Now that the crazy California locavores and their band of traveling creatives are nestled safely back in their relatively smog-free American existences, we can safely ask: “What the heck was that?”

Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society (and the brains behind the four-day US China Forum on the Arts & Culture) had expressed that he organized the forum in response to his own frustrations about the stalemate of political and economic dialogue between the two countries.

Some made fun of this sentiment. (“Right, diplomacy’s down the toilet, so let’s have a dinner party instead!”) But at some moments, I was convinced Schell might have a point.

One of those moments was the actors’ forum Friday afternoon, in which Meryl Streep (no explanation needed, surely?), Ge You (the bald guy in Chinese romcom If You Are the One and every other commercial on the subway) and Liu Ye (who played “young Mao” in this year’s nationalist flick Founding of a Party) bantered about their craft over questions by super-savvy moderator Melissa Chiu (director of the Asia Society Museum).

Other events I attended were plagued by bifurcated conversations and a lack of direction. Blame linguistic and cultural divides, or blame people not caring to know enough about their counterparts before going onstage with them.

But in this talk, the conversation seemed driven by mutual respect, an excess of goodwill and a sporting attitude about the challenges of working across languages and cultures. Case in point: While discussing their work together on the 2007 film Dark Matter, Meryl Streep joked, “Well … [Liu Ye’s] English was not as good as my Chinese.”

Then of course, there was Ge You’s knack for grabbing laughs – from the mostly Chinese audience, sure, but also from Ms. Streep and others. He told us he’d studied to be an actor, but his looks were an impediment, which drew many a chuckle. Most of the time though, he didn’t even have to talk to get people giggling. I think just the sight of his beady eyes darting around under that glistening pate while he was waiting for the translation coming through his headphones was comic gold.

Another highlight: The Chinese Meryl Streep Fan Club, represented by 20 students clad in bright yellow sweaters emblazoned with the actress’ name in block letters. They’d come from Shanghai, Sichuan, even Denmark. They’d had their sweatshirts custom-made. They’d also made posters. They were awesome.

Finally, someone asked Streep whether Ge You’s humor would work in the US. Her answer: “I think he’s hilarious. It’s completely translatable. He would have a great career in America – it’s classic, that kind of deadpan.”

Ambassador Gary Locke, when asked the same question two days before, had replied: “Well I think that he’s a very critically acclaimed actor and we’d like to see more of his films in the United States, but we’d really like to see more exchanges and opportunities for US and Chinese films to be shown in each others’ countries.”

That’s code for “Psst, SARFT! How’s about we kick that pesky foreign film quota to the curb?” Good ol’ Ambassador Locke, always on the job.

Anyhow, if more interactions between the US and China happened like this, the world might be a better place ten years from now. Ambassador, care to make some desk space for Ms. Streep?

Photos: Marilyn Mai, Cineatp.com and English.cri.cn