With the light fragrance of the painting ink in the air, the Yang family was busy making 1,000 sets of woodblock-printed New Year paintings for a Hong Kong customer. Five or six of them were printing and binding paintings of figures from the Chinese classic novel A Dream of the Red Chamber. Giving instructions to them was an old man.
Nearly every time I enter a neighborhood grocery store and pick up a shopping basket, I regret deciding again to cobble together a meal on my own. As quickly as possible, I weave in and out of the labyrinth of shelves and freezers, careful not to disturb animals hanging from hooks and shop staff staring off into space.
Wu Song Kills a Tiger (Wu Song Da Hu) is a classical tale of Shandong kuaishu and one of Eric Shepherd's favorites. It is a lively rendition of an excerpt from Outlaws of the Marsh, one of the four classical novels of Chinese literature, which is a popular 120-chapter Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) novel based on peasant uprisings in late Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). Since the story is told in Chinese, flavored with Shandong dialect, Shepherd often offers an English summary first.
Beijing taxi drivers are famous for being talkative. I wonder if they will age to become the world's most articulate group of elderly people. Probably, because my observations have shown that local Beijing elderly people are much more effusive than their counterparts in other areas. They cover various topics, even if no one else is listening.
Dressed in a gray, traditional Chinese robe, and drumming up a click-clack beat of the Mandarin duck brass plates, or yuanyang ban, a young American speaks rapid Chinese to the delight of the crowd. The Chinese crowd is impressed by the foreigner's ability to talk in fluent Shandong dialect, but more amazed by what he is saying. The yarn he is spinning is hilarious.
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. A friend of mine MSNed me, mentioning that a book I wrote two years ago was available for download on a certain website.
On a cold morning last winter, Su Junyi, a graduate student at the Beijing Language and Culture University, tried - for the umpteenth time - to reach her fiance Yang Yifei.
Having spent one year in Sudan, Yu Min, the 44-year old Chinese military officer, is now back again in classroom, staying with his students. With his unforgettable experiences as the chief medical officer of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan, Yu also had more practical field knowledge to share with his students and colleagues.
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Raymond Zhou
Op Rana
Berlin Fang
Zhu Yuan
Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua
