Today in China

The following often happens to me…
1. I buy a DVD in one of the *official* shops around Beijing,
2. I watch it on my nice 32 inches television,
3. The movie is then released in the theaters around China,
4. I sit and cry, because I would have enjoy the movie a lot more if I only waited for a few weeks and watched in theater.

I could of course wait a few weeks. However, with only 20+ foreign movies officially released in China per year, how could I know for which movies I have to wait and for which other movies I can watch the DVD straight away?

Well, here is the official list for 2007! Some of the release dates are missing. I will try to add them as soon as I get them…

(more…)

Here is a funny videos from Chris and Martin about this traditional activity in all primary and scondary schools all over China. Chris details the three main parts needed to make sure all the young Chinese have a healthy mind in a healthy body:
1. gather all the students
2. practice some basic gymnastics
3. go back to the classrooms

Turn on the sound because the background music chosen by Chris is really adequate!

The Morning Exercises at Chinese school

Here is an amazing video from Danwei.org about romance in Beijing and how to find a boyfriend. Some parts of the video is SCARY but so true…

By the way, if you speak or learn Mandarin, I advice you to turn the speakers on because all the interviews are in Chinese! ^_^

Sex and Beijing City

Source
Danwei.org

Eric Meyer has been in Beijing for… a very long time!

Next week, on Tuesday, he will organize a conference about his last book “Robinson à Pékin”.

Please note that his book and the conference are in French.

You probably already know 林熙 (LinXi) since I provided her two Video Clips in streaming videos.

This time, I provide you her whole album in mp3!

I would be glad if you could tell me which one you prefer… Enjoy!

Today, I would like to introduce to you 林熙 (LinXi), a raising star in China. Her two Music Videos are now available on YouTube.

You may directly check her YouTube Channel from where you have access to the two videos or directly run them from my blog!

Go On My Way

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斗牛场 / Dou Niu Chang

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

Hutong to Highrise, an organization dedicated to documenting the disappearing hutong communities of Beijing that we already covered in a previous post, will be holding a photography exhibit at Dashanzi’s Bronze Age Gallery.

An opening reception will be held Saturday, July 22 from 3:00-6:00pm, and the exhibit will run through Sunday, July 23. Admission is free, although there is a suggested donation of 30RMB. All proceeds will be used to fund ongoing research.

Here is a copy of the flyer with directions and contact phone numbers:
  

Feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you think would be interested in this event.

Confucius is expected to have more than 3 million descendants over the world - 2.5 million in China, 100,000 in Korea and the rest in the United States, Malaysia and Singapore. A lot of people are claiming to be the sage’s grand grand grand … grand children. But who is saying the truth?

Well, from now on, the Beijing Institute of Genomics (founded in 1998) at the Chinese Academy of Science is proposing DNA tests for just over 1000RMB (100 euros).

Anybody wants to help me ($$$) taking the test? Maybe that one of my ancestor had an affair with an early descendant of Confucius?

Links
China Daily - 2006 06 20
Confucius at Wikipedia
Kong Family
Beijing Institute of Genomics

This morning, on my desk, I found a red paper bag full of candies… On it was written:

Tell me, do you love me?
Whisper softly, sweetly, as of old!
Tell me that you love me, Tor that’s the sweetest story ever told.

I’m sure the one who stayed long enough in China - I would say two or three months - guessed already that one of my Chinese colleagues got married recently. Indeed, Wang Yesong got married last Thursday, on a very special day, the first day of the 6th month of 2006. After someone gets married in China, he/she will bring candies to his/her friends and colleagues to bring them happiness and luck and of course to warn them that they just got married.

The Chinese ideogram on the left is the one of the double happiness. It is formed of two juxtaposed 喜 Xi. And here comes the story of this character…

During the Tang Dynasty, a student was on his way to the capital to pass the national final examination. The best students would be selected as the ministers in the court. Unfortunately, he fell ill halfway in a remote village in the mountain.
Thanks to a herbalist doctor and his daughter, he recovered quickly. After a few days, when he had to leave he found it hard to say good-bye to the pretty girl, and so did she… They fell in love!
So the girl wrote down the right hand part of an antithetical couplet for the student to match:
“Green trees against the sky in the spring rain while the sky set off the spring trees in the obscuration.”
The student told her that he can make it but that the girl had to wait until after the examination.

The young man went to the capital and won the first place. Also the winners were interviewed and tested by the emperor. Luckily, the student was asked by the emperor to finish a couplet, which would need a right part as the answer. The emperor wrote:
“Red flowers dot the land in the breeze’s chase while the land colored up in red after the kiss.”
The young man realized immediately the right part of the couplet by the girl was the perfect fit to the emperor’s couplet, so he took the girl’s part as the answer without hesitation. Delighted, the emperor selected the young man as Minister in the court and allowed him to pay a visit to his hometown first before holding the post.

The young man met the girl happily at home and told her the emperor’s couplet. They soon got married. For the wedding, the couple DOUBLED the Chinese character, HAPPY, together, on a red piece of paper and put it on the wall to express the happiness for the two events.

And from then on, it has been taken on and became a social custom.

恭喜! 恭喜! Gōngxǐ! Gōngxǐ!

Links
Chinese Wedding - Wikipedia
History of the Double Happiness - About.com