带来的影响，比我更小的人也不用关心这个事，因为他们认为这个世界本来就这样，但是对我们这一辈的影响却是特别大，所以说我面对的最多的一种东西就是变革。全球化这个问题对艺术家来讲是最直接的变革，随即来的就是城市化问题：比如从深圳到广东的另外一个城市，路程可能有200公里，高速公路旁边我们看不到农田，全是工厂。城市化的问题我们在中国或者整个亚洲范围，讨论了10年，这是包含极大可能性的时代，一种个人价值必须重新判断的先兆，因为我们可能会面对更多更新的问题。
桑斯：当时您在深圳工作，媒体控制比较严格，而过了一个边境就比较开放的香港，所以造就了一个媒体冲突的环境，这种背景有没有影响到您和您的作品呢？
杨勇：那时候我当然会去关注深圳和其它区域的媒体，广州、香港，或者是国外的。同时长时间以来对影像以及在媒体所见的一切，都成为我的经验积累，就如同很多砖头，适当的时候我会把这些砖头变成一个房子。
桑斯：那个时候深圳是一扇窗，让您看到这些影响，是吗？
杨勇：是的
桑斯：那您从深圳搬到北京，有没有新的改变或者受到不同的影响？
杨勇：北京？我没有觉得北京对我有多大的影响，至少目前是。
桑斯：那您为什么选择了北京？
杨勇：工作的方便。
桑斯：每一本杂志的图片，您是怎么选择的，为什么会选择它们？
杨勇：我有一个自己的判断体系，它会从某种不同的角度打动我。这些不同的判断和触动，都会为我构建一个完整的个人语言，这个可能就是选择它们的一个标准，有一定的代表性：看到的政治的话题，时髦的女人、表现，都有着所以成为代表的特点。希望这一切能够构筑起一个体系，它包含我对今天这个世界的看法和态度。
桑斯：以往摄影就是记录一霎那，而记录后却是永久的。现在因为媒体的关系，图片和影像的生命变得相对短暂，好像有的时候就是一瞬间。您现在将它们画在画布或者其他东西上，重启了这些图片或者影像，那是不是说您是希望保存这些影像呢？
杨勇：我好像没有认为图片的生命是短暂的，而会认为画的生命是更长一点的，我只是觉得，我们有筷子、叉子和勺子，我们吃这个东西的时候最需要的是一个勺子，吃那个东西的时候，我们最需要的是一个筷子，只是选择最恰当的工具和方式。当然，我为什么要把它画出来，因为很简单我希望再做一次它的改变。
桑斯：那些图片是不是像您展览的名字一样——世界属于你。
杨勇：可能吧。
桑斯：其实这次很多资讯的发布，您都可以与当地或者中国的媒体合作，但是为什么选择了很多国外的杂志？
杨勇：或许这是偶然吧，我没有太注意这一点。
桑斯：您是不是认为所选的杂志能代表这个时代？
杨勇：我没有这么想，但我想它们能代表一种关注点吧。
桑斯：哪位艺术家对您影响很大，或是您所尊敬的呢？
杨勇：比较喜欢的，Hans Haacke。中国的艺术家，有一个叫徐坦，那是我很尊敬的。
桑斯：Hans Haacke是一个政治化的艺术家，常常是会提出政治议题。有没有其他艺术家是直接影响您作品的？
杨勇：我喜欢的艺术家都会有所影响，比如弗朗西斯·培根、或者沃夫冈·托马斯, 南戈尔丁，可能还有一些吧。
桑斯：现在来说，您对媒体还是有任何的质疑吗？或者说已经过去了，认为媒体真的就之是一个很普通的东西？
杨勇：媒体对我们的改变确实挺大的，至少对我而言是这样。20年前，我没有一个媒体的概念，可能只知道报纸。但是今天媒体种类特别多，电视、Internet、杂志等等一切。它们每天在告诉我无数的东西，最重要的就是传递了不同的价值观。我需要做很多的筛选，保留需要的，剔除大部分不要的。这就是今天媒体最大的力量，输出不同的讯息从而影响你的价值观。
桑斯：不管是画在家具上，还是这次UCCA的灯上，存在媒体上的这些图片是不是您新的家？或者说是不是我们现在完全迷上这些，对于拥挤的大批图片信息，就像毒品一样，完全上瘾、戒不掉了，而没有了过去那种一张图片就能够产生长久影响的体验了呢？
杨勇：我觉得某些时候它们跟音乐很像，会左右一些判断和情绪。就比如，我画一个齐达内，有时候并不是说他的足球踢的有多好，而想借用他在世界的力量和位置，这和体育没有关系。好多漂亮女孩能够传递的信息，也未必是出自她们自己的fashion。我希望找到另一面，隐喻背后的一面。
桑斯：您尝试发现另一面，找到了什么？
杨勇：我还没有找到。不应该说没找到，或者这一面应该是…我很难准确地说，可能在寻找的路上。寻找答案的过程往往比看到答案更有意思。
桑斯：您现在把这些画，画在家居品上，变成说“宅画”或者是比较居家的画，是不是意味着您想要脱离通常意义上的“画”，还是您想要表达的方式更直接，更轻松，更当代？
杨勇：是的。
桑斯：家具上的，甚至是现在艺术品，都变得像财产，是一个个东西，您怎么看待艺术和艺术品被当作东西，商品？
杨勇：我没认为他们变成商品，不过艺术一直都可以是商品。
桑斯：您之前做的，比如灯箱或者是城市中的其他作品，相比现在的新系列（放在家里的东西），是从公共地域到私密空间的转变，您的初衷是不是想让这些图片变得更亲近人群呢？
杨勇：我没有这么想过，应该是每个人的感受不太一样吧。或许是我总是很跳跃地做不一样的作品：比如曾经造过一座桥的作品、一座山的作品，一个证交所的巨大环形LED显示屏。我只是想，这个阶段会做出不一样的作品，我似乎更愿意给自己找麻烦，是因为不希望杨勇太快变成一个标签。
桑斯：为什么必须把这些作品放在家居灯上？
杨勇：没有必须只是更合适。
桑斯：为什么是灯，为什么需要明亮的氛围？
杨勇：因为灯有一种特殊的含义：它是每个人都需要的，可以说是最需要的，而且没有距离感。而我们所看到这些，包括杂志的影像，也是能够在个人生活里占据很多空间的东西，我认为这两个东西摆到一起会是不错的搭配，也给人心里带来一种温暖和并且激发人们对这些媒体信息影响的重新判断。
桑斯：其实任何一个人的家都是这样，灯永远比画更易融入，在任何一个角落都可以摆一个灯。
杨勇：真的？
桑斯：没有任何一个社会阶级，不管你住大房子还是小房子，都需要灯具。你可以把它们放在任何地方，挂起来或者放在地上，插个电就行。
杨勇：是的。
桑斯：家具做完，灯做完，接下来您想做什么？做了灯来照亮这些家具，还缺什么？
杨勇：房子？
桑斯：所以接下来要盖房子了。还有不同的空间？
杨勇：我之前的每一个展览，都会有一个对空间的理解方法，特别的方法。
桑斯：可以把房子的每一寸都变成一些媒体的图片，动的，不动的，完全在媒体里面。您在中心，而不是旁边了。所有的媒体，其实都要有灯来抓住瞬间，不管是摄影还是绘画，用灯去抓影像，再把人关在影像的屋子里，也是一个很有意思的想法。还有一个问题，您所有这些照片都是女人，没有男人，为什么？
杨勇：我想我喜欢女人。
桑斯：没有女人就不是一个世界，所有的生命都是由女人开始。
杨勇：很早就有人问过这个问题，没有为什么，真的就是喜欢拍，喜欢看到。
桑斯：年轻的女孩在这个时候有一种乌托邦的想法，天真到包容整个世界，天真到完全贡献所有的能力到一件事情或者人。年轻的女人有种自大的个性，又有这种极端天真的个性，加起来就变得非常政治，像美女与野兽。
杨勇：你是说我们旁边这两位漂亮的小姐吗？哈哈。
桑斯：年轻人在这个时候，整个生命就是他的资产。你第一次离开了家，在外面接触到的有男孩也有女孩，但对后者的接触会让你特别敏感，现在年轻的女孩就像水果一样，可能比较鲜美。
杨勇：从法国来到北京，你对中国也算是比较了解，我特别想问你一个问题，你认为中国当代艺术和文化中，是不是有价值观是向中国以外的地方输出的，从而产生影响呢？
桑斯：您就是一个例子，您现在看东西的角度，世界的角度，其实是在中国外面，您做出来的东西其实不是一个地区的了，没有完全很确定的地域的概念，也没有身份，就比如他刚才说的那些画，可以再世界任何一个角落拍到，就像你说的，世界是你的，现在完全没有去关注说，这些东西是从哪里来的，您之前的这一辈知道的世界是在这边的，但是您知道是在外面的，不管是在世界哪里，您完全没有责任去看世界是在这里的，您有更多选择的权利，还有很轻松，很自由地去看，您所有作品的角度，可以来自任何一个地方，不管是巴黎、伦敦、德国、南美...... 完全没有一个确实的身份。
Interview with Yang Yong: Looking for The Other Side
Interviewer: Jerome Sans
Related Exhibition: “Yang Yong Solo Exhibition — Light Scape”, UCCA, Beijing, China，2010
Jerome Sans (JS): Bonjour! So, we start at the beginning. What was the first piece that you ever produced?
Yang Yong (YY): Starting from when I was young? If you mean my first work of contemporary art, it was a painting.
JS: What kind of painting?
YY: Or do you mean my first adult work, after I graduated from art school?
JS: Whatever you consider your first work of art. It could be something from when you were young.
YY: A painting, then. It was an abstract landscape.
JS: And you attended the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1990s, right? What kind of paintings were you doing at the time?
YY: Neo-Expressionist. I really liked the German Neo-Expressionists, especially Kiefer and Baselitz.
JS: What kind of things did you paint?
YY: I painted about the different kinds of media I’d seen, a world filled with media and metaphor.
JS: How has the meaning of painting changed for you, from then until now, in 2010?
YY: The paintings I’m doing now are very different from the paintings I was doing then. After moving from Sichuan to Guangdong, I didn’t paint for a long time. I did photography instead, because I’ve always had a strong fascination with images. I could spend a long time using images, film and photography to document the impact globalization has had on my generation. Slowly, over time, I’ve regained my interest in painting, but the world now is a lot different than it was when I first became interested in Baselitz, so my work now involves more of my own judgments and filtering, and that includes the images and real-life icons I choose to paint. That’s why I started sifting through different kinds of media for elements I could work with, and turning them into paintings.
JS: The funny thing is that you went back to painting, but with photography, using photography as material for your paintings.
YY: Yes.
JS: Why are you reactivating those photos by painting them?
YY: Because these photos have a formative visual influence on us, and I want to use painting to change our conventional notions of how we perceive them. The important thing is that these images aren’t in a painting or on a canvas, but painted on various objects. In this exhibition, for example, they appear on lamps. In the past, I’ve painted them on furniture, a different way of getting the same effect. I think that’s what’s so interesting about it—putting this vast and pervasive global language on items that are microcosms of our lives.
JS: So would it be fair to say that you’ve chosen these images that most affect our lives as your subject matter?
YY: Not just the images themselves, but the thing that has the greatest effect on our lives right now—the media.
JS: You mostly choose pictures of catastrophes, sport, and fashion. Is this a kind of metaphor for the most popular things in our world, the noisiest events? For example, hijackings, or huge car crashes, or other events that grab our attention.
YY: Yes, I’m always searching for feelings connected to this particular age, so I look for images that can serve as metaphors for the anxiety and sense of urgency we feel, living in the world today.
JS: What special kind of anxiety or nervousness does your generation have, compared to the older generation who didn’t experience the opening of China?
YY: I really feel that this is a unique period of social change. As someone born in the seventies, I’ve witnessed two very different faces of China. The China we see today is a world apart from China in the eighties, during my early childhood. I feel lucky to have been a witness to all the changes that have happened on the tide of globalization, and the corresponding transformation of the images around us. My parents weren’t particularly influenced by globalization, and people younger than me hardly think about it, because for them, this is the way the world has always been. But globalization has had a huge influence on my generation, and I think we’ve experienced the most changes. The most immediate issue for artists is globalization, followed by urbanization. For example, if you go from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, it’s a distance of about 200 kilometers, but all along the highway, you don’t see any fields, just factories. In China, and in all of Asia, we’ve been talking about urbanization for over a decade. This is an age of tremendous possibilities, a sign that individuals have to adapt and reassess their personal values, because we’ll certainly be facing newer, bigger problems.
JS: Back when you were working in Shenzhen, the landscape in Hong Kong, on the other side of the border, was very different from the mainland. Hong Kong was very close, but it was like a different world in terms of what the media could report. Did that affect your interest in the media?
YY: At the time, I naturally paid a lot of attention to the media in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and overseas. Also, through my long-term interest in images and the media, I was able to accumulate a lot of things that I could later use as building blocks, like bricks used to construct a house.
JS: So Shenzhen was a window on the world that allowed you to see these various influences.
YY: That’s right.
JS: When you moved from Shenzhen to Beijing, how was it different? What new influences did you encounter in Beijing?
YY: Beijing? I don’t think Beijing has had much influence on me, at least not at this point.
JS: What made you choose Beijing?
YY: It’s more convenient for work.
JS: How do you select the pictures you use from different magazines, and why?
YY: I have my own system for determining what I use, and it’s based on images that moved me in different ways. I take these various judgments and connections and use them to construct a complete and individual vocabulary. I guess one criterion is that the images be representative in some way: be it a political topic or a fashionable woman, each image is representative of something unique. I hope to use them to construct a system that expresses my attitude and worldview.
JS: These days, pictures exist for a very short span of time, especially in the media. A picture appears, disappears, and is replaced by another one. So reactivating these pictures through the canvas, through painting, is that a way to freeze them for all eternity? Normally that’s what photography does, but not anymore, because things move so fast.
YY: I don’t see photography as having a particularly short life span, although maybe paintings do last a bit longer. I think of different forms of media like tableware, like chopsticks, forks or spoons. For some meals, you need a spoon; for others, you’re better off with chopsticks. I think the key is choosing the most appropriate tool or method for your task. Of course, the reason I’ve chosen to paint these images is simple: it’s another chance for me to transform them.
JS: Is the fact that these images are all freely available connected to the title of your previous exhibition: The World is Yours?
YY: Yes, perhaps.
JS: You could have chosen images from local or national media, but instead you’ve used images from the international media. When we look at your work, there are references to Time, Vogue, media from Great Britain, and other things from outside. Why this choice of pictures, this focus on global media?
YY: It might be unintentional, because these are the images I see the most. I haven’t thought too much about it.
JS: Do you feel like the magazine images you’ve chosen are representative of your generation?
YY: Not really, but I do think they represent some of the things this generation is interested in.
JS: Who are the artists who influenced you the most, your mentors?
YY: I have a lot of respect for Hans Haacke. I like his work. There’s also a Chinese artist named Xu Tan whom I respect a lot.
JS: Hans Haacke is a very political artist. He’s famous for raising political problems in his work. What other artists have influenced you?
YY: Haacke is one of the artists I like. There’s also Francis Bacon and Steffan Wolfgang Thomas. I’ve haven’t been influenced as much by Chinese artists.
JS: Is your work critical of the media? Or do you consider the media beyond critique, because it’s become so commonplace, so omnipresent?
YY: The media has had a huge impact on us, at least on me. Twenty years ago, I had no concept of the media, except maybe newspapers. But today there's such a great variety of media: television, the Internet, magazines, and so on. Every day, these forms of media provide me with vast amounts of information; most importantly, they communicate different sorts of value systems. I have to sift through it all, preserving what's important and discarding most of it, getting rid of the things I don't need. That's the greatest strength of today's media: the way it influences our values by transmitting a variety of news and information.
JS: Recently, you’ve started painting on things besides canvas: on furniture, or in your upcoming exhibition at UCCA, on lampshades. Does this mean that media and pictures have become new “homes” for us, new things driving our world? I say this because every day, we want more pictures, more news. Our world is addicted to news and pictures. Even the catastrophes we see every day on television don’t affect us anymore. A century ago, pictures like this would have been shocking, but now they don’t even affect us anymore.
YY: I think sometimes these images are a lot like music, in that they can influence our judgments and moods. For example, when I paint Zidane, I'm not necessarily talking about what a good football player he is; I'm appropriating his power and position in the world to make a point that has nothing to do with sports. It's the same with a lot of fashion photography: an image of a pretty girl can communicate a lot of information that doesn't necessarily arise from her sense of fashion. I'm looking for the other side, the flip side of the metaphor.
JS: What do you mean by “the other side”? What is it you’re searching for?
YY: I don’t know, because I haven’t found it yet. Maybe I shouldn’t say I haven’t found it yet, it’s just that the flip side…it’s hard to describe specifically. Maybe it’s the search itself; searching for an answer is much more interesting than finding the answer.
JS: By painting on everyday objects, things found in Chinese homes, you transfer the hegemony of the canvas onto something very casual, everyday and domestic. Are you trying to delete or dilute the aura of painting into something easier, simpler, more direct and contemporary?
YY: Yes.
JS: Are these “domestic paintings”, as I would call them, a way of saying that art has become a commodity?
YY: I don’t see these things as commodities, although art has always been a commodity.
JS: In making your new series of painted lampshades, you’ve taken images of the city and moved them indoors, transferring the city into the home, and the public into the private. It’s like you are reversing the process by taking these images from the city and placing them on ordinary lamps indoors. Is this to make the images feel more intimate, or to create a more intimate relationship between the images and the viewers?
YY: I've never thought about it that way before, but then again, everyone experiences these things in different ways. Maybe it's because I'm always leaping from one kind of work to another: I've done installations in the shape of a bridge, a mountain, and a bank of LED screens that looked like the Tokyo Stock Exchange. This time, I just want to create a work that's different from before. I'm willing to try new things, even if it means more trouble for me, because I don't want to label myself, or become a label.
JS: But why the need to bring these works to light, a domestic sort of light?
YY: It just seemed appropriate.
JS: But why lampshades, why light?
YY: Because I think lamps have a special significance. Everyone needs them, so you could say they're essential, and they're things that are close to us. The images that we see in magazines and household lamps are two things that take up a lot of space in our lives, so I think it's quite nice to pair them up. Lamps also convey a sense of warmth, which inspires us to rethink the way media affects our lives.
JS: I’m sure you realize that in producing these, you make it easier for us to enter into the reality of anyone’s home. More so than a canvas or a photo that you hang on a wall, there’s always a place in any room, in any house, for lamps.
YY: Really?
JS: There is no social barrier. You can have the smallest or the largest house, the poorest or the richest, and there’s always light, always room for lamps. Every house in the world has lamps and lampshades, lamps on the ceiling and walls and floors, and plugs on every wall.
YY: Yes.
JS: So, after the lights and the furniture, what is the next step in your work? What’s missing? You have produced furniture, and light to light the furniture…what is missing?
YY: The house.
JS: So the next step is to build a house, or to experiment with different kinds of space.
YY: In my past exhibitions, I’ve always experimented with different methods, special ways of interpreting a space and its meaning.
JS: It could become a media room, a room where every centimeter is filled with pictures. The floor, walls and ceiling could be covered with moving and static pictures. You could be completely inside the media—not surrounded by it, but inside it, at the heart of all the movement. It would be like being a prisoner of the light produced by all that media: news, television, cinema, even photos, which are made with light through a camera. Light captures a picture, but here, we are prisoners of the light. Oh, there’s another question I forgot to ask you. I keep looking at these pictures in your studio and wondering: why, when you capture the motion of the city and the changes in the world, are you inspired only by young women your age? There are hardly any images of guys, only woman.
YY: [in English] I like woman.
JS: A world without woman is not a world. Life starts with woman.
YY: People are always asking me about that. There’s no particular reason why. I just like photographing and looking at women.
JS: I would reply that young women of his age have the naiveté of the utopia, the naiveté to take risks, to embrace the world, to give energy to anyone, or to kill the energy of anyone. It’s exactly that combination of youthful arrogance and naiveté that is so poetic…two opposite parameters, like the beauty and the beast. It’s especially true when women are very young, like fresh fruit…
YY: Are you talking about these two beautiful girls sitting next to us?
JS: That time when you become a young adult is such a formative period. It’s where you begin to build your entire life. The first relationship you have with the world – the world outside your family or your home – is very important. For guys, too, but especially for women.
YY: There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask you, but I never had the chance before. Based on your understanding of China and the west, do you think Chinese contemporary art and culture have values that can be exported to the west, or that can have an influence overseas?
JS: Well, I think you are a very good example of how your generation has changed the scope of your work, the perspective of your vision, the knowledge of what is going on beyond the limits of your village, be it a local or a national village. For example, the picture of that young lady over there: she could be in London, Paris or New York. No one knows. There are no flags, no clear identity, which I find very interesting. It could be a picture on Facebook, Twitter, or the web. It’s the same with this picture over here: it could have been shot in Paris, London, or Stuttgart. No one knows where it comes from, which is exactly what pictures are like now. They have no territories, no clear boundaries. As you say, “the world is yours,” so you can use anything and reactivate it. There’s no obsession about where things come from, which was the case with the generation before you, because they had no chance to look beyond the limits of their country, no information about the world outside, so their whole world was the territory they were living in. That’s why the previous generation of artists were so focused on China, on their neighbors, on the obligation to be a social, smiling, fake person…you couldn’t escape that. But those kinds of obligations are over with your generation. It’s very clear that you have the freedom to share globally. Your voice can be read in London, in New York, in Asia or Latin America, and it makes no difference: no one cares if you are Portuguese, or Chinese, or from Iceland or anywhere else. It doesn’t matter where you’re from.
