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fred
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posted August 11, 2009 09:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
American Graduates Finding Jobs in China
BUSINESS BIZ COMPANIES
The New York Times
| 11 Aug 2009 | 10:39 AM ET

Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.

Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.

“I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.

“When I came over to China in 1994, that was the first wave of Americans coming to China,” he said. “These young people are part of this big second wave.”

One of those in the latest wave is Joshua Arjuna Stephens, who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. Two years ago, he decided to take a temporary summer position in Shanghai with China Prep, an educational travel company.

“I didn’t know anything about China,” said Mr. Stephens, who worked on market research and program development. “People thought I was nuts to go not speaking the language, but I wanted to do something off the beaten track.”

Two years later, after stints in the nonprofit sector and at a large public relations firm in Beijing, he is highly proficient in Mandarin and works as a manager for XPD Media, a social media company based in Beijing that makes online games.

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Jonathan Woetzel, a partner with McKinsey & Company in Shanghai who has lived in China since the mid-1980s, says that compared with just a few years ago, he was seeing more young Americans arriving in China to be part of an entrepreneurial boom. “There’s a lot of experimentation going on in China right now, particularly in the energy sphere, and when people are young they are willing to come and try something new,” he said.

And the Chinese economy is more hospitable for both entrepreneurs and job seekers, with a gross domestic product that rose 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter compared with the period a year earlier. Unemployment in urban areas is 4.3 percent, according to government data.

Grace Hsieh, president of the Yale Club in Beijing and a 2007 graduate, says she has seen a rise in the number of Yale graduates who have come to work in Beijing since she arrived in China two years ago. She is working as an account executive in Beijing for Hill & Knowlton, the public relations company.

Sarabeth Berman, a 2006 graduate of Barnard College with a major in urban studies, initially arrived in Beijing at the age of 23 to take a job that would have been difficult for a person her age to land in the United States: program director at BeijingDance/LDTX, the first modern dance company in China to be founded independently of the government.

Ms. Berman said she was hired for her familiarity with Western modern dance rather than a knowledge of China. “Despite my lack of language skills and the fact that I had no experience working in China, I was given the opportunity to manage the touring, international projects, and produce and program our annual Beijing Dance Festival.”

After two years of living and working in China, Ms. Berman is proficient in Mandarin. She travels throughout China, Europe and the United States with the dance company.

Willy Tsao, the artistic director of BeijingDance/LDTX, said he had hired Ms. Berman because of her ability to make connections beyond China. “I needed someone who was capable of communicating with the Western world.”

Another dynamic in the hiring process, Mr. Tsao says, is that Westerners can often bring skills that are harder to find among the Chinese.

“Sarabeth is always taking initiative and thinking what we can do,” he said, “while I think the more standard Chinese approach is to take orders.” He says the difference is rooted in the educational system. “In Chinese schools students are encouraged to be quiet and less outspoken; it fosters a culture of listening more than initiating.”

Mr. Perkowski, who spent almost 20 years on Wall Street before heading to China, says many Chinese companies are looking to hire native English speakers to help them navigate the American market.

“I’m working with a company right now that wants me to help them find young American professionals who can be their liaisons to the U.S.,” he said. “They want people who understand the social and cultural nuances of the West.”

Mr. Perkowski’s latest venture, JFP Holdings, a merchant bank based in Beijing, has not posted any job openings, but has received more than 60 résumés; a third are from young people in the United States who want to come work in China, he said.

Mick Zomnir, 20, a soon-to-be junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working as a summer intern for JFP. “As things have gotten more difficult in the U.S., I started to think about opportunities elsewhere,” he said. He does not speak Chinese but says he will begin studying Mandarin when he returns to M.I.T. in the fall.

A big draw of working in China, many young people say, is that they feel it allows them to skip a rung or two on the career ladder.

Ms. Berman said: “There is no doubt that China is an awesome place to jump-start your career. Back in the U.S., I would be intern No. 3 at some company or selling tickets at Lincoln Center.”

For others, like Jason Misium, 23, China has solved the cash flow problem of starting a business. After graduating with a degree in biology from Harvard in 2008, Mr. Misium came to China to study the language. Then he started Sophos Academic Group, an academic consulting firm that works with Chinese students who want to study in the United States.

“It’s China’s fault that I’m still here,” he said. “It’s just so cheap to start a business.” It cost him the equivalent of $12,000, which he had in savings, he said.

Among many young Americans, the China exit strategy is a common topic of conversation. Mr. Stephens, Ms. Berman and Mr. Misium all said they were planning to return to the United States eventually.

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Mr. Woetzel of McKinsey said work experience in China was not an automatic ticket to a great job back home. He said it was not a marker in the same way an Ivy League education: “The mere fact of just showing up and working in China and speaking Chinese is not enough.”

That said, Mr. Woetzel added, someone who has been able to make a mark in China is a valuable hire.

“At McKinsey, we are looking for people who have demonstrated leadership,” he said, “and working in a context like China builds character, requires you to be a lot more entr

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indiedan
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posted August 13, 2009 05:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wto Rules Against China’S Film Policy

13 August 2009 3:37 PM, PDT

The World Trade Organization ruled on Wednesday that China's highly restrictive policies on foreign movies, music, books and videogames violate an agreement it made when it joined the Wto in 2001 to provide open access to imported goods. The international body ordered China to bring its policies "into conformity with its obligations under those agreements." Presently, China permits only 20 foreign movies to be distributed each year -- and all of those must be handled by the official China Film Group. U.S. studios cannot set up their own distribution network as they have in other countries. The result has been a burgeoning underground bootleg industry supplying pirate copies of hundreds of movies that have never been shown in Chinese theaters. In reporting on the Wto ruling, the Wall Street Journal noted that such "decisions always depend on the political willingness of the losing country to change its laws to comply. That said, China has become more involved with the Wto and is unlikely to ignore the ruling." But Lyle Vander Schaaf, a partner in the law firm Bryan Cave who specializes in Wto disputes, told the New York Times that China has "a poor record of compliance. They keep filing appeals."

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indiedan
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posted August 25, 2009 01:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Li Returns To Chinese Film

1 hour ago

Martial artist-turned-actor Jet Li is set to thrill audiences in his native China - he is returning to his roots following a series of Hollywood productions.

Li first made his name in the Hong Kong film industry before moving on to Hollywood, where he landed starring roles in Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die, and Kiss of the Dragon.

His success overseas snowballed and his last three films - The Forbidden Kingdom, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and upcoming action thriller The Expendables - have all been U.S. productions.

But according to The Chengdu Shangbao newspaper, the 46 year old's next movie will be Chinese-language film Ocean Paradise, shot by an up-and-coming director.

And Li will move even further away from his traditional roles - the film, due to be released next year, will reportedly not feature him in any fight scenes. »

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fred
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posted September 04, 2009 08:23 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Tens of Thousands Stage New Protests in Xinjiang
By AUSTIN RAMZY / BEIJING Austin Ramzy / Beijing Fri Sep 4, 6:20 am ET

Two months after violent protests, allegations of new attacks in the troubled western Chinese city of Urumqi touched off huge demonstrations on Sept. 3, with residents gathering in the city center to demand the government improve public security. Some in the crowd, estimated by official media to be in the tens of thousands, called for the resignation of Wang Lequan, the longstanding Communist Party chief of the Xinjiang region, news services reported. While the details of the unrest were bizarre - 21 people were arrested on suspicion of pricking pedestrians with tainted needles, according to state media - the return of unrest to Urumqi wasn't surprising.

On July 5 young Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic minority that largely practices Islam, rioted in the city, attacking majority Han Chinese. The riot was touched off when police aggressively blocked a protest over the death of two Uighurs during a June factory brawl in the coastal Guangdong province. Two days after the riot, thousands of Han gathered to carry out revenge attacks. Paramilitary forces were able to keep the revenge mobs from Urumqi's Uighur quarter, thus preventing another bloodbath. But some Uighurs were seriously beaten and possibly killed that day. All told, the July violence left nearly 200 dead and more than 1,600 injured. (Read a brief history of the Uighurs.)

By dispatching thousands of security forces in the city in July, the government showed it could prevent further mass attacks. But the tension is still evident. After the July violence, Uighurs, who make up about 15% of Urumqi's population, started leaving the city for towns like Kashgar, with larger Uighur concentrations. The Han majority are still angry about the deadly rioting. Hundreds of suspects were arrested following the July attacks, but there have been conflicting reports about when any trials will take place. On Thursday, after the new round of protests, the regional government said arrest warrants for the July events had been issued for 196 people and that 51 had already been prosecuted. Arrest warrants are being processed for another 239 suspects, the state-run Xinhua news service reported. (Read why the Uighur's feel left out of China's boom.)

Thursday's protests were touched off by fears of further attacks on the city's Han majority by Uighurs. In the past three weeks 476 people have sought treatment for needle pricks, with 89 showing obvious needle marks, Xinhua reported. So far no deaths or disease transmissions have been reported, the news agency said. But with internet access and text messaging still restricted in the city, residents often rely on rumors as much as official news. Leaders including Wang and Urumqi party secretary Li Zhi spoke to the crowds gathered in the city center on Thursday in an attempt to prevent further violence. "To a large extent it seems that the protest (Thursday) was peaceful. If the government starts to respect the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully, we welcome this," says Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong – based researcher for the NGO Human Rights Watch. "But it shows the ongoing tensions and distrust that reign in Urumqi."

With preparations for Oct. 1 celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic now underway, authorities across the nation are even more wary of any disturbances. The official strategy has been to focus local outrage away from Urumqi's Uighur population and toward Rebiya Kadeer, a U.S.-based Uighur rights activist who China blames for instigating the violence - a claim she denies. But as this week's unrest shows, there's still plenty anger at home for them to worry about.

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fred
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posted September 08, 2009 05:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Right Brain
In a trend that will change the country, leadership of China's Communist Party is slowly passing from functionaries trained in engineering to those educated in softer sciences like law.

By Melinda Liu | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Sep 8, 2009

In the beginning there were firebrand revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Then came the engineers. China's post-Mao leadership has been dominated by engineers of varying stripes. Party chief (and President) Hu Jintao trained in hydraulic engineering, and Premier Wen Jiabao studied geomechanics, for example. Apparatchiks like them account for eight of the nine members of the Communist Party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, a trend replicated throughout the lower ranks, too. But times are changing. An analysis of younger rising stars in the party's leadership firmament reveals that cadres trained in the "soft sciences"—especially law—are quickly catching up as leaders realize they need a broad range of skills to govern. Is it the kind of change that could finally render the kinder, gentler face the government has been seeking for so many years?

Of the eight fastest-rising young Politburo stars, none got their highest degree in engineering. Instead, their educational backgrounds—defined by the highest degree attained—include economics, history, management, journalism, business, and law (three have legal training). "This is a substantial change," says Brookings scholar Cheng Li, an expert on the Chinese leadership. He sees a marked "soft science" academic trend among younger leaders, compared with the older generation of top officials.

During China's decades of untrammeled, go-go growth, top leaders were preoccupied with building, producing, and developing. Decision-making strategies shared a common thread: the regime tried to build its way out of problems. Not enough energy? Beijing constructed the world's largest hydroelectric project—the massive $30 billion Three Gorges Dam—which flooded archeological sites and required the forced relocation of 1.24 million people. The dam's planning relied mainly on engineers and "reflected little input from scientists, much less social scientists," who might have foreseen the protests and other "disastrous" costs of resettlement, says Dai Qing, a prominent critic.

Worsening drought in the North China Plain? President Hu's predecessor Jiang Zemin (electrical engineering) launched the ambitious, multidecade South-North Water Transfer Project, which involves channeling water from the southern Yangtze River to the north of the country via massive viaducts, incurring huge expense (an estimated $62 billion) and the diversion of water near the origin of India's Brahmaputra River—a special concern of the government in Delhi.

By contrast, some of China's younger cadres now focus more on "people solutions" to north China's water shortage. These include grassroots education campaigns promoting water conservation and raising water prices to combat waste. (Some universities have introduced "water-usage swipe cards" as a means of discouraging students from taking overly long showers.)

It's obvious enough why social scientists would dominate relatively new or nontraditional bureaucratic fiefdoms like the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which is headed by economist Zhou Shengxian. (It was elevated to a full ministry last year.) China's top negotiator on climate-change issues, for instance, is former diplomat Su Wei, whose specialty is international law.

But even the traditional power centers inside the Politburo hierarchy are now being poached by up-and-coming social scientists. The man currently seen as the likely successor to Premier Wen is Li Keqiang, who studied economics and law. Former Beijing mayor Wang Qishan, who majored in history, is now China's point man for the immensely important Sino-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Meanwhile, former commerce secretary Bo Xilai, currently a provincial party secretary, is a rising star who has a postgraduate degree in, of all things, journalism. Though statistics are hard to come by, 20 years ago such a strong showing in the liberal arts would have been unthinkable.

It's a good bet that, with social scientists acquiring more policymaking clout, China will see a shift away from the past practice of economic growth at any cost. Certainly the crush of law degrees among China's fresh crop of leaders bodes well for much-needed improvements in the rule of law—or at least in the procedural implementation. (In an interview with NEWSWEEK’s Fareed Zakaria, Wen said that China would not be truly ready for democracy until it saw greater adherence to existing legal procedures.) Some relatives of villagers detained for engaging in protests are, for the first time, being advised by authorities to seek professional legal advice about the mechanics of the appeal process, probation, and bail.

And some younger-generation leaders have openly embraced the mantra that money and growth aren't everything. Several years ago Chen Gang, mayor of the Beijing district of Chaoyang, threw his support behind artists trying to save their studios in a defunct '50s-era factory from demolition. (The complex was slated for redevelopment into a pricey residential complex.) Chen envisaged "Factory 798" becoming like New York's SoHo. Now it's thriving and full of galleries, museum offices, and restaurants—so successful, in fact, that at least two other shuttered Beijing factory compounds are slated to become similar cultural enclaves. "[We] need economic development, but artists need artistic development, too," explains Chen. He has the best of both worlds, having studied chemistry in college but also government administration during a short postgrad program at Harvard.

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fred
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posted September 30, 2009 05:44 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
China celebrates 60 years with star-studded movie

By NBC News' Bo Gu

BEIJING – With more than 170 A-list movie stars from China and Hong Kong, "The Founding of a Republic," is breaking box office records – raking in $33.8 million during its first 10 days in theaters.

But this is nothing like the products pumped out by Hollywood. Instead, it’s a propaganda film made by the state-owned China Film Group.

Launched to mark the 60th anniversary of the communist era, the 135-minute movie depicts Mao Zedong’s rise, tracking the 1945-49 war in which the Communist Party of China (the CPC) led by Mao and the National Democratic Party (the KMT) led by Chiang Kia-shek fought fiercely for power..

The lengthy cast list includes many of the top names in modern Chinese film, including martial arts stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger," action movie director John Woo, among others. And most of the famous actors took little or no pay for their work – rather, considering it an honor to have just a few brief lines in the film.

VIDEO: Blockbuster movie celebrates Mao's victory and 60 years of Communist rule

Movies in China usually don’t sell a lot of tickets during the so-called "red season," the summer and early fall months that are dominated by national holidays ( July 1 is the Communist Party of China’s Founding Day, Aug. 1 is the People’s Liberation Army Day and Oct.1 is National Day). The films that are released are typically dull, mind-numbing propaganda films only viewed by students or government staff with free tickets.

But "The Founding of a Republic" seems to be an exception. The box office numbers are still skyrocketing the China Film Group says it expects the tally to pass $350 million within the next couple of weeks.

Director: It's a 'good story'
Huang Jianxin, one of the two directors of the big hit, proudly told NBC News that he believes a lot of younger movie goers were happy to buy tickets of their own accord (a ticket costs $5-10 in Beijing), not because they were told to, as was often the case with government-made propaganda films in the past. Huang acknowledged that the celebrity-packed cast was clearly a magnet for younger viewers, but added that the movie, "would not attract them without a good story, no matter how many stars are in it."

There’s no question that the "The Founding of a Republic" is made in a refreshingly different way. Unlike other propaganda movies, which usually portray Mao’s Nationalist Party rivals as ruthless, cold-blooded, "counter revolutionaries," Chiang Kai-shek and his son are shown for the first time having down- to-earth father-son moments. And his officers also display a human side, even when they talk about assassinations.

The movie also contains a rare sight – a drunken Mao and a singing Zhou Enlai (the first premier of the People’s Republic of China). Still, Mao and his party, living in earthen huts and forced to save candle light for meetings, are always portrayed as righteous and invincible against the U.S.-backed, totally corrupt, Nationalist forces (who eventually lose and flee to Taiwan).

Image: People hold a Chinese national flag
SLIDESHOW: China celebrates
Zhang Lianjuan, an account associate at an multinational company, chose to go to the theater as a small celebration right after her marriage registration, but she was disappointed by the film. "I don't have a special feeling for this movie, it merely went through a lot of history in two and half hours," she said. "The celebrities didn't give an outstanding performance in the movie at all."

But Zheng Yunfeng, a 30-year-old radio host in Beijing, thought it was a "well-balanced" movie. "It doesn't vilify the KMT [the Nationalist Party] as mainstream movies used to in the past. It objectively illustrates the real history – KMT had both corrupt and righteous moments at the time."

A patriotic time
Still why would such a stellar cast take part in such a propagandistic project, and for such meager paychecks? Huang, the director, attributes it to a sense of patriotism ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of China.

"China’s 30 years of opening and reform has made China come back to the world stage," he said. "Fast economic growth and increasing state power has again brought back self-esteem [to the] Chinese people," said Huang.

However, he doesn’t stress the real powers behind the movie: the Central Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China and the State Administration of Radio Film and Television. The two government departments decide what’s allowed to be shown on TV, in movie theaters and in newspapers, and what books and movies are allowed to be imported into China.

Their efforts to create a blockbuster film to celebrate the Party’s 60 years in power have clearly been a big success.

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HollywoodProducer
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posted October 20, 2009 04:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for HollywoodProducer   Click Here to Email HollywoodProducer     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
What Was Once Forbidden

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By ILARIA MARIA SALA
[culturerev] Zina Saunders

Guo Wenjing

Beijing

"You see, for me the Cultural Revolution was not as bad as all that, actually," says composer Guo Wenjing, 53, with a slightly bemused look on his face. He draws pensively on his cigarette and explains: "Nobody in my family had any interest in music. My father and mother were peasants from the north. They had joined the Communist Party early on and became soldiers in the People's Liberation Army. They arrived in Sichuan with the army, and once demobilized and assigned to do 'communist work' in Chongqing, they became cadres at the local military hospital," he says, looking out of the window of the small downtown café where we are talking.

Selecting a seat was no mean task: Mr. Guo is an inveterate smoker, constantly apologizing for his habit and yet always lighting up, and at first the waiter had sent us upstairs, where smoking is allowed. But Mr. Guo's highly sensitive ears could not stand even the dim buzzing sound of the air vent, and he pleaded to be allowed to sit and smoke downstairs.
Class of 1978

Ensemble ACJW
Carnegie Hall

Oct. 26

"When the Cultural Revolution started, in 1966, and the Eight Revolutionary Operas [created by Jiang Qing, aka Madame Mao] became required propaganda work in every city and province, each local Cultural bureau had to look for children with a suitable class background to receive musical training to perform them. This is how music arrived at my doorstep. Everything else was banned, of course, but our teacher could only use what he knew to instruct us: which is how I first came to play Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven," he says, playing an imaginary violin in the air, waiving his cigarette up and down while doing so. "I loved it," he says, recalling that "it was the time of the great Sino-Soviet split, so Russian music was even more forbidden than the Western composers. On stage, we could only play revolutionary music. For study and rehearsals, however, we learned through the classical masters. We were children, and were quite fond of revolutionary music, actually! And if you consider that my siblings were at work in the fields and in the factory as I played, I had a pretty good time," he exclaims. Then he turns very serious, and shaking away his childhood recollections while chasing away his own cigarette smoke, he says: "Those were complicated years, but do not get me wrong. The Cultural Revolution was a tragedy. A disaster."

When that finally ended, in 1977, Mr. Guo saw an ad in the newspaper announcing the reopening of the Central Conservatory in Beijing after 10 years. He sat for the exam and was admitted along with what became known as the Class of 1978, the first group of Chinese composers to emerge from the ashes of the Cultural Revolution. The musical accomplishments of some notable members of that class—namely Mr. Guo, Chen Qigang, Chen Yi, Bright Sheng and Zhou Long—will be celebrated by New York's Carnegie Hall on Oct. 26 as part of its three-week "Ancient Paths, Modern Voices" festival showcasing music from China.

Of that now famous Class of 1978, Mr. Guo is the only member who still lives exclusively in China. Some of the others—Ms. Chen, Mr. Sheng and Mr. Zhou—have become U.S. citizens, while Chen Qigang (the music director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games opening ceremony) lives and works in China many months of the year but holds a French passport.

Mr. Guo prefers to reside closer to his roots, which have become an important element in his more recent compositions, where he tries to convey the fiery flavors of his native Sichuan through his music.

“Many make music to please the bureaucrats, or catch the attention of foreigners. That said, music is now one of the freest arts in China.” Composer Guo Wenjing

Chen Qigang, 58, after having studied in France with Olivier Messiaen, is now researching Chinese music passionately—and has even instituted an international competition in Shanghai to promote knowledge of Chinese classical instruments among world composers. As with Mr. Guo, this translates into compositions that unite Western tradition with the grandiosity characteristic of contemporary China's ambitions, as well as strong local influences from the classical repertoire and the popular vernacular.

Mr. Chen's Cultural Revolution experience was more troublesome, and his itinerary more complex: "I was 15 when it started, and 25 when it ended. My formative years where during that unsettling time. I was already a student at the Conservatory when it got closed down, but we stayed on: Our dormitories were there, so we hung around, waiting to see what would happen." He is speaking to me in the coffee shop of a five-star hotel, sitting very still, in front of a glass of water he barely touches, while a flood of words comes out of him. "What was then called 'feudalist and capitalist culture' was restricted, and we had access to very little, just some authorized music sheets that we learned really well. Having too much choice can be problematic too, of course," he says. Nevertheless, the irresistible aroma of the forbidden drew students to pine for unauthorized melodies: "Each clandestine occasion to play was like a current of fresh air sent from the sky. We had a burning desire to know what we could not know," which soon thereafter brought them "to idolize uncritically all that came from abroad." After many years in France, though, Mr. Chen is not entirely impressed with Western artistic freedoms: "There is an imposition of the accepted style, set by the most successful composers. It is quite rigid, not good for creativity," he says, speaking with restraint, in a soft monotone.

Now that there are no barriers to what can be listened to in China, both composers agree with the oft-repeated statement that, with audiences in the West shrinking and millions of young Chinese eagerly studying the piano and the violin, the future of classical music is in China. Yet both Mr. Chen and Mr. Guo find that music faces new challenges in the country: "With the economic changes, we have a lot of leisure activities today. But we still have very little culture: People respect money more than talent, and this too is bad for creativity," says Mr. Chen. Mr. Guo, meanwhile, finds China's current heady climate of great economic exuberance in a politically controlled environment a challenging mix: "Many make music to please the bureaucrats, or catch the attention of foreigners. That said, music is now one of the freest arts in China."
—Ms. Sala is a writer based in Hong Kong.

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fred
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posted June 04, 2010 11:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Tiananmen Square Cartoon Hit With Chinese Online Community, Not With Government

June 04, 2010 1:13 PM
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ABC's Mary Huang reports from Beijing:

On a day meant to celebrate China’s future, an image surrounding the country’s troubled past has captured the attention of its online community.

Rt_tiananment_sq_100604_wmain

Just three days before the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, China’s Southern Metropolis Daily published a series of cartoons commemorating International Children’s Day. In one, a small boy draws a stick figure standing in front of a line of tanks, echoing the iconic Tank Man photograph from the Tiananmen protests.

The cartoon quickly circulated around China’s online community as citizens passed it on, attaching comments that praised the newspaper and implored future generations to remember the event. State censors quickly intervened and removed the cartoon from the newspaper’s website.

In the lead-up to this year’s anniversary, the government also cracked down on commemorative activities in Hong Kong, the only part of the country where such public events are allowed. On Saturday, city police arrested 13 activists demonstrating on the city’s sidewalks, along with a miniature version of the original Tiananmen “Goddess of Democracy” statue. Standing at 33 feet tall, the original statue was constructed by student protestors to symbolize their push for democratic reform. It stood in the square for five days before soldiers destroyed it during the government crackdown. Like the Tank Man, the sculpture has become an icon of the Tiananmen movement and a symbol of liberty and free speech. Replicas have been built around the world in commemoration. The replica seized by Hong Kong police had been constructed by New Zealander Chen Weiming for the city’s Tiananmen Square protest memorial gatherings this year.

Public outcry forced the Hong Kong police to return Chen’s statue on Tuesday. The statue was on display during the city’s June 4 memorial vigil in Victoria Park. Police also released the activists on bail within a day of their arrest. The creator, however, was not so lucky. Earlier in the week, Hong Kong authorities detained and deported Chen at the airport as he tried to enter the city to check on his statue.

Twenty-one years after Tiananmen, the Chinese government continues to label the student-led protests as a counterrevolutionary revolt and to restrict public acknowledgement of the crackdown. As Hong Kong citizens gather in memory of Tiananmen, memorial events in mainland China are out of the question. Younger generations of Chinese remain largely ignorant of the events. For a society that prides itself on remembering its 5,000-year-old history, most Chinese treat June 4 as an ordinary day.

With the exception of increased security along Beijing’s streets, the day appears to pass by quietly. Yet, as the Southern Metropolis Daily cartoon reminds us, there are still some, however few, dedicated to keeping the memory of the massacre in Tiananmen Square alive in China.

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AuthorAuthor
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posted June 29, 2010 11:13 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
China denies military exercise aimed at U.S.
5:53am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China denied on Tuesday media reports that an artillery drill in the East China Sea was in response to a planned military exercise between South Korea and the United States.

The 6-day, live ammunition exercise starting on Wednesday in the East China Sea off China's coast was seen by some analysts as a "response to a (planned) joint exercise between the United States and Republic of Korea navies in the Yellow Sea," said the China Daily, the country's official English-language newspaper.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said there was no such link and a Chinese military officer said the timing was coincidental.

"This is a regular military exercise," the spokesman Qin told a regular news conference. "This is not related to the situation on the Korean Peninsula."

Li Daguang, a professor at China's National Defense University and a People's Liberation Army (PLA) officer, said the exercise was "not aimed at the U.S.-South Korea joint exercise."

"The PLA artillery exercise in the East China Sea and the joint U.S.-South Korea exercise in the Yellow Sea are a complete coincidence," Li told the Wen Wei Po, a Hong Kong newspaper under mainland control.

"The outside world shouldn't read anything into this."

The Yellow Sea lies to the north of the East China Sea and the areas of the two exercises would not overlap.

China's Foreign Ministry said last week it was concerned about reports a U.S. aircraft carrier may join the anti-submarine exercise with South Korea following a standoff with North Korea over the sinking of a warship from the South.

"Though the Chinese government did not say anything about the drill, anybody with common sense on military strategy will bet that they are related," one expert on China-U.S. relations, Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing, told the China Daily.

The joint exercise that had been expected this month will most likely take place in July, although a date has yet to be set, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Washington has not said officially whether an aircraft carrier would participate, as some news reports citing Pentagon sources have suggested.

Beijing has been angered by U.S. navy ships engaging in surveillance in waters close to China's southern coast.

Earlier this year, Beijing curtailed contacts with the Pentagon over continued U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own territory.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this month China's decision to break off military-to-military contacts could undercut regional stability.

Gates said the PLA was the main obstruction in the way of improved relations and suggested its position was at odds with that of the country's political leadership.

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fred
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posted August 03, 2010 09:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Now this is cool looking...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/3d-express-coach-pictures_n_667452.html

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fred
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posted October 08, 2010 08:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
BEIJING – Imprisoned Chinese democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize — an award that immediately inspired China's political dissidents and drew furious condemnation from the authoritarian government.

Chinese state media blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel Prize reports, which highlighted Liu's calls for peaceful political change, from Internet websites. China declared the decision would harm its relations with Norway and promptly summoned Oslo's ambassador to Beijing to make a formal protest.

In Oslo, China's ambassador to Norway met with a state secretary at Norway's Foreign Ministry, Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ragnhild Imerslund said. China requested both meetings to express its discontent with the peace prize decision, Imerslund said.

She said the Norwegian officials explained that the peace prize committee is independent of the government and that Norway wants to maintain good relations with China.

This year's peace prize followed a long tradition of honoring dissidents around the world and was the first Nobel for China's dissident community since it resurfaced after the Communists launched economic but not political reforms three decades ago.

Liu, 54, was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for subversion. The Nobel committee said he was the first to be honored while still in prison, although other Nobel winners have been under house arrest, or imprisoned before the prize.

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DavidChang
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posted March 21, 2012 05:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for DavidChang   Click Here to Email DavidChang     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Chinese Video Sites Youku and Tudou to Merge (nyt)
Youku Inc., a leading Chinese online video Web site, has agreed to merge with its biggest domestic competitor, Tudou, in a stock swap valued at an estimated $1.1 billion. The surprise deal, which was announced before the two companies opened for trading on Monday, is expected to create an online video goliath here. Both companies currently compete in a segment that is struggling to generate revenue and profit because much of the content is free, but investors believe online video sites will eventually yield sizable earnings. The two Chinese companies are now vying to pool their resources in anticipation of regulatory changes that could allow online video sites to play a larger role in China’s evolving media sector, perhaps even competing directly with state-controlled television. “We intend to lead the next phase of online video development in China,” Victor Koo, Youku’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement on Monday. “Youku Tudou Inc. will represent a differentiated leader in the online video market in China with the larger user base, the most comprehensive content library, most advanced bandwidth infrastructure and strongest monetization capability within the sector.” Under the terms of the agreement, Tudou shareholders will swap their shares for those of Youku. The new company will be renamed Youku Tudou. The deal has already been approved by the directors of both companies. Mergers involving Chinese companies listed in the United States have been rare. No major publicly listed Chinese Internet companies have merged during the last five years. It is unclear whether the deal will have to pass regulatory scrutiny in the United States, where the companies are listed, or China, where they operate. Analysts say regulators may scrutinize trading in Tudou’s Nasdaq shares last Friday. In a sign that some investors may have had advance word of the deal, trading in the stock soared on heavy volume Friday, and the shares climbed 12 percent. Youku and Tudou control about a third of the online video advertising market in China, according to Analysys International, which tracks Web sites in China. But both companies have reported huge losses in recent years. The deal creates uncertainty, though, for two other big Chinese Internet companies, Sina.com and Baidu. Sina, which operates China’s biggest social networking site, Weibo.com, paid about $66 million to acquire about 9 percent of Tudou around the time the company went public last year. And Baidu, China’s biggest online search engine, has been working on its own video site platform. A Sina.com spokesman declined to comment on Monday about the proposed merger, and a spokesman for Baidu could not be reached for comment.

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DavidChang
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posted April 13, 2012 04:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for DavidChang   Click Here to Email DavidChang     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Another China/US joint venture... http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/serenity-media-group-establishes-150-million-film-fund-with-china-lion/

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DavidChang
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From:Toluca Lake, California
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posted April 25, 2012 08:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for DavidChang   Click Here to Email DavidChang     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to know how several U.S. studios have gotten so cozy with China. In letters to Hollywood companies including News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks and Walt Disney Co., the SEC asks about what deals the studios may have cut with the Chinese government to boost their businesses there. The SEC wants to see if the studios may have crossed the line of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids payoffs to foreign officials for business interests. That would be bad.

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DavidChang
Director

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From:Toluca Lake, California
Registered: Apr 2000

posted April 25, 2012 12:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for DavidChang   Click Here to Email DavidChang     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
SEC Probing Hollywood Dealings in China (thr)
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent letters to major movies studios including Fox, Disney and DreamWorks Animation, seeking information about potentially inappropriate payments to government officials in China, according to a report by Reuters on Tuesday. The U.S. regulators are said to be investigating whether the American entertainment companies have paid bribes or had any illegal dealings with Chinese officials. Reuters said its source was an unidentified person who had knowledge of letters sent to the studios in the past two months. Reuters said that China Film Group and representatives of Fox studio owner News Corp., DreamWorks Animation and the Walt Disney Co. had all declined comment. China has become a top priority for American entertainment companies looking to take advantage of its booming population and love of entertainment. The state-owned China Film Group tightly limits the number of foreign releases allowed in the country to about 20 per year, though in February a deal was cut to allow more American films to screen in the country. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Vice President Joe Biden announced the new trade expansion with China with great fanfare. Disney, which is building a new theme park in China in partnership with a government-owned company, last week announced that it is partnering with China's DMG Entertainment to co-produce its upcoming Iron Man 3. DreamWorks Animation has made several deals in China, including a September pact to build an animation facility in Shanghai to make content for the Chinese market. If true, an investigation could lead to prosecution for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for Americans to pay bribes to foreign government officials in order to facilitate their business dealings. While the law has been on the books in the U.S. since the 1970s, it has only been used a few times. An action against Hollywood studios would be a bombshell case. The total Chinese box office has soared in recent years as multiplex theaters have been built across the mainland. In 2009-10, the Fox film Avatar grossed more than $193 million in China, helping the film become the highest-grossing of all time. That occurred even though the 2-D version of the movie was taken off Chinese screens for a time.

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