 In 1993, Ma quit his job and moved to the Beijing artists’ colony known as the East Village to start his career as a contemporary Chinese painter and pioneer of Chinese performance art.Although the living condition in the East Village was tough, Ma and his colleagues expressed their passion and creativity to contemporary art during this time period.At the end of Ma's first year in the East Village, two British visitors came to the village and had huge impact on Ma, perhaps changed the current of his life.