Earlier this month at a cafe in the financial district of Beijing, a group of young people sitting on a sofa appeared to be slightly uncomfortable facing the gaze of the cameras, awaiting their introduction from celebrity Hong Huang. In another corner media stars like director Liu Yiwei, writer, musician and composer Liu Suola and artist Wang Jianwei, were chatting and joking.
We had just feasted on a sumptuous seven-course Cantonese dinner and I was about to enjoy my usual dessert - a soothing cigarette - when all hell broke loose. "Do you mind Patrick?" my Chinese friends shouted. I was stunned. They were Beijingers, we were in a Beijing restaurant and they were protesting against me lighting up. This had never happened before and suggested to me that China is changing.
With small moves of his fingers, palms and wrist, Chen Jintang of East China's Fujian Province makes a glove puppet on his hand spring to life, cough like an old man, or giggle like an innocent child.
One word I learned before going abroad was "multicultural". It's arguably the single most popular word to pop up in an IELTS (an English proficiency test for overseas-bound Chinese) essay question, and I got it down. I was able to dissect multiculturalism with reference to diversity, universality and assimilation, even in my sleep.
China's youth was speaking loud and clear at the telephone interview round of the "21st Century Scholastic Cup" speech contest, which I recently helped judge. They were saying, we are young and speak English better than you will ever speak Chinese.
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Raymond Zhou
Op Rana
Berlin Fang
Zhu Yuan
Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua
