You may be stuck behind the Great Firewall, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it
At the turn of the century, China’s contemporary art scene had just begun to blossom into today’s constellation of museums and galleries. “Society Guidance,” a current exhibition at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, looks back toward the 1990s—a decade of what curator Bian Ka calls relative artistic “wilderness,” when artists lacked supporting institutions but existed in a state of exuberant spontaneity.
Jackie Chan: an icon to many, a bothersome blight to many more. Now, a fresh figure has come forward to pour gasoline on Jackie’s smoldering legacy: Jackie Chan.
According to TV viewers, China experiences chronic “series famine” (剧荒, jùhuāng). The nation’s small screens are a parched landscape of stale re-runs and insipid reality shows, interspersed with the odd new drama or comedy with both good entertainment and production value—but often get cancelled due to “technical issues” (a code word for censorship).
In his debut book, The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Compete for Our Future, Matt Sheehan sets out a number of pressing questions for the future of US-China relations.
When ultra-marathon runner Bai Bin was dragged into a car at gunpoint near Monterrey, Mexico, his sweaty shirt pulled up over his face to blind him, he feared it might be his last day on earth. Taken to a gang’s headquarters, he was surrounded by what he estimated to be over 40 men armed with automatic weapons, yelling at him in Spanish.
Jenny Chen never imagined a day when she could no longer play her favorite video games. But after losing sight in both eyes in her early 30s, the Beijing native had to quit her dream job as an editor at a game company, and enroll in a school for the blind.
“Beyond the bamboo grove, several peach trees are in bloom/ The river is warming, which the ducks are first to know”—thus, a peaceful evening by the riverside in early spring rendered by the influential 11th century poet Su Shi.
Dim sum may be the most famous feature of Cantonese cuisine. Taken with tea, as a street snack, or part of a banquet, its most famous varieties—shrimp dumpling, steamed siu mai, cha siu bao, and egg tart—are known as the “Four Heavenly Kings.” Less internationally known, but just as authentic, is 炸两, literally “fry two .”