REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Culture week gives Spaniards glimpse into China's Tibet

MADRID, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- The "2010 China Tibetan Culture Week" ended here Thursday after giving Spaniards a glimpse into the mysterious Tibet.

The 10-day cultural event was the first of its kind held in Spain and featured traditional Tibetan paintings, colorful pictures, folk songs and dancing.

Visitors were impressed by the long history of Tibetan ethnic culture, unique local customs, the modern socioeconomic development of Tibet, and the happy and prosperous life that locals live today.

A part of the event is an exhibit at Madrid Readers' Club, where over 80 photos taken by Chinese and foreign photographers as well as 30 local Thangka paintings by Tibetan artists were on display, offering an insight into Tibet from the perspective of culture, religion, landscape, and modern life there.

In another key portion of the culture week, over 30 Tibetan artists performed folk songs and dances of distinctive Tibetan ethnic flavor, which received acclaims from the visitors. Many viewers said they simply could not get enough after the two-hour show.

Read more at XINHUANET

Mother abandons baby girl on the street in China because she's blonde

London, Nov 24 (ANI): A newborn baby was abandoned on the street in China by her mother - because the little girl was blonde.

The white-haired Chinese baby was discovered by a passer-by, who heard the child cry, on a street corner in Nanning, Guangxi Province.

"I was walking to work and heard cries from a wrapped-up quilt in the corner. By opening it I found a baby crying very sadly," the Daily Mail quoted the passer-by as saying.

Police discovered a bag of baby clothes besides the quilt and an envelope containing 3,900 Yuan, about 390 pounds.

On the envelope the mother had written: "I hope warm-hearted people can help to send the baby to the orphanage house. Wish you all the best. My dear baby I am an irresponsible mother and an incapable mother. I am sorry."

Police suspected but have not confirmed that the mother dumped her child because of the baby's white hair.

Meanwhile, most Chinese families are allowed only one child to reduce the population of 1.3 billion-plus and cut unsustainable demands on resources.

Many children, mostly girls, are abandoned because of the policy.(ANI)

OneIndiaNews

Created in China

With Western music flooding the mainland, preserving China’s traditional ethnic instruments is becoming more critical than ever.

In Shanghai’s super-modern grand Theater, a fashionable, mainly young audience applauds enthusiastically as Guo Yong takes center stage. He acknowledges the semicircle of musicians around him and prepares to play a solo. But Guo does not raise a flute, trombone, or oboe to his lips; instead, he proudly holds aloft a large bushy tree branch covered in leaves. Blowing on one of the leaves, he produces a sound that mimics the twittering of birds as he plays a traditional Buyi folk song. The other musicians on the stage include a Mongolian throat singer, an ethnic Kazakh from northwestern Xinjiang playing a two-stringed banjo, and a four-member Miao minority singing troupe from a village in southwestern Guizhou.

It’s the first time such music has ever been performed in the Grand Theater, a formal venue more accustomed to large Western symphonies playing Beethoven. But these musicians are all playing traditional songs from their various ethnic groups. The songs are interspersed with new, specially composed pieces inspired by these traditions, sung in lilting, ethereal tones by Zhu Zheqin, the Cantonese-born singer whose vision this concert embodies. Zhu, better known abroad as Dadawa, has always stood out in China’s contemporary music scene; in the 1990s she became the first Chinese musician to win international acceptance in the “world music” field with her Tibetan-inspired albums Sister Drum and Voices From the Sky. Now she has made it her mission to help preserve China’s traditional ethnic music.

In 2009, after being appointed a United Nations Development Program ambassador, Zhu traveled through some of China’s remotest regions—accompanied by a film crew, photographer, and writer—in an attempt to document the traditional music of various minority groups. In the course of their four-month odyssey, they recorded more than a thousand songs. In Miao areas, Zhu watched young people singing love songs on the mountainsides—a traditional courting ritual for an ethnic group that has no written language. She heard hundreds of people of the Dong minority singing complicated, multipart music without a conductor. And in Tibet, she discovered a historic form of religious music played only in one village. But Zhu realized that many of the best musicians were old, and some of the music was at risk of dying out. “I was shocked by the beauty of what I heard—it was so good,” she says. “But it needed support. I hope to let people see the beauty of these things in the contemporary era.”

Read more at NEWSWEEK

Mandarin's Great Leap Forward

ON A small street in Singapore’s Chinatown Fu Xianling, the founder of a language-education company called New Concept Mandarin, searches for additional office space. Mr Fu wants to expand his business with the lofty ambition of competing with the industry leader, Rosetta Stone. Demand for his product has increased by 20% over the past two years.

As the Chinese economy surges, so does interest in Mandarin. The Chinese government estimates some 40m people study Mandarin outside the country, up from 30m in 2005. A tight job market in the West is partly responsible. According to a survey in September by Rosetta Stone, 58% of Americans believe the lack of foreign-language skills among native workers will lead to foreigners taking high-paying jobs. “The recession has focused people on where growth is going to come from,” says Tom Adams, the firm’s chief executive. Among existing corporate customers logging into the company’s multi-language programme, the number learning Mandarin increased by 1,800% between 2008 and 2010.

Fred Rao, the founder of eChinese Learning, which offers one-on-one Mandarin instruction through Skype, predicts fierce competition. Taking a page from Mr Rao’s playbook, Rosetta Stone recently launched a new way for its Mandarin students to connect via video links to instructors in China.

Read more at The Economist

Cloisonne Enamel Factory

Agony Uncle: Spa attire and wedding gifts

Sir David Tang, globetrotter, entrepreneur, and the man about too many towns to mention divides his time between homes in Hong Kong, mainland China and London. He created the interiors for his Shanghai Tang shops and China Clubs and believes that style transcends nationality and race. Here he offers stylish advice to everyday questions on property, interiors, etiquette and anything else that may be bothering you.

Recently a friend returned from a business trip in Hong Kong. Invited by a respected Chinese chief executive to the Mandarin spa, he showed up for an afternoon of luxury and was most surprised to find the man dressed in a robe, ready to discuss business. As the meeting unfolded by the pool, my friend could think of one thing only: how to look professional in a bath towel. In order to avoid this embarrassing situation, how should one conduct business wearing nothing but spa attire?

Financal Times

Only the triads transact serious business in towels. Maybe also the tattooed mafia, or the fingerless yakuzas. But no self-respecting Chinese chief executive would dream of having a business meeting in semi-nakedness. So your friend must be dealing with a very questionable Chinaman.

He would be well advised to beat a hasty retreat by shaming conjunctivitis or psoriasis. But if he had dithered and was already in spa attire, then the only professional thing to do would have been to carry on regardless, totally ignoring the bizarre surroundings. That’s exactly what a pro does: he gets on with it.

Meet made-in-China Facebook, Twitter

|Facebook

Facebook and Twitter cannot be accessed in China as the government has not permitted their use fearing they would spread easily among the net savvy youth

BEIJING: As social networking websites Facebook and Twitter stand banned in China, their indigenous versions have hooked millions of Chinese users.

Kaixin001.com, translated in English as the 'happy network' is China's Facebook-style website that already has about 90 million users.

Then there is Twitter's Chinese clone Weibo which is used by 40 million people, a media report in the official news agency said.

"I start my day of work by reading the latest web postings from my friends," said Cecilia Jiao, 27, a news editor in Beijing said. "I'm used to it, just like many others," she told state run Xinhua news agency.

These websites are increasingly popular in China, where many of the nation's 420 million "netizens" embrace social media as a trendy way to interact with friends and keep up on the day's news, the report said.

Facebook and Twitter cannot be accessed in China as the government has not permitted their use fearing they would spread easily among the net savvy youth and may pose a potential political threat to the one party system.

Kaixin001.com has netted 90 million users by September since it began in 2008 and the figure is increasing by 100,000 per day.

Read more: Meet made-in-China Facebook, Twitter - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Meet-made-in-China-Facebook-Twitter/articleshow/6851506.cms#ixzz149A0GoBm

China Remembers a Vast Crime

BEIJING — In early October of 1860, the commanders of the British and French forces waging war on Qing Dynasty China held a tense conference outside the gates of the Garden of Perfect Brightness — Yuanmingyuan — on the western outskirts of Beijing.

 

This photo taken by Ernst Ohlmer in 1873 is believed to be one of the earliest photos of the Yuamningyuan

 

Victory was at hand, the emperor having fled on an “autumnal hunting tour,” and the meeting concerned its spoils: Each side feared the other would obtain more booty from looting the huge complex.

As the primary residence of five Qing emperors, Yuanmingyuan contained hundreds of palaces, temples, libraries, theaters, pavilions, chapels, gazebos and galleries filled with priceless artworks, antiquities and personal possessions. To ensure an equitable distribution of this imperial property, the commanders agreed to appoint “prize agents” to divvy it up. There followed an orgy of indiscriminate plunder in which anything that could not be carted off was destroyed.

Then, on Oct. 18, British forces were ordered by Lord Elgin — son of the Lord Elgin who removed the marble friezes from Greece’s Parthenon — to inflict a final blow, with fire, as revenge for the deaths of British and Indian prisoners in Chinese captivity.

Read more at The New York Times

Chinese Chopsticks

China Chopsticks are known to have been used at least 5,000 years ago in the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC). The oldest chopsticks discovered were made of bronze. It is thought they were first used to lift hot food from the cooking pot, which was over the fire. Later, as fuel resources became scarce, food was cut into smaller pieces allowing for faster cooking and easier retrieval. The smaller pieces of food were easier to eat using chopsticks. Confucianism taught “honorable and upright man keeps well away from the slaughterhouse and kitchen and he allows no knives on his table.”

The word chopstick means quick in Chinese, and so they are referred to as “speedy little fellows.” The lower chopstick is held stationary between the thumb and index finger supported on the third finger. The upper chopstick, acting as a lever, is held between the thumb and index finger and supported on the third finger. Food is served in small pieces or in amounts that can easily be broken apart with chopsticks. Lifting the bowl to the mouth with one hand and using chopsticks with the other hand to push the food into the mouth to eat rice. When finished eating the chopsticks are placed on the bowl with the small tip pointing away.

Read more at ChineseArt

Going Baroque in China

Christopher Hogwood teaching a master class in baroque music at Beijng’s Central Music Conservatory earlier this month

BEIJING — The young musicians ended the first movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and looked expectantly at the maestro. Christopher Hogwood weighed his words carefully then decided that honesty was the best policy.

“That was Tchaikovsky,” the 69-year-old guru of Baroque music said to falling faces. “It was not Baroque music. Can you buy CDs of Baroque music in China? DVDs? I’d suggest listening to them first.”

It was a small but telling scene at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, where Mr. Hogwood was holding a master class on Baroque music. As part of an unprecedented program of Baroque music at the Beijing Music Festival, Mr. Hogwood was in town doing pioneer work: bringing 17th- and 18th-century western music — Bach, Handel, Rameau, Lully and Vivaldi — to a country where western classical music seems to begin and end with the big Romantic stars of the 19th century — Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler — with a bit of Mozart and even less Bach thrown in to the mix.

But as Mr. Hogwood was discovering, even students at this prestigious school had little idea what Baroque was all about. Students could not play without “vibrato” — the rocking of the hand on the violin neck that is typical of later classical music but rarely used in the Baroque era. They didn’t know how to organize themselves on stage like the music calls for and didn’t have scores from the Baroque era, instead using heavily marked-up sheet music that turned the light, subtle score into overpowering Romantic fare.

“Baroque is totally neglected here,” said Song Tu, program director of the Beijing Music Festival, which featured four Baroque-era performances. “There’s no Baroque ensemble anywhere in China, there are no period instruments, and it’s basically not taught in the conservatories. Most people aren’t even aware it’s part of the western classical music tradition.”

Read more at The New York Times

 

Chinatown

China has a long and rich history of exploration and migration around the world. In fact, according to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, at the end of 2003, there were 36,116,521 Chinese people living in countries around the world and 35,485,946 at the end of 2004 (measured by the first 20 ranked locations).

A Chinatown is an urban region containing a large population of Chinese people within a non-Chinese society. The word "Chinatown" in Chinese means "The Street of the Tang People", with Tang referring to the Tang Dynasty, a period of Chinese history regarded by many people as the pinnacle in the Chinese civilization.

For many Chinese people, the original Chinatowns around the world were not started out of choice, but because of racial segregation, and oppression. In other places, they were created to bring a sense of home and community to strangers in a new land.

The early Chinese immigrants created small Chinatowns in which they opened their own stores and restaurants, set up temples, and formed different community support groups.

Whatever their origins, you can find a Chinatown in almost every major city in the world. They vary in size -- from a couple of streets to large, thriving cities within a city.

Visit any Chinatown in the world and you'll be treated to a banquet for your senses -- vibrant, shimmering silks that are sensuously soft against your skin, exotic spices and culinary delights to tempt your tongue along with a kaleidoscope of sounds, fireworks and music. Wander along the crowded streets and you'll find large pagoda-style arches, paper lanterns, Chinese dragons, beautiful temples, ethnic Chinese and other Asian restaurants and small businesses.

Here is a list of some of the best Chinatowns in the world:

San Francisco, California: The largest Chinatown on the West Coast, Chinatown is one of San Francisco's biggest tourist attractions. It is world-renowned for its exotic ambience. The history of this Chinatown dates back to the gold rush days of the mid 1800s. Although they were not allowed in the mines, Chinese immigrants built laundries and restaurants to see the growing city. Today, the area is about eight blocks long, and the best time to visit is usually mid-day. Don't miss the small exotic shops that you'll find on the narrow streets, to look for the best bargains. Here are some attractions of SF Chinatown : Bank of Canton, Cameron House, Canton Flower Shop, Chinatown Gateway, Churches, Great Star Theater, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, Hotels, Library, Museums, Nam Kue Chinese School, Parking, Parks, Portsmouth Square, Restaurants, Streets, SW Hotel, YWCA.

New York City, New York: Found in lower Manhattan, Chinatown in New York takes up two square miles. It is the largest Chinatown in the U.S. Founded by Chinese sailors and traders in the mid 18th century; the population was small and transient. It wasn't until the Californian Gold Rush that large numbers of Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. After racial tension created problems in the West, immigrants moved back east for safety and employment. Today it's overcrowded and narrow streets are both a tourist attractions and home to the largest population of Chinese New Yorkers.

Read more at CHINATOWN CONNECTION

Artist Ai Weiwei 'celebrates' studio demolition

Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says he is offering his supporters 10,000 river crabs -- an autumn delicacy -- to "celebrate" the government-ordered demolition of his new Shanghai studio.

Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, pictured, says he is offering his supporters 10,000 river crabs - an autumn delicacy - to "celebrate" the government-ordered demolition of his new Shanghai studio.

Ai, one of China's most famous artists and social critics, was invited to build the 1.1-million-dollar studio in a new art district in the city's north, but officials have now declared it an illegal structure.

"November 7 is 'River Crab Fest' at Ai Weiwei's Shanghai studio," he wrote in a post on Twitter.

The artist said he would offer a banquet on Sunday including Chinese wine and 10,000 river crabs -- whose name in Chinese sounds like "harmonise", a government euphemism for censorship.

It was not immediately clear whether Ai, who is based in Beijing, would attend the event in person.

A representative for Ai confirmed the details of the event to AFP.

Shanghai called a six-month moratorium on major demolition and construction projects during the World Expo to improve the city's air quality, but since the event concluded on Sunday, halted projects have resumed.

"Now the Shanghai city government has spare time to demolish Ai Weiwei's studio," the artist wrote on Twitter.

Ai had cranial surgery last year for injuries sustained during an incident with police in southwestern Sichuan province, where he was investigating the collapse of schoolhouses in the May 2008 earthquake that left more than 87,000 people dead or missing.

Ai's work is currently being showcased at a giant installation at London's Tate Modern gallery, where he has filled the main hall with millions of porcelain sunflower seeds.

His perhaps best-known work is his collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron, on the National Stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, known as the "Bird's Nest", which he has since renounced as a fake "smile".

Read more at Bangkok Post

Greed & Corruption: The USA Pavilion At The 2010 Shanghai Expo

The following is a first hand account of what went on behind the drab gray exterior of the USA Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai expo —  a tale of greed, indifference, corruption, rebellion and eventually justice — written by one of the Student Ambassadors who worked there.

The USA Pavilion was ruled by its coporate sponsors — sponsors who callously used eager Chinese volunteers, deceived and eventually politicized student interns and twisted an image of the US to fit their branding desires.

How did the pavilion morph from a nation’s showcase into a corporate advertising campaign?

The USA Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo conveyed an chilly office feel rather than a warm welcome from the West

Origins

It began in 1990, when the US Congress passed a law (U.S. Code Title 22 2452b) restricting the US State Department from providing public funds for World’s Fair Exhibition in an effort to curb the suspicious allocation of capital that had marred World’s Fairs of years past. Henceforth, funding for US participation in World’s Fairs has been limited to private sources only, which would assumedly be easier to track and control than mysterious government funding.

The US pavilion’s Commissioner General José Villarreal, a lawyer from San Antonio with ties to the Clinton family, spearheaded much of the fundraising efforts for this year’s pavilion. Over the course of what Villarreal describes as “particularly trying months,” he was able to reel in support from a cast of corporations and state governments, including Wal-Mart, Johnson and Johnson, and the State Department of Texas, among other sponsors.

In a personal conversation with José, he described that he did not control how money was spent at the Pavilion and was only responsible for initial fund-raising. This response came about when he was faced with questions from student ambassadors regarding how $61 million was spent on such a, to put it politely, “simple” pavilion. In terms of both architecture and content, the USAP was devoid of all  “bells and whistles” when compared to Saudi Arabia’s massive 4-D movie cinema complete with a moving walkway, Japan’s violin-playing robot, or Germany’s holistic presentation of German history and culture intertwined with technology

Read more at Chendu Living

Chinese Monkey King story adapted in $60M 3-D film

HONG KONG (AP) — The Monkey King character from Chinese folklore will be revived in a $60 million 3-D blockbuster starring Donnie Yen and Chow Yun-fat, as local filmmakers try to match the massive success of "Avatar" by launching their own productions in the new format.

The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong, hails from the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West," which describes a Buddhist monk's pilgrimage to India to collect religious texts. He is protected by three disciples, including a fighting monkey with magical powers.

The popular story is frequently adapted in stage productions, movies and TV series. It received the Hollywood treatment in 2008 when Lionsgate released "The Forbidden Kingdom," which costarred Jackie Chan and Jet Li, who played the Monkey King.

Now Chinese filmmakers are answering with a big-budget adaptation of their own.

Hong Kong director Soi Cheang started shooting "Monkey King" in Beijing on Oct. 8 with Yen in the title role and Chow playing a mythical emperor, Hong Kong-based Filmko Entertainment, one of the investors, said in a statement Monday. Other stars include actor-singer Aaron Kwok and actresses Kelly Chen, Cecilia Cheung and Gigi Leung.

"Monkey King" follows the character's life story before his India trip, when he attacked the Heavenly Kingdom with the Buffalo Demon King (Kwok), upset that he was snubbed by its rulers — a move that led to his imprisonment until the pilgrimage.

Read more at Google Hosted News

Cultural connections

BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Shirley Young and the Committee of 100 are using the arts to build bridges between China and the US.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shirley Young's life during the past two decades has been filled with, in her words, "small things"? yet, things big enough to bring about major turning points in some people's life. Hot tickets such as pianist Lang Lang, choreographer Huang Doudou, and new emerging singing star Shen Yang, who won BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2007, were all introduced to the right people and the world by Young.

They are just part of the 75-year-old's efforts to let the world know more about her motherland.

Young's birth father was a diplomat and her stepfather Ku Wei-chun, also known by his Western name V. K. Wellington Koo, was a leading diplomat for the Republic of China. So it is perhaps not surprising that from childhood Young's dream was to be involved in diplomacy.

Though her talent blossomed in business and she once served as corporate vice-president of General Motors Corporation, Young did not give up on her dream. She realized it in 1989, when she co-founded the Committee of 100, an independent non-profit group of prominent Chinese Americans based in New York. Its dual missions are to encourage a stronger relationship between the people of the United States and China, and encourage the full participation of Chinese-Americans in all aspects of American life.

More than 160 prominent Chinese-Americans have joined. Its members include cellist Yo-yo Ma, architect I. M. Pei, former American Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and figure skater Michelle Kwan.

Read more at XINHUANET



文章翻译：“You set a good example:” A Red Guard apology

He explained why he was more able to repent than Red Guards who had beaten people and why he dared to be different from them.  Whether or not to apologize is a major question.   How you set the implied meaning of the apology is also a major question.

“You set a good example:” A Red Guard apology
By Wang Youqin (王友琴)

I’ve seen a few letters recently that have to do with things which happened 44 years ago.  Several middle school students who were Red Guards in 1966 wrote them to apologize to the teachers they “struggled against” at the time.  Since I am a researcher of history, I thought it would be a good idea to write about it and let the world know. 

One side of the story concerns the teacher Cheng Bi (程璧) who is 86 this year.  She was in charge of Beijing Foreign Languages School during the Cultural Revolution, and just like so many others in education, Ms. Cheng first had her responsibilities revoked and later was imprisoned in the school.  She suffered insults and was savagely beaten.  They shaved half of her scalp to give a “yin-yang head.”

I conducted an investigation on this.  In August of 1966, the Red Guards from Beijing Foreign Languages School beat to death a kindergarten worker named Liu Guilan (刘桂兰) in the auditorium with wooden sticks, belts, and water pipes.  Those under persecution were called “demons and monsters” [牛鬼蛇神] back then and were the ones forced to carry her body away.  Ms. Cheng and Director of Instruction Yao Shuxi (姚淑禧) each grabbed a leg and dragged her away.  Yao Shuxi was beaten many times herself.  One night five different groups of Red Guards attacked her.  She was found in the ladies latrine with a rope around her neck as she dangled from a sewer pipe after “having committed suicide.” 

Another side of the story concerns eight Red Guards from Beijing Foreign Languages School in 1966.  They were teenagers 44 years ago, so now they are all about 60.  They have apologized to Ms. Cheng Bi and repented of the violence and persecution they perpetrated that year. 

A massive wave of violence started by the Red Guards in Beijing swept throughout the country in August of 1966.  They beat 1772 people to death in in Beijing alone (according to a December 20, 1980 report in Beijing Daily).  The number of people who suffered and the savagery which was used was unprecedented.  The victims were [politically] rehabilitated around 1979 and families of the deceased received 420 yuan in “compensation.”  What are those perpetrators of the violence from that year thinking now?  Do they admit to their failures?  Are they willing to apologize to the victims?  Can they repent?  Many people aren’t so sure. 

I have not investigated these people myself, so I have no way of knowing how representative the eight who apologized are in comparison to the whole population of Red Guards.  However, I am convinced that this action is worthy of praise. 

The first letter was written by Shen Xiaoke (申小珂):

Read more at infzm

American Junk Food: Why So Popular in China?

Spreading like wildfire

Fast food's popularity in China is no secret. Take a walk down the street of any major city and you are sure to pass countless signs for KFC, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut – sometimes within fifty meters of one another. Lest you think this is only a “big city” problem, consider the fact that, as of 2010, there are fast food restaurants in over 650 cities throughout China. In this day and age, consuming junk food on a daily basis is becoming the norm, not the exception.

Last year, the only industry to grow within the food sector was fast food, a fact that is largely due to China's rapidly increasing consumption. According to online newspaper The Independent, the fast food industry in China grew 13%, compared to just 2.9% in the U.S. It is easy to see why this growth is so high when you consider that Yum Brands (the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) is opening, on average, one new KFC a day. As of earlier this year, there were over 560 Pizza Hut's, 1,200 McDonald's, and 3,000 KFC's throughout the country (www.money.cnn.com). But at one new KFC per day, even statistics that are a couple of months old can not paint the full picture of what is happening in China.

So what is happening in China? Obesity rates are rising at unprecedented rates, causing great concern among both local and international doctors. While a large part of China was suffering from starvation less than fifty years ago, nowadays it is overeating that is killing the population. The Education of Ministry reports that 15% of Chinese children ages ten to twelve years old are overweight, while another 8% are considered medically obese. These statistics are shocking, even when compared with other countries that have more of a reputation for being overweight. USA Today cites Yang Qing, the director of the Health Ministry, as saying that "The speed of the [weight] increase greatly exceeds the growth trends found in Western developed countries.” Perhaps the most amazing part of this situation is that it has all happened in the last decade or so.

Master Of The Leaf: Preserving China's Music

Hear The Leaf, The Dongbula And The Modentsuur

Classically trained composer Guo Yong says it took him years to see the value of his Buyi minority music, such as blowing on leaves to mimic birdsong.

Louisa Lim/NPR

Classically trained composer Guo Yong says it took him years to see the value of his Buyi minority music, such as blowing on leaves to mimic birdsong.

text size A A A

October 28, 2010

On a chilly Beijing afternoon, musician Guo Yong is rooting through some bushes, choosing an instrument. He is a master of the common or garden leaf. Picking an average leaf and flicking it to check its elasticity, he puts it up to his mouth and blows against the surface, mimicking birdsong.

This skill catapulted the classically trained composer onto the stage of Beijing's egg-shaped National Theatre. He's among a number of ethnic minority musicians who are working together with Chinese pop singer Dadawa to save dying musical traditions from extinction.

Guo is from the Buyi minority, from Guizhou province in Southwestern China, and this is where he learned his leaf skills.

"In Guizhou, it's very mountainous," Guo says. "Sometimes it's boring to walk by yourself, so you grab a leaf and blow on it and copy the birds. Sometimes you use leaves to call to people, to talk to them, since with leaves the sound goes farther."

Guo says it took him years to see the value of his own traditional culture.

Reaad more and listen to audio clips at NPR

China: An army rising from the grave

 

Each soldier's face is individual and there are several different body shapes. Photo / Jim Eagles

Shrink

Each soldier's face is individual and there are several different body shapes. Photo / Jim Eagles

On the edge of a newly excavated area, a terracotta warrior was struggling to break free from the soil which had imprisoned him for more than 2000 years.

His head was already clear, as was his torso, still clad in its protective breastplate, though his arms were missing, his wooden spear had long since rotted away and he appeared to have some crushed ribs.

Someone had obviously been working hard to dig the warrior out but his legs were still stuck fast and so his imprisonment continued.

On his face was the sort of resigned expression you'd expect from a lowly soldier accustomed to being told what to do by others and well used to waiting around.

But all around in Pit 1 at the famous Terracotta Army, an hour's drive from the ancient Chinese capital of Xian, was the evidence that his long wait would eventually be over.

At the head of the massive excavation were hundreds of his former comrades - archers, infantrymen and a few horses and charioteers - who over the past 35 years have been painstakingly restored and put back on parade.

Read more at nzherald

Tracking Ageing Population Woes

IN 1979, China embarked upon an ambitious programme of economic reform, following the stagnation of the Cultural Revolution. At the time, it was home to a quarter of the world's people, and two- thirds of the population were under the age of 30.

The government saw population containment as a necessary condition for economic growth and an improvement in living standards, prompting the introduction of the one-child policy.

The immediate effect of the one-child policy was, as desired, a fall in fertility rates and the slowing of population growth, which was supportive of economic growth. Another outcome of the policy, however, has been the impending rapid ageing of the population likely to have far-reaching consequences for the country over the next few decades.

Today, China is still a relatively young country. The median age is around 30, more than 70 per cent of the population is of working age (15-64 years), and the dependency ratio is among the lowest in the world. As its policymakers anticipated, falling fertility has been a boon for the Chinese economy, with abundant labour a key factor in the spectacular economic performance over recent decades.

Yet the long-run implications of falling fertility are more troubling. China is ageing extraordinarily fast; even faster than Western Europe, and the speed of China's ageing pattern will also surpass Japan's, which is currently the oldest country in the world. The necessary corollary is that elderly dependency will rise to unprecedented levels.

Cheap labour has been central to China's growth model. As labour becomes scarcer and more expensive, it could put downward pressure on future economic growth. Given the high level of growth that China experienced during the past 15 years, this is not necessarily negative.

It also helps to explain the shift in Chinese economic policy away from low value-add manufacturing- and export-driven growth towards higher- value industries and domestic consumption in its most recent, and forthcoming, five-year plans.

While many will see the government's effort to increase wages as negative - especially for labour-intensive service industries - we believe it will achieve the goal of increasing domestic consumption, diversifying China's sources of growth and helping to alleviate wealth inequality.

One of the reasons for the relatively low share of consumption in GDP in China is linked to the nation's high savings ratio, but this too could change as a result of demographics. Older people are thought to have a lower savings ratio as they run down their assets in retirement, so an ageing population tends to reduce national savings.

However, if this 'dissaving' occurs in response to a lower retirement income, older consumers also spend less. If this is the case, a decline in the savings ratio does not actually increase aggregate demand.

Read more at Business Times

 

 

China's 'wild swan' on Mao and memoir

Author Jung Chang in 2005 after the release of "Mao: The Unknown Story," a critical portrait of the Chinese leader and his rise to power.

 

 

China is one of the countries we're featuring on Global Connections, a segment on CNN's Connect the World that takes two very different countries and asks you to find the connections. We asked author Jung Chang to give us her view on China and how it's changing.

London, England (CNN) -- Whether in the form of personal history or political biography, Jung Chang has spent her writerly life telling the story of China's tumultuous recent past.

The best-selling author of "Wild Swans," an account of three generations of women in her family, Chang gained a following for her frank portrait of life in China in the 20th century.

More recently, she's made waves with "Mao: The Unknown Story" -- the scathing, 800-plus page biography of the Chinese leader that she wrote with her husband, historian Jon Halliday.

Born in 1952 in Sichuan, a province in China's southwest, Chang came of age during the height of the Cultural Revolution. She served briefly as a Red Guard and worked a variety of odd jobs in the countryside before turning to studying English.

She left China for Britain in 1978 to further her studies and earned a doctorate in linguistics. She rose to literary fame after "Wild Swans" was published in 1991. "Mao: The Unknown Story," which took a decade to research, was released in 2005.

CNN caught up with Chang, who currently lives in London, and asked her about China and why it's so important to remember the past.

Read more at CNN

Matteo Ricci, after four hundred years

Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇, whose grave lies in the Ming-era Jesuit cemetery now within the precinct of the Beijing Municipal Cadre's School, is a figure who even four-hundred years after his death elicits hopeful commentaries and reflections on inter-cultural respect and understanding. Ricci and his fellow Jesuit missionaries travelled to the 'Far East' to convert and offer salvation to a broader humanity. It is a mission that the Catholic Church, and various other iterations of the Christian tradition, pursue in China to this day.

 
Fig.1 Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi 徐光啓. Photograph: Jeremy Clarke

This issue of China Heritage Quarterly takes Matteo Ricci as its focus and our guest editor, Dr Jeremy Clarke SJ, presents material on Ricci's life and significance, present-day commemorative activities related to his passing in 1610, as well as offering an insightful meditation on Xu Guangqi 徐光啓,a much-celebrated Chinese Christian convert, by Aloysius Jin Luxian 金魯賢.

In Articles, Pierre Fuller comments on the Bible in China today, while in New Scholarship Bede Bidlack discusses the extraordinary figure Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit, geologist and theologian who was active in China from 1923 to 1946. In New Scholarship we also present a fascinating Manchu-language account of an exchange between the Kangxi Emperor 康熙 and Tómas Peirera regarding a Jesuit beard, prepared by Eugenio Menegon [this article will be posted in the first week of October].

Read more at China Heritage Quartely

84 Ways To Know If You're Chinese...

If you check off 100%, you should not be living in Canada/USA because you are too Chinese. However, if you check off less than 42 items (50%), you are a fruit (banana: yellow on the outside but white inside). If you only say yes to 20 items, Canada owes you a medal .... so proud to be a Canadian/American.

1. You unwrap Christmas gifts very carefully, so you can save and reuse the
wrapping and especially those bows) next year.
2. You only buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.
3. When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy 100 rolls and store them in
your closet or in the bedroom of an adult child who has moved out.
4. You have a vinyl table cloth on your kitchen table.
5. Your stove is covered with aluminum foil.
6. Your kitchen has a sticky film of grease over it.
7. You have stuff in the freezer since the beginning of time.
8. You use the dishwasher as a dish rack.
9. You have never used your dishwasher.
10. You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times.
11. You boil water and put it in the refrigerator.
12. You eat all meals in the kitchen.
13. You save grocery bags, tin foil, and tin containers.
14. You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
15. You always leave your shoes at the door.
16. You have a piano in your living room.
17. Your parents know how to launch nasal projectiles.
18. You iron your own shirts.
19. You play a musical instrument.
20. You pick your teeth at the dinner table (but you cover your mouth).
21. You twirl your pen around your fingers.
22. You hate to waste food...
a. Even if you're totally full, if someone says they're going to throw away the leftovers on the
table, you'll finish them.
b. You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing.
23. You don't own any real Tupperware--only a cupboard full of used but
carefully rinsed margarine tubs, takeout containers, and jam jars.
24. You also use the jam jars as drinking glasses.
25. You've eaten a red bean popsicle

Read more at Garrick's Place of Stuff

"Two Child" Law Does Not Mean Change of Birth Control Policy in China: Officials

Officials and experts say the promulgation of new laws by 27 local governments to allow some people to have a second child does not mean any big changes have been made to the country's birth control policy.

"It is just a micro adjustment to meet local specific conditions," says Song Jie, with the Population Expert Committee of the State Family Planning Commission.

According to the new laws approved by provinces and autonomous regions, the right for parents who are both single children to have a second baby is protected.

Since the late 1970s, China has adopted the one-child policy to curb its population explosion. The policy has turned China into a low birth rate country and churned out many young single children.

The policy does not prohibit a husband and wife who are both single children from bearing a second baby. However, this is the first time governments have turned to the law to protect the right.

Read more at People's Daily

Chinese in Denmark celebrate China's Moon Festival, National Day

COPENHAGEN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Association in Denmark threw a gala party at the Radisson Blu SAS Hotel here on Sunday to celebrate the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and the 61st founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

Among the attendees were Chinese diplomats, leaders of local Chinese communities, Chinese students studying in Denmark and Chinese business owners.

Lin Yanbiao, the association's chairman, said tremendous changes have taken place in China since it adopted the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, including the fast and solid economic growth, significantly improved living standards of the people, and its greatly enhanced international cooperation.

"We are proud of being overseas Chinese. China is committed to reform and development despite challenges," he said.

"The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, alias the Moon Festival, is a traditional occasion that marks family reunion and harvest celebration," said Lin, adding that the festival is one of the key embodiments of the Chinese national spirit and cultural sentiments.

Read more at XINHUANET