Grab a lunchtime plate of pelmeni (boiled dumplings filled with minced pork) at one of the surrounding cafes and yo will mix with students whose work could soon hang in the galleries you have just explored.
Wednesday's lunch offerings for the Beijing delegation featured the relatively mundane egg drop soup, boiled corn, stir-fried bokchoy and sticky rice with pork.
Dishes like pork and shrimp dumplings topped with a hard-boiled quail egg are so popular that diners will crowd around as soon as carts enter the dining room.