A somewhat biased view on China…
Here is a cool video from JJ, a good friend who has been in Beijing more than 5 years now. He rode his scooter in Dashanzi the Artist District in the North East of Beijing. I know he made this video last year and I already broadcasted it on my blog a looooong time ago. But Now, he just uploaded it this morning on YouTube!
I hope we will get more videos like this one from you, Jay Jay!!!
By the way, if you enjoyed the video, JJ would like you to leave some comments on YouTube, just follow this link!
The news about the Chinese Animation Industry this month is quite… interesting.
On one side, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) announced a ban on foreign cartoon during the peak hours from 5pm to 8pm to boost the domestic animation industry. And on the other side, a company based in Shenzhen finally released last week China’s first 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation “Through the Moebius Strip“ inspired by Frenchman Jean “Moebius” Giraud, made by Chinese people and targeting Europe and the United States, the film and its trailer being entirely in English.
I tried to have a look at the history of the animation industry in China to better understand what is happening…
While the first animation device, which is the zoetrope, seems to have been created in 180 A.D. by Ting Huan, the Chinese animation industry did not really start before 1920 with the WanSi Brothers (万氏兄弟) compared to 1888 in France with Emile Reynaud.
Then, the Chinese animation industry went on through the 20th century with the founding the ShangHai Arts and Film Production Company (上海美術電影製片廠) sponsored by the central government. The 50’s and 60’s were quite promising with their first color animation movie in 1956 and then… the Cultural Revolution started.
In the 70’s some animation artists from Hong-Kong - Ma Rong Cheng (馬榮誠) - and Taiwan - Cai Zhi Zhong (蔡志忠) - started to become famous but China is still suffering major setbacks due to the delay caused by the Cultural Revolution and the rapid commercialization of the Japanese and Western animation industries.
With the 21st century and the Internet, animators and artists from all over China started to work together. The most known Flash Animation worldwide is Xiao Xiao (小小) by Zhu Zhiqiang has now more than ten episodes. This animated stick figure performing Kung Fu became so famous that you may find plenty of related flash animations and games.
But this is not enough to boost the domestic animation industry. That’s why the SARFT started to put in place some strict limitations on foreign cartoons. In 2000, SARFT requested that all foreign cartoons get its approval before being broadcasted on Chinese TV. Then, in 2004, it stipulated that minimum 60% of the cartoons showed on a TV Channel should come from the domestic industry. And now, not a single foreign animation movie before 8pm!
I will try to see “Through the Moebius Strip“, but I’m quite worried because the reviews so far are quite disappointing… It seems that we still have to wait for a few more years before we see any high quality animation movie from China.
Bilis, Kaemi, Prapiroon and now Saomai! The South East of China is experiencing his worst Typhoon season since more than 50 years. The most affected provinces are Guangxi (广西, Guǎngxī), Guangdong (广东, Guǎngdōng), Fujian (福建, Fújiàn), Hunan (湖南, Húnán), Jiangxi (江西, Jiāngxī) and Zhejiang (浙江, Zhèjiāng).
Hundreds of people already died in July and more than 1.5 million people have just been evacuated before the arrival of Saomai who just spared Taiwan to bump into Fujian (福建, Fújiàn) and Zhejiang (浙江, Zhèjiāng) provinces.
If you are interested to know what is a Typhoon and how it evoluates from a minor storm to a strong Typhoon with winds going up to 200km/h, you may check this Animated guide about Typhoon on BBC Website.
Links
BBC Animated guide: Typhoon
Here comes a new online cultural E-Magazine. It seems that they are spending a lot of time to provide this nice looking and fresh E-Magazine. And the first issue looks promizing!
They first cover the history of the Beijing Opera, explaining the different roles with their respective make-up and costumes.
They continue with a description of the Wenshou, these mysterious zoomorphic creatures you can see on Chinese roofs. What is the description of each of them - HangShi, DouNiu, XieZhi, XiaYu, SuanNi, Sea Horse, Heavenly Steed, Lion, Phoenix, Dragon, Phoenix-riding God, etc. - and why are they aligned on the roof?
Did you know that the ancestor of Football was invented in China. The name of the game was CuJu and even FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter recognizes this fact! It was already played by Chinese people during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD) and considered both a form of entertainment and a good way to train the soldiers.
Okay, I let you discover the rest of the magazine by yourself! I give you just one more topic from the magazine. They introduced it with a riddle…
Two sisters of the same height,
Together they go in and out of the kitchen.
Sour, bitter, or spicy, a thousand flavors,
They are always the first to taste.
Who are they?
Link
New cultural E-Magazine: NiHao from China
The Olympic Games Pictograms are the basic graphical representation of the Olympic sports: athletics, rowing, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoe / kayak flatwater, canoe / kayak slalom, cycling, equestrian, fencing, football, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, weightlifting, handball, hockey, judo, wrestling, swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, water polo, modern pentathlon, softball, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, shooting, archery, triathlon, sailing, volleyball and beach volleyball.
They will be used for the directional instruction system, advertising and communications, landscape and environmental arrangement, TV broadcasting and souvenir designs. They are thus one of the most important marketing tools of the Olympic Games.
The search for good looking pictograms started in March 2005 when the BOCOG (The Beijing Organizing Comittee of the Olympic Games) invited four professional design institutes and organizations to compete for the design of the pictograms. The design based on “seal characters” by China Central Academy of Fine Arts and that on “string” by Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University were then shortlisted and the two institute worked together on a common design. The final design has been sent to the 28 International Sports Federations (IFs) for approval, and all of the IFs had endorsed the Pictograms by April 2006. And last June, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted the set of the Pictograms.
Source
Beijing Olympic Games Official Website
Continue to read more if you want to have more details and learn some Olympic Games related Chinese Mandarin!
Lu Di, just turned 6 years old and impressed his teachers by accomplishing 10,000 push-ups in 3 hours 20 minutes!!!???!!! That’s 50 push-ups every minute or almost one evry single second? I don’t know if this is real, but it seems that his kung-fu school, in Central China’s Henan Province, will pay him his tuition for ten years.
Source
China Daily, 2006-07-27
According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, there are 4100 family names for some 1.3 billion people in China. 94% of the Chinese sharing the 300 most important familly names such as Li, Zhang and Wang!
And the situation seems to be getting worse and worse… No wonder they have problems when identifying people when you know that more than 100 000 persons share the name Wang Tao (王涛). Here are some of them:
. 王涛, the table tennis champion
. 王涛, the first female academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences
. 王涛, the football player
. 王涛, the calligrapher and painter
. 王涛, the musician
…
Do you know any Wang Tao (王涛) to add in my list?
Source
China Daily, 2006 08 03
That’s it, my one week break is over! We came back from Gansu last Monday. I spent 5 days near the Labrang Monastery in Xia He with Sebastien - a classmate from university - and his girlfriend Sophie. This trip was amazing but the journey back to Beijing was………
We left Xia He at 7:30 on Sunday Morning by bus to reach Lan Zhou in 5 hours. The road is getting better and if you go there in a few weeks, all the tunnels should be ready and the travel should take less than 4 hours.
Then, we spent the evening in Lan Zhou in a new bar that just opened in Gan Nan Lu. (Remember the name of this street if you go to Lan ZHou…) If I have to rank the place, I would say that the decoration is nice, the music is soso and the drinks were mostly free ^_^ but they only have beer and Chivas. Sebastien and Sophie left around 22:00 and I stayed to meet the people in the bar. I clearly remember two of them. There was a guy from Shanghai trying to convinced the guys from Lan Zhou that Shanghainese can drink. He was challenging everybody in the bar and, of course was totally drunk… And then a guy from Lan Zhou telling me that there was only one China, that Shanghai guys were not really Chinese and that Taiwan would be back before the Olympic Games in 2008. At 00:30, I called it a night and went back to our hotel.
The next day, our travel back to Beijing started… The airport of Lan Zhou is more than 100km far from Lan Zhou???!!!??? So, the only way to go to the airport is to take the bus (30RMB per person) or an illegal taxi (120RMB, same price as the bus if you are 4). We took the bus. On the way to the airport, the bus stopped once and then again 100 meters further and the driver left. We thougth the bus had some problem or the motor was overheating but no, everything was fine. The driver just needed to… well… 25 minutes later, we arrived at the airport.
And then we started to wait the plane for a very, very, very, very, very, very long time. When they started to distribute small bottles of water we expected that it would take some time. But when they finally told us that our plane was still in Beijing waiting for take-off we knew the delay would be considerable. They offered us dinner and we finally took off at 19:45 with a five hours delay.
And all this delay because of the rain… JJ who went to the Beijing National Airport the same day to fetch his girlfriend coming back from France told me that he had to walk the last two kilometers under heavy rain. He described the situation as being similar to a catastrophe movie. There was more than one meter of water under some bridges. All the planes leaving Beijing were delayed and it took them two hours to get a cab to return to their apartment.
Fortunately, when we arrived the situation was back to normal, at least for the taxis, and we only waited 20 minutes to get one and then 17 minutes to go from the airport to my apartment. We arrived at 22:30 instead of 17:30…
But… Wait… Aren’t the Olympic Games taking place in August 2008, the most rainy month in Beijing?
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