IN AFRICA, FORMER HUNTERS TURN PROTECTORS. STORY, P9
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The American was selected immediately after graduation from Brigham Young University to found Eleutian Technology’s China branch.
For Wester, it was equal
parts adventure and career that prompted the move.
“Th ree-hundred years ago, if you wanted to do what was best for your family, you’d sell all you own and move to the USA.
“Today, the best thing you can do for your family is to sell all you own and move to China.”
So, he did, moving to Liao-ning province’s Dalian, before settling in Beijing in 2010. But
Wester already had an inkling of what he was getting into and why it was a good move.
He had done an internship in 2008 with a US furniture com-pany in a village of 200 people outside of Guangzhou “two hours from any McDonalds”.
“That was my welcome to China experience,” Wester says.
“It was the moment I realized China is the place to be. Th at was when I realized what the growth really was. If you go to Beijing or Shanghai, you feel like China is already there. But if you go to the places where the majority of
the population lives, you see the growth that will take place.”
Th e New World refrain artic-ulated by Horace Greeley in 1865 — “Go West, young man; Go West, and grow up with the country” — persisted to later lure Europeans and people from the economically emerging world.
But the direction of human relocation is also starting to stream in reverse. “Go East, young man” might be the new mantra.
SEE “FUTURE” PAGE 3
It used to be that the buzzword was “Go West, young man”. But in the 21st century, it is China which attracts the young and adventurous. Erik Nilsson and Thomas Hale report.
They come for the adventure. Th ey stay for the jobs. Foreigners coming to China for excitement and work is nothing new, but today’s imported talent, like 28-year-old American Nick Wester, is younger and higher-caliber. Wester heeded the call of former US national security advisor Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, who served under Jimmy Carter, who spoke at his university
and told graduates to go East.
GUILLERMO MUNRO / CHINA DAILY
In this issueDIGEST............................................2
On his fi rst inspection tour to provinces since the latest leadership reshuffl e in Novem-ber, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang highlighted some key words that will possibly indicate policy focus: urbanization, domestic demand and the role of market forces.
The largest potential of the nation’s domestic demand lies not only in the eastern region, but also in the less-developed central and western regions, Li said at a forum held Friday in Jiujiang, a port city along the Yangtze River in central China’s Jiangxi province.
One of the strategic fulcrums of the central region’s develop-ment is the area along the Yang-tze River, Xinhua news agency quoted Li as saying.
The Yangtze River, China’s longest waterway, runs through several provinces in the central heartland, including Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui.
China’s sustainable and healthy development lies in changes to the development pattern and the adjustment of the economic structure. The greatest mission in the adjust-ment is boosting domestic demand, and there is huge potential in the central and western regions in this regard, he said.
Th e regions along the Yangtze River would spur development in central and western China. Li said, and he called for eff orts to close the gaps between urban and rural areas, as well as the diff erent regions of China. Th e potential of less-developed areas will provide strong momentum for China’s economic develop-ment and the improvement of the people’s lives.
SEE “REFORMS” PAGE 2
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SUNDAY
MONDAY
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TRAVELER’S FORECAST
Chengdu
Urumqi
Beijing
Xining
New Delhi
Kathmandu
Thimphu
Yangon
Singapore
Jakarta
Kuala Lumpur
Bangkok
Vientiane
Ulaanbaatar
Shanghai
Bandar Seri Begawan
Macao
Hong Kong
Guangzhou
Manila
Hanoi
Taipei
Seoul
Pyongyang
Tokyo
Lhasa
CHINA
AMERICAS
DEC 30 - 31SUN - MON
LOW/HIGH TEMPERATURES, IN DEGREES CELSIUS,AND EXPECTED CONDITIONS
BuenosAires 19 / 31 C 23 / 31 SChicago - 4 / 0 C - 9 /- 1 OCaracas 24 / 31 C 24 / 30 CHouston 1 / 12 C 0 / 14 OLas Vegas 1 / 10 C 1 / 9 CLos Angeles 10 / 15 C 9 / 14 SMexico City 9 / 23 C 8 / 23 CNew York - 1 / 4 C - 2 / 2 COttawa -14 /-10 O -12 /- 2 CRio De Janeiro 26 / 34 S 25 / 33 CSan Francisco 6 / 11 C 6 / 10 CSao Paulo 22 / 27 O 21 / 28 ShVancouver 2 / 6 C 2 / 6 CWashington 1 / 5 S - 1 / 5 S
Athens 6 / 13 Sh 9 / 12 ShBerlin - 1 / 8 O 3 / 8 CBrussels 7 / 11 C 6 / 10 CGeneva 3 / 7 D 2 / 6 CIstanbul 8 / 11 O 6 / 10 CLondon 4 / 10 C 9 / 11 OMadrid - 1 / 7 O 1 / 9 CMoscow - 6 /- 2 O - 7 /- 3 OParis 7 / 11 C 7 / 11 ORome 3 / 13 S 2 / 13 SVienna - 3 / 4 C - 3 / 5 C
CHINA
AFRICA
- 6 /- 2
- 9 /- 5
Cairo 11 / 20 C 12 / 19 CCapeTown 16 / 26 O 18 / 25 CJohannesburg 16 / 29 S 17 / 26 CLagos 24 / 32 C 24 / 32 CNairobi 16 / 26 C 16 / 26 C
Abu Dhabi 5 / 21 R 9 / 22 RBangkok 26 / 35 C 26 / 32 CColombo 25 / 30 C 24 / 30 CDubai 17 / 24 S 15 / 24 SHanoi 14 / 18 O 14 / 18 OIslamabad 8 / 18 S 5 / 19 SJakarta 24 / 33 O 25 / 33 OKarachi 9 / 24 S 8 / 24 SKuala Lumpur 25 / 32 O 25 / 32 OManila 25 / 31 C 25 / 31 CMumbai 16 / 32 S 18 / 32 SNew Delhi 8 / 20 S 5 / 19 SPyongyang - 9 /- 5 S -13 /- 9 SRiyadh 10 / 21 S 10 / 23 CSeoul - 6 /- 2 S - 9 /- 5 SSingapore 25 / 30 Sh 25 / 30 OSydney 19 / 22 O 19 / 28 OTeheran 2 / 10 S 2 / 8 STokyo 3 / 11 O 4 / 10 RWellington 17 / 21 D 17 / 20 CYangon 20 / 35 S 19 / 35 S
Beijing - 9 /- 2 S -11 /- 3 SChangchun -24 /-18 Sn -27 /-18 CChangsha - 1 / 5 C - 2 / 8 SChongqing 2 / 8 C 2 / 10 CDalian -10 /- 6 S -10 /- 3 SFuzhou 7 / 13 Sh 5 / 12 OGuangzhou 5 / 12 C 3 / 14 SGuilin 0 / 4 C 1 / 7 CGuiyang - 3 / 1 O - 1 / 3 OHaikou 12 / 16 D 9 / 17 OHangzhou - 3 / 1 O - 4 / 5 CHarbin -23 /-20 Sn -27 /-20 CHefei - 6 / 2 C - 5 / 6 CHohhot -18 /- 8 C -16 /- 9 CHongkong 10 / 14 C 9 / 17 CJinan -10 /- 2 S - 9 / 0 SKunming 2 / 7 D 1 / 12 ShLanzhou -15 /- 2 S -14 / 0 SLhasa - 3 / 16 C - 3 / 14 SLijiang - 1 / 13 C 1 / 14 CMacao 10 / 14 C 7 / 17 CNanchang - 1 / 3 C - 3 / 5 SNanjing - 5 / 1 C - 6 / 4 SNanning 5 / 10 O 4 / 12 OQingdao - 7 /- 2 C - 7 /- 1 SSanya 19 / 25 D 16 / 23 O
Shanghai - 2 / 2 C - 3 / 5 SShenyang -21 /-13 S -25 /-13 SShenzhen 7 / 15 C 5 / 12 CShijiazhuang - 7 / 1 S - 9 / 0 SSuzhou - 2 / 2 C - 3 / 4 STaipei 11 / 13 R 7 / 13 DTaiyuan -15 /- 3 S -13 /- 2 STianjin -10 /- 4 S -11 /- 2 SUrumqi -21 /-10 S -18 /- 8 SWuhan - 6 / 3 C - 4 / 5 CXiamen 8 / 16 Sh 6 / 13 CXi’an - 7 / 3 S - 6 / 4 SXining -21 /- 2 S -20 / 1 SYantai - 8 /- 3 Sn - 9 /- 1 SnYinchuan -15 /- 3 S -13 /- 2 SZhengzhou - 6 / 3 S - 5 / 6 SZhuhai 8 / 13 C 6 / 12 S
2 sundaydigest C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
RUSSIA
Police free child hostage, kill 7 Russian security forces killed seven militants and freed a 6-year-old girl taken hostage in the restive Dagestan region of Russia’s volatile North Caucasus on Saturday, a national anti-terrorism committee offi cial told Interfax news agency. Th e report said that the militants in the provincial capital of Makhachkala broke through a wall, entered an apartment and took the girl hostage. Th ose killed had previously served sentences for crimes including murder, extortion, theft and robbery, Interfax said.
INDONESIA
Foreign tourism up 5 percentTh e number of foreign holiday makers coming into Indonesia from January to November was up by 5 percent to more than 7.2 million people on yearly basis, an offi cial said here. Indonesia expects 9.5 million holiday makers to visit the country by 2014, 1 million of which from China, the country’s tourism minister told Xinhua.
MYANMAR
Suu Kyi-made sweaters soldMyanmar’s cash-strapped opposition party is tapping into the prestige of its leader: Two sweaters hand-knit by Aung San Suu Kyi have been auctioned for $123,000. A green-and-white sweater with a fl oral design sold at a Friday night auction to an anonymous bidder for 63 million kyat, or $74,120. On Th ursday, a Myanmar-based radio station won a bidding war for a multicolored V-neck that fetched $49,000. Suu Kyi has not publicly reacted to the success of her party’s two-day fund raiser, but aides said she was pleased with the results.
UNITED STATES
Toyota settlements take shapeA US judge gave preliminary approval on Friday to a $1 billion-plus settlement with Toyota Motor Corp. in cases involving problems of sudden, unintended acceleration by its vehicles, a plaintiff s’ attorney said. Toyota has said the deal, announced on Wednesday, will resolve hundreds of lawsuits from motorists who said the value of their Toyota vehicles plummeted aft er recalls stemming from claims that the Japanese automaker’s cars and trucks accelerated unintentionally. Claims by people who seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration are not part of the settlement; the fi rst trial involving those suits is scheduled for February.
Gay marriage law goes into eff ect Chris Kast and Byron Bartlett already consider themselves married aft er a 2010 ceremony overlooking Portland Harbor, but now they’re doing it all over again — planning to be among the fi rst to get a marriage license now that Maine’s same-sex marriage law has taken eff ect. Voters approved gay marriage in November, making Maine and two other states the fi rst to do so by popular vote. Th e law is already in eff ect in Washington state; Maryland’s takes eff ect on Tuesday, the fi rst day of 2013.
NEWS WATCH
Abe visits Fukushima site Newly installed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant on Saturday as his government reconsiders plans to eventually phase out the use of nuclear energy. Donning protective gear, Abe took a bus tour of the plant — site of the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — and greeted workers at its emergency operations center in Okuma town on Japan’s northeastern coast.
XINHUA — REUTERS — ASSOCIATED PRESS
ICY THREATPHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Electricity workers brave the cold to check transformer substations and grid lines aft er a blizzard in Anhui province on Saturday. In the past few days, much of China has been hit by extreme weather, and emergency plans are designed to deal with the power outages and ensure continuous energy supply.
FROM PAGE 1
Li noted the average urban Chinese resident makes three times more than his rural cousin, and the average per capita GDP in the eastern regions was almost eight times that of some western areas.
To solve this problem, he urged better urbanization, modern agriculture, city-rural integration and the inte-gration of development in the regions along the Yangtze.
Li used the analogy of a traditional Chinese chess game to illustrate the importance of balanced development: “It is like a game of Go. Strategic play in the board’s corners and around the sides are vital, but the moves in the center are important, as well,” Li said.
He also called for increased eff orts to develop domes-tic and foreign markets to boost demand, to maintain the rule of law in the economy and to provide equal rights, equal opportunities and fair play for all market participants.
Fair market competition will also create more jobs for the public, he said.
Th e vice-premier proposed the concept of “city clus-ters along the Yangtze River’s middle reaches”. He told local governments to provide support in terms of trans-regional transportation infrastructure and streamlined job markets and social security systems, according to Xinhua.
To that effect, local governments must break down unreasonable administrative barriers to foster a unifi ed market through reforms in the country’s economic system.
Administrative boundaries are not market territories, and local governments should shift their functions and cast off restrictions within specific sectors and local authorities, Li said.
In order to secure energetic and robust development, he emphasized the importance of forming a single mar-ket and ensuring free fl ow of market factors according to market rules.
Several proposals by local governments were presented to Li, including Hubei’s suggestion to dredge the Yangtze River and Hunan’s proposal to coordinate key projects and infrastructures across provincial borders.
“You raised a lot of suggestions, especially to the central government,” Li told provincial heads.
“Many of these suggestions are about more support from the central government, but more are about asking the central government to grant you more autonomy. Local governments should have their own initiative. Th e central government ministries should transfer their roles.
“Reforms should respect the law of the market, because market forces are irreplaceable,” he stressed.
Niu Fengrui, a researcher with the Institute for Urban and Environment Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said urbanization, in essence, is the con-centration of population and industries.
“Th e concentration allows the effi cient fl ow and func-tion of capital, land and human resources,” he said. “So it best represents modernization and the inevitable direc-tion China must take.”
Niu said China is in the middle of accelerating the process. Th e speeding up of urbanization would unleash tremendous domestic demand, notably the huge poten-tial for fi xed-asset investment growth.
He estimated that in the next few years, 1,500 to 2,000 square kilometers of new urban area would be built every year. If this translates to about 1 to 2 billion yuan in fi xed-asset investment per square kilometer, it means a total of 1,500 to 4,000 billion yuan fi xed-asset invest-ment per year.
Li Tie, head of China Center for Urban Development, a think tank under the National Development and Reform Commission, felt that the new urbanization drive will focus on boosting consumption rather than investment.
He called for an overhaul of China’s rigid household registration and land and social security systems to guarantee the migrant workers’ right to equal access to public service.
At the forum, Li Keqiang had indicated he preferred natural market forces to push forward the central region’s development.
Zhu Huasheng, associate professor of economics with the Beijing Normal University, said it is important for local governments in the central region to respect the law of the market because the experience of the eastern region showed that it is internal market forces, rather than those the government dictates, that motivated economic success.
Xinhua contributed to this story.
Reforms: Li says ‘law of the market’ must be respected
around china
world briefs
MACAO
27 injured in ferry collision in Macao Twenty-seven people were injured in a ferry collision in Macao Outer Harbor on Saturday, according to sources from the local police authority. Th e passenger ship carrying 175 passengers and eight crew members, left for Hong Kong at 12:15 am and knocked down a buoy about 15 minutes aft er departure. Th e ship sailed back to the ferry aft er the collision. Police said 25 of the 27 injured passengers had been sent to hospital immediately, most with slight contusions and scratches..
HONG KONG
Birth policy to be strictly enforcedTh e Food and Health Bureau in Hong Kong reiterated on Friday that no public hospitals will accept any bookings by non-local pregnant women for delivery in Hong Kong starting Jan 1. Pregnant women from the Chinese mainland whose husbands are Hong Kong permanent residents, and Hong Kong residents who came on one-way permits and have made bookings at local private hospitals for delivery in 2013, will have their identity and marital relations subject to stringent verifi cation, according to the new zero-quota policy. Law enforcement agencies will increase eff orts to intercept pregnant mainland women whose husbands are not Hong Kong permanent residents.
BEIJING
Date fi xed for top leaders’ electionTh e fi rst annual session of the 12th National People’s Congress will convene on March 5, during which top state leaders including the country’s president will be elected. Th e 30th meeting of the 11th NPC Standing Committee, which concluded here on Friday, decided on a suggested agenda for the session, which will last for about two weeks. According to the decision, the session will elect the chairperson and vice chairpersons of the NPC Standing Committee, as well as the country’s president and vice-president. It will also decide on the list of the State Council’s premier and vice-premiers, as well as state councilors and ministers for government departments. Th e meeting will elect the chairperson of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China, and heads of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.
China to crack down on IPR violationsTh e Ministry of Public Security is planning a new nationwide crackdown in 2013 to boost intellectual-property rights protection. Th e crackdown will focus on fi ve crimes concerning the production and sale of fake and shoddy goods, including bogus luxury items, high-tech products, home appliances, food and drugs, according to a statement released by the ministry on Friday.
Beidou helps put region on the map Th e Beidou navigation system began providing services for civilians in the Asia-Pacifi c region on Th ursday. Aft er going through a one-year trial operation and adding six more satellites in 2012, Beidou’s performance, is “comparable” to that of the United States’ GPS, Ran Chengqi, spokesman for the China Satellite Navigation Offi ce, told a news conference on Th ursday. Beidou, which means “compass”, now has a constellation of 16 navigation satellites and four experimental satellites.
Longest bullet-train route opens Further cementing the country’s high-speed railway development ambitions, the world’s longest high-speed rail line, which spans over half of China, began operating on Wednesday, Running at an average speed of 300 km/h, the 2,298-km route cuts travel time between Beijing and Guangzhou from more than 20 hours to about eight and connects 28 cities, including fi ve provincial capitals. A total of 155 pairs of trains run on the new line daily and alternative schedules have been made for weekends and peak travel times, according to the Ministry of Railways, Xinhua reported. A second-class seat on the high-speed line is 865 yuan ($139) and a fi rst-class seat is 1,383 yuan.
QINGHAI
Mass prayer service held for peaceMore than 5,100 monks from Jyegu Monastery in a Tibetan region of Northwest China’s Qinghai province on Friday held a mass prayer service, ending a six-day gathering for world peace. Th e monks from 74 monasteries chanted Tibetan Buddhist scriptures alongside thousands of believers in a new scripture hall built aft er the 2010 earthquake. Th e monastery has held the mass prayer service for the past 14 years around Oct 15 on the Tibetan calendar.
NEWSWATCH
China maintains ‘blue’ weather alert China’s National Meteorological Center on Saturday maintained its blue alert for blizzards and a severe cold snap during the next 24 to 48 hours. Eastern parts of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, coastal areas of Shandong province and northeastern parts of Guizhou province will see heavy snowfall and possibly blizzards on the weekend. Snow or blizzards will also hit parts of Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. Central and western Guizhou will see freezing rain, the weather center forecast early on Saturday morning. Along with heavy snow, gale winds will chill these areas over the next 48 hours, with temperature drops of 6 to 12 degrees.
CHINA DAILY — XINHUA
INDIA
Gang-rape victim diesIndian police will invoke murder charges early next week against the six men who gang-raped and brutalized the 23-year-old medical student who died early Saturday morning in Singapore, reported Press Trust of India. Th e rape case has rocked India with unprecedented protests by students last weekend. Th e Indian capital braced for a new wave of protests, closing metro stations and banning vehicles from the city center district where young activists had converged to demand improved women’s rights. Th e victim, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been fl own to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Th ursday for specialist treatment.
RAVEENDRAN / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
THE EAST IS RED HOT China is a prime destination for Western professionals looking to burnish their CVs, and Erik Nilsson reports that those who stay are ideally placed in the job market.
C H I N A D A I L Y sundayprofi le 3S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
FROM PAGE 1
American Roderick Leung’s story demonstrates the U-turn. Leung has inadvertently followed the route his Chinese emigrant parents took to the United States — but in reverse.
“We both probably had the same idea, this was going to be the next big thing and we wanted to be on the ground when it hit,” he says.
But he says it was “100 percent adventure” that originally drew him to China.
Th e 27-year-old Microsoft proj-ect assistant says his motivations have changed in the two years he has lived in China. Now, they’re about 70 percent career and 30 per-cent adventure.
Canadian Clinton Hendry, who moved to Beijing three years ago at age 23, puts it this way: “China’s like the Wild West but on the other side of the world. China has become the destination for the new ‘Lost Gen-eration’ to seek adventure.”
He likens it to how early 20th-century Spain lured such global nomads as Ernest Hemingway, who popularized the Lost Generation concept.
Hendry says that while he taught at his university in Canada, his job in China was his first long-term contract.
“I had a lot of job experience back home, a lot of it in not particularly good jobs,” he says, citing work as a bartender and security guard in Canada.
“My goal was always to be a teacher,” he says. “The idea that a university in China wanted to hire me was perfect.”
Briton Mark Henderson says he had planned to put his career on hold when he came to Beijing aft er his girlfriend landed a job as an atta-che to the EU delegation to China fi ve years ago.
“However, I quickly realized the opportunities were rather better than I’d expected,” Henderson says.
“Compared to my hometown of 185,000 people, the opportunities here are exceptional.”
After two years as a university instructor, he became an EU-China Trade Project II project manager.
“I’m now happy to say I have got the best job I’ve ever had, and it per-fectly fi ts my career trajectory thus far,” he says.
But the 32-year-old says China
has off ered him more than a career and adventure.
“I came to China as a young man, with a girlfriend and no job,” he says.
“When the time comes, I will leave as a married father with some amazing experiences working and living here.”
Human resources companies point out coming to China is a stra-tegic move for young Westerners.
“Over the past decade, China has become a portal of wealth and experience for Westerners look-ing to further their careers,” Direct HR Shanghai’s founding partner Michael Maeder says.
Briton Christopher Russell, who works as a writer and editor for ACN Worldwide in Shanghai, had trouble fi nding the kinds of jobs he wanted back home aft er graduating in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from King’s College, London.
“Straight after graduation, I worked a succession of jobs that weren’t intellectually or creatively stimulating.
“Th ere was little prospect of that changing, or that’s how it felt,” the 24-year-old says.
“Even if there had been no reces-
sion, though, I would have still come to China.”
Paul Afshar left his position as a lobbyist in the United Kingdom to move to China to become manag-ing director of Ijustwannabuy.com.
China offered new opportuni-ties, the 28-year-old says. He vis-ited the country as a tourist in June 2011 and moved to Beijing the fol-lowing month.
It wasn’t just a career move but also a quest for excitement.
“None of my friends were doing it,” he says. “China seemed almost
mystical and exotic, and I wanted to be the guy in the pub back home with something interesting to say.”
But while most young West-ern professionals will boomerang home with tales to regale and with burnished CVs, some are here indefi nitely.
“As long as the environment is right for me professionally and for my family, then I’ll be in China,” Wester says.
W hile young Western professionals are flooding China to build up their CVs,
those already here might have rid-den the wave of opportunity’s crest, as the tides turn toward interna-tionalized local talent.
And while China has become the “it” destination for qualifi ed young Westerners, there are reasons most do not stay.
“More young Western talents want to come to China for experi-ence,” Adecco Shanghai Executive Search Services director Charles Gao says.
“But the market wants more localization. Th ey don’t want any-one without China experience because it’s a challenge for the com-pany. Th e Western guys with China experience, it’s very easy for them to fi nd jobs here. But it’s hard for those without.”
Th at’s largely because of a grow-ing number of Chinese who speak English and have interna-tional experience. And as the West declines and China rises, more overseas Chinese are returning home.
Briton Mark Henderson says he was surprised to land his dream job in China as a project manager for a China-EU trade body. But he believes the employment landscape is changing.
“I’ve noticed in the past year that
people with extremely strong lan-guage skills and other experience have been unable to fi nd work, so it seems that the job market is getting even tougher,” the 32-year-old says.
“Th e competition is pretty fi erce ... a huge number of extremely well-educated people are looking for work here, including people with family ties in China returning due to the increased opportunities.
“Th ese guys combining interna-tional experience with an appre-ciation of Chinese business culture and language have a very strong hand in the job market.”
Briton Paul Afshar also sees the shift . He left his position as a lobby-ist in the United Kingdom to move to China and become managing director of Ijustwannabuy.com.
“I meet so many Chinese people who are returning from studying abroad with good qualifications and work experience,” he says.
But young Westerners already in the country can claim the best opportunities China off ers.
“Westerners who understand China are fairly rare,” says Nick Wester, who came to Beijing aft er a stint in Dalian, Liaoning prov-ince, in 2010.
“They’re important but rare. Th ey’re high-value. A lot of com-panies are looking for someone who understands China — who knows China and can tell them what to do.”
Wester was hired to open Eleu-tian Technology’s China branch aft er graduation because he already had experience doing business in the country.
Although Westerners familiar
with China are uncommon, those who stay for the long haul are even rarer.
“Most qualifi ed and young (West-ern) people do not tend to stay in China for the long term,” Direct HR Shanghai’s founding partner Michael Maeder says.
Most use China as a stepping stone to get better jobs back home, he explains.
“China is now one of the most desired countries to have interna-tional experience in, and having this on their CVs and the ability to speak Chinese will likely heighten (their) starting salaries and job titles.”
Gao says it doesn’t really matter what jobs homeward-bound young Westerners take in China.
“If a young Westerner has any China experience at all, maybe 20 years later, they can become head of a multinational. Without China experience, it would be tough for them,” he says.
“Westerners should have ambi-tion. It doesn’t matter what they do. If they fi nd a junior-level position, it’s an investment.”
But there are other reasons most young Westerners don’t stay.
China off ers no guarantees, says Clinton Hendry, who moved to Beijing three years ago to become a university instructor at age 23. “Th ings could drastically change,” he says.
He points out that jobs tend to be
one-year contracts. Local health-care is comparatively low-grade and expensive, while international-level care is exorbitant. And the Internet is restricted.
“I can’t get sick in China — it would bankrupt me,” Hendry says. “Being Canadian, I’m not used to having to worry about that. Because of that — and school costs an insane amount of money — raising a family here isn’t eco-nomically viable for me.”
American Roderick Leung says career prospects aren’t enough to keep him in China forever. The only thing that could would be a family — something he hopes to start in the next four years.
But China is “not an ideal” place for him to raise children, especially considering the costs of healthcare and education.
Still, while young Westerners seeking their fortunes in China will perhaps fi nd the silver spoon los-ing its luster, those who are already here and willing to stay may have struck gold.
“Th e ones who stay here think going home would be boring,” Hendry says. “Th ey enjoy being a citizen of the world rather than of their own country. All things being equal, I’d probably stay in Beijing my whole life.”
Today, many foreigners traveling to Chi-na have their route mapped out for them.
Well into the present day, its economy attracts individuals with well-defined career aspirations and a clear image in their minds of the role China can play for them.
Earlier voyagers, however, were drawn largely by curiosity, and, in the absence of an obviously marked-out path, adapted to a culture wildly diff erent from that of today.
One such individual is Frank Hossack, who arrived in Shanghai in 1993 to intro-duce Chinese pop music to Western radio.
At this point, remarkably, only 800 for-eigners lived in the city. Th is fi gure now stands at around 210,000. For Hossack, the landscape of early ’90s China was in many ways incomparable with the situa-tion today. International schools and hos-pitals, and places to buy Western food, were incredibly thin on the ground.
The foreign population, he says, was mostly a spread of teachers and engineers but also “consisted of senior members of large companies, who were attempting to build a presence in the Chinese market”.
Other than a large diplomatic presence, which has remained relatively unchanged, the situation was much the same in Beijing. Outside of these cities, foreigners were rarely encountered.
Beyond the demographic of busi-nessmen responding to an increasingly open Chinese market, there was also a large number of people who, in Hossack’s words, embodied a kind of culture of “self-imposed exile” — foreigners who had left their home countries to escape something or someone.
Th e exotic notion of the Far East, and especially China, as a refuge for those fl ee-ing something at home has a long heritage.
In the 1920s and ’30s, around 20,000 Russians — many of them Jewish — fl ed the newly established Soviet Union and settled in Shanghai.
Today, this narrative still informs many perceptions about foreigners in China, even if most are now chasing success rather than fl eeing diffi culties.
Hossack currently runs a company based in Jiangsu’s provincial capital Nan-jing called Sinoconnexion, which provides a number of media and publishing services and has also provided several internships to students from the United Kingdom and Australia.
Crucially, and in sharp contrast to the increasingly economic motivations driving foreigners in 2012, people arriving in the early ’90s, in Hossack’s experience, were “not looking for money, but adventure”.
“I don’t think that’s the case anymore,” he says. “It certainly was when I arrived.”
Where the vast majority of Hossack’s acquaintances in ’90s Shanghai were “extremely colorful, eccentric individuals” — products, perhaps, of the long narrative of “self-imposed exile” that has contributed to the city’s status and identity — the for-eigners he meets today are diff erent.
By and large, he points out, when it comes to foreigners in China, they are “increasingly normal people”.
As China becomes an ever-more-pop-ular destination for career-builders, the job market is becoming more competitive.
Th is trend has a major impact on visas, and entering China is not getting easier.
But the adventurous streak that drove foreigners East may be in the process of being pacifi ed by economic transitions.
Today, perfectly normal people fl ock to China to pursue a career, which is supple-mented by but not necessarily driven by adventure. But Hossack says that in the early ’90s: “You wouldn’t have survived if you weren’t adventurous.”
When the brave were the fi rst
Future: To stay or go, that is the question
I meet so many Chinese people who are return-ing from study-ing abroad with good qualifi ca-tions and work experience.”
PAUL AFSHARMANAGING DIRECTOR,
IJUSTWANNABUY.COM
‘‘
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Mark Henderson landed in China to work for a China-EU trade body, and his posting has allowed him to see such sights as the traditional round houses, or tulou, of Fujian province.
Looking for work in his fi eld, Christopher Russell started working for ACN Worldwide in Shanghai China.
Frank Hossack has seen China change dramatically in the last two decades.
A group of women and children gather in a remote village square in Shiqu coun-ty, Sichuan’s Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture.
The children all have books in their hands, which arouses the attention of artist Wang Qijun.
Th e 58-year-old professor of the Bei-jing-based China Central Academy of Fine Arts follows the kids into a temple as they sit in front of a Buddha statue, attended by a lama in a red robe.
Preoccupied with their studies the stu-dents ignore him as the sunlight streams in through a window and inspires Wang to paint, Tibetan Class in the Village.
The painting is one of many Wang has done in the wake of his trip to the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Sichuan in December 2011.
Together with Tian Haipeng, vice pres-ident of the CCAFA, Wang led a delega-tion of painters from the academy for a week-long trip to the area, where they visited Tibetan villages and talked to local art students.
Situated on the plateau 3,000 to 4,000 meters above sea level, Sichuan’s Tibetan areas used to be poor but have improved economically in recent years, which is refl ected in Wang’s oil paintings.
Walking on a country road in Ma’nai village, Jinchuan, Wang sees a young mother carrying her child and walking under the sun.
“Th e intense sunlight turned the moth-er and child into glowing colors and I felt
the warmth of maternal love and did the oil painting Heart Filled with Love.”
Th is was not Wang’s fi rst visit to Tibet-an-inhabited areas: “I visited as a painter for the fi rst time in 1985. Th at year, I went through Gansu and Qinghai provinces to enter Tibet.”
Roads were inaccessible and the long-distance bus could travel only about 200 km in a single day.
“When we were near Qinghai Lake, 3,300 meters above sea level, the bus broke down. The Tibetan driver spent more than five hours repairing it. As I
could not speak Tibetan, I had to wait patiently and we had no water to drink,” Wang recalls.
When he visited a farming area in southern Tibet in 1997, Wang could read-ily appreciate all the changes taking place.
“Many Tibetan children attended schools in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Th e State paid for their educa-tion. When I talked with their parents, the children could speak fl uent Mandarin and interpret for us,” he says.
He saw further improvements in living standards during his visit in December
2011. Herdsmen had fi xed up their resi-dences and they all had TV sets and cell phones, Wang says.
He says that when he visited a Ganbao Tibetan village square in Lixian county, Sichuan’s Aba Tibetan and Qiang autono-mous prefecture, locals were celebrating the Tibetan New Year.
“When I chatted with an old Tibetan woman, her son called from outside their hometown.
“I instantly felt what a happy life meant. It became the inspiration for the oil paint-ing Message of Spring,” Wang says.
He has just completed his world tour with a series of shows at Penghao The-ater, Beijing, including the performance Forty Years of Silence, a compilation of 13 short stories depicting life’s highs and lows. In addition, he also performed Invisible Bridge, Th e Kid II, and You and Me, with Wang Xiaohuan and Zhang Jiahe, both students from the Central Academy of Drama in China.
“Th ey are the very best performers in China,” he says. “It’s really nice working with them.”
Bizot dreamed of performing in China when he was a child and fi rst visited the country in 1984. “Chinese culture is very impressive. I have been fascinated by its painting, calligraphy and literature.”
Since his fi rst visit, Bizot has brought his mime act to the country every two or three years. In 2005 he combined the arts of mime and Kunqu Opera for a perfor-mance with Chinese artistes.
“Kunqu movement is really delicate, and the combination of the two arts was quite pleasant,” he says.
Bizot’s fascination with mime began when he was 8. He was later mentored and encouraged by Jean-Louis Barrault. At 18 he took to the stage for the fi rst time to great acclaim, and at 20 he won the Inter-national Mime Golden Award.
As he travels, he observes people, watch-ing their movements and recording inter-esting situations that can inspire him for a new performance.
Bizot is particularly happy to see people with speaking and hearing diffi culties in his audiences. He studies their use of body language in diff erent countries and adopts this into his work.
For example, his mime for sun is taken from Indian sign language. He believes they have a profound understanding and appreciation of mime.
“People who have listening and speak-ing problems have the same rights to enjoy the charms of art,” he says. “But there are not many theaters open to them, so I want them to feel the beauty of art in my theater.”
His mimes include characters from all sections of society: the shy lover, the lov-ing father, and the naughty student among them.
“My art comes from my audience, so I want to reward them 10 times over with my mime. I can be a man, a woman, a bird or a dog aft er I have dressed up. I become a mirror for people and refl ect their feelings. No matter whether I’m in Africa or France,
dressing up as a Chinese farmer or a Boliv-ian worker, sorrow and joy are universal for everyone,” he says.
The veteran Chinese comedian Lai Xiaosheng says he has learned a lot from watching Bizot’s work.
“His performances enlighten me about fl aws in my own performances. For exam-ple, he stresses expression with his eyes, but when I perform, I sometimes avoid eye contact with the audience.”
Bizot says that in one show there are about individual 15,000 scenes. If just one or two of these scenes fail, the show can fail, so extreme concentration is needed throughout a performance.
“Th e mime never pretends to do some-thing. Instead he devotes his strength to serving the scene he is creating. If you want to tell the audience there is a cup in your hand, you have to feel that cup yourself.”
When mime actors begin, they often panic and add unnecessary aspects to their performance, he says. A perfect mime is not acting, but transforming into the char-acters and living within their contexts. Th e secret to achieving that ability is constant practice, four or fi ve hours a day.
“Th e play is life, so you don’t act; you live in the life. You have to gradually adopt the images and characteristics of people’s faces, hands and so on into your own mind.”
Zeng Nuola, 26, a movie director, says she admires Bizot’s ability to express emo-tions without words.
“He has a very strong and special under-standing of body language and silence, which is helpful for my own directing.”
Apart from performing, Bizot has founded academies of mime in Bordeaux, Marseille, Bolivia, Lebanon, Pakistan and the US, which have taught thousands of students.
Between performances he has also found time to run several mime work-shops in Beijing.
He You, 24, an architectural designer, found Bizot’s workshop thought-provok-ing. “He attaches great importance to life and nature and encourages us to mimic and experience life.”
Despite the passion that Bizot and his audience have for mime, it remains an art form that few practice. Bizot’s ambi-tion is to keep mime alive by forming a mime company with top performers from around the world.
British actress Kate Winslet marries for third timeBritish Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has married for the third time, her publicist confi rmed on Th ursday. Th e 37-year-old, best known for her starring role in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic, mar-ried Ned RocknRoll, a nephew of music and aviation tycoon Richard Branson.
Thousands sign petition to deport Piers Morgan over gun commentsMore than 48,000 people have signed a petition that they posted on the White House website demanding that British CNN talk show host Piers Morgan be deported over comments he made on air about gun control. Morgan last week lambasted pro-gun guests on his show, aft er the Dec 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman shot dead 26 people, including 20 children.
Quentin Tarantino unchains America’s tormented past
Twenty years aft er Quentin Tarantino unveiled his fi rst fi lm Reservoir Dogs, the director has turned his eye to America’s slavery history, spinning a blood-fi lled retribution tale in his trademark style for Django Unchained. Tarantino, 49, has become synonymous with violence and dark humor, taking on the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds and mobsters in Pulp Fiction.
Fracking culture war stirs up Hollywood and its celebrities Not so long ago, fracking was a technical term little known beyond the energy industry. Now it’s coming to Hollywood, as the fi erce battle between environ-mentalists and oil fi rms is played out in several forth-coming fi lms. Hydraulic fracturing, the controversial drilling technique also known as fracking, has lift ed US energy output dramatically, despite warnings from critics who fear it pollutes water deep under-ground.
Elvis Presley, The Beatles top list of most-forged autographsElvis Presley and Th e Beatles top the list of most-forged celebrity signatures in 2012, with less than half of their autographs for sale certifi ed as genuine, mem-orabilia authenticators PSA/DNA said on Th ursday. Th e King and Th e Fab Four British rockers, who topped the list two years ago when it was last released, joined notable fi gures such as former US President John F. Kennedy and late pop star Michael Jackson on the list of most-forged celebrity signatures.
The Hobbit tops US box offi ce chart for a second week
Director Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth took $36.7m last weekend, dwarfi ng its competition, according to the BBC. It easily beat Tom Cruise’s lat-est action movie, Jack Reacher, which came second with $15.6 million. But a drop-off in Th e Hobbit’s takings, down from $84.8 m last week, suggests it will struggle to match the success of the fi nal Lord of Th e Rings fi lm. Th e Return of the King made $1.2 b worldwide aft er its release in 2003. At the time, it was the second highest-grossing fi lm ever, although it has since been overtaken by the likes of Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.
Ministry and Rigor Mortis guitarist dies on stage at 47Mike Scaccia was performing onstage at the Rail Club in Fort Worth, Texas, as part of a 50th birthday celebration for Rigor Mortis singer Bruce Corbitt, when he collapsed, according to MSN.com. Shortly aft erwards, he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Scaccia was born in Babylon, New York, on July 14, 1965, and formed thrash metallists Rigor Mortis in 1983. Six years later, the guitarist was invited by Al Jourgensen to join Ministry.
REUTERS
4 sundaypeople C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
worldscene SILENCE IS LOUDAccording to French mime artist Philippe Bizot, ‘The play is life, so you don’t act.’ Chen Yingqun fi nds out more about the universal language of saying nothing.
Painter shows his class in Tibetan village
PHOTOS BY JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY
For French mime artist Philippe Bizot, exaggerated facial expressions and body movements are his second language.
Students from the Central Academy of Drama join Bizot on stage for some of his performances at Penghao Theater in Beijing.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Professor Wang Qijun (right) of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts shows how life has improved in Sichuan’s Tibetan areas.
Philippe Bizot doesn’t say a word on stage and yet, us-ing exaggerated facial expressions and body move-ments, he expresses himself perfectly. “Silence is my language, my music, and my song,” the 58-year-old French mime artist says. “Th e art of pantomime is a universal language, the language of emotion.”
O n a snowy windswept Fri-day night, horse enthusi-asts crowd into a room at an equestrian center in the
northeastern suburbs of Beijing. The reason they have braved the
weather is Jeremy Michaels, one of just 50 people across Europe to have gained a British Horse Society Fellowship, the highest teaching and riding qualifi cation that BHS can off er.
“When I came here, people were so hungry for knowledge, which made me enjoy being with them very much,” he says.
Originally from Gloucester in England, Michaels gained the British Horse Soci-ety Fellowship in 1987. Since the early 1990s, he has worked for top equestrian education institutions, including Hart-pury College in Gloucestershire and the BHS, where they train the best riders and administer an examination system for trainers and riders in the UK.
In China, he was teaching more basic skills, such as how to mount a horse prop-erly, how to get off and how to hold the reins.
Michaels may seem overqualified to teach beginners but he believes basic edu-cation is essential for the rapidly growing equestrian sports scene in China.
His association with China began in 2003 when he worked for Hartpury Col-lege as director of its equine department. Th e Chinese Equestrian Association con-tacted the college seeking help to develop systems that would govern riding qualifi -
cations, horse welfare and riding centers. Hartpury recommended Michaels as
the man to help, based on his previous experience as deputy chief executive of the British Horse Society. Since then, he has traveled to China two or three times a year to teach in Beijing and Shanghai, for around two weeks at a time.
To develop an equestrian system suit-able for China, Michaels visited numerous riding schools across the country.
Th e development of a Chinese riding examination system was eventually sus-pended by the association, but Michaels’ visits have continued and won him many fans among the riding fraternity.
Compared to a decade ago, the facili-ties at Chinese equestrian clubs today are vastly improved. But there is still work to be done, Michaels says.
Five years ago he witnessed rats in the feeding room, nails sticking out of walls and dangerous electric wires at one club.
“It’s not like those people hate horses or want to abuse them,” he says. “It’s purely that they don’t know better. Basic knowl-edge is so important but there is a big shortage of it in China.”
Th ose negative experiences have driven him to concentrate on the basics in China.
“Training people is like training horses,” he says. “For a young horse, it should start with basic rides. Aft er months and years of basic training, it can start jumping the bigger fences, and then the horse is con-fi dent and relaxed, so it will be happy to jump and not feel threatened or worried.”
The passion for horses Michaels has
seen in China has impressed him. “Th ere is a Chinese lady, who is very
sweet. I don’t know her profession. She is so keen to learn. Everything I say, she tries and tries so hard. She improved dramati-cally aft er a few sessions,” he says.
Th e schedule for Michaels’ China trips is always tight.
“I feel busy all the time when I am in Beijing, but it’s enjoyable,” he says.
Liu Xiao, a Chinese horse enthusiast from the club, managed to get hold of a ticket to one of Michaels’ lectures.
“I had heard about Jeremy and I hoped he could take a look at the horse,” he says.
With just a few sounds from Michaels,
Liu’s 7-year-old horse Warmblood started to follow the British trainer’s commands.
“Th e way that horse is walking is not normal,” he says. “I need to be sure that the horse is not suffering any pain or physical problems, before we carry on with further training.”
He helped him find a veterinarian before moving on to the next appoint-ment.
“Jeremy is right,” says Liu. “He is the type of coach who doesn’t just care about skills, but also cares about the horses.”
In the early 20th century a man from China, tempted by wanderlust, set off to travel the world alone.
Almost a century later, Simon Van Booy, his great grandson, has retraced his footsteps back to China.
Known for his poetic and insightful portrayals of love, the award-winning author was invited to share his views on love in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, a few days aft er Nov 11, Singles’ Day in China.
Love, he says, is not a fairy tale but rather requires sacrifi ce.
“Th at sounds depressing,” he says, with a laugh. “If you have an idea of what you want, it’s good, but it never turns out that way. So it’s good to have an open mind. By being inspired, you’ll attract everything you need.”
Van Booy has published two short story collections: Th e Secret Lives of People in Love, and Love Begins in Winter, which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. His fi rst novel, Every-thing Beautiful Began Aft er, was published in 2011.
Born in Great Britain, Van Booy now lives in New York. His ancestral roots in China were a mystery to him. All he had was a photo of his great grandfather.
“He traveled the world by himself. And he went to the island of Jamaica, stayed in
a hotel and fell in love with the manager. Th ey had 14 children and my grandmoth-er was the youngest,” Van Booy says.
Having visited China twice, Van Booy says he is now working on a novel set here.
“I’m writing a story about Beijing. It might become a novel. My story is about an old man living in a hutong who over-night becomes a billionaire, so I can show the contradictions in a country that is changing.”
He has been writing about love for decades but says he is yet to run out of
ideas and inspiration from the people close to him.
“I also get lots of inspiration from death, similar to Alexander McQueen with his skulls. Death is such a reality. I only have a certain amount of time, so I don’t want to waste it. My daughter inspired me because I was no longer afraid of death. It’s the way nature is. Watching her, I understood the beauty of cycles, which is very Chinese.”
Love and death are two frequent themes in Van Booy’s work.
Aft er his wife passed away a few years
ago, Van Booy lived with his daughter Madeleine. As he rediscovered himself, his ideas on what love is began to change.
“It’s possible to love anyone or anything. Love is not about you seeing somebody and they make you love them — like if you see a fl ower and say, ‘Oh, it’s so beauti-ful’. Nothing from the fl ower has entered your body. Th e feeling was already inside you. It was released by your experience of the fl ower.”
Van Booy credits his daughter with teaching him the meaning of true love.
“True love is to always put the other person fi rst. True love is when you secret-ly sacrifi ce for her.”
Van Booy’s next novel, The Illusion of Separateness, will be out in May. Th e book was inspired by a quote from a Viet-namese Buddhist monk: “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separate-ness.”
“I thought a long time about this,” Van Booy says. “What it could mean. The book is about how people’s lives are con-nected and how even a small gesture of compassion could have a much wider eff ect in the world, but we just can’t see it. So we have to awaken from the illusion that we are separate.”
The Chinese editions of The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter came out last year. Next year, Everything Beautiful Began Aft er will also be published in Chinese.
Seven European diplomats visited Yunnan province earlier this month, for a tour hosted by Liu Haixing, director-general of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Aff airs’ Department of European Aff airs, and Yang Xian, deputy director of the Poverty-Alleviation Offi ce.
Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen of Denmark and Economic Minister Beate Grzeski of the German embassy joined diplomats from Luxembourg, Bel-gium, Romania and Switzerland on the trip, which included stops in the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao autonomous prefectures. The delegation visited Huangtupo village, chatted with local people, and attended a class at the Nationalities High School of Malipo county. At a seminar held for the delegation, local offi cials presented the issues involved in reform-ing the economic and social situation in some of China’s poorest areas.
• • •Argentine Ambassa-
dor Gustavo A. Martino hosted a media reception for Chinese and foreign media representatives in Beijing, to celebrate a year of cooperation with a tast-ing of fi ne wines and beef from Argentina.
• • •It’s critical for the United States and China “to fi g-
ure out how (they) can get along”, US Ambassador Gary Locke told a standing-room-only crowd at the Asia Society in New York last week. Predicting “there will be continuity in the US-China relationship,” he said the much-talked-about US “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacifi c doesn’t mean the US wants to contain China. “Th e pivot also includes greater engagement with China. President Obama has actually met with President Hu Jintao 12 or 14 times. Secretary of State Clinton has been to China seven times.”
Noting that almost 60 percent of the world’s GDP is in the Asia-Pacifi c region, Locke said there is a natural recognition of the importance of the entire region.
Joined on stage by moderator George Stepha-nopoulos, of ABC News, and the Asia Society’s Orville Schell, Locke applauded China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, for his casual style, saying that Xi is com-fortable in public and at ease with people. “We don’t really have a great sense of the policies of Xi Jinping, because China is ruled by a committee of seven,” he said. “We really won’t know for a while exactly how fast, how far he’s going to move, and what areas he’ll emphasize.”
• • •As the US consulate in Guangzhou prepares to move
into a new compound in Zujiang Xincheng next year, the staff ’s “green team” is focusing not just on the offi ce relocation but the environmentally friendly elements of the new facility.
Consular offi cials say in a new blog post, the design has maximized energy efficiency, indoor air qual-ity and water consumption, and supported the local economy through the use of indigenous, sustainably procured materials.
The consulate will use biobasins on the campus to capture and filter rainwater before it enters the local water supply. Th e new consulate’s landscape is designed and planted with native plants that require less irrigation because they are adapted to the region’s water, soil and sunlight, playing a signifi cant role in the effi cient use of water.
• • •
Pakistani diplomat Danyal Gilani took second prize at a photo contest held in Beijing. Gilani, press and culture attaché at the embassy, won second prize aft er judges reviewed 3,729 photographs submitted for the competition titled Beijing Spirit in the Eyes of Foreign Friends.
Participants included professional photographers, from 63 countries. Th e Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries organizes the annual contest.
Gilani has won the contest twice. Last year, one of his photographs was awarded third prize.
C H I N A D A I L Y sundayexpat 5S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
DIPLOMATIC POUCH | MIKE PETERS
Yunnan hosts team of envoys from Europe
Awoken to the illusion of separateness
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Love and death are two frequent themes in Simon Van Booy’s (right) work.
Michaels believes basic education is vital for China’s rapidly growing equestrian scene.
PHOTOS BY KUANG LINHUA / CHINA DAILY
Jeremy Michaels gives private coaching to aspiring equestrians in Beijing.
GALLOPING AHEADAmong the best-qualifi ed equestrian trainers in Europe, Jeremy Michaels is on a
mission to improve horse club standards across China. Zhao Yanrong fi nds out more.
6 sundayimage C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
As 2012 comes to a close, China Daily’s Sunday edition looks back at some of the stories that made
it to the front page. We would not have made it without the support
of newsmakers, and you — our supportive readers. Here’s to
another good year ahead!
WE DID IT WITH
YOU
C H I N A D A I L Y sundaysports7S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
It’s old vs new in NFL
A s I write this from my home here in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it is the holiday season in the United States. We
just celebrated Christmas and are heading towards New Year.
With the holidays comes the beginning of the NFL playoff s. Twelve teams will make it to the playoff s and here, in the fi nal weekend of the regular season, there are still fi ve teams with a chance to make the postseason fi eld and take a shot at the Super Bowl.
I have never seen a season with as much balance as this. Th is season’s playoff s will be tough to predict. Let’s call this a battle of “old and new”. For the fi rst time, three rookie quarterbacks may lead their teams to the playoff s. Andrew Luck, the College Player of the Year in 2011, has helped India-napolis make one of the biggest reversals in NFL history. Th e Colts, 2-14 a year ago, are in the playoff fi eld. And yet, as an analyst of the QB position, I think Luck may be the one reason I think the Colts’ fairy-tale run may come to an end. With (18) intercep-tions against (21) touchdowns, Luck’s inex-perience when facing the superior speed, talent and preparation of NFL defenses has sometimes been evident.
Last year’s Heisman Trophy winner also delivered as a rookie. Robert Griffi n III led the Washington Redskins over the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16 and they may win the NFC East outright if they can defeat Dallas in the fi nal regular season game. Griffi n III is likely to fi nish with the highest passer rating for a rookie in NFL history.
Th e other rookie in the playoff s got the least attention coming out of college ... Rus-sell Wilson is shorter in pedigree, as well as physical stature (he’s listed at 1.8 meters), and was not among the top prospects in the draft (he was a second-round pick). And yet, Wilson’s Seattle Seahawks may be the most dangerous team to go into the playoff s from the NFC. Wilson’s Seattle off ense is at full bore, with a terrifi c ground game, receivers and blockers. It scored an astounding 150 points in its past three games — all wins.
But now come the playoff s, the true test. In this “year of the rookie quarterback” there have been seven rookie starters among the 32 NFL teams. Th ey have started 86 total games, by far a record, and won 44, also a new mark. Th e past week alone, seven rookie quarterbacks started NFL games, and combined to go 4-3. Many of these were pressure-packed games with playoff implications and yet they completed 61 percent of their passes, throwing 10 touchdowns against just four interceptions. Th at is excellent by any comparison, rookie or not.
Will the “old heads”, however, prevail when it counts in the playoff s? Consider that countering the three young rising playoff -bound rookies are three veterans who have been there and won. Th ree-time Super Bowl champion and two-time Super Bowl MVP, Tom Brady, was as great as ever in 2012. His team, the New England Patri-ots, while lacking some of its overall depth of the past, still managed to have the leading off ense in the NFL.
Peyton Manning, a question mark to even make it back to a starting role aft er a serious neck injury and surgery, has re-energized the Denver Broncos. Manning is a marvel to watch. He simply insists his off ense play at breakneck speed. Th is enables Denver to run 65-70 plays per game, instead of the NFL average of 55-60. Th ose extra 10 plays average out to an extra 60-plus total yards gained per game. Now 12-3, the Broncos may have the best balance of off ense and defense in the AFC.
Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers has once again re-emerged in the NFC. Last year’s NFL Player of the Year, Rodgers, has led the Packers back to a favorite role in the NFL battle for the Super Bowl.
Next week, as we begin the playoff s, I will give you my picks.
Th e NFL playoff s are fast approaching, and to help China Daily readers get a grip on what is happening, popular analyst Ron Jaworski, who played 17 years in the NFL and earned All-Pro honors and a Super Bowl berth with the Philadelphia Eagles, will pro-vide insight into this crucial part of the excit-ing sport. Jaworski, who works for ESPN and has his own radio shows, will be a regular China Daily columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
Guangzhou Evergrande boss Xu Jiayin indicated the Chinese club would boost its ties with La Liga giant Real Madrid during Real President Florentino Perez’s visit to the Evergrande Football School in Qingyuan, Guang-dong province, on Th ursday.
Real has sent coaches to the school, which
was established during the club’s China tour last August.
Aft er touring the campus with Perez, Xu said they had discussed the possibility of sending one of the club’s top Chinese players to the Spanish powerhouse.
“Mr president (Perez) has asked me several times where are the best Chinese players, and I have replied they are at Evergrande,” Xu said. “He said he wants to take an outstand-ing player from Evergrande to Real Madrid. I was very happy to hear that, and will give my full support.
“He (Perez) asked me who is the best, and I said Zhang Lin-peng. He is young and has lots of potential. He is China’s Sergio Ramos,” Xu said, adding 23-year-old Zhang is an integral part of the club’s lineup for next year’s AFC Champions League.
“I have suggested to President Florentino to let his coaching staff here select the player they prefer. We need to send our play-ers abroad to learn and improve, though we have to make some sacrifi ces for that.
“I also told the president we could only allow the player to leave for a year. If he gets oppor-tunities to play in that fi rst year, we will let him continue, other-wise, it would be meaningless being there,” Xu said.
Perez took a more conserva-tive view of the issue.
“For Real Madrid, it would be very nice to have a Chinese
player in our team, and I believe that day will come,” he said. “I think the most important thing for the two clubs now is to start our cooperation in youth train-ing, and I believe we will have more and wider contacts in the future.”
Upon his arrival on Wednes-day night, Perez presented a No 8 Real Madrid jersey to Xu, raising speculation that it was an indica-tion Brazilian midfi elder Kaka was on his way to the Chinese club.
Kaka, who was one of the most popular players when the Span-ish club visited Guangzhou and played a friendly against Ever-grande last summer, has been linked with the Cantonese side for almost half a year.
However, Perez said the No 8 just represented good luck in Chinese culture.
“We chose the No 8 jersey because eight is a lucky number in China and Guangdong prov-ince, and I wish such an excel-lent soccer school will bring him (Xu) good luck,” Perez said.
Xu jokingly said he misunder-stood the meaning of the gift .
“I asked the president whether the gift meant he was willing to give Kaka to Evergrande,” he said. “I think there is the pos-sibility for him to come to China in a few years.”
The duo also shared a light moment discussing Real’s reported chase of Evergrande’s Italian coach, Marcello Lippi.
“Lippi is a very good coach, but I haven’t mentioned even one word about him with president Xu,” Perez said. “I had made the promise to visit the school aft er its completion, and that’s why I decided to come and see it before the end of the year.”
Xu said: “I joked with the pres-ident that our cooperation with Real Madrid is comprehensive, including the building of the soc-cer school and the exchange of players. But it does not include the exchange of the head coach.”
Nadal to miss Australian OpenStomach bug forces Spanish star out of fi rst Grand Slam of year in Melbourne
SOCCER
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Real Madrid President Florentino Perez (left) gave a No 8 jersey to Guangzhou Evergrande boss Xu Jiayin as gift during a visit to the Evergrande Football School in Qingyuan, Guangdong province, last week. Perez denied the number was a sign Brazilian midfi elder Kaka might be transfered to the Chinese league champion.
New school the Real deal in Guangdong
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEin Madrid
Rafael Nadal pulled out of the Australian Open on Friday, claim-ing he was still suff ering from the stomach virus which caused him to cancel his return to action in the Gulf this week aft er a six-month absence.
Nadal, an 11-time Grand Slam title winner, has also
withdrawn from the Qatar Open which starts on Monday and where he was due to play his fi rst offi cial event since losing in the Wimble-don second round to world No 100 Lukas Rosol in June.
The Spaniard, who has been sidelined with a crippling knee injury, had already missed the Olympics, where he was defend-ing champion, the US Open and Davis Cup fi nal where Spain lost to the Czech Republic.
“My knee is much better and the rehabilitation process has gone well as predicted by the doctors, but this virus didn’t allow me to practice this past week and therefore I am sorry to announce that I will not play in Doha and the Australian Open, as we had initially scheduled,” the 26-year-old, world No 4 said.
“As my team and doctors say, the safest thing to do is to do things well and this virus has delayed my plans of playing these weeks.
“I will have to wait until the Acapulco tournament (in Febru-ary) to compete again, although I could consider playing before at any other ATP event.
“I always said that my return to competition will be when I am in the right condition to play and aft er all this time away from the courts I would rather not acceler-ate the comeback and prefer to do things well.”
Nadal, the record-breaking sev-
en-time French Open champion who had been due to make his comeback in an exhibition tour-nament in Abu Dhabi this week, will also face a drop in the rankings having been runner-up to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open fi nal in 2012.
He will slip out of the top four for the fi rst time in more than seven years.
But doctors have told him that the gastroenteritis which left him with a high fever for five days requires a week’s break from sport.
His medical team claim that would leave him with insuffi cient time to prepare for the season’s fi rst Grand Slam, which gets under way on Jan 14.
Toni Nadal, the player’s uncle and coach, said his nephew would be unable to stand the rigors of fi ve-set matches at the Australian Open.
“We consider it not appropriate to play the Australian Open since we will not have enough prepara-tion for a great competition like a Grand Slam tournament,” he said.
“It is simply not conceivable that
his fi rst event is a best-of-fi ve sets tournament, he wouldn’t be ready for that. It is true we have been quite unlucky with this but there is nothing we can do.
“Aft er all this time it is better to do things well and the most profes-sional thing to do is to start when we are ready.”
NOTE:AUSTRALIAN OPEN OFFICIALS DISAPPOINTED FOR NADAL
Australian Open offi cials on Sat-urday said they fully understood Rafael Nadal’s decision to miss the fi rst Grand Slam of the season in Melbourne and wished him a speedy return to the tour.
“It is completely understandable and we really feel disappointed for him,” Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said.
“But without any match practice and without suffi cient lead-up time on the practice court, it makes it virtually impossible for him to get his body ready.
“We just hope he gets better quickly and we see him back on the tour as soon as possible.”
TENNIS
I will have to wait until the Acapulco tournament (in February) to compete again, although I could consider playing before at any other ATP event.”
RAFAEL NADALON HIS RETURN
‘‘
By ASSOCIATED PRESSin Salt Lake City
Chris Paul could hardly be heard over Jay-Z’s pounding music as his Los Angeles Clippers teammates sang along in the visitors’ locker room.
And why not?The Clip-
pers had just pulled off a
19-point comeback for their 16th straight victory — in a venue where they had oft en struggled.
Paul did most of the damage, leading the Clippers (24-6) with 29 points, including the fi nal seven, as Los Angeles squeaked out a 116-114 win on Friday night over the Utah Jazz. Th e Clippers’ winning streak is the longest in the NBA since Bos-ton won 19 games in a row from Nov. 15 to Dec 23, 2008.
Th e last time the franchise won three straight in Salt Lake City was 1979-81 when it was the San Diego Clippers.
“This one is a great win for us because we kind of needed a chal-lenge,” said Blake Griffin, who added 22 points and 13 rebounds
for the Clippers. “(We had) to prove not only to everybody else but to ourselves that we can still win close games like this and win a game down 19 in the third quarter.”
In the opposing locker room, the Jazz were lamenting another one that got away — the second loss at home to the Clippers during their franchise-record streak. Utah dropped the fi rst by one on Dec 3 aft er leading by 14.
On Friday, ex-Clipper Randy Foye put up a 3-pointer at the buzzer that was contested by Matt Barnes, but no foul was called. Foye fi nished with a season-high 28 points for Utah.
Foye did his best not to say any-thing about the offi ciating.
“I felt as though I pump faked,” Foye said. “He knew that I wanted to shoot the 3 and I felt the contact. He made me go straight up and shoot the ball straight down. It was just a tough play.”
Paul was tough down the stretch, hitting the clinching free throws aft er getting fouled by Al Jeff erson with 3.4 seconds left .
“When (DeAndre Jordan) came to give me the ball screen, I wasn’t
worried about (Gordon) Hayward, I was just worried about Al Jeff er-son,” Paul said. “I could tell (Jef-ferson) was going to try and blitz me. Anytime two guys try and trap me, I’m always going to attack the slower guy. If they wouldn’t have called the foul, I was right around Al anyway.”
Paul sank both free throws this time, aft er missing one with 18 sec-onds left that allowed Jeff erson to grab the rebound, draw a foul and sink two free throws at the other end to tie it at 114.
Paul made sure he hit both the next time.
Other results (home team in CAPS):WASHINGTON 105 Orlando 97
INDIANA 97 Phoenix 91
BROOKLYN 97 Charlotte 81
DETROIT 109 Miami 99
Atlanta 102 CLEVELAND 94
Toronto 104 NEW ORLEANS 97 (OT)
Denver 106 DALLAS 85
SAN ANTONIO 122 Houston 116
SACRAMENTO 106 NY Knicks 105
LA LAKERS 107 Portland 87 GOLDEN STATE 96 Philadelphia 89
Clippers claim 16th straight win
RICK BOWMER / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter (0) blocks the shot of Los Angeles Clippers center Ronny Turiaf (21) in the second quarter of their game on Friday in Salt Lake City.
BASKETBALL
8 sundaysports C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
LPGA Championship winner’s sights set on long-time rival Tseng, writes Tang Zhe.
Feng has plenty of driveC H I N A DA I LY R E V I E W — G O L F
Chinese golfers established themselves on the international stage with some remarkable performances this year. Feng Shanshan led the way by claiming the LPGA Champion-ship in June, becoming the fi rst golfer from the Chinese mainland to win a major.
The 23-year-old Guangdong native also had three wins on the Japan LPGA Tour and two on the Ladies European Tour and fi nished 2012 ranked No 5 in the world.
“Two victories on the Japan tour last year brought my confi dence back and, with a good mentality and strong form, I got off to a great start this year,” said Feng, who went through a 3 1/2 -year title-drought before her wins in 2011.
“I set a target for myself at the beginning of the year and that was to win a US-based LPGA Tour tour-nament, and make the top 10 in a major,” Feng said. “It was a little bit unexpected that my fi rst win was a major, but I was also confi dent that I could achieve that.
“Th ree wins in Japan and two on the European tour, I would never even have thought about that a year ago. I have improved a lot in skill and mentality,” Feng said at the Hyundai China Ladies Open, her last tourna-ment of 2012, in Xiamen this month.
Th ere is still room for improvement, Feng says, and she has her sights set on
catching up with world No 1 Tseng Ya-ni, with whom she shares the same coach, Gary Gilchrist, in the US.
“I would rate this year as 90 out of 100 points. Why not 100 points? I think I can build on this and improve myself in the future. Th is is not my zenith,” Feng said.
“Next year, my goal is to catch up with Tseng Ya-ni. Since 13, 14, the fi rst time I met Ya-ni, she is the one that I try to catch. Th e gap between us is closer and closer. Now I am world No 5, but she hasn’t slowed down. She’s still No 1.”
In the men’s field, Wu Ashun served notice he could be the new face of Chinese golf when he became the fi rst male player from China to win a tournament on the Japan Golf Tour in September.
Also cause for optimism is the emergence of some talented teens as the country sets its sights on making an impact at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Soon aft er Feng claimed the LPGA Championship title, teenager Zhang Huachuang (Andy Zhang), who
became an alternate aft er performing well in sectional qualifying, made the fi eld for the US Open. Zhang became the youngest player to participate in the tournament at the age of 14.
He spent the bulk of his child-hood in Beijing, but moved to Flor-ida at the age of 10 to concentrate on golf. His stunning entry into the US Open drew praise from his idol, Tiger Woods.
Another Chinese prodigy is Guan Tianlang. Th e 14-year-old schoolboy earned a berth at the US Masters by winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, also at the age of 14, in Th ailand in November.
He will become the youngest ever player at a major when he tees off with the world’s elite at the Masters in Augusta in April. The win also secured him a place in the final round of international qualifying for next year’s British Open.
Ahead of that, the Guangzhou native, who picked up a club at the age of four and told his father he wanted to win a Grand Slam event in golf at eight, has collected numer-ous titles and set records in junior and amateur tournaments.
He is the youngest champion of the China Amateur Golf Open and the youngest winner of the Aaron Bad-deley Invitational, which qualified him to play at the 2012 Australian Open. He also became the youngest
player in the history of the European PGA when he teed off in the Volvo China Open in April.
“I feel he is already mature and steady in every aspect of his play,” said Chinese golfer Liang Wenchong, who paired with Guan in the Ryder Cup-style OneAsia Nissan Cup tour-nament in Shenzhen in November. “I was amazed by his skill and what he can do at the age of 14. It gives me the feeling that the young generation is rising rapidly.
“I think, with his body growing stronger, he will become a complete golfer. He is just short of physical power and lacks hitting distance now.” said the 34-year-old, who received an invitation to play at the Masters in 2008. “He is the brightest young player in China, and we all hope he will have a great future.”
Zhang Xiaoning, secretary-gen-eral of the Chinese Golf Association, said the sport’s inclusion at the Olym-pics has given it a shot in the arm in China, a country well known for the State-support system that helps to develop top-level talent.
“Golf is a sport that demands tech-nique more than athleticism. It’s a sport that’s quite suitable for the Chi-nese,” Zhang said. “I’m sure as long as golf is developed under the State-support system it will produce some of the world’s best players — just like in table tennis and badminton.”
While China’s elite sports fi g-ures are widely adored by local fans, Feng Shanshan’s fame at home hardly matches her popu-larity abroad.
Th e 23-year-old, who has spent several years on the Japan LPGA Tour, has been a well-known fi g-ure in that country for some time.
However, despite her historic victory at the LPGA Champion-ship, which made her the first player from the Chinese mainland to win a major title, Feng is rarely recognized by fans at home.
“That may be because there is not as much coverage of golf as other sports domestically,” Feng said. “Hardly anybody recognizes me in the streets of China, maybe one or two occasionally,” she said. “But in Japan, whatever restaurant I go to, there are people looking at
me and they come over for auto-graphs and photos. Th e popularity of the sport in China is very diff er-ent from that in Japan.”
Comparisons are drawn between Feng’s achievements and that of tennis star Li Na, who won the French Open in 2011, but ten-nis has enjoyed a surge in popu-larity over the past few years while golf remains a work in progress.
“It was not easy for me to win the Grand Slam event, but golf is yet to be well known across the country, which makes my win less infl uential than Li Na’s,” Feng said. “But it doesn’t matter, I believe if I continue to improve my game, more people will recognize that Chinese can perform well in the sport.”
The Guangzhou native also called on more organizations to support teenage golfers, which until recently was widely regarded as a sport for the rich.
“I have been able to stay in the sport for such long time because of the support of Guangzhou Golf Association,” said Feng, who was born into a middle-class family.
The local association set up a golf youth team when she was nine. Members of the squad were given the opportunity to hit 200 free practice balls every day and play on a course, also for free, once a week.
“Th e association also paid the expenses for us to participate at events if we reached a certain lev-el, therefore I didn’t spend much money before going to the United States,” she said.
“If there were more organiza-tions in the country willing to sup-port the development of young golfers, like what Guangzhou has done, China would have more tal-ented players emerging in the near future,” she said.
Invest in youth, says Grand Slam champ
CHINESE STAR BAGS A NEW FRIEND
Feng Shanshan is probably the only Chi-nese professional golfer with a foreign caddie, and he appears to have played a major role in her successful 2012 season.
Mercer Leftwich, from the United States, started working with Feng last October in Malaysia and they found chemistry on the course immediately.
“I have been on the LPGA circuit for three years and was aware of Feng Shanshan,” Left-wich said. “I was looking for work and she was looking for a caddy. She just hired me for a week but, after that week, we just kept working together.”
Before this year, Feng was struggling to make breakthrough and win a tournament on the LPGA Tour.
Leftwich, a former pro golfer, helped her break the drought.
“We started to work very well together. We finished ninth in Malaysia in our first tournament. She felt comfortable with me and I felt comfortable with her. It just turned out to be a good partnership,” he said.
With Leftwich on the bag, a more comfort-able and confi dent Feng clinched two European LPGA trophies and one major title — the LGPA Championship.
“He really helped me a lot. He asked me to be patient. He also knows how to encourage me.
“I really hope I can play with him until I retire,” Feng said after fi nishing her last tourna-ment of the season, the China Ladies Open, in Xiamen, Fujian province, earlier this month.
A tired Feng still impressed by fi nishing third in the China LPGA’s year-ending event.
“Overall, we had an extremely lovely season. She is phenomenal,” said Leftwich. “We had a busy schedule and traveled a lot. We are both tired … but we can look back and see we have accom-plished a lot this year.
“If she has a question (on the course). I try to know it before she asks. I study the course for her. I tell her the distances. I just prepare every week and make sure my homework is done for her. I just want to take care of everything and make sure she can focus on just playing golf.
“When we get away from the events, we don’t talk about golf. We relax, just like good friends. We talk about family and life, which I think is good for her.”
CHEN XIANGFENG
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Feng Shanshan (right) plays during the CLPGA China Ladies Open this month as her caddie, Mercer Leftwich, looks on. Feng won the LPGA Championship in June and became the fi rst golfer from the Chinese mainland to win a major. Her success was the highlight of a year which saw a series of breakthoughs from Chinese players.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Feng Shanshan said golf in China still has a long way to go to gain widespread popularity.
‘‘I really hope I can play with him until I retire.”
FENG SHANSHANON HER AMERICAN CADDIE,
MERCER LEFTWICH
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEin Los Angeles
Tiger Woods took a twisting path to three US PGA Tour titles in 2012, but despite ending a two-year victory drought, he couldn’t quench his thirst for more major titles.
“I know how it feels when you win a major championship, and it feels incred-ible,” Woods said as he refl ected on his year.
“It lasts with you, and that’s some-thing that I would like to have happen again.”
Woods hasn’t won one of golf ’s four major championships since his 2008 US Open triumph at Torrey Pines.
His pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors remains stalled at 14, but Woods believes he has emerged from a tunnel of distractions — his disastrous marital crisis, serious injury and the re-engineering of his swing — and is ready to tackle golf ’s biggest challenges in 2013.
So, however, is current world No 1 Rory McIlroy.
“I still feel I have some of my best golf to play, and in order to do that, I had to be healthy, and this year is headed in the right direction,” Woods said. “I’m very excited about next year.
“Rory is ranked No 1. He deserves it. He’s won tournaments all around the world. He’s had high finishes on top of that, and that’s how you do it ... He should be very proud of the season he’s had, and I’m sure he’s excited about what next year holds for him, as well.”
Expectations for Woods’s 2012 season were raised when he capped 2011 with a victory in the World Challenge, the 18-man unofficial event he hosts for the benefi t of his charitable foundation.
But things looked dark in March, when he abruptly departed the World Golf Championships event at Doral during the fi nal round as infl ammation in his Achilles tendon fl ared up.
He quickly quelled speculation that chronic injury might blight the rest of his career, winning his next start at Bay Hill for his fi rst US PGA Tour title in more than two years.
Th en came another dry spell — a tie for 40th at the Masters, a missed cut at Quail Hollow and a tie for 40th at Th e Players Championship.
Th e magic was back at Th e Memorial, where he chipped in for birdie from dense rough at the 16th hole on Sunday for another tension-packed victory that ratcheted up expectations for the US Open.
It was another major bust — a share of the halfway lead yielding nothing more than a tie for 21st at the Olympic club in San Francisco.
Th e pattern was repeated at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island in August — a share of the halfway lead but not even a top-10 fi nish.
Sandwiched between was a victory at the AT&T National, where he out-lasted Bo Van Pelt in a back-nine duel to claim his 74th US tour title and surpass Nicklaus for second on the all-time list behind the 82 titles of Sam Snead.
“Actually, my short game has been really good from late summer on,” Woods said. “I was hitting the ball a little better and I was spending more time chipping and putting.”
After the World Challenge Woods had a six-week break scheduled.
“I need it,” Woods said. “It’s been a long year and I’ve played a lot.”
When he does get back to practicing, Woods said, it won’t be quite the slog it was when he was working to implement swing changes with coach Sean Foley.
“It’s not a laundry list like it was the last couple years,” Woods said. “I’ve already made the big changes. Th ey’re already in. It’s the little tweaks here and there.”
Woods seeks major boost in coming year
Woods is aiming to add to his major title collection in 2013.
ARTS & STYLES
The real world of Quentin Tarantino.
12
LIFESTYLE TRENDS
Exploring polluted rivers of São Paulo.
10
sundaylifeCHINA DAILY CHINADAILY.COM.CN/LIFE SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2012 | PAGE 9
WITH
Learning to let go: first, turn off the smartphoneBy ANDY ISAACSONThe New York Times
The hand-painted sign, posted at the entrance to Jones, a lounge near San Fran-cisco’s Union Square, stated the deal: “You are now entering a technology and device free zone. Please refrain from using your cellphone inside this space. The use of WMDs (wireless mobile devices) is not permitted.”
Word about the Device Free Drinks party, billed as an occasion to “enjoy a few hours off the grid,” had spread through Facebook and other social media and drew about 250 participants.
But asking people to surrender their digi-tal tethers at the door still required some coaxing. “Are you ready?” the hostess asked. “I can’t let go of it for 30 seconds,” said Katie Kimball, 28, a legal services manager visit-ing from Brooklyn, New York.
Ms. Kimball and her friend were encour-aged to fish a few strips of paper from a Mason jar labeled “Digital Detalks,” which
contained one-line conversation-starters like “What’s the best sound effect you can make?” and “What does your grandmother smell like?” Then the women made for the bar.
Inside, various analog distractions were offered to ward off withdrawal: board games, colored threads for friendship bracelets. Next to four typewriters, a young woman wore a hand-scrawled sign around her neck: “Ask me typewriter questions! I may answer them ... maybe.”
“The first 20 minutes is difficult,” said Caitlin Keller, 28, who works in customer service at a tech start-up. “I want to check
what my friends are doing, see if anyone’s contacted me — just have it next to me. But then you feel free.”
Device Free Drinks could have taken place in any city — according to a Pew Re-search Center survey conducted last spring, 67 percent of cellphone owners find them-selves checking their device even when it’s not ringing or vibrating.
But among San Francisco technology professionals, for whom the devices are an appendage, that hankering is perhaps espe-cially acute.
The party was the brainchild of Levi Felix, an earnest 28-year-old and self-identified recovering techie. Four years ago, Mr. Felix was living in Los Angeles, working 70-hour weeks for a tech start-up. His lifestyle had become a high-tech cliché: laundry, late-night Thai food and Ping-Pong at the office. He slept with his laptop tucked under his pillow.
Last summer Mr. Felix and his girlfriend, Brooke Dean, began four-day weekend re-treats called the Digital Detox, held in vari-
ous locations in Northern California. Par-ticipants surrender all their devices and are taught yoga, meditation and healthy cook-ing. Recognizing that not everyone can get away, they decided to bring the lessons of the retreat to a neighborhood bar.
Mr. Felix hopes that other restaurants and cafes will institute tech-free “cold-spots.” “We’re in a time of infancy, just starting to figure out the effects of technol-ogy on our brains and communities, but there haven’t been any rules set up yet,” he said. “It’s up to us to define what these look like.
“I’m a geek, I’m not a Luddite,” Mr. Felix added. “I love that technology connects us and is taking our civilization to the next level, but we have to learn how to use it, and not have it use us.”
At the Jones, Jana Kantor, who was check-ing in devices, said: “One woman told me, ‘My whole life is on this phone,’ so I said, ‘That’s something interesting for you to think about: is your whole life data, or is it your body?’ ”
Tech-free ‘coldspots’ to help people fight dependency on devices.
Ivory poachers turn saviorsPHOTOGRAPHS BY TYLER HICKS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
Poaching could make African elephants go the way of the American bison. Below, Julius Lokinyi, a former poacher, now works to protect elephants.
Villagers band together to protect their wildlife and tourism industry
CON TIN UED ON PAGE 10
By JIM YARDLEYThe New York Times
DARJEELING, India — Among con-noisseurs, few teas surpass Darjeeling. The smooth and mellow taste commands a premium price, and the name itself evokes a bygone era when the British first introduced Chinese tea plants here in the Indian foot-hills of the Himalayas.
To Anil K. Jha, the superintendent of the Sungma Tea Estate, all this would be good for business, except that much of the tea sold as Darjeeling is not grown here. Foreign wholesalers often put the name on a blend of the real stuff and lesser teas. And in some cases, growers elsewhere simply slap on a Darjeeling label.
So Mr. Jha and other Darjeeling growers have followed the example of Scottish whis-key distillers and French wineries, winning legal protection for the Darjeeling label under laws that limit the use of certain geo-graphic names to products that come from those places.
In a decision this year, the European Union agreed to phase out the use of “Dar-jeeling” on blended teas. Now, just as a bottle of Cognac must come from the region around the French town of Cognac, a cup of Darjeeling tea will have to be made only from tea grown around Darjeeling.
“That flavor, that uniqueness that comes from here — it is nowhere else,” Mr. Jha said as he stood among manicured tea bushes on a hillside about 1,500 meters above sea level, near the border with Nepal. “People have tried to replicate it, but have failed,” he said.
The uniqueness of Darjeeling as a place certainly seems beyond dispute. On clear days, the white peaks of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain after Ever-est and K2, floats over the hilltop city. Many of the steep surrounding foothills are car-peted with tea estates, some planted more than 160 years ago when a British surgeon found that tea bushes thrived here.
The mountainous terrain also limits pro-duction. The Darjeeling district has 87 cer-tified tea gardens, as they are locally known, producing about nine million kilograms of tea every year, and the potential for expan-sion is almost nil.
That is why local tea growers grew an-noyed that as much as 40 million kilograms of tea were being sold as Darjeeling on the global market each year.
To fight back, the Tea Board designated Darjeeling as a “geographical indication” for tea that is recognized by the World Trade Organization. Over time, Indian tea of-ficials negotiated agreements with various countries to ensure that the status of the Darjeeling name was respected. A deal was finally struck in 2012 to phase out blended Darjeeling in Europe within five years.
“In the case of Darjeeling tea, it was ac-cepted that there was specificity that is unique — and geographically based,” said João Cravinho, the European Union’s am-bassador to India.
“Tea produced anywhere else will have different characteristics.”
Identity of a tea assured
By JEFFERY GETTLEMANThe New York Times
Archers Post, Kenya
Julius Lokinyi was one of the most notorious poachers in this part of Kenya, blamed for single-handedly killing as many as 100 elephants.
But after being hounded, shamed, and finally persuaded by his elders, he made a remarkable transformation. Elephants, he has come to believe, are actually worth more alive than dead, because of the tourists they attract.
So Mr. Lokinyi stopped poaching and joined a grass-roots squad of rangers to protect the wildlife he once slaughtered.
Nowadays he gets up at dawn, slurps down a cup of sugary tea, tightens up his combat boots and marches off with other villagers, to fight poachers. ‘‘We got to protect the elephants,’’ said Mr. Lokinyi, who is around 28 years old.
From Tanzania to Cameroon, tens
of thousands of elephants are being poached each year because of Asia’s soar-ing demand for ivory. Nothing seems to be stopping it. Scientists say that African elephants could soon go the way of the wild American bison.
But in this stretch of northern Kenya, destitute villagers have seized upon an unconventional solution that, if replicat-ed elsewhere, could be the key to saving thousands of elephants across the conti-nent, conservationists say.
In a growing number of communities here, people are so eager, even desperate, to protect their wildlife that civilians with no military experience are banding to-gether, grabbing shotguns and G3 assault rifles and risking their lives to confront heavily armed poaching gangs.
They do it because in Kenya, perhaps more than just about anywhere else, wildlife means tourists, and tourists
10 lifestyletrends with S U N D A Y , D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2 C H I N A D A I L Y
mean money — a lot of money. The safari business is a pillar of the Kenyan economy, generating more than a billion dollars a year and nearly 500,000 jobs, like cooks, cleaners, beadstringers, safari guides, bush pilots, even accountants to tally the proceeds. It is not un-usual here for a floppy-hatted visitor to spend $700 a night to sleep in a tent and absorb the sights, sounds and musky smells of game. Much of that money is contractually bound to go directly to impoverished local com-munities, which use it for everything from pumping water to scholarships, giving them a clear financial stake in preserv-ing wildlife.
Surprisingly enough, many safari-in-dustry jobs can pay as much as poaching. Though the ivory trade may seem lucrative, it is often like the Somali pirate business model, with the entry-level hijacker getting just a minuscule cut of the million-dollar ransoms. While a kilogram of ivory can fetch
$2,000 on the streets of Beijing, Mr. Lokinyi, despite his lengthy poaching résumé, was broke, making it easier to lure him out of the business.
Villagers are also turning against poachers because the illegal wildlife trade fuels crime, corruption, instability and intercommunal fighting. Here in northern Kenya, poachers are diversifying into stealing livestock, print-ing counterfeit money and sometimes hold-
ing up tourists. Some are even buying assault rifles used in ethnic conflicts.
The conservation militias are often the only security forces around, so they have become de facto emergency squads, rushing off to handle all sorts of incidents in areas too remote for the police to quickly access and often getting into shootouts with poachers and bandits.
“This isn’t just about animals,” said Paul El-
kan, a director at the Wildlife Conservation Society, who is trying to set up community ranger squads in South Sudan modeled on the Kenyan template. “It’s about security, conflict reconciliation, even nation build-ing.”
The rangers tend to be hardened and uneducated, drawn from different ethnic groups and the surplus of unemployed youth. Gabriel Lesoipa was a goat herder; Joseph Lopeiyok, a cattle rustler; John Pa-meri won his coveted spot because he was fast — at the time he was selected, the first entry requirement was a grueling 18-kilo-meter race.
Many are considered warriors in their communities, experts in so-called bushcraft from years of grazing cattle and goats across the thorny savanna — and defending them against armed raiders. They can follow faint footprints across long, thirsty distances and instantly intuit when someone has trespassed on their land.
The United States government is support-ing such community conservation efforts, contributing more than $4 million to Kenya.
The militiamen receive anything from $25 to $320 a month. But there are risks. In several African countries, militias initially mustered to protect communities have often turned into predators themselves.
“It’s backfired before,” said Ian Craig, the grandfather of Kenya’s community conser-vation efforts. “We’ve had bad guys become good guys and then bad guys again. But you got to try.”
Mr. Craig helped found the Northern Rangelands Trust in 2004. Made up of 19 communities, with another 32 asking to join, it has 461 scouts patrolling about 20,000 square kilometers; two small airplanes and a million-dollar helicopter on its way; an operations center with flat-screen monitors tracking elephants by satellite; and a “strong room” packed with thermal-imagery scopes and a rack of weapons.
It is difficult to measure the success of the community rangers, but poaching in Kenya has declined drastically from the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of elephants were poached each year. This year, the Kenyan au-thorities say around 350 elephants have been poached, triple the number in 2008.
The local incentive to protect wildlife seems self-evident. Namibia, for instance, now has more than 70 community conser-vancies. “Anyone who encroaches on the land is seen as an antibody,” said Rob Mof-fett, an executive with Wilderness Safaris, a company in Namibia. “An enemy of wildlife is an enemy of the people.”
CON TIN UED FROM PAGE 9
Poachers become saviors
By THOMAS FULLERThe New York Times
BAAN PA CHI, Thailand — The monks in this northern Thai village no longer per-form one of the rituals of Buddhism, the ear-ly-morning walk through the community to collect food. Instead, the temple’s abbot dials a restaurant and has takeout delivered.
“Most of the time, I stay inside,” said the abbot, Phra Nipan Marawichayo, who is one of only two monks living in what was once a thriving temple. “Values have changed with time.”
The gilded roofs of Buddhist temples are as much a part of Thailand’s landscape as rice paddies. The temples once served as meeting places, guesthouses and community centers. But many have become marginalized by a shortage of monks and an increasingly secu-lar society.
“Consumerism is now the Thai religion,” said Phra Paisan Visalo, one of the country’s most respected monks. “In the past, people went to temple on every holy day. Now, they go to shopping malls.”
The meditative lifestyle of the monkhood offers little allure to the iPhone generation. The number of monks and novices relative to the population has fallen by more than half in the last three decades. There are five monks and novices for every 1,000 people today, compared with 11 in 1980, when governments began keeping nationwide records.
Although it is still relatively rare for temples to close, many districts are so short on monks that abbots in northern Thailand recruit across the border from Myanmar, where monasteries are overflowing with novices.
What is striking in Thailand is the com-pressed time frame, a vertiginous pace of change brought on by the country’s rapid economic rise. In a relatively short time, the Buddhist monk has gone from being a moral authority, teacher and community leader ful-filling important spiritual and secular roles to someone whose job is often limited to pre-
siding over periodic ceremonies.Phra Anil Sakya, the assistant secre-
tary to the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, the country’s governing body of Bud-dhism, said Thai Buddhism needed “new packaging” to match the fast-paced lifestyle. (Phra is the honorific title for monks in Thai-land.)
“People today love high-speed things,” he said. “We didn’t have instant noo-dles in the past, but now people love them. For the sake of presentation, we have to change the way we teach Budd- hism and make it easy and digestible like in-stant noodles.”
He says Buddhist leaders should make Buddhism more relevant by emphasizing the importance of meditation as a salve for stressful urban lifestyles. The teaching of Buddhism, or dharma, does not need to be tethered to the temple, he said. “You can get dharma in department stores, or even over the Internet,” he said.
But Phra Paisan is more pessimistic about what is sometimes called “fast-food Bud-dhism.” He sees incompatibilities between modern life and Buddhism.
His life is a portrait of traditional Buddhist asceticism. He lives in a remote part of central Thailand in a stilt house on a lake, connected to the shore by a rickety wooden bridge. He has no furniture, sleeps on the floor and is surrounded by books.
Government figures put the number
of monks in the country at 290,000 last year, but Phra Paisan said that Thailand had no more than 70,000 full-time
monks — about the same as the number of villages in Thailand.
Scandals have contributed to the decline. Social media have helped spread videos of monks partying in monasteries, imbibing alcohol, watching pornographic videos and cavorting with women and men, all forbid-den activities. There have also been contro-versies involving allegations of embezzle-ment of donations.
In Baan Pa Chi, about an hour’s drive from the northern city of Chiang Mai, the mon-astery has plenty of money because locals and villagers who have moved to cities do-nate cash for new buildings, ornaments and statues, believing that they can “make merit” and improve their karmic status. But the monastery feels empty. “People used to leave their children here,” said Anand Buchanet, 54, who as a boy was a novice in the temple. “Now, they just leave stray pets.”
Novices once spent months in a monastery as part of what was considered an essential step for boys along the way to adulthood. To-day, if they are ordained at all, boys typically spend a week in monk’s robes, giving rise to the term “factory monks” because they are churned out so quickly.
Phra Nipan, the abbot, said his only role to-day was to preside over rituals like funerals, weddings and the blessing of a new home. “People today have telephones,” he said wist-fully. “If they have troubles, they call their friends.”
Thai monks struggle to adaptPHOTOGRAPHS BY GIULIO DI STURCO FOR THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
TYLER HICKS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
Poaching in Kenya has declined drastically since the 1970s and 1980s. An elephant skull and scattered bones in Samburu.
The risk is that the wildlife militias could turn into predators.
The rivers of São Paulo, Brazil, yield eerie and bizarre items.
A diver probes polluted watersBy SIMON ROMEROThe New York Times
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The Tietê and Pinheiros Rivers, which cut through this metropolis of 20 million, flow well enough in some parts. But in certain stretches, they ooze. Their waters are best described, per-haps, as ashen gray. Their aroma, reminis-cent of rotten eggs, can induce nausea in passers-by.
José Leonídio Rosendo dos Santos has been diving into both rivers for more than 20 years. Hired largely to unclog drainage gates, he scours the murky depths of the Ti-etê and Pinheiros, which have symbolized São Paulo’s environmental degradation for decades, bringing to the surface a list of items that is eerie and bizarre.
Over the years, his takings (which, as a contractor for public utility companies, he is required to hand over to the authorities) have included a suitcase with $2,000 inside, handguns, knives, stoves and refrigerators, countless automobile tires, and, in another suitcase, the decomposing remains of a woman who had been dismembered.
“I stopped looking for suitcases after that,” Mr. dos Santos said.
For Mr. dos Santos, 48, who got into diving to pay for his surfing hobby, his job has brought an unusual level of notoriety and admiration from Paulistanos, as the residents of this hard-bitten megacity are called.
On the traffic-clogged highways that trace the rivers’ banks, some drivers stop their cars, taking pictures with their smart-phones when they see him preparing to dive. Talk-show hosts marvel at his cour-age. One newspaper here, describing Mr. dos Santos in his futuristic diving garb, compared him to a “Japanese superhero.”
Part of the fascination with Mr. dos San-tos has to do with how Paulistanos view their rivers. As the historian Janes Jorge re-counts in a book on the city’s largest river, the Tietê, it was adored by city residents as recently as the middle of the last century, when they fished, swam and held rowing competitions in its waters.
Then São Paulo expanded to become one of the world’s largest cities, its residents moving into high-rise buildings, gated enclaves and sprawling slums. Factories deposited their waste in the rivers. Flour-ishing districts in São Paulo’s metropolitan area expanded without basic sanitation systems, discharging sewage into the Tietê and Pinheiros.
The rivers now persist in Brazil’s popu-lar culture as dystopian objects of derision. Rock bands like Skank composed songs about the seemingly impossible dream of cleaning up the Tietê. Laerte Coutinho, a cartoonist, created an entire strip, “Pirates of the Tietê,” in which marauders set forth from the malodorous river on raiding ex-peditions across São Paulo.
Still, Mr. dos Santos said he held out hope for efforts to cleanse the waters. Since 1992, the authorities have been undertaking a painstakingly slow project to clean up the Tietê and Pinheiros.
Political leaders contend the cleanup effort is advancing. Governor Geraldo Alckmin said this year that by 2015, boats could start taking tourists down the Tietê for glimpses of São Paulo’s wonders. (“The problem is removing the smell,” he ac-knowledged.)
Adding to the rivers’ pollution are the four million people — about 20 percent of São Paulo’s population — who still lack ba-sic sanitation, according to Monica Porto, an expert on water reservoir management at the University of São Paulo. But more home are being hooked up to the sewer system.
Mr. dos Santos, who is paid about $2,200 a month,
never touches the water with-out being in protective plastic gear that is thicker than a normal wet suit and requires assistance to put on.
He said his dives give him a rare perspec-tive on this intimidating city.
“This sounds crazy, but the rivers are the most peaceful place in São Paulo,” he said. “When I drop to their depths, it becomes absolutely quiet. It’s like I’m in space, pon-dering a civilization which has pushed itself to the edge of destruction.”
LALO DE ALMEIDA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
José Leonídio Rosendo dos Santos scours the depths of São Paulo’s oozing waters.
Many temples in Thailand have fallen quiet. A Buddhist ritual, and Phra Rit Ittiyano, 66, left, one of two monks left at a temple.
C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y , D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2 science&technology with 11
Children develop empathy very early By PERRI KLASS, M.D.Th e New York Times
The capacity to notice the distress of others, and to be moved by it, can be a critical compo-nent of what is called prosocial behavior, ac-tions that benefit others: individuals, groups or society . Psychologists, neurobiologists and even economists are increasingly interested in how and why we become our better selves.
How do children develop prosocial behav-ior, and is there any way to encourage it? If you do, will you eventually get altruistic adults?
Nancy Eisenberg, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, is an expert on the development in children of prosocial be-havior, which is often examined through the child’s ability to perceive and react to someone else’s distress. Attempts at concern and reas-surance can be seen in children as young as 1.
Dr. Eisenberg draws a distinction between empathy and sympathy: “Empathy, at least the way I break it out, is experiencing the same emotion or highly similar emotion to what the other person is feeling,” she said. “Sympathy is feeling concern or sorrow for the other person.”
While that may be based in part on empa-thy, she said, or on memory, “it’s not feeling the same emotion.”
Intense empathy can backfire, causing so much personal distress that the result is a de-sire to avoid the source of the pain, research-ers have found.
The ingredients of prosocial behavior, from kindness to philanthropy, are more complex and varied. They include the abil-
ity to perceive others’ distress, the sense of self that helps sort out your own identity and feelings, the skills that prevent severe distress, and the cognitive and emotional understand-ing of the value of helping.
Twin studies have suggested that there is some genetic component to prosocial ten-dencies. When reacting to an adult who is pretending to be distressed, for example, identical twins behave more like each other than do fraternal twins. These early mani-festations of sympathy and empathy become part of decision-making and morality.
Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, described
two broad theories to explain prosocial be-havior. One, he said, was essentially motiva-tional: It feels good to help other people.
Economists have also looked at the ques-tion of altruism, and have hypothesized about a “warm glow effect” to account for charitable giving.
Studies have shown that the same brain region that is activated when people win money for themselves is active when they
give to charity — that is, that there is a kind of neurologic “reward” built into the motiva-tional system of the brain.
“Charitable giving can activate the same pleasure-reward centers, the dopaminergic centers, in the brain that are very closely tied to habit formation,” said Bill Harbaugh, an economist at the University of Oregon who studies altruism.
The other theory of prosocial behavior, Dr. Huettel said, is based on social cognition — the recognition that other people have needs and goals. The two theories aren’t mutually exclusive: Cognitive understanding accom-panied by a motivational reward reinforces prosocial behavior. What would the experts say about fostering prosocial behavior in children, from kindness on to charity?
Parental modeling is important; sympathy and compassion should be part of children’s experience long before they know the words. “Explain how other people feel,” Dr. Eisen-berg said. “Reflect the child’s feelings, but also point out, look, you hurt Johnny’s feelings.”
Don’t offer material rewards for prosocial behavior, but do offer opportunities to do good — opportunities that the child will see as voluntary. And help children see their own behavior as generous, kind, helpful.
Working with a child’s temperament, tak-ing advantage of an emerging sense of self and increasing cognitive understanding of the world and helped by the reward centers of the brain, parents can try to foster that warm glow and the worldview that goes with it.
Empathy, sympathy, compassion, kindness and charity begin at home, and very early.
By CLAUDIA DREIFUSTh e New York Times
Sir Roy Calne is a pioneer of transplants — the surgeon who in the 1950s found ways to stop the human immune system from rejecting implanted hearts, livers and kidneys.
In 1968 he performed Europe’s first liver transplant, and in 1987 the world’s first transplant of a liver, heart and lung.
Along with Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Pittsburgh, he received a 2012 Lasker Award for “the development of liver transplantation, which has restored normal life to thousands of patients with end-stage liver disease.”
We spoke before the awards ceremony. A condensed version of the interview follows.
Q. When you were studying medicine in 1950s Britain, what was the prevailing atti-tude toward organ transplantation?A. It didn’t exist! While a medical student, I recall being presented with a young patient with kidney failure. I was told to make him as comfortable as possible because he would die .
I wondered then if it might be possible to do organ transplants, because kidneys are fairly simple . Might it not be possible to do an organ graft, replacing a malfunctioning organ with a healthy one? I was told, “No,
that’s impossible.”
Q. When did you first think it might be a real possibility?A. Around 1957. I was teaching anatomy at Oxford. I attended a lecture there by the great biologist Sir Peter Medawar, who showed slides of successful skin grafts . Though he insisted that there was “no clini-cal application whatsoever .”
I began to devote myself to the two main obstacles to transplantation. One was surgi-cal and the other immunological.
In America, at that time, Tom Starzl, then at Colorado, and Francis Moore at Harvard were separately working on the surgical techniques. But I was in Britain . I taught myself how to transplant kidneys in dogs.
Once I’d done that, the big problem was to find some way to prevent the immune sys-tem from rejecting the transplanted organs. I sought some way to make the immune system temporarily malleable, as it is in the fetus. If you performed the transplant dur-ing a period of plasticity, the hope was that you could avoid rejection. In those days, the only described method for doing that was X-ray irradiation, shutting down the im-mune system by destroying it.
Well, that didn’t work. It just made the dogs desperately ill and it didn’t stop rejec-tion. That led me to wonder if there wasn’t
some other method of immunosuppression we could consider — a drug perhaps?
Q. How long did it take you to find something effective?A. The first sign that we might have some-thing came in 1959, when we tried the anti-leukemia drug 6-mercaptopurine with dogs who’d had kidney grafts. Some lived quite a long time. It changed some-thing that had been total failure to a partial success.
But cyclosporine was the real watershed. We tested it at the University of Cambridge during the mid-1970s. By 1977, it had moved the success rate from 50 percent to 80 percent. That really changed attitudes. Before cyclosporine, you had only 10 cen-ters around the world doing organ trans-plants. Afterwards, it was 1,000. And now we had a whole new problem: not enough donor organs to meet demand.
Q. Is there any solution to the shortage of do-nor organs?A. I think an “opt out” program would work better than what you currently have in the United States. It offers the option for people to say “no” to have their organs used after death. If they don’t take it, this is regarded as permission.
Q. What about the growth of “transplant
tourism,” where patients from wealthy coun-tries travel to poorer ones to find organs?A. That’s terrible — verges on the criminal, really. One hears of disasters where the surgeon has to work in countries with poor facilities and both the donor and the recipi-ent have died.
We can just imagine what would have happened in Nazi Germany if organ trans-plantation had existed in the 1930s.
Q. You did a lot of your early experiments on dogs and pigs. What do animal rights activ-ists think of your work?A. They once sent me a bomb. I was suspi-cious and phoned up the army — who blew it up. This was right around the time cyclosporine was first being used. A BBC di-rector did a program on a child who’d been saved with it. And after that, I had no more trouble with animal rights. Not because they loved me. But that they thought it wouldn’t do them any good if they killed someone treating children.
Q. The Lasker prize, which you and Tom Starzl just won, is often called the Pre-Nobel. Were the Lasker judges saying to telling Stock-holm, “Hey, isn’t it time you honored this world-changing discovery?”A. Well, I don’t know how they work in Stockholm. If you look at the amount of good that resulted from organ transplanta-tion it fits very much into what Alfred Nobel wanted the prize to be used for.
I get a lot of satisfaction a different way. I have a patient and it’s been 38 years since his transplant. He’s just come back from a 150-mile trek bicycling through the moun-tains. That’s my reward.
A transplant pioneer faced the impossible
Toddlers can notice distress in others, which indicates empathy.
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Sir Roy Calne performed Europe’s first liver transplant in 1968.
JOYCE HESSELBERTH
Now, the machines can clean pools and tote golf clubs, too.
Robots in reachof more peopleBy KEVIN J. O’BRIENTh e New York Times
BERLIN — Joseph Schlesinger, an en-gineer living near Boston, thinks robotic toys are too expensive, the result of extrav-agant designs, expensive components and a poor understanding of consumer tastes. So Mr. Schlesinger, 23, began to manufac-ture an affordable robot, one he is selling for $250.
The Hexy is a six-legged, crablike crea-ture that can navigate its environment and respond to humans . Mr. Schlesinger said he had been able to lower production costs by using free software and by molding a lot of the parts in Massachusetts.
Since setting up his company, ArcBot-ics, in Somerville, Massachusetts, Mr. Schlesinger has built a backlog of more than 1,000 orders. His goal, he said, was to become “the Ikea of robotics.”
“I think the market for consumer robot-ics is poised to explode,” said Mr. Schle-singer, a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.
Since the 1960s, robots have assumed major roles in industry, the remote detona-tion of explosives, search and rescue, and research. But the devices have remained out of reach, in affordability and practical-ity, to most consumers.
That, according to Professor Andrew Ng, the director of the Artificial Intelli-gence Lab at Stanford University in Cali-fornia, is about to change. One big reason, Mr. Ng said, is the mass production of smartphones and game consoles, which has driven down the size and price of ro-botic building blocks like accelerometers, gyroscopes and sensors.
The first generation of d evices with rudimentary artificial intelligence are beginning to appear: entertainment and educational robots like the Hexy, and a line of household drones that can mow lawns, sweep floors, clean swimming pools and even enhance golf games. “I’m seeing a huge explosion of robotic toys and believe that there will be one soon in industry,” said Mr. Ng, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford.
The most advanced robots remain exotic workhorses like NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover, which cost $2.5 billion, and the LS3, a doglike robot being developed for the U.S. military that can carry a 180-kilogram load about 30 kilometers.
The mechanical beast of burden is being made by a consortium led by Boston Dynamics. In Menlo Park, Cali-fornia, engineers at Willow Garage, a robotics firm, are selling the two-armed, 1.63-meter rolling robot called the PR2 for $400,000.
For the masses, there is the CaddyTrek, a robotic golf club carrier made by FTR Systems that follows a player for as many as 27 holes on one charge. A remote control acts as a homing beacon for the cart, which trails behind the player. Golfers can also navigate the robotic cart, which is made by FTR Systems, to the next tee while they finish putting.
“Someone ran up to me last week and said that my golf cart had broken free and
was rolling through the parking lot,” said Richard Nagle, the sales manager for Cad-dyTrek in North America and Europe. Mr. Nagle said the company had been rushing to meet orders for the robot carriers, which sell for $1,595 in the United States and Eu-rope.
While one robot totes your golf clubs, the Polaris 9300xi could be cleaning your swimming pool. The four-wheel drone pushes itself along the bottom and walls to dislodge and filter sediment. The de-vice, which is made by Zodiac Pool Sys-tems of San Diego, cleans pools up to 18 meters long. The Polaris 9300xi sells for $1,379.
The four-wheeled grass cutter called the Automower, made by Husqvarna, a Swedish power tool and lawn care com-pany, can care for lawns as large as 6,000 square meters. The mower, which is sold in Europe and Asia, cuts rain or shine. The Automower cuts grass by staying within a boundary wire drawn around the perime-ter, sensing and avoiding trees, flower beds and other obstacles. The Automower 305 costs $1,965 and can mow 500 square me-ters on one charge. Henric Andersson, the director of product development at Husq-varna in Stockholm, said the company’s
robotic mowers were getting extensive use in Europe.
“The robotic mower has reached a tip-ping point,” Mr. Andersson said. “More people are now incorporating the device into their lives.”
Other basic robots work inside the home. iRobot, a firm founded by three former employees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes robots that vacuum, sweep and mop floors. The iRo-bot Roomba 790, which costs 900 euros in Europe, is a self-propelling vacuum cleaner that can navigate interior spaces, adjusting from carpets to hard floors, and wielding brushes for corners and walls.
Theoretically, a house full of robotic gadgets can lead to more free time, which is where the AR Drone 2.0 quadricopter, a smartphone-controlled helicopter, may come in. The AR Drone 2.0 is equipped with two video cameras: one conventional and one high-definition, which can stream and store video of its flights. The AR Drone 2.0 can be guided through looping ma-neuvers and fly as far away as 50 meters at speeds of up to 18 kilometers per hour. The craft, made by Parrot, based in Paris, can fly about 12 minutes before needing a recharge.
Parrot, based in Paris, has sold more than 250,000 of the drones since it was in-troduced in 2010.
12 arts&styles with S U N D A Y , D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2 C H I N A D A I L Y
By ELISSA GOOTMANThe New York Times
Every moment of Brynn and Ralph Caros-ella’s wedding — from the traditional Catho-lic ceremony to the glittering reception — was captured on camera.
There were two professional photogra-phers and two videographers. A quarter of the guests documented the event with cam-eras or iPhones. Pictures were posted to Fa-cebook the next day.
Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, the New York couple’s favorite image of their wedding is strikingly old-fashioned: a 60-by-90-centimeter acrylic painting, created by a so-called live-event artist named Jessica Weiss.
A curious resurgence of live-event paint-ing has taken hold. In recent years, artists have started advertising their services as event painters, usually charging $1,000 to $5,000 to capture important moments on canvas.
“On Facebook, you’ll see someone decid-ing between two different pairs of shoes and asking all their friends to vote, or someone showing their kid with food on their face or that a car hit their car,” Ms. Weiss said. “You don’t want your wedding pictures going up on the same news feed as that.”
In Los Angeles, Agnes Csiszar Russo, a sketch artist who has helped design dozens of movie sets and posters, started painting live events five years ago after an admirer of her work asked if she would paint at his wed-ding.
Over years of painting surprise parties, an-niversary parties, fund-raisers and weddings,
she has honed the art of canvas diplomacy.“You don’t see double chins in my paint-
ings,” she said. “Everybody has a couple of pounds lost.” She can also control her sub-jects’ emotions, or at least the appearance thereof: “They’re always happy.”
Ms. Russo said she investigates the fam-ily dynamics before she arrives. In discreet conversations before the event, her clients inform her which relatives and friends have made the cut and should be depicted.
“There are always extra people who wanted to be in the painting and they didn’t make it,” Ms. Russo said. “I have to be careful around that area when they come around: ‘Why am I not in it? My brothers are in it.’ ”
Some artists, like Ms. Russo,
take their canvases home after the event,
touching them up over days or months. Cindy Myers, who hired Ms. Russo to paint at her husband’s 40th birthday party in July, only recently received the finished product.
“We want all of our memories captured as much as possible, but for me this is just on a whole different level,” Mrs. Myers said. “This is something that will probably be in our family forever.”
Anne Watkins, a Manhattan artist, started painting at friends’ weddings in the 1980s; she would leave her paintings on the table, as a gift. Now she charges $7,000 and up for
a series of evocative watercolors.
For weddings, she often starts with the bride’s dress fitting, which “can make some really dreamy ones.”
She has painted at a five-day wedding cel-ebration in St. Barts, as well as 40th birthdays, 50th birthdays, anniversary celebrations and one Thanksgiving dinner.
“I painted the kids sitting on the couch watching the game, and I painted the peo-ple in the kitchen making stuff,” she said. “I painted the guys who were deep-frying the turkey in the garage.”
For Ms. Watkins, each image is designed to pull one back to a moment, an emotion.
“The kind of art I do is abstract enough that every detail isn’t laid out, so people can’t just glide over it,” Ms. Watkins said. “What pins the memory down is that connection with feeling.”
Miles Pelky, a San Diego D.J. who started a Web site called liveeventartist.com, con-necting artists with clients, said he tested a number of artists before finding those who could capture the venue, the mood, the cou-ple and the guests — and not get flustered when guests came by to watch. After all, the customers can be picky. Once, he recalled, a bride complained that her dress was depicted in the wrong shade of white.
Cameras may not lie, but artists are by def-inition free to embellish, and in live-event painting, the ability to fictionalize is part of the appeal.
Mr. Day will not paint in people who are not in attendance, but he does make allow-ances for absent pets and thinning manes. “I don’t fictionalize,” he said, “but I can add a little more hair.”
By CHARLES McGRATHThe New York Times
Quentin Tarantino’s newest film, “Django Unchained,” has already picked up five Golden Globe nominations, including one for best director. It stars Christoph Waltz (the Austrian actor so memorable in “In-glourious Basterds”) as a German bounty hunter posing as a dentist in antebellum America and Jamie Foxx as a newly freed slave hoping to rescue his enslaved wife. It opened in the United States on Christmas Day, and opens worldwide in January.
In a conversation in New York, Mr. Taran-tino showed his enthusiasm for movies, his own and just about everyone else’s.
Q. So why is it called “Django Unchained”?A. Because of the Sergio Corbucci movie “Django.” “Django Unchained” works good for a guy who used to be a slave, and it’s also a little bit of a throwback to the Hercules sequel, “Hercules Unchained.” But that’s all I knew about it. In the case of this movie it was the first scene that dictated the whole thing.
I was in Japan doing the press on “Inglou-rious Basterds.” Spaghetti westerns have
had a gigantic resurgence in Japan. You can get all the soundtracks, so I loaded up. I was actually writing a piece on Corbucci and describing his kind of western. At one point I thought, “In truth I don’t really know if he was thinking all these things that I’m writing about, but I know I’m thinking them, and I can do them.” So with that I just sat down and the first scene just came out of me.
Q. You do love genre movies.A. I’ve always been influenced by the spa-ghetti western. I used to describe “Pulp Fic-tion” as a rock ’n’ roll spaghetti western with the surf music standing in for Ennio Mor-ricone. I don’t know if “Django” is a western proper. It’s a southern.
Q. “Jackie Brown” is your one movie that’s based on somebody else’s idea, Elmore Leon-ard’s novel “Rum Punch.” Why was it that you did that?A. When I was younger I was thinking, “Oh wow, when I become a director I can see every other movie I do being an Elmore Leonard novel.” Now I’ve become a director, and I actually want to do my own things, but that one novel was kind of a leftover from
my thoughts and some of my inspirations of the past.
Q. There’s this mythology that you educated yourself in a video store and all you know about is movies. Yet it seems to me that you must have been a tremendous reader as well.
A. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but no, I was reading all the time.
Most of my reading was genre fiction. Cinema literature, and then certain novelists that I fell in love with. J. D. Salinger in partic-ular was a big inspiration to me, and not all of Larry McMurtry’s books but some of them.
Q. I’m told that your scripts are really written. They’re more like novels than screenplays.A. Yeah, they are. When I write my scripts it’s not really about the movie per se, it is about the page. It’s supposed to be literature. I write stuff that’s never going to make it in the movie, but I’ll put it in the screenplay. We’ll decide later do we shoot it, do we not shoot it, whatever, but it’s important for the written work.
Q. If I’m not mistaken you’re not a high-school dropout, you’re a middle-school drop-out. Do you ever think maybe I should have gone to college? Or would that have ruined you?A. No. The fact that I would quit in middle school just shows how little of the world that I knew. I thought the way it was in middle school would be the way it was going to be
forever. I didn’t even realize that college would be different from ninth grade. I just thought it was more school.
I actually think it would have been a fun experience to have gone to college.
Q. Are there ideas stored up or will you have to fill the tank when you finish all the “Djan-go” publicity?A. I don’t know the next movie I want to do. This movie was really hard. It’s hard to make even a mock epic like this. I remember reading a review that Pauline Kael wrote about some director’s big epic, and she said: Now, look, it might seem unfair to judge a talented man more harshly when he tries to do something big than a less talented person who’s doing something easier. But when you try big things, you take big risks, and if you’re trying to do something that is maybe above you and you can’t quite pull off, then whereas before we only saw your gifts, now we see your failings.
I want to risk hitting my head on the ceil-ing of my talent. I want to really test it out and say: O.K., you’re not that good. I don’t ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate.
MICHAEL STRAVATO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A resurgence of live-event painting has taken hold. Agnes Csiszar Russo at a recent wedding in Houston, Texas.
BÉATRICE DE GÉA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Quentin Tarantino says he writes scripts as though they were literature.
Important events are being documented in a dignified medium.
Filmmaker Tarantino creates his own genre
Artists capture couples’ ‘I dos’
Seeking a yoga high, with help from potBy LAURIE WINERThe New York Times
LOS ANGELES — Liz McDonald is in her third year of teaching a class called 420 Remedy Yoga. Her studio, Brazilian Yoga, is in a bohemian outpost near Glendale, California.
The number 420 is code for pot smok-ing; the term’s origin has been traced, not surprisingly, to Marin County in the early 1970s, when a group of high schoolers met at 4:20 p.m. to commence toking. In that era, drug experimentation went hand in hand with the search for being/awareness/bliss, a quest that is also a foundation of yoga.
On a recent Saturday, Ms. McDonald started her class slowly; students stretched on the floor as she encouraged them to think of their yoga mats as private magic carpets. For a while, they stretched lazily, some of them gazing up at the white lan-terns hanging from the rafters, as if appre-ciating for the first time the ethereal quali-ties of rice paper.
Ms. McDonald adjusted her students’ poses with a gentle prod. By her side was her small dog, Prince, who every now and then imitated his mistress and touched stu-dents with his nose.
Yoga practitioners who live in Colorado and Washington State, where voters recent-ly approved the legality of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, may begin to see classes like Ms. McDonald’s. (Posses-sion is still a federal offense, rendering this a complex transitional period.)
In 2003, California Senate Bill 420 cleared the drug for medical use, meaning that Ms. McDonald’s students may have doctor-issued licenses, which can easily be obtained for ailments like anxiety, sleep dis-orders or chronic pain. It is illegal to smoke on the Brazilian Yoga property, so students are expected to partake at home.
Humans have been cultivating the herb for thousands of years.
“At least some of the ancient sages were probably stoned out of their minds,” said Leslie Kaminoff, a Manhattan yoga teacher and author of “Yoga Anatomy.”
Though he said he does not use or teach with any kind of enhancement, Mr. Kaminoff noted that “drugs can be a tool, and every tool has a positive and a nega-
tive aspect to it.”Yet, with the exception of fringe groups
composed of people like Ms. McDonald, most yoga teachers will tell you that drugs have no place in the practice.
“One of the things yoga teaches, even in something as simple as holding an un-comfortable pose, is how to tolerate reality,” said Nancy Romano, a private instructor in Los Angeles. “So any substance that fiddles with our ability to be with what’s really hap-pening would not be helpful in a yoga prac-tice,” she said.
Ms. McDonald is well aware that many in the official yoga industry would disapprove of her 420 class and doesn’t care.
“I find it to be a valuable tool in teach-ing,” she said. “A little pot relaxes them into comprehending. And if you want to just lie down in my class, that’s O.K., too.”
William Sands, dean of the College of Maharishi Vedic Science at Maharishi Uni-
versity of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, represents the stringent opposition.
Dr. Sands wrote a book on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who mentored the Beatles and introduced the West to transcendental meditation.
Dr. Sands said that marijuana inhibits the ability to experience yoga and is therefore incompatible with the practice of transcen-dental meditation.
Ms. McDonald said she understands why certain yogis disapprove of pairing the practice with pot.
“Some devotees have literally dedicated their lives to yoga,” she said, “and as a result they tend to see it as an ideal, beyond hu-man flaws, capable of our salvation. I think that perfection is found by authentically being in the present moment, rather than as an outcome of enlightenment. So I’m not afraid to admit I’m not perfect and come out of the closet on these issues.”
STEPHANIE DIANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Students are expected to use marijuana before class at 420 Remedy Yoga. Liz McDonald with her dog during a session.
Most yogis oppose the use of marijuana, but some call it a tool.
C H I N A D A I L Y sundaystyle 13S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
Th e year-end parties are about to arrive and the last thing you want to worry about is how to dress. Right?
No matter whether it is the annual office dinner, a family reunion, or a big night out, some decent acces-sories will defi nitely help.
My tip for accessories is: they should have a wow-eff ect.
The laser cut leather tote from Bally’s spring/summer 2013 collec-tion definitely has it. The tote can hold your keys, cosmetics and other small items, whereas in some totes they fall out. Its shiny color and weird shape make the tote stand out from the crowd and it was listed as one of the “weird bags from Milan Fashion Week”.
For a small coin purse, choose Cal-vin Klein Jeans. Th e shiny material makes it perfect as a party accessory. It is contained in a Calvin Klein Jeans
gift set, which has not only the coin bag, but also a bracelet and key ring. It is available in both pink and gold — perfect colors for major gather-ings.
Sequins are a must at year-end parties. Stephanie Classic is a Bra-zilian footwear label that made its China debut at this year’s Brazilian Footwear in Top Shoes and Fashion Accessories Beijing Expo. Th e big-gest attraction is the combination of sequined gold and black stripes, which provide an elegant touch. It goes best with an eye-dazzling dark evening dress.
A pair of funky glasses should be de rigeur. Pop star Rihanna was snapped on the street in Prada Barque Optical glasses, which have a chic look because of the curved temple arms and a half-moon frame.
Rings always make you shine. Th e Venere collection, from the new gemstone jewelry label Ancient, features a white-gold ring, formed
out of four leaves that fold together, with an emerald in the center. It is modern, yet still suitable for formal occasions.
Last but not least, you should pre-pare some cute gift s for parties.
Chocolates are always welcome. Godiva, which opened its global fl ag-ship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun Village in November, off ers a wide selection of festival gifts. Its Holiday Stock-ing with Bar Set and Holiday Milk Chocolate Tree with Snowflakes, were welcome during Christmas.
AT YOUR BEST & BRIGHTEST
THE WOW of
QIPAOShanghai’s iconic garment is the focus of a new exhibition and its organizers are not looking just at
the qipao’s past but also its future, reports Li Xinzhu in Shanghai.
A series of promotional activities celebrating qipao culture got off to a bright start at the Shang-
hai Municipal Archives on the Bund, and a related exhibition is being held at the venue until the end of December.
Th e exhibition, jointly organized by the Shanghai Municipal Tour-ism Administration and Shanghai Municipal Archives, shows off the evolution of the qipao during the past century, with more than 100 photos and accompanying texts.
It is one of the featured activities promoted by the municipal govern-ment for the winter travel season.
Shanghai is the birthplace of the modern-style qipao and in the 1930s Shanghai designers combined the elements of traditional qipao with Western-style clothing, presenting a new look.
As opposed to the traditional qipao that has a fl at appearance, the Shang-hai-style qipao followed a woman’s curves, especially around the shoul-ders, chest and waist — which is fl at-tering on the right fi gure.
While the Shanghai Municipal Archives exhibition gives visitors a glimpse of the qipao’s past, other pro-motional activities focus on the con-temporary qipao, by recommending 40 qipao stores around the city.
Th e most popular area to buy the dress is the 200-meter-long “Qipao Street” on Changle Road in Jing’an district, between Northern Shaanxi Road and Southern Maoming Road.
Here there are many hand-tailored qipao, while further to the east of Changle Road and south of Maom-ing Road, to the right at the next cor-ner is “Haute Couture Street” where
qipao have more international ele-ments and fetch higher prices.
Dongjiadu Textile Market is another source for tailor-made qipao, though the handiwork is not as good and this is refl ected in the cheaper prices and fewer style options.
Additionally, the Culture Center of Qipao in Xuhui district aims to attract the young and affl uent by pre-senting its range of the iconic dress in a series of cultural events.
Decorated with traditional Chi-nese-style furniture, the center has prepared a series of performances, arts training and cultural exchange activities to promote the culture of qipao.
“Shanghai is the origin of the mod-ern qipao,” says the center’s direc-tor Wang Weiyu. “However, due to changing times, the qipao is no longer worn daily, which is a great loss in terms of traditional womenswear.”
Wang wants to promote qipao with modern elements, so that it will suit the offi ce lady crowd.
The center has arranged various cultural activities that take place aft er the exhibition, such as fl ower arrang-ing, tea performances, a book club and lectures on traditional culture — and the only requirement for joining is that members should wear a qipao for the sessions.
In recent years, qipao culture has also been promoted at universities in Shanghai, so that youths look more favorably on the style.
More than 200 university students are expected to wear qipao in 2013 on Huaihai Road as part of a show for the Shanghai Tourism Festival.
9 Zhongshan Eastern Second Road, near Eastern Yan’an Road, Huangpu district
021-6333-5288
QIPAO TAILOR SHOPS
Jinzhiyuye Qipao Shop
72 Southern Maoming Road, Huangpu district
021-6431-4398
HANYI QIPAO SHOP
221 Changle Road, Huangpu district
021-5404-4727
2002 HAISHANG QIPAO SHOP
201 Changle Road, Huangpu district
021-5404-9576
THE CULTURE CENTER OF QIPAO
850 Northern Caoxi Road, Xuhui district
021-5480-0522
IF YOU GO
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Ne·Tiger 2013 blends the style of Western haute couture and the qipao.
14 sundayfood C H I N A D A I L Y S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
Expatriate culinary experts have also paid more attention to locally sourced produce such as Yunnan province’s black truffl es and China’s farmed Schrencki caviar.
As the capital becomes more cos-mopolitan, new Western cuisines have made forays into the culinary scene. Led by the French and Ital-ians, now there are also Argentin-ean and Greek restaurants off ering authentic fare.
One of the highlights on this year’s culinary calendar was Da Dong’s new spring menu promo-tion, which began right aft er Spring Festival in late March.
At the restaurant’s Jinbaojie branch, everything reminded one of spring: from the green etamine that covers the tables to the beauti-ful bundles of yellow jasmine. Every dish, from the starter to the cold dishes, soup and main course, had fl ower petals in it, making dining an art to appreciate.
Th e winner for June was a lobster salad at the newly relocated Decap-po Italian Restaurant.
Italian chef Mario Cittadini, who has experience working in a three Michelin-star restaurant in Spain, used beautiful herbs and edible flowers to decorate the dish, and paved it nicely with orange jelly.
Behind the great food and res-taurants are the fabulous chefs. In 2012, we witnessed the arrival of many well-known Western cuisine chefs in Beijing.
Aria at China World Hotel has David Pooley, a very talented Australian chef. Pooley brings his Michelin-star restaurant working experience, the latest culinary skills and concepts in the world of West-ern cuisine.
It is even more rare to see excel-lent Chinese executive chefs in Western cuisine restaurants.
Emmanuel Zhao is an exception. Attached to Scarlett restaurant and wine bar, the Beijing native who
is now a French national is good at combining Chinese ingredients with his experience working in Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris.
French chef Michael Jakovljev recently took over the kitchen at Heritage, the former Le Pre Le Notre. With experience working in fi ve Michelin-starred restaurants, he prepares meats at low temperature, and by vacuum cooking, to preserve the fullest fl avor, while keeping the best texture.
Kenny Fu at Le Quai continues to make the best beef ribs in Beijing. He has a knack for marrying West-ern food knowledge with Chinese cuisine, which brings presentation and taste to perfection.
Another notable young Chinese chef is Hou Xinqing, Huaiyang style chef de cuisine at Summer Palace, China World Hotel. He adapts Huai-yang style classics — shelled shrimp, sour and sweet yellow croaker — into modern looking dishes.
A roundup of the year’s culinary scene in China won’t be complete without mentioning A Bite of Chi-na, a seven-part documentary that attracted international attention aft er it was broadcast on CCTV in May.
Many viewers felt the documen-tary evoked childhood memories, when food was fresh and organic. It also sparked off an interest in ingre-dients and cuisine styles from vari-ous provinces.
Traditionally, China has four major cuisine styles namely Shan-dong, Sichuan, Huaiyang and Can-tonese. While the four major styles are deeply rooted, many restaurants now off er fusion cuisine.
Over the years, regional food styles, such as Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Hunan, have been gaining popularity.
A new kid on the block is Xi’an, which is known for its street food such as spicy and sour tasting cold noodles, and soaked cake with
lamb soup. But Reallove, a local chain restaurant that opened its fi rst restaurant in Beijing in April, has elevated it into a high-end treat. Interestingly, many of the dishes on the menu have a historical story linked to it.
With continuous food safety issues and environmental concerns, some hotels and even airlines have banned the use of shark fi n and aba-lone.
Some Chinese restaurant have replaced them with other expensive money-makers — dried fi sh maw, sea cucumber, and high quality beef.
New ingredients also emerged. Black garlic, for example, has
been used in some dishes at Qi Chi-nese Restaurant at Th e Ritz-Carlton Beijing Financial Street. Th e garlic is shiny, coal-black, and tastes soft and sweet like preserved plum. It is said to be an antioxidant, and have anti-acidifi cation eff ect.
The restaurant has also used North American wild rice, contain-ing rice protein and high fi ber, with-out cholesterol or fat.
Fairly recently, Hong Kong or Macao style hot pot restaurants appear to have become Beijingers’ favorite choice on cold winter days.
Th ese restaurants typically off er fresh meat, a wide variety of sea-food, and tasty base soups. Some of the best are Guanyejie Macao Hot Pot, and Faigo Hot Pot Restaurant.
Th e year saw some world-class restaurants opening in the capital city namely Nobu, and Morton Th e Steak House from Chicago.
Th e fi rst Four Seasons Hotel also opened in Beijing, with an Italian and a Chinese restaurant adding to gourmet’s choices in Beijing.
It has been a truly bountiful year and we look forward to more culi-nary surprises in the coming year.
YEAR ON A PLATEThe Beijing culinary scene in 2012 was fi lled with surprises and excitement. From new restaurants to
world-renowned chefs and from new ingredients to new cooking styles, you name it. There was even an internationally acclaimed food documentary. Ye Jun and Fan Zhen give us the roundup.
Beijing’s chefs and gourmets have stirred up storms on the plate in the past year, bringing new treats and creative thought to the Chinese dining table. Chefs have experimented with new recipes and culinary inventions, off ering diners a multi-ethnic and multisensory experience. Chefs have experiment-ed with new recipes and culinary inventions, off ering diners exciting choices beyond the ordinary.
David Pooley’s lychee pavlova at Aria at the China World Hotel. JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY
Emmanuel Zhao from Scarlett fuses Chinese ingredients with Western presentation. JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY
Lighter regional cuisines like the Huaiyang style made their presence felt in 2012. YE JUN / CHINA DAILY
YE JUN / CHINA DAILY
Vegetarian off erings were all kicked up a notch with the opening of several high-end eateries.
FAN ZHEN / CHINA DAILY
At the Ritz-Carlton, chef Ku Chi-fai combines lobster and white truffl es.
T hough the snow lies thick over the prairie in Inner Mongolia there is still plenty to
see in Horinger county, on the outskirts of the autonomous region’s capital Hohhot.
Even so, if it was not for a local guide, I would have missed the plain-looking Shengle Museum by the side of the road.
Th ere is a statue of a warrior on a horse at the entrance of the museum, which uniquely gives an introduction to the nomadic Xianbei ethnic group that dominated northern Chi-
na for a s i g -nifi cant period aft er the third century BC.
Cov-ering 3,558
square meters, the museum was built in 2007 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the autono-mous region.
The hall, which is partly underground, has a giant wall decorated with frescos and paintings, most of which have Buddhist themes.
The Xianbei people estab-lished the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) that ruled much of northern China and based itself in Horinger, which was then called Shengle.
Unlike many other muse-ums that exhibit replicas, most of the items here are originals.
The exhibits range in time from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and include bronze mirrors, pot-tery figurines and drinking vessels.
A parrot-shaped kettle is the most valuable item and is the museum’s symbol, but a pair of cartoon-like soldier pottery fi gurines attracts me most.
The exhibits clearly show the transition of the Xianbei people from a nomadic group to an agricultural civilization.
Tuoba Hong, an emperor from the Northern Wei peri-od, initiated signifi cant politi-cal and economic reforms in the late 5th century. He even
changed major Xianbei sur-names into Han ones and renamed himself Yuan Hong.
Fifty kilometers from the museum, the tomb of a high
offi cial from the Han Dynasty was discovered and though the coffi n chamber had been raided and was empty, many frescoes were still extant.
A replica of the tomb has been reproduced in the muse-um, which includes vivid scenes of nomadic life.
After absorbing cultural infl uences from elsewhere, the Xianbei people turned to Bud-dhism and religious art peaked. Some of these fi rst-class works are exhibited in the museum.
When the dynasty moved its capital to Pingcheng, today’s Datong in Shanxi province, and later Luoyang, Henan province, the Xianbei created the world renowned Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grot-toes, which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Th is fl ourishing culture fell
apart in the 6th century and gradually merged with other groups. Today, the Xianbei’s descendants are thought to be the Xibe ethnic group.
Horinger, which means “20 homes” in Mongolian, is a hub for many other ancient nomadic ethnic groups, and though it is diffi cult to trace the histories of these groups a sign on the museum wall seems apt: “Disappearance never means extinction. Instead, it is the beginning of mixing and har-monizing.”
More than 30 years ago, Rock Records domi-nated Asia’s music industry as the region’s largest independent record label.
Becoming a songwriter for the Taiwan com-pany was a dream for aspiring musicians and Kay Huang was no exception.
Th e skinny, big-eyed young women who won the Taiwan Campus Folk Music Competition arrived at Rock Records at the age of 14 .
She was made an assistant to Lo Ta-yu, the influential singer-songwriter of the 1990s. Encouraged by him, she wrote one song a day for a year.
“It was a terrible experience,” she giggles. “He asked me to write whatever I felt or wanted to say.”
She released her debut album, Sad Boy, in 1986, which was a commercial success, but Huang preferred writing songs to being in the spotlight.
Decades later, Huang, 48, is a veteran known for her witty female perspective.
Now, she will celebrate her 30-year career with a concert, called One Day, at which Lo Ta-yu, Rene Liu and Chyi Chin will perform Huang’s works.
Th e three-hour concert will be divided into four sections: “good morning”, “lazy aft ernoon”, “sunset” and “night carnival”; while the stage will be designed to look like a home.
“I call the concert a party or a star-studded reunion,” Huang says. “I’ve been busy for years. When I look back I feel contented that I wrote so many songs that are remembered.”
One of her favorite songs is Dream Field, per-formed by Taiwan singer Chyi Yu. Huang pro-
duced the album for Chyi Yu and will accom-pany her for the fi rst time live.
Th e songwriter and producer also wrote songs for mainland singers such as Na Ying. Na will sing with Huang and other stars at the concert.
In the past few years, Huang has also tried her hand at stage dramas and musicals in Taiwan, which received both critical and commercial success.
Romeo and Juliette are sing-ing in French about their ever-lasting love for the New Year in Shanghai.
A French musical adapta-tion of the tragic love story by Shakespeare, Romeo et Juliette is presented at Shanghai Cul-ture Square.
Created by Gerard Pres-gurvic, the musical has won international acclaim since its premiere in Paris in 2001. Sev-eral of its songs have topped the pop charts in France, such as Aimer (Love) and Les Rois du Monde (King of the Word). Th e production in Shanghai is much the same as the Paris edition in 2010.
“Th e musical has toured 15 countries and will now be pre-sented in Shanghai for the fi rst time,” says Cyril Niccolai, who takes the lead role of Romeo.
A veteran actor on the French musical scene, Nicco-lai visited Shanghai 10 years ago when he performed as the poet in Les Miserables.
Les Miserables is arguably the most famous French musi-cal, and a fi lm adaptation star-ring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway will be released soon.
When asked about compar-isons between Les Miserable and Romeo et Juliette, Carl Por-tal, choreographer and vice-director of Romeo et Juliette, says his production is more modern, both in the style of the music and the choreography.
“The story of the young star-crossed lovers has been adapted many times all over the world. The subject of supreme and immortal love is relevant for all times,” he says.
“It’s a lyrical play,” says Li Jia-jie, a music critic from Shang-hai. “All the songs are beautiful and the story is told through
panoramic scenes and juxta-posed details.”
Th e stage settings and cos-tume designs are elaborate, Li says. The two families are dressed in either red or blue, so that when Romeo and Juliette get married the colors mix into a romantic shade of purple.
Joy Esther takes the part of Juliette and has played the role for six years, though this is the fi rst time she has worked with Niccolai. One of her favorite songs from the production is J’ai Peur (I’m Afraid).
J’ai Peur is performed by Romeo in act one when he wit-nesses confl ict between the two families and feels the shadow of death. In the play, Death takes the form of a woman.
Th e actress, Aurelie Badol, has performed as “Death” since 2007. She was trained in modern dance and unlike the other main characters she doesn’t sing, but rather expresses herself in dance and through body language.
“Death is part of the natu-ral force — part of life itself,” Badol says during dress rehearsals. “I’m the one that gives immortality to the love between Romeo and Juliette.”
Shanghai audiences have shown great enthusiasm for the production and tickets for the show aft er New Year have almost all been sold, says Hu Yun, a spokeswoman for the theater.
Shanghai Culture Square is dedicated to the presentation of musical productions from home and abroad.
S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
cityguideBEIJING
Light of BeijingA light installation will be projected to the sky in Beijing on the occasion of the New Year countdown. A beam of light, which is titled Light of Beijing and designed by visual artist Wang Jianwei, is estimated to light up at midnight of Dec 31, at China Millennium Monument. It will be celebrated as an annual New Year countdown event together with live music shows. Th e light at 5,000-meter high will be seen by people at diff erent loca-tions of the capital. A9, Fuxing Road, Haidian district. 010-5980-2222
Rock bandTaiwan rock singer-songwrit-er Wu Bai will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his band, China Blue, with a world tour in 2013. With the theme Big Th anks, the band, with Dino Zavolta on drum, Yu Ta-hao on keyboards, Chu Chien-hui on bass and Wu as lead singer and guitarist, will per-form the 44-year-old musi-cian’s classic works since they formed the band 20 years ago. Highlights include Cold Rain and White Dove. Ever since they released the album Loving Others is a Happy Th ing, Wu and China Blue have become a hit in Taiwan’s
live music scene. 7:30 pm. Jan 5. Mastercard Center, 69, Fuxing Road, Haid-ian district. 400-610-3721
French relicsA photo exhibition, titled 100 Relics, 10 Authors leads visitors into a glimpse of the French history. It narrates the links between French lit-erature and architecture, the country’s literature develop-ment and shift s in history.9:30 am-6 pm, until Dec 31. Multi-media Hall of Allinance Francaise Beijing, Beijing Lan-guage and Culture University, 15 Xueyuan Road, Haidian district
SHANGHAI
New Year WaltzWiener Johann Strauss Wal-ger Orchestra was founded by Johann Strauss in Vienna, Austria in 1824. Th e orchestra will present a New Year’s con-cert featuring Strauss’ waltz, and songs from operas.7:30 pm, Jan 2-3. Shanghai Oriental Art Center, 425 Dingxiang Road, Pudong New Area. 021-6854-1234
Film music Th e Mantovani Orchestra, founded by Annunzio Paolo Mantovani, has been popular for more than half a century and established a distinctive
style of its own. Th e upcom-ing China tour will be led by his son Kenneth and most anticipated in the program will be fi lm music from Breakfast at Tiff any’s and Westside Story.7:15 pm, Jan 2-3. Shanghai Grand Th eater, 300 Renmin Avenue. 400-1068-686
HONG KONG
Modern anxietiesTh e fi rst exhibition to be curated by Qinyi Lim at Para/Site, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes its title from sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick’s novel that spawned the cult classic fi lm Bladerunner. Artists Adam Curtis, Michael Lee, Sun Xun and Tang Kwok-hin explore the insecurities arising from living in society today, particularly the anxiety that contemporary capitalism fosters. Until Feb 17. Para/Site Art Space, G/F, 4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan. 852-2517-4620
Fire in the skySay goodbye to 2012 with a bang. Th is year’s Hong Kong New Year Countdown will include fi reworks launched from the sea and land for the fi rst time. Th e eight-minute spectacle begins in Victoria Harbor, with the pyrotech-nics moving in three stages inland to light up some of the city’s most iconic buildings. Grab a spot by the Cultural Center Piazza, Avenue of the Stars or near the Central piers to catch the best views.Dec 31, midnight. Victoria Har-bor. Hong Kong Tourism Board hotline: 852-2508-1234
MACAO
Rockin’ to 2013 Usher in the New Year with a street party while dancing to the best of indie and Can-topop music by established and up-and-coming celebri-ties. Hosted by Penny Chan, Eileen Ho and Stephanie Ho of Hong Kong TVB’s Th e Voice, performers include Macao hero Jun Kung, EO2, Rainky Wai and local rock bands — Scamper, Black Sheep and Rush & Crush. 9 pm-midnight, Dec 31. Out-door Plaza, Ponte 16, Rua das Lorchas e Rua do Visconde Paco de Arco. 853-8861-8888
CHINA DAILY
TO GET THERE:
It takes one hour to drive from Hohhot to the museum. Visitors can also take the shuttle bus between Hohhot and Horinger. It’s is free of charge.
ACCOMMODATION:
Junhua Guesthouse is about 300 yuan ($48) for a double room, one night, at
3 Hongwei Street North, Horinger county
0471-7188-888
FOOD: Stewed mutton, which is made of local lamb, is a must try. The chop suey noodle containing potatoes, pork and eggplant, and roasted mutton chop are also deli-cious.
Beijing National Stadium, Olympic Green, Beichen Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing
010-8421-6765
IF YOU GO
IF YOU GO
C H I N A D A I L Y sundaykaleidoscope 15
The undying language of love
From campus to capital
Disappeared, not forgottenShengle Museum is dedicated to the nomadic Xianbei ethnic group that formerly dominated North China, reports Wang Kaihao, who fi nds plenty to interest the visitor.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
French actors Cyril Niccolai and Joy Esther act out the tragic end of the classic Shakespearean play Romeo et Juliette.
WANG KAIHAO / CHINA DAILY
A Xianbei warrior on horseback guards the entrance to Shengle museum, which honors the Xianbei ethnic group.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Kay Huang has been part of the Chinese music scene for more than 30 years.
16 sundaytravel C H I N A D A I L Y
INFORMATION
S U N D A Y, D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 2
Topkapi Palace is one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Strategically situated on a promontory jutting into Marmara Sea, it is reached by walk-ing past storied mosques, an Egyptian column, annoying carpet merchants and what used to be a Roman Hip-podrome.
Topkapi’s Treasury contains a collec-tion of some of the best Chinese porce-lain outside of China, as well as priceless items such as the Prophet Muhammad’s sword and cape.
A cobblestone path leads to the Trea-sures of China exhibition, housed in the Has Ayilar, where visitors will be able to see for themselves four of the fi rst emperor of China Qin Shihuang’s Terracotta Warriors, plus a horse, the latter of which has never been shown outside China.
It is so lifelike that it is easy to imag-ine it going for a gallop, nostrils fl aring.
Among the other treasures on show
are delicate porcelains and stone carv-ings.
Representing 5,000 years of China’s rich history, Treasures of China draws on works from 11 of China’s top cul-tural institutions, including the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum and Qin Shihuang Museum. Th e show will con-tinue until Feb 23.
Th e second ongoing exhibition lies across the river known as the Golden Horn, in another of Istanbul’s storied buildings, the Tophane-i-Amire, built more than fi ve centuries ago.
The original purpose of this high-walled, multi-domed and majestic edi-fi ce was to manufacture cannons, the high-tech weaponry of the era. Nowa-days, in peaceful times, it serves as an exhibition area for the nearby Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.
Colors of Dunhuang presents the UNESCO World Heritage site on the Silk Road in Gansu province, home to
the world’s best-preserved and largest ancient Buddhist art site, which fea-tures the sacred Mogao Grottoes.
As the exhibit clearly explains, start-ing in the 4th century the caves were used for meditation by monks, but later became a place of worship and pilgrim-age for the general public.
While, by necessity, the exhibition consists of mostly well-executed repli-cas, it is a moving experience nonethe-less.
Two of my favorite installations were the monumental 13.5 meter, serene sleeping Buddha at the very back of the exhibition, as well as audio exhibits available on headphones, of ancient Chinese musical instruments.
Th ere was also a “participatory area”, where people happily recreated their own cave drawings and shared them with friends. The exhibition runs up to Jan 7.
Treasures of China and Colors of Dunhuang have been expertly orga-nized by the China Arts and Enter-tainment Group, on behalf of the Chi-nese Ministry of Culture, as well as the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
Next year it’s Turkey’s turn to present the richness of its culture to the people of China.
Bebe Rose, a Cameroonian who owns Bebe’s restaurant in Cape Town, stood with her arms folded and peered down with one brow raised as she scanned the plates of unfi nished food spread out before me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You don’t like my food?”
I did like her food. Th ere were stews of kidney beans and okra, meat and starch-es. It was true that one item, the tripe, pushed my boundaries. In a shallow bath of a hearty brown sauce of ground nuts and red oil sat part of one of the four chambers of a cow’s stomach, the rumen, or omasum, or perhaps the abomasum.
Th e problem, though, was that this was the last stop on a four-hour eating binge through central Cape Town, and my own sorry single-chamber organ was maxed out.
Not from sheer gluttony, though. I had found a novel way to explore Cape Town, a city that I had visited several times over the course of 20 years.
A local company called Coff eebeans
Routes off ered to expose visitors to the city and its subcultures through a tour called the Cape Town Cuisine Route.
Unlike many other culinary excur-sions, the goal is not to fi nd the fi nest dining but to use food as an entry to the city’s inner life, visiting home kitchens, alley cafes and markets otherwise easy to miss.
Our fi rst stop was the Escape Caff e. Th e clientele, and the baristas, looked like the South African counterparts to my regular cafe in Philadelphia.
Although Cape Town already had a robust cafe scene before its arrival, few places had decent coff ee.
“Coff ee beans are from Africa,” Letlala says, as we sipped cortados from clear glasses. “And, anyway, coff ee is a good palate cleanser before we begin eating. We will have a lot of food.”
Having eaten very little before we started, I felt up to the task. We walked up the cobblestone street into the Bo-Kaap, the Cape Malay Quarter, with its view of bright pastel-colored homes running like a perspective painting up the incline of Signal Hill, and came to a spice shop.
Th e Bo-Kaap, like so much of the area,
is in transition. Th ere in the Bo-Kaap, Naima Fakier, a 38-year-old mother of four, talked to us through the aromatic aisles of leaves, bulbs, roots and seeds brought from India, with whom the community still has close ties.
“Th e diff erence between Indian and Cape Malay is the heat: Cape Malay is less spicy,” Fakier explained as we crossed a street and entered her kitchen, where
we tucked into meal No 1. It began with daltjie, or chilli bites, which are like falafel but made with pea powder, spinach and fresh cilantro.
Th ere followed bread and Cape Malay chicken, a bobotie, or Cape Malay curry, with onion, tomato, garlic, ginger paste, cardamom and cinnamon sticks.
Th en a dessert of koesisters. Th e Afri-kaner version of this pastry is hard, braid-ed and cooked so that the syrup makes it sticky, while the Cape Malay version is soft fried dough with a simple syrup of tangerine peel, cloves, nutmeg and gin-ger, fi nished by a roll in coconut fl akes.
I counted on the walk into the city center to give my appetite a second wind by the time we arrived at our next stop, the Little Ethiopia Restaurant on Short-market Street, run by Yeshi Mekonnen.
A plate arrived covered by injera, the traditional spongy bread East Africans use to pick up and eat food. We had tibs, or beef with onions, rosemary and fresh chilli. Th ere were lentils with berbere, a mixture of ginger, black cardamom, cloves and other spices.
So much food, and Bebe Rose was waiting.
Journey off the eaten track in Cape Town
OLD SILK ROAD FRIENDSVisitors to Istanbul between now and early 2013 can savor China’s rich history through two exhibitions, Harvey Dzodin reports.
A reproduction of the famed Nirvana Reclining Buddha of Dunhuang, from the Tang Dynasty, can be seen in Turkey’s capital. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
The fabled Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, home of Ottoman empire sultans and their harems, as well as the current exhibition Treasures of Ancient China.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Visitors take a look at the Colors of Dunhuang exhibition, part of the Year of Chinese Culture in Turkey, at Tophane Armory of the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.
PIETER BAUERMEISTER / NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE
At the Little Ethiopia Restaurant on Shortmarket Street, Yeshi Mekonnen presents a plate of East African delicacies.
NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE
Customers at the Little Ethiopia Restaurant enjoy relaxing and eating.
Istanbul has to be one of the most exotic and fabled cit-ies in the world. And now two of its iconic buildings are sharing history’s stage with two exceptional exhi-bitions from China. Recognizing the growing impor-tance of bilateral relations, Chinese and Turkish offi -cials designated 2012 as the Year of Chinese Culture
in Turkey and 2013 as the Year of Turkish Culture in China. Th ose lucky enough to be in Istanbul are the benefi ciaries of this modern day cultural reconnection of the ancient Silk Road.
