Bring out the tissues. In an episode of China's Got Talent, Liu Wei, 23, who lost his two arms in an accident when he was 10 years old, amazed the audience playing the piano with his feet. He only started learning the piano 4 years ago.
The feeling described by the Postsecret image above should be familiar to many Chinese-American kids that are born and bred here. Each find their own way to cope with this alienation the whole life. This poster says it best: "I'm okay with it. I know who I am."
It's reported that Yang Yu Bao, a Chinese food delivery person for the China Fun Restaurant in the Upper West Side of NYC will perform Chinese opera as he delivers his orders. In fact, customers can explicitly request Yang for delivery.
I must look him up when China Books go to NYC for the Book Expo next month.
Good heaven! What's happening? There seems to be a major earthquake every two weeks somewhere on earth this year. Almost two years since the 5-12 Sichaun Earthquake, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the western province of Qinghai on 4-14 Wednesday morning. The current death toll is 400, but it will definitely go up as 85% of the houses in Gyegu, a town of 100,000 population. Located in a remote and poor region and sitting on an attitude of 4,000 meters (over 12,000 ft), rescue teams face difficulties in reaching the site quickly and supplies are limited.
Once again as we do every year, we bring you videos of Hong Kong's Chinese New Year Fireworks Show, because it is simply just awesome. And no other cities in China quite splurge like Hong Kong yet. Some 23,888 fireworks were set off in an epic 23-minute program. Enjoy! And Happy New Year!
This is Jeremy Lin, star and captain of Harvard's basketball team and a Bay Area native. He is one of the very rare Asian-American players in the sport of basketball at the college level and has been gaining national recognition. NPR has just run an interview with him.
If you don't think racial discrimination still exist, please read:
MARTIN: And forgive me, because this cant be, you know, the most fun thing to talk about. I understand that your ethnicity is noticed by some spectators. I am told that you actually still get slurs on the court. What do the people say?
Mr. LIN: Yeah. I mean, I get Asian jokes and, you know, when other fans try to heckle us, I dont really hear from other players very much. That was more of the case when I was in high school, but in college its mostly just the fans and they say just stuff about, you know, stereotypical jokes in terms of go play the orchestra or yell out beef and broccoli or sweet and sour chicken. And they call me sometimes, I heard Chinese import, go back to China, slanty eyes, can you see the scoreboard. So pretty much everything you can think of.
It has been 60 years since Harvard last went to March Madness, and this year they may have a chance because of Jeremy. To think that such talent and skill could have easily get dismissed because he is not born black or white. Go Jeremy go!
Wow, Taishan, a giant panda born at the Atlanta Zoo, is quite the jet-setter. He'll be flying to China in a customized Fedex cargo plane painted with its image on the side, complete with another panda companion, food, and a team of caretakers for his 14-hour flight from Atlanta back to Chengdu, Sichuan. Man, I wish to be on that flight.
Wapo has a video about a daily life of Taishan, before his departure.
In recent years, the words that immediately follow Indian-Chinese are usually conflict, border dispute, or competition. But the contact between India and China goes back a long time, both boasting an ancient culture. Traders have been traveling on the Silk Road for two thousand years, and there are plenty of cross-over between the two cultures--the spread of Buddhism into China is the main one. It's not surprising that there is a fusion of Indian and Chinese cuisines.
NPR has done a little introduction to this Indian-Chinese cuisine, and has printed 4 such recipes. The Sichuan Chili Stir-Fried Potatoes made with a mix of garlic, onion, chili flakes, red chili paste, soy sauce, sugar and peppercorns sound extremely delish.
Note: If you like this style of strong-flavored "Asian" dishes, try Malaysian and Singaporean cuisines. Their dishes really melts together the best of Chinese, Indian, and other Southeast Asian flavors.
Well, there was the biggest snow storm Beijing has seen in 50 years, but there is also the intentional winter wonderland that happens yearly in Harbin, the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, where crafty ice sculptors build and sculpt everything under the sun. SF Chronicle is showing the above and 20 other amazing pictures from the event. One of them is the Space Shuttle awaiting lift off at its launching pad. How'd they even do that?
Update: But even nicer and bigger pictures are run by the Boston Herald in its Big Picture sections that cover the same event.
I just caught up on the news that Yang Xianyi has passed away last month, November 23, from recurrence of a throat cancer. He was 94. His wife Gladys had died 10 years earlier, at 80.
Now I don't know them personally. I don't even know much of them until I read the obituaries and realize they have such an amazing life story. But I know this: this wife-and-husband team has translated quite a few Chinese literature classics into English and bringing such modern Chinese masters like Lu Xun into the Western world. They are a trailblazer and master in the field; many of their works remain the definitive translation today. Any students or perusers of Chinese literature in English will have definitely heard of their names and read their works, as do many of our China Books customers.
Yes, they are all Chinese people, two of the official 56 ethnic groups in China. Whom we usually acquaint with the image of a Chinese person is that of an ethnic Han, who makes up of 92% of China's population.
A photography team in China has spent a year traversing all over China to take pictures of all 56 ethnicities, and has now published a book. You can see one picture of each of the 56 ethnicities in the link.
Unlike the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, all ethnic representations are real this time.
The Esquire magazine has posted an article about Yao Ming and the nuggets of wisdom he has learned over the years. Some are very funny. Choice quote:
I haven't done much trash-talking. But last year, I did complain about a call. Nobody could believe it. So I said, "I've spent a lot on English lessons. I want to get my money's worth." The official was laughing.
Okay, just found some clips on Youtube from the TV series that we carry. Maybe now you can tell what do the TV series really look like. (Note: the quality of the clips here reflects that of the Youtube videos more than the DVDs themselves.)
The first one is the opening theme of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a real epic 84-episode TV series:
The next one is the opening theme of the grand and solemn imperial drama Yungzhen Dynasty:
Next one is for the opening theme of the fun and magical fantasy adventure Journey to the West:
Ha! And you think those of us who live in Sanfran or Manhattan know the pain of paying way too much mortgage/rent for our little house/apartment. Nooooooo! The most expensive apartment in the world is just being sold in Hong Kong for a jaw-dropping US$57 million. And we're talking about an apartment here, not even a whole house. The 6,000 square feet 5-bedroom duplex suite is sold at a US$9,200 per sqft rate (and that doesn't include any free parking spot or any future maintenance fees.)
It has been a while since the last Chinese blockbuster movie came ashore (Curse of the Golden Flower), but in November, another epic Chinese period drama Red Cliff will be opening on US screens. Directed by action-movie master John Woo and starring internationally recognized actors such as Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chang Chen, Red Cliff is the most expensive Chinese movie ever made (at US$80 million) to date and it has been breaking box-office records in many Asian markets.
Based on one of China's 4 Great Classical Novels, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (which in turn is a dramatization of the real historic Three Kingdoms Era), the title Red Cliff refers to the Battle of Red Cliff, one of China's most famous battles in all its long military history. It is simply one of those defining moment that people say changed the course of history. It officially marked the end of the Han Dynasty and ushered in the dawn of the Three Kingdoms. A seemingly weaker Southern allied forces from Liu Bei and Sun Quan overcame the odds and defeated the numerically superior army of Northern warlord Cao Cao, at a naval battle on the Yangtze River no less, with such tactics as using fire ships and "borrowing the East wind". You can bet that a lot of the $80 mil went into the production of that battle scene.
For sure there will be many visual spectacles at the movie. But even at its lengthy running time of 148 minutes, it's not going to give you a lot of the background information that you may need to fully follow the story or even just the characters. After all, John Woo already expected the movie's primary Chinese audience to be very familiar with the source materials; he doesn't waste time in explaining who is who on which side from which one of the three kingdoms. So why not read up on the original novels before the movie hits? You will enjoy the movie much better this way. I know, it's not a light read; it's a 4-volume epic saga filled of chaos, ambitions, honor, strategy, intrigue, treachery, heroics, mystery, mystics, and even humor and romance all set to a backdrop of kingdoms rising and falling. Good thing you have a month to finish it.
(But for those who are really less inclined to read, we also have the comics version and an earlier TV series production.)
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