REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Lu Xun - May 4th Movement

Lu Xun (simplified Chinese: 鲁迅; traditional Chinese: 魯迅; pinyin: Lǔ Xùn) or Lu Hsün (Wade-Giles), was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (simplified Chinese: 周树人; traditional Chinese: 周樹人; pinyin: Zhōu Shùrén; Wade–Giles: Chou Shu-jen) (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936), one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua (白話) (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.

Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party. Like many leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal.

Lu Xun's works became known to English readers through numerous translations, beginning in 1960 with Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. More recently, in 2009, Penguin Classics published a complete anthology of his fiction titled The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun which the scholar Jeffrey Wasserstrom^[2] said "could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published."^[3Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Photograph of Lu Xun

Translation Needed

This is the cover page for the Lu Xun photographs, I am illiterate in Chinese and need help in the translation of this page.

Lu Xun

This is a compilation of phtoographs of Lu Xun - I purchased in a mall about 2007.

The back cover has a printed in the year 1974 on it.

The Packet Cards Came In

Cultural Revolution Post Cards (continued)

Cultural Revolution Post Cards (continued)

Cultural Revolution Post Cards?

I don't know the origin of these cards  Might be or might not be post office issue.  Still a mystery to me.  If you know something-please contact me

 

Chinese as Photographed on Ogden Cigarette Cards 1902

1902 Ogden Cigarette cards

Chinese Matchbook Covers

Du Fu - Paintings

A postcard set purchased about 2006.  I don't know when it was printed.

Du Fu

Du Fu, a very famous poet, lived in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Just as its name implies, the Thatched Cottage of Du Fu was his home more than a thousand years ago.

Du Fu was born in Gongyi City, Henan Province in 712. In 746, he took the official examination in Chang'an (now known as Xian) and continued to live there for more than ten years after the failure. But, in order to get away from the An-Shi Rebellion breaking out in 758, Du Fu fled to Chengdu in 759. With the help of friends, the thatched cottage was built in 760 beside the Flower Bathing Brook on the western outskirts of Chengdu. During his four years there, Du Fu composed more than 240 poems that are considered to be precious national treasures.

After Du Fu's departure from Chengdu, the cottage was abandoned for a long time and became dilapidated. Hundreds of years later in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) a new temple was built on the original site of the thatched cottage to commemorate this outstanding person in Chinese literature. From then on, it was renovated and enlarged repeatedly. There were two very important reconstructions in 1500 and 1811 respectively, both of which set the scale and structure of the present thatched cottage. Today, it is a shrine to Chinese literature and a commemorative museum in the form of a traditional garden.

Xu Beihong and his Horses

If you love horses or just enjoy great art, then Xu Beihong foots the bill.  Again, I came across this postcard set at a small shop in 2006.  Could not pass them by, don't know when they were published.

Xu Beihong (simplified Chinese: 徐悲鸿; traditional Chinese: 徐悲鴻; pinyin: Xú Bēihóng) was born in Yixing, China. He was primarily known for his shuimohua (Chinese ink paintings) of horses and birds and one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a new modern China at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes - a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique.^[1]

Xu began studying classic Chinese works and calligraphy with his father Xu Dazhang when he was six, and Chinese painting when he was nine. In 1915, he moved to Shanghai, where he made a living off commercial and private work. He traveled to Tokyo in 1917 to study arts. When he returned to China, he began to teach at Peking University's Arts school at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei. Beginning in 1919, Xu studied overseas in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he studied oil painting and drawing. His travels around Western Europe allowed him to observe and imitate Western art techniques. He came back to China in 1927 and, from 1927 to 1929, gained a number of posts at institutions in China, including teaching at National Central University (now Nanjing University) in the former capital city Nanjing.

In 1933, Xu organized an exhibition of modern Chinese painting that traveled to France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and the Soviet Union. During World War II, Xu traveled to Southeast Asia, holding exhibitions in Singapore and India. All the proceeds from these exhibitions went to Chinese people who were suffering as a result of the war.

More at WIKIPEDIA

Mei LanFang

Méi was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu in 1894 into a family of Peking opera and Kunqu performers. He made his stage debut at the Guanghe Theatre in 1904 when he was 10 years old.^[1] In his 50-year stage career, he maintained strong continuity while always working on new techniques. His most famous roles were those of female characters; skillful portrayal of women won him international acclaim, and his smooth, perfectly timed, poised style has come to be known in opera circles as the “Méi School.” He also played an important part in continuing the performance tradition of Kūnqǔ, noted particularly for his interpretations of Dù Lìniáng (杜丽娘; in The Peony Pavilion) and Bái Sùzhēn (白素贞; in Leifeng Pagoda) and Beauty Yu (in Farewell My Concubine). Mei's famous portrayal of Beauty Yu was so historically moving that Wenting Song say he is one of the greatest vocal artists in modern China.^[2]

Méi was the first artist to spread Beijing Opera to foreign countries, participating in cultural exchanges with Japan, the United States, and other regions. He toured the world, forming friendships with the western contemporaries of his day, including Charlie Chaplin. In 1930 he toured North America, visiting Hollywood, where he welcomed by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.^[3] In 1935, Mei toured Europe, playing to appreciative audiences in Berlin and Moscow. Seeing Mei perform especially impressed the German playwright Bertold Brecht and influenced his concept of the alienation effect.^[4]

In July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred. The Imperial Japanese Army soon occupied Beijing. The commander of the Japanese Army ordered Mei to perform for them and appointed Mei to a high rank official position. But Mei refused to sing throughout the duration of the war and endured an impoverished lifestyle until the war ended in 1945.

Bust of Méi Lánfāng in Mei Lanfang Memorial Museum in Beijing

After 1949 he served as director of China Beijing Opera Theater, director of the Chinese Opera Research Institute, and vice-chairman of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Besides his autobiography, Forty Years of Life on the Stage, several of his articles and essays have been published in The Collected Works of Mei Lanfang. Recordings of his best-known performances have been published in A Selection of Beijing Operas Performed by Mei Lanfang. In 2000, the story of his life was filmed in a documentary entitled The Worlds of Mei Lanfang. Acclaimed director Chen Kaige directed Forever Enthralled, a film biography of Mei's life, released in December 2008

Wikipedia

Chinese Postcards of Mei LanFang

I found these cards in a bazaar in 2008.

It is  impossible for me to to tell you how beautiful these photos are.  Simply, my vocabulary is not sufficient enough to to describe the stunning beauty of the reproductions shown here.  Cards were produced in 1994.  I paid approximately 20 yuan for them.

Enjoy.

大型新编史诗京剧赤壁 Red Cliff (Peking Opera )

 

大型新编史诗京剧赤壁
国家京剧院和中国国家大剧院的联手制作
于魁智饰演诸葛亮,个人很欣赏于魁智在这段中华丽的声线，明亮的眼神，俊秀的面庞，儒雅的气度，深邃的感情等等等等

唱词：

月迷离
星明灭
雁声凄凉

立赤壁
望大江
襟怀激荡
汛怒潮狂

众将士喜庆功欢声豪壮
我这里满斟酒祭洒长江

一樽酒酹江风 告慰东壤
此一战保江东六郡安康

二樽酒酹江月 佑我主上
从此后三分鼎汉祚重光

三樽酒酹江涛 珠泪盈眶
望残橹听鹤唳顿起悲凉

自古道兵者凶器慎用为上
好男儿入沙场非死即伤
纵然是曹孟德奸雄狂妄
他麾下也都是赤子儿郎
一把火几多家天塌祸降
母唤儿妻盼夫痛断肝肠

普天下谁不想太平安享
读书人本应当礼义兴邦
怎奈何逢乱世满途荆莽
也只好羽扇纶巾驱虎狼
盼只盼长风扫却烟尘障
诸葛亮再归隐躬耕南阳。

Large the new epic Peking Opera Red CliffAnd launch of the National Peking Opera Company and the China National Grand TheatreYu Kuizhi as Zhuge Liang personally appreciate very much during this gorgeous voice in Kuizhi, bright eyes, handsome face, refined bearing, deep feelings and so on and so forthLyrics:January blurredStars winkingYansheng bleakEstablished Red CliffWang Changjiang RiverTaste of agitationFlood bore madPublic soldiers festive, functional cheers heroicI am here full pour wine festival sprinkle the Yangtze RiverA bottle of wine, sprinkle river wind to comfort the East PyongyangThe First World War Paul Koto well-being of CountiesTwo bottles of wine, sprinkle Jiang month woo my lordFrom one-third of Ding Han Jo ShigemitsuThree bottles of wine, sprinkle Jiang Tao Zhu Lei filled with tearsThe hope residues scull listen dicey Dunqi desolateCaution as the ancient Tao soldiers who weapon onA good man into the battlefield wounded or deadEven Caomeng De King 's Men arrogantUnder his command are pure KenjiroA beacon for more than a few monsters disaster downMother calls the child Qipanfutong broken enterohepaticThe whole world who do not want to be too enjoy peaceReading this should FELL prosperousThe persevering Every troubled times full of rocks Jing MangAlso had to lupine Lun towel drive tigersHope only hope the winds sweep but smoke barrierWise hermit Gonggeng Nanyang.

Translation by Machine AT Google Translate.

Unlikely Chinese Opera Star

Tyler Thompson is an unlikely star in the world of Chinese opera. The African American teenager from Oakland has captivated audiences in the U.S. and China with his ability to sing pitch-perfect Mandarin and perform the ancient Chinese art form.

The black opera star dazzling China with his pitch-perfect Mandarin

A black teenager has captivated audiences in the U.S. and China with his ability to sing the classics of Chinese opera in pitch-perfect Mandarin

Fifteen-year-old Tyler Thompson, from Oakland, California, is an unlikely star of Chinese opera, but his ability to perform the ancient art form has earned him plaudits.

'As soon as he opens his mouth and sings in Chinese, the Chinese are very surprised and then feel very proud of him,' said his music teacher Sherlyn Chew.

Crossing cultures: Tyler Thompson rehearses with the Great Wall Youth Orchestra in Oakland, California

'When he puts on the costume, and all the acting, you can see that he's pretty good.'

Tyler, 15, is a standout student in Mrs Chew's Oakland-based Purple Silk Music Education program, which teaches children and youth - mostly from low-income immigrant families - how to sing and play traditional Chinese music.

He has learned to sing several well-known pieces of Chinese opera, a centuries-old form of musical theatre known for its elaborate costumes, clanging gongs and cymbals, wide-ranging vocals and highly stylised movements.

At the World Children's Festival in Washington in June, Tyler, dressed in a black robe emblazoned with golden dragons, won a standing ovation when he performed as Justice Bao, a famous Song Dynasty judge who fought government corruption, from the Chinese classic 'Bao Qing Tian.'

'The music is very beautiful, and it's very passionate. You can hear it when it's being played,' said Tyler, a theatre student at the Oakland School for the Arts.

'It's made me want to know more about the world outside of America or California or Oakland.'

Dress rehearsal: The 15-year-old Oakland native, who sings traditional Chinese opera in Mandarin, plans to perform in China this summer

David Lei, chairman of the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation in San Francisco, has seen Tyler perform several times and arranged to have him sing at the opening of a Chinese opera exhibit several years ago.

'It's very authentic because he hits the tones just right, so you understand everything,' Lei said.

'People just don't expect an Afro-American kid to be doing it. It's the initial shock. There's a sense of novelty.'

Tyler, who comes from a music-loving family, began learning how to sing in Chinese a decade ago when he was a kindergartner in Mrs Chew's music class at Oakland's Lincoln Elementary School, where about 90 percent of students are Asian.

Mrs Chew quickly recognized Tyler's talent and recruited him to join her Purple Silk music program, where students learn to sing Chinese songs and play traditional instruments.

'I really took a liking to him and thought he had quite a large range,' said Mrs Chew, who started the music program at Oakland's Laney College in 1995.

'He hears pitch very well, and his pronunciation of Chinese characters is very accurate.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019315/Tyler-Thompson-Black-opera-star-dazzling-China-pitch-perfect-Mandarin.html#ixzz1TJnOcURj[/QUOTE

 

 

Chinese artist’s ‘ugly’ doll photos metaphor for Chinese people’s anguish; exhibit in NYC

NEW YORK — Liu Xia is a forbidden artist whose work is censored in her native China. The photographer, who is under house arrest, uses life-like dolls as metaphors for the pain and suffering of the Chinese people.

Liu knows what it is to work in an oppressed society. Her husband is Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner jailed in 2009 for 11 years for urging democratic reform in China.

But Liu’s photographs are not about her husband, said Guy Sorman, a friend of the couple and curator of an exhibition of her works opening at Columbia University on Thursday evening.

“This is not about politics first. It’s about art first. Her husband is his own story. She is a major Chinese artist who happens to be the wife of Liu Xiaobo,” Sorman said in a telephone interview from Paris.

The 25 photos were spirited out of China just before Liu was placed under house arrest at the end of 2010 after her husband was awarded the Nobel prize.

Read more at The Washington Post

Qiu Jin

A Chinese poet and a revolutionary, Qiu Jin was born in 1875 into a moderately wealthy family. While growing up she enjoyed riding horses and playing with swords. She also liked to read. Her family insisted that she receive good education and she was able to socialize with other well-educated people.

At the age of twenty-one Qiu Jin was married to an older man. He had a more conventional outlook on life than she did and she felt stifled in this relationship. She left her husband in 1903 and went to study in Japan where she was vocal in her support for women's rights and pressed for improved access to education for women. To provide female role models, she wrote articles about historical Chinese women.

In 1906 she returned to China and started publishing a women's magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various prefessions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women's freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters' future security.

Qiu Jin felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the corrupt Manchu government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her male cousin Hsu Hsi-lin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Manchu government. On July 6, 1907 Hsu Hsi-lin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the government troops arrested Qiu Jin at the school for girls, where she was a principal. She refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and she was beheaded. Qiu Jin was acknowleged immediately as a heroine and a martyr who died fighting enemies of the Chinese people and she became a symbol of women's independence.

Source: Distinguished Women of Past and Present, contributed by Danuta Bois, 1997; http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/qiujin.html

References:
Herstory. Women Who Changed the World, edited by Ruth Ashby and Deborah Gore Ohrn, Viking, 1995. Qiu Jin profile by Lynn Reese.

While Qiu Jin (秋瑾) is mainly remembered in the West as revolutionary and feminist, one aspect of her life that gets overlooked is her poetry and essays. Having received an exceptional education in classical literature, reflected in her writing of more traditional poetry (shi and ci) Qiu composed verse with a wide range of metaphors and allusions; mixing classical mythology along with revolutionary rhetoric.

 Read more at Voices

 

Misty Poets

Road to East Asia

 A journal on contemporary East Asian literature in English

Written by students of FC1750.06
at Founders College, York University

Vol.2, no. 3, June-August, 1997

 

Voices from Today's China

by Jessica Martin

 

One thing China has not known is light . . . Soon the bright day will dawn . . .

 

--by Xiang Yang, from Trees on the Mountain

There is an extraordinary group of young poets and writers from China who have carved a respected space for themselves in the literary world. Ironically, whatever they have written on paper is subject to government scrutiny and is often grounds for criminal prosecution. Most of them have left the country, opting to pursue their careers in lands more receptive to their work while a few remain behind to struggle against the hostile barrier the government presents when a poet tries to get published. As is evident in the short excerpt from Xiang Yang's poem, there is determined spirit amongst these literary revolutionaries, one that does not let oppression stop their work.

The group responsible for inciting this spirit of rebellion founded and contributed to the Today magazine during its short period of publication from 1978 to 1980. Three of the most famous writers of that period were Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, and Shu Ting, best known for their so-called "misty" poetry. In the broad sense of the word, it means "vague," "indirect," and "elusive." Despite the diverse stylistic approaches, three common themes recur--individualism and self expression, human relationship with the natural worlds, and the struggle against oppression.

In the late 1970s, Zhao Zhenkai (Bei Dao), then an aspiring poet, got together frequently with friends and colleagues and talked about starting a literary magazine that would give voice to the emerging authors. The future of China's cultural tradition would rest in their hands. At that time, the Cultural Revolution was just ending and the situation was volatile, with various politicians hoping to be Mao Tsetung's successor. Deng Xiaoping was poised to receive this honor, and in order to gain the support of the people, Deng fully endorsed the Democracy Wall Movement in 1978. This movement allowed the people to express their grievances with the government and their discontent with the outcome of the Cultural Revolution.

Under such circumstances, Zhao Zhenkai's plan for a literary journal flourished. The pages of the first issue of Today (Jiantian) were among the initial writings on the Wall, and from 1978 to 1980, the magazine continued publishing, giving new talents a voice to be heard. Publishing under the pseudonym Bei Dao, Zhao Zhenkai's literary career took off.

In 1980 Deng Xiaoping came into power, and he put a stop to the "spiritual pollution" caused by this magazine. The writers then had to take their work underground. In an interview with Siobhan La Pianan (1994, online), Bei Dao noted that there were periods during the next eight or nine years when his poetry was published in official journals as a source for discussion and debate but the attitude of the government towards his work was so unpredictable that it was hard to know how it would be taken. Finally, in 1989 the magazine resumed publication, this time out of Stockholm. Bei Dao and Gu Cheng were banished from China, giving them the unfortunate position of being writers in exile. Shu Ting still lives incognito in southern China. (See "Writers-in-exile after Tiananmen," Road to East Asia.)

All these poets have a strong sense of self and repeatedly focus on this aspect in their work. It transmits spontaneously personal feelings and a desire for free expressions as an individual rather than as a group or a nation. In this way, their work appears to be far less politically motivated since they do not focus on class struggle or class character.

The desire for self-expression is obvious in Shu Ting's poem "Gifts," anthologized in Trees on the Mountain:

 

Through the tree roots I'll enter the veins of their leaves
Yet when they wither I'll not be sad
For I shall have expressed myself
And gained life.

Read more at York University

Selected Stories of Lu Hsun

SOAP

With her back to the north window in the slanting sunlight, Ssu-min's wife with her eight-year-old daughter, Hsiu-erh, was pasting paper money for the dead when she heard the slow, heavy footsteps of someone in cloth shoes and knew her husband was back. Paying no attention, she simply went on pasting coins. But the tread of cloth shoes drew nearer and nearer, till it finally stopped beside her. Then she could not help looking up to see Ssu-min before her, bunching his shoulders and stooping forward to fumble desperately under his cloth jacket in the inner pocket of his long gown.

By dint of twisting and turning at last he extracted his hand with a small oblong package in it, which he handed to his wife. As she took it, she smelt an indefinable fragrance rather reminiscent of olive. On the green paper wrapper was a bright golden seal with a network of tiny designs. Hsiu-erh bounded forward to seize this and look at it, but her mother promptly pushed her aside.

"Been shopping? . . ." she asked as she looked at it.

"Er--yes." He stared at the package in her hand.

The green paper wrapper was opened. Inside was a layer of very thin paper, also sunflower-green, and nor till this was unwrapped was the object itself exposed--glossy and hard, besides being sunflower-green, with another network of fine designs on it. The thin paper was a cream colour, it appeared. The indefinable fragrance rather reminiscent of olive was stronger now.

"My, this is really good soap!"

She held the soap to her nose as gingerly as if it were a child, and sniffed at it as she spoke.

"Er--yes. Just use this in future. . . ."

As he spoke, she noticed him eyeing her neck, and felt herself flushing up to her cheekbones. Sometimes when she rubbed her neck, especially behind the ears, her fingers detected a roughness; and though she knew this was the accumulated dirt of many years, she had never given it much thought. Now, under his scrutiny, she could not help blushing as she looked at this green, foreign soap with the curious scent, and this blush spread right to the tips of her ears. She mentally resolved to have a thorough wash with this soap after supper.

"There are places you can't wash clean just with honey locust pods," she muttered to herself.

"Ma, can I have this?" As Hsiu-erh reached out for the sunflower-green paper, Chao-erh, the younger daughter who had been playing outside, came running in too. Mrs. Ssu-min promptly pushed them both aside, folded the thin paper in place, wrapped the green paper round it as before, then leaned over to put it on the highest shelf of the wash-stand. After one final glance, she turned back to her paper coins.

"Hsueh-cheng!" Ssu-min seemed to have remembered something. He gave a long-drawn-out shout, sitting down on a high-backed chair opposite his wife.

"Hsueh-cheng!" she helped him call.

She stopped pasting coins to listen, but not a sound could she hear. When she saw him with upturned head waiting so impatiently, she felt quite apologetic.

"Hsueh-cheng!" she called shrilly at the top of her voice.

This call proved effective, for they heard the tramp of leather shoes draw near, and Hsueh-cheng stood before her. He was in shirt sleeves, his plump round face shiny with perspiration.

"What were you doing?" she asked disapprovingly. "Why didn't you hear your father call?"

"I was practising Hexagram Boxing. . . ." He turned at once to his father and straightened up, looking at him as if to ask what he wanted.

"Hsueh-cheng, I want to ask you the meaning of o-du-fu."

"O-du-fu? . . . Isn't it a very fierce woman?"

"What nonsense! The idea!" Ssu-min was suddenly furious. "Am I a woman, pray?"

Hsueh-cheng recoiled two steps, and stood straighter than ever. Though his father's gait sometimes reminded him of the way old men walked in Peking opera, he had never considered Ssu-min as a woman. His answer, he saw now, had been a great mistake.

"As if I didn't know o-du-fu means a very fierce woman. Would I have to ask you that?--This isn't Chinese, it's foreign devils' language, I'm telling you. What does it mean, do you know?"

"I . . . I don't know." Hsueh-cheng felt even more uneasy.

Read mre at Selected Stories Lu Hsun

Ai Weiwei is named ArtReview's 'most powerful artist'

The artist has spoken out against human rights abuses in China

Continue reading the main story

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world, according to a poll compiled by ArtReview magazine.

But Mr Ai, who was released in June after being detained for more than 80 days by Chinese authorities, told the BBC he does "not feel powerful at all".

The magazine said he was chosen by the panel because of his political activism, as much as his artwork.

China criticised the selection saying it was based on "political bias".

In a statement, ArtReview magazine said: "[His] activities have allowed artists to move away from the idea that they work within a privileged zone limited by the walls of a gallery or museum."

"It's expanding the possibilities of what you can do with art, and as an artist how you can use your voice," it added.

Read more at BBC

Almost half of £1 million Chinese auction bids unpaid six months after they were lodged

Almost half of all £1 million-plus bids placed in China's auction houses remained unpaid six months after they were lodged, it has emerged.

The findings by the Chinese Association for Auctioneers give a rare official glimpse beneath the surface of what one Western art-dealer has described as the "shark infested waters" of China's art world.

The 18th century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase

International auction houses have enjoyed a series of record-breaking sales since 2009 as 'hot' Chinese money flooded the market in search of investment opportunities following a massive surge in cheap credit following the 2008 financial crisis.

But the problems of the weak regulation in the Chinese art market could be seen last year when a Chinese bidder 'paid' a record-breaking £53m for a Qing Dynasty vase found in the house of a Middlesex widow.

The 'sale' initially attracted celebratory headlines but these were quickly tempered by reports that both the owner and the auctioneer had been forced to travel to China in pursuit of payment. The parties will still not confirm if the payment has been received.

The survey of last year's autumn sales from 250 Chinese auction houses found that two fifths of sales above 10m yuan (approximately £1m) had not been fully paid by April this year, according to Ou Shuying, the Association's deputy general-secretary.

Read more at The Telegraph

Full River Red

 

怒发冲冠，凭阑处、潇潇雨歇。
抬望眼，仰天长啸，壮怀激烈。
三十功名尘与土，八千里路云和月。
莫等闲白了少年头，空悲切...

Leaning against the railing,
Watching the rushing rain easing,
My heart is raging.

Tossing my head towards the heaven,
Letting out an anguished wailing,
My blood is boiling.

Thirty years of exploit,
To me, just a pile of dust;
Eight thousand miles of expedition,
I lived rough under clouds and moonlight

With all these, I have no regrets,
For I didn't waste my youth
By doing something meaningless...

Read more at Multiple Texts