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18 Nov 08
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Guns 'N Roses "Chinese Democracy" - Axl Rose Sings Mao's Little Red Book When Played Backwards
The much hyped new CD from LA band Guns 'N Roses is now out - and available on download only at present. The only reason we're featuring this news is because the soon-to-be-released CD cover is cool, and some of our staff profess to... |
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17 Nov 08
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A Lunchtime Slice of Life
This post goes out to all of you hypnotized by the big picture, missing all the trees while you contemplate the forest. Whether Rising Dragon or Crouching Tiger, China is a construction, a mythical creature equal parts forecast an... |
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13 Nov 08
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A Madman's Diary
Story time, children, courtesy of Lu Xun. Ever feel like people are out to get you, that the dictum "eat or be eaten" is taken far too seriously? Well, Lu Xun did. The short story "Madman's Diary" reveals a China... |
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11 Nov 08
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Impress with Instant Mandarin Slang "Man, that's lei!"
This is the best instant Chinese lesson you're going to get (today) - ten quick Chinese phrases at the bleeding edge of Mando-Internet culture. Using these words and phrases correctly will show you're not up... |
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10 Nov 08
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The Man Who Would Be Emperor
Emperor Yuan Shikai
On December 23rd, 1915, the dawn of the winter solstice, Yuan Shikai arrived at the Temple of Heaven in an armored car. Carried into the building on an imperial sedan chair, he donned the sacred robes of an... |
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07 Nov 08
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Fashionably Undressed
Mark Twain told us that clothes make the man, and that naked people have little or no influence on society. Nearly naked people, on the other hand, are often cause for celebration, as they were at China Fashion Week in Beijing.... |
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06 Nov 08
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A Contradictory Win for Jia Pingwa
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05 Nov 08
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Punching the Panda
The Thrilla in Manila. The Rumble in the Jungle. And coming this Friday...We Are Together. While lacking the poetic oomph of Don King's greatest productions, the name is the only uninspired aspect of this Friday's fight night, to tak... |
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04 Nov 08
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Drinking for Guanxi
If there's an aspect of Chinese communal life that hasn't been formalized into ritual, we've yet to find it. Even the apparent chaos of Chinese queuing springs from an ancient Shang Period decree, later cribbed by Aleister Crowley ... |
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03 Nov 08
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Strength through soup
Ancient Chinese making tonic soups
It comes as an existential shock, winter in China. It's rather like the discovery of your first gray hair, signaling the creeping inevitability of old age. It could be the gooseflesh and suddenly cold floo... |
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31 Oct 08
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Chinese Haunts
Let's get this straight: tonight you will allow your children to gad about after dark, impersonating evil spirits and begging neighbors for sweetmeats? With no attendant loss of face? A wonderful thing, western culture - so free, so capricious,... |
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30 Oct 08
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A New Statue for Chairman Mao
You may have heard they called Chairman Mao the Great Helmsman. The epithet is exceedingly apt, if one extends it to a mental image of a massive, ragged ship. Yawing in a maelstrom of historic chaos, the ship is packed to the poop deck wit... |
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29 Oct 08
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China Road
"Hi everyone, my name's Jim. I've been an Orientalist since 2005. ["Hi Jim."] I guess it all started about two days after I got to Beijing, when I took my first bicycle hutong tour. I had some pretty deep insights about... |
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28 Oct 08
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Gansu's Children of Caesar
Even in these globetrotting times, getting from Shanghai to the Gobi Desert is seen as an arduous haul. Now imagine getting there from Rome, on foot, more than two thousand years ago. As unlikely as it seems, such a migration is the most plausible... |
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27 Oct 08
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Beijing's Mind Games
Opening Ceremonies of the World Mind Sports Games included pouring water into the conch of wisdom
It was the best of minds, it was the worst of times. Three thousand of the world's most keenly competitive brains... |
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24 Oct 08
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Eating Your Way Around Nanjing
Qinhuai River at night
So you've made your way to venerable Nanjing, and you're standing by the paifang at Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum. Mount Zijin, rising up behind it, seems more brown than purple. You try to muster the appropriate sentime... |
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23 Oct 08
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A Quick Guide to Chinese Liquor "Only wine can soothe my sorrow. "-From the poem Duan'gexing by Cao Cao
OK, we Chinese have been good sports. We've indulged your fanatical delusion that fermented grape juice is the pinnacle of gracious living. We've nodded... |
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22 Oct 08
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Two Million Minutes
Put on your thinking caps, gang, and test your scientific proficiency:
Which of the following is not alive?
A) A bird
B) A hand
C) A rock
D) A flower
E) A fish
If you picked ‘C', congratulations! You're on your way... |
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21 Oct 08
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Old Business Means New Friendship for China and Russia
"Extra! Extra!" REDS PRESS FIGHT ON CHINESE BORDER; AIR BOMBINGS SPREAD TERROR; MANCHURIA SEIZURE FEARED
What a difference four score years makes. The foregoing appeared on the front page of the New York Times on September 11t... |
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20 Oct 08
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Was the Chinese Phoenix actually an Ostrich ? By Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Recent ornithological and archeological evidence has demonstrated that China once possessed, in Xinjiang Province, its very own species of Ostrich - (Struthio asiaticus), and that this long extinct bird may be the source... |
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17 Oct 08
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Three Tough Ladies, One New Play
Scene from Heroine Trilogy
Let's hear it for composer Guo Wenjing and director Li Liuyi, who are updating Peking Opera with modern staging and effects. Their production Heroine Trilogy, centered around the lives of three of China'... |
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16 Oct 08
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The Hottest Test in China
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15 Oct 08
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Is It Too Late for China to Clean Up Its Act? Beijing welcomes its first day of new traffic restrictions
We all need to take our minds off the imminent collapse of global finance, and the likely advent of prison-style barter to replace it. So let's turn our attention to looming environment... |
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14 Oct 08
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RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES ( Qian li zou dan qi)
-by Brianne Feigen
To the sing-song chant of a Chinese opera, the opening screen credits introduce Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles, an understated but powerful gem of a film. Zhang Yimou, right after completing the flamboyan... |
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13 Oct 08
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A Tour of the Chinese Underworld
Huanying Guanglin! Welcome you to Chinese Hell!
Please don't ask why you're here; the "I'm innocent" routine is older than Kongzi's baby pictures. You'll know your offense by which chamber of Hell we leave you in... |
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11 Oct 08
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Jazz in Mongolia – the unofficial version
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09 Oct 08
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The Punch Felt Around China Would you hit this man?
Chinese people today only care about making money. While quick to boast of China's vaunted 5,000 years, the Chinese don't really remember their history or value it, conservatism having been banished by more... |
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08 Oct 08
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Chen Jiagang's Third Front
Power Station
In 1964, China suddenly found herself without a friend. Fear of the Paper Tiger's claws had already alienated her. But now the Soviet Union seemed less a big brother than a crafty svengali. Decisions made in panic... |
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07 Oct 08
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Jinan's historic celebrities
Jinan Native Zhao Meng Fu's Autumn Colors
(depicting two famous mountains in Jinan- Hua Bu Zhu and Que)
If analogies are any help, think of Jinan as China's Albany. Both cities are capitals of large, prosperous regions. Both cities ... |
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06 Oct 08
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Tom Carter Snaps True China
Are you one of those kooks who spends more time staring at the Forbidden City workers than at the place itself? If so, you're in good company with Tom Carter. His 800-page photobook, China: Portrait of a People, forsakes temple and towe... |
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01 Oct 08
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Shanghai Flashback |
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28 Sep 08
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Five Grassland Getaways Xilin Gol Prairie
There are realists, and there are dreamers. When it comes to national holidays in China, such as the week-long one starting tomorrow, realists outweigh dreamers by nine to one. The vast majority will hunker down at home, or out of... |
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27 Sep 08
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China is the New Europe
Two centuries ago, young men and women of privilege took Grand Tours of Europe. They were expected to return worldly wise, having strolled the Acropolis and floated down Venetian canals. About a century ago, Hemingway and aimless young gypsie... |
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26 Sep 08
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China Spacewalks Back to the Future
The Space Walk - it's harder to perform than even the Moonwalk, and cooler than the Harlem Shuffle. Today fighter pilot and instant icon Zhai Zhigang will peer out the hatch of the Shenzhou VII at an eternal void. Stepping into it will tak... |
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23 Sep 08
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Revisiting a Bruce Lee Classic: Enter the Dragon
- By Josh
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22 Sep 08
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A Deeper Look: Tibetan Music
- By Gerald Roche
Tibetan music became popular in the West thanks to recordings by David Lewiston in India during the 1970s. From then on, Western ideas of Tibetan music have continued to focus mostly on monastic chants. As fascinating and... |
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19 Sep 08
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A Hidden Henan Treasure: Gongyi
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18 Sep 08
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A Visit to Sikkim and the Thibetan Border in 1873
-By Chris Devonshire Ellis
When you find a rare, leather-bound published account of an Englishman trying his hand at the tortuous route between India and Tibet (or Thibet, as it was known) in the 19th century, you buy it. That is exactl... |
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12 Sep 08
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The Famed Flying Tigers
- By Tom Pellman
The sky was full of animals in those days. More than sixty years ago, during World War II, Yunnan Province in Southwest China sounded like a mythical place. Flying tigers had shark teeth and dogs fought with Peregrine Falcons. Whale... |
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10 Sep 08
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Returning Chinese Stuck in the Middle
- Josh
One of the biggest changes of China's recent opening up has been the number of Chinese returning home after time abroad. For years it was nearly impossible to live or study outside of the country, and those who did were unl... |
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09 Sep 08
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Wild China - a Must-See Documentary
You may be forgiven for picturing China as an endless succession of grey-skied cities. Unfortunately, if you're like most expats, this is the part of China in which you belong. If you were to plane, train, bus, then walk to the clean and gree... |
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08 Sep 08
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When You Make It to Ningbo... Lao Waitan
Ningbo sits staring across Hangzhou Bay at her tawdry sister Shanghai, more than a little jealous of her glitz and brand-recognition. And despite Ningbo’s trove of cultural treasures, Hangzhou steals most of the regional thunder as city ... |
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05 Sep 08
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Advice Fit for an Emperor
Emperor Hongwu
Your average Chinese person is a self-effacing soul. By genetically encoded tradition, a braggart is either mentally challenged or possesses an extraordinary degree of martial arts prowess. So when th... |
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04 Sep 08
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Three Reasons to Get Excited about the Paralympics
If the Olympics were China's debutante ball, then the Paralympics starting this Saturday are the after-party - less formal, less critical, and therefore in all likelihood a lot more fun. And more important. That's... |
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03 Sep 08
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A Little Qigong Goes A Long Way
Summer's over; smell the mooncakes and stop worrying about your abs and cellulite. Besides, in China, walking around with your shirt off is a strictly lower class statement. A little restaurant display of naked belly, perhaps, b... |
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02 Sep 08
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Mazu - the Princess of Tides
Most of us air-breathers rarely face the dangers of the sea. But let's all of us, particularly the sushi and fish-stick lovers among us, take a moment to honor the fisherman. A livelihood made afloat carries the constant risk of... |
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01 Sep 08
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China's Greatest Autumn Forests
Long view of Baima Azalea Forest
This is the Golden season for many of China's bright spots. Tourists escape summer's humid grip, and can enjoy an eyeful of history without shirts stuck to backs. But as the year slides into ... |
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29 Aug 08
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5000 Years in One Big Room
Detail of a stone carving from the 5 Dynasties period (907 -960 CE)
Five thousand years, five thousand years. It's a rallying cry for patriotic Han, and a sarcastic slogan for exasperated foreigners cut off in line fo... |
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28 Aug 08
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Shanghai's Classic Hotels
-by Graham Thompson
One of the delights of the hospitality scene in Shanghai is that many of the charming old hotels from the early 20th century still stand - and more importantly, still take bookings. In addition, some other... |
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27 Aug 08
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Zhang Yimou's Cinematic Ballet
Besides classical music, ballet is a traditionally Western art form being reinvigorated by Chinese talent and perspectives. China's National Ballet is winding up its performance of Raise the Red Lantern at the National Cent... |
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