Overseas Chinese shine at illustrators' contest

LOS ANGELES - Since ancient times in China, art forms involving ink and brushes such as calligraphy and paintings have been seen as highly desirable and have brought prestige to the artists who excelled at them.

So it was no surprise that four out of the 12 winners in the Writers & Illustrators of the Future competition held in the United States were of Chinese descent: Aliya Chen, Qianjiao Ma, Yingying Jiang and Alice Wang.

And Chen also won the Golden Brush Award, the grand prize at the 30th annual global illustration competition.