On chinadaily.com.cn

Culture: Show looks at past celebrations

A talk show, in which experts and celebrities discuss how the Spring Festival was celebrated in the Forbidden City, will be aired on Wednesday. The five-episode show features topics ranging from emperors' New Year receptions to family gatherings, royal rituals, imperial gifts and entertainment during the Chinese New Year, according to the Palace Museum. The program is coproduced by the Palace Museum and Tencent.

Biz: 34,500 tons of Moutai to hit market

Liquor producer Kweichow Moutai Group will put 34,500 metric tons of its premier Moutai liquor on the market next year, including 2,000 metric tons for the overseas market. Moutai is China's top brand of baijiu. The liquor is considered a luxury item and has long been a popular gift. Kweichow Moutai's sales revenue jumped 16.64 percent year-on-year to more than 60.93 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) in the first three quarters this year. Kweichow Moutai said the company will establish its own e-commerce platform next year and further promote overseas sales of its products.

People: Silicon Valley honors Chinese painter

A 103-year-old Chinese painter's life story has been preserved and presented to the public thanks to the efforts of a museum in Silicon Valley, California. Los Altos History Museum recently interviewed Hou Beiren, a renowned contemporary Chinese painter in California, for an oral-history program that aspires to preserve the artist's history and raise awareness of cultural diversity in the United States. Born in 1917 in Liaoning province, Hou spent much of his life away from his native land. After extensive travel and relocation, he moved from Hong Kong to the United States in 1956 and settled in Los Altos, California, where he embraced the "splash ink and color" style under the influence of Chinese painting master Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), who lived in California for nine years in the 1960s and 1970s. Splash ink and color is a technique of working with splashy, colorful washes to create an abstract, expressive style. The style was never dominant in Chinese art history until the emergence of Zhang. Visit our website to find out more about his story.

Society: First subway line opens in Hohhot

The Inner Mongolia autonomous region opened its first-ever subway line in Hohhot on Sunday. The 21.72-kilometer-long metro line of 20 stations offers services to the four main urban districts of Hohhot with a maximum capacity of 2,062 passengers and a top speed of 80 km per hour. Hohhot Metro said another line is under construction and will start trial operations in June. The city has a population of more than 3 million residents. The country's first subway was built in Beijing in 1969. China now has more than 30 cities with metro systems, and that figure is projected to reach 50 next year as more cities accelerate the construction of urban rail projects.