Reviews
BOOK
Mr Olympics
He Zhenliang, known as China's Mr Olympics, has helped shape the course of Chinese sports diplomacy for over 50 years. He Zhenliang and China's Olympic Dream, published by Foreign Languages Press, chronicles He's memories of the sports world and provides an insider's perspective on the timeline of China's sports history.
The major events include China's return to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the 1970s, the 1990 Beijing 11th Asian Games, and Beijing's bids for the 2000 and 2008 Olympic Games. The book is written by Liang Lijuan, He's wife, who is a senior journalist from the People's Daily.
Readers can gain special insights into Chinese sports and the development of the Olympic movement in China. He, who turns 78 later this year, is the honorary chairman of China's Olympic Committee and an advisor of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
Ou Shuyi
Website
Green travel
Tourism is now considered a major contributor to carbon emissions that have induced global warming. But travelers in China can reduce their eco-footprints by following the guidelines on www.chinagreentravel.com, a website launched by Conservation International to promote climate-friendly lifestyle and travel in China, which is expected to attract 2.5 billion visitors by 2008.
One of the highlights of the website is a useful and interesting animated carbon calculator, with which you can work out how much carbon each trip would emit by inputting the distance and method of transportation. The calculator will also alert you on how to offset the amount of carbon that your journey emits, by planting trees, for example.
Wu Chong
Film
The Longest Night in Shanghai
Directed by Zhang Yibai, starring Zhao Wei, Masahiro Motoki
The real star of this romantic comedy is the city itself, glittering in the amorous night and exuding unspeakable allure. With jazz bars, posh hotels and quaint, charming old buildings, the locale casts a spell, not only on the characters but also on the audience.
The movie sets up an improbable premise: A local taxi driver and a high-status stylist fall in love in intermittent rain. To raise the bar of improbability, the girl is the driver and the boy is the stylist on a short visit from Japan. They do not speak each other's language. And the girl is an ugly duckling, and each of them has already found the significant other.
Of course, everything ends happily and the road is paved with gags and unlikely twists. But hey, this is love that is cosmopolitan to the ninth, where many seek solace of the moment.
Nothing is impossible.
Raymond Zhou
(China Daily 07/04/2007 page20)
