Category: CULTURE

(Chinadaily.com.cn)10:39, March 08, 2021

In the long history of humans, womens stories have often been overlooked. Yet as modern society has allowed women to speak for themselves, more and more women are standing up to choose how to live their lives. As March 8 marks another International Womens Day, here are nine powerful films that just might inspire you to re-imagine what it means to be a woman.

銆€銆€Leap(2020) [File photo]

Leap(2020)

This 2020 film about the Chinese national womens volleyball team presents their history from 1981, when they won the Womens World Cup, to the year 2016. Actress Gong Li stars as the legendary volleyball player Lang Ping.

(Peoples Daily Online)16:42, March 08, 2021

In recent years, Chinas cultural products, including online games, TV programs and series, and short video platforms, have gained increasing popularity in the overseas market.

Chinese mobile games made great strides in the U.S., taking 21 spots out of the 100 top-grossing games in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a report from American technology media company Techcrunch.

The report said that these products collectively generated $780 million in revenues, more than triple the amount from two years previously, and contributed as much as 20 percent of the mobile gaming revenues in the U.S.

(Photo/Pixabay.com)

Popular Chinese mobile games Honor of Kings and Genshin Impact were downloaded more than 10 million times from the U.S. Google Play Store.

Justin, a college student majoring in animation from the University of Washington, cites himself as a fan of Genshin Impact. He believes that the game鈥檚 image processing and background music are comparable to those of a blockbuster film.

When the game became one of the six highest-grossing mobile games in the U.S. in the second half of last year, many American players rated it as a triple-A game with stunning graphics, rich content and fine details.

Chinese mobile games have also made their presence felt in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries. The game Mobile Legends boasts 14 million monthly active users in the Philippines and 80 million in Indonesia, with the latter reporting 100 million downloads of the game.

Mobile Legends was also included in the e-sports competition during the Southeast Asian Games hosted in the Philippines in 2019.

Experts attributed the successful expansion of Chinese mobile games in the global market to the tailored redesign of the games.

For example, the developer of Honor of Kings reinvented the game鈥檚 characters for the global edition. In the Chinese version, the characters are largely adapted from classical Chinese literary works and myths that are unfamiliar to foreign players. The developer westernized these Chinese characters and added western settings in the gaming scenarios to make the game more easily received by foreign players while inspiring them to learn about Chinese history and traditional culture.

Chinas streaming platforms have also grown immensely popular with users around the world, especially in Southeast Asia, where a batch of Chinese entertainment shows have succeeded in attracting large audiences.

Among them, popular Chinese recreational TV programs Chuang 2020 and Chuang 2021 produced by Tencent Video, a major Chinese online video streaming platform, were so popular in Thailand that it soon became one of the most searched hashtags on the countrys social media.

Due to the popularity of Chuang 2021, the platform garnered more than 400,000 newly-registered users in Thailand, according to the Thai branch of Tencent Video. Chinese streaming media platforms attach great importance to incorporating the local culture of their target market, which partly explains their huge success.

After launching an overseas version in Southeast Asia, Chinese online video streaming platform iQiyi rolled out multiple Malay TV dramas by working with several Malaysia-based internet companies and film and TV production companies.

In the same vein, Tencent Video launched the Thai TV drama Bad Genius, co-produced with a Thailand company, on its international version WeTV in August last year.

Co-production of TV programs and series helps promote Chinese online video streaming platforms in Southeast Asia, according to the manager of WeTV鈥檚 Thailand branch.

Furthermore, China-based short video sharing app TikTok has over 100 million active users in the U.S., including 32.5 percent of users who are 10-19 years old and 29.5 percent aged 20 to 29 years. Moreover, mainstream American news outlets such as the Washington Post have opened accounts on TikTok.

(Peoples Daily Online)16:16, March 09, 2021

Zhong Yetang, a post-95s girl from east Chinas Zhejiang province, has made exquisite costumes of the countrys 56 ethnic groups and displayed them in a video she made herself to showcase the charm of Chinese clothing culture to more people.

Photo shows Zhong Yetang in traditional Chinese costume. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

It took Zhong two years to design and create the stunning attire of China’s ethnic groups after she returned to the country from the U.S., where she got her bachelors degree at the University of California, Berkeley and her masters degree at the Johns Hopkins University.

To make the ethnic costumes more authentic, Zhong not only referred to historical documents on each ethnic group, but also sought advice on dress-making craftsmanship from intangible cultural heritage inheritors, as some traditional cloth-making techniques and fabrics are China’s intangible cultural heritage items.

After designing the clothes, she entrusted the job of producing them to a local garment factory. The last item was completed in mid-January this year.

Photo shows Zhong Yetang in a video clip about Chinese food culture. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

Zhong was most impressed by the difficulty involved in making fish skin clothes of the Hezhe people, one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in China.

After peeling the fish skin off, Hezhe people used to dye it with different colors using a special processing technique, said Zhong. However, she eventually employed alternative fabrics to make Hezhe clothes, as fish skin is gradually being replaced by silk and cloth and there aren’t many people left who know how to make clothes with fish skin.

Photo shows Zhongs graduation photo. (Photo/Yangtse.com)

I didnt expect that it would be so time-consuming and so difficult, said the young woman, who came up with the idea of filming the collection of the 56 ethnic groups’ gorgeous costumes in early 2019.

Zhong said that while studying abroad, she found that her foreign classmates were very interested in Chinese culture, such as the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, and asked her what Chinese zodiac signs corresponded with the year they were born.

This experience motivated her to design ethnic Chinese costumes and spread traditional Chinese culture through videos. I want to fully explore traditional Chinese culture with my limited capacity in order to let more and more people better understand Chinese traditional culture and China, Zhong said.

(China Daily)12:58, February 18, 2021

A scene from Hi, Mom. [Photo/Mtime]

The Spring Festival box office on the Chinese mainland has notched up another 1.6 billion yuan (around $248.4 million). It follows beating 2019s record of 5.9 billion yuan on Monday.

The total receipts during the week-long holiday have reached 7.58 billion yuan as of 4 pm on Wednesday, according to Chinese movie-ticketing and film data platform Maoyan.

Given the movie seasons momentum, a higher benchmark is still likely, even though the holiday will wind down at midnight.

Top contributors include Detective Chinatown 3 and time-travel comedy Hi, Mom. Detective Chinatown 3 has generated a revenue of 3.5 billion yuan or 46 percent of the movie seasons total takings by Wednesday afternoon. Hi, Mom, for its part, has raked in 2.6 billion yuan during the same period, accounting for 34 percent of the total takings.

More than 155 million tickets have been sold since Thursday, the day when the holiday began, according to box office tracker Dengta Data.

According to China Film News, the holiday box office crept up over 6 billion yuan on Monday, breaking the record set in 2019.

The jump-start in Chinas Spring Festival box office came after the COVID-19 outbreak forced an unprecedented cancelation or postponement of movie releases during the same movie season in early 2020.

The Spring Festival is a lucrative movie season in China as movie-going has become an increasingly prominent pastime for Chinese people during this holiday.

(Peoples Daily Online)15:00, February 26, 2021

Yang Ding, a post-90s PhD graduate of the Yi ethnic group from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, showcases a product she designed. Founder of a woodware brand, Yang is committed to passing on and innovating traditional Yi culture. Photo/Chinanews.com

Yang Ding, a PhD graduate who is an ethnic Yi from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China鈥檚 Sichuan province, combines artistic elements of traditional Yi culture with her woodware products, bringing the beauty of Yi culture to more people.

The products made by Yang鈥檚 company are sold not only in Sichuan province, but also in overseas markets such as the U.S. and Canada. Last year, her company鈥檚 total output of woodware products exceeded 3 million yuan (about $463,800). Yang told the media that her company is negotiating business partnerships with companies from the UK and Italy.

Yang, whose major is furniture design, came up with the idea of showcasing her ethnic culture in woodware products because she believes that traditional Yi culture is crucial to the sustainable development of her hometown, which is also Chinas largest Yi community. She was saddened to see that with the acceleration of urbanization, the local cultures of many places across the country has gradually became extinct, and believes that the Yi culture will be the cornerstone for the region鈥檚 sustainable development, and particularly for rural rejuvenation in the future.

Before she started her business, Yang spent three years with her team collecting traditional Yi architectural patterns in 230 households scattered around 17 counties and cities in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

In addition, the woodware business also helped more than 300 people find jobs in related areas such as woodware making, lacquer painting, Yi embroidery, and felting weaving. 鈥淚 find starting my own business quite worthwhile, as I have helped more people live better lives while passing on Yi culture,鈥?she said.

As for the biggest reward that comes from starting up a business, the post-90s woman said it is the friends she has made along the way. 鈥淎 growing number of young people are returning to our hometown, bringing technologies and concepts for passing on our intangible cultural heritage,鈥?she explained.

(Xinhua)15:28, February 14, 2021

LANZHOU, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) — Chinese archaeologists have found a wooden lid engraved with the character love, which could have been a token of love crafted by a frontier officer back in the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220).

The circular lid, with a diameter of 5.3 cm and thickness of 1.5 cm, was supposedly on the top of a utensil. Its two sides were respectively carved with the Chinese characters Zhong and Qing, meaning loyalty and love, said Xiao Congli, research director of the Gansu Jiandu Museum, where the lid is preserved.

The lid was discovered in the ruins of an ancient courier station in the city of Dunhuang, northwest Chinas Gansu Province, home to the UNESCO World Heritage site the Mogao Grottoes.

As most people during the Han Dynasty were illiterate, the person who had carved the love character was more likely an officer guarding the station, located along the ancient Silk Road and far away from the dynastys heartland, Xiao said.

It was uncommon for the word love to appear on Han-dynasty bamboo slips (the main writing materials back then), and it was even rarer for the word to be engraved on daily utensils, the researcher said. It was probably an expression of the soldiers dilemma between loyalty to the state (with his military service) and the urge to unite with his beloved.

Due to their high costs, bamboo slips were mainly used by the government and wealthy aristocratic families in the dynasty, so the soldier could have chosen the wooden lid as a more convenient option to pen down his love, Xiao added.

(Xinhua)11:05, February 28, 2021

BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) — Chinas 2021 box office revenue has exceeded 15 billion yuan (2.32 billion U.S. dollars) as of Saturday.

The figure surpassed 14.5 billion yuan that was generated at Chinas box office during the same period in 2019, according to data compiled by box office tracker Maoyan.

It equaled three-fourths of the markets total ticket sales for the whole year of 2020.

More than 340 million moviegoers visited theaters so far this year, according to box office tracker Beacon.

Comedian and actress Jia Lings maiden directorial project Hi, Mom and Wanda Pictures long-awaited comedy Detective Chinatown 3, both released on the Spring Festival, or Feb. 12, contributed 30.7 percent and 27.8 percent of the total, respectively.

(China Daily)10:34, March 01, 2021

Tributes poured in over the weekend for legendary Hong Kong actor Ng Man-tat, who died of liver cancer in the city on Saturday.

Ng, 70, who worked in television and film his whole life, died peacefully in his sleep at Tai Wais Union Hospital, Hong Kong, surrounded by his wife and children.

His last post on Sina Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like social networking service, reads, I am Chinese.

A commentary posted on Chinese newspaper Peoples Daily online site said that although Ng never played a hero in his work, he remains a hero.

The commentary noted that his last Weibo post expressed his sincere love for the country. The legendary actor will be remembered and respected for his love of the arts and his clear stance on issues of right and wrong, the commentary reads.

It criticized some Hong Kong netizens for belittling, or even cursing at Ng because of his last Weibo post, saying that such people have no conscience or principles.

Many Weibo users expressed sorrow about Ngs passing. They also thanked him for the happiness he provided, the professionalism he demonstrated, the unending pursuit of the arts and his pure love for the country.

Ngs co-workers, including Andy Lau Tak-wah, Chow Yunfat and Wu Jing, sent their condolences and commended him for his kindness and devotion to his work.

Meanwhile, many netizens voiced regret that they would be unable to see Ng and King of Comedy Stephen Chow Sing-chi acting together in any new films.

In a mainland TV program aired in February, Ng said there would be a chance to work together again as long as he was not dead and Chow had not retired.

The pair became household names thanks to a series of slapstick comedies such as The Final Combat and The Justice of Life in the 1980s and 1990s. Their last film together was Shaolin Soccer in 2001. Chow released a statement saying that he is having a hard time accepting the news as Ng had been a longtime friend in life and partner at work.

Ng was born in Xiamen, Fujian province in 1951 and moved to Hong Kong at the age of five. Besides the movies he co-starred in with Chow, Ng also won mainland audiences heart with the 2019 sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth.

News of his death had attracted 4.74 billion views on Weibo as of Sunday noon.

(China Daily)10:02, March 07, 2021

Woman with pipa: Pipa virtuoso Wu Man.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Pipa virtuoso Wu Man has made a new album with shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) performer Kojiro Umezaki. The album, titled Flow, was released on Feb 19.

Both musicians are members of the Silk Road Ensemble, a music project initiated by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998. The two musicians composed and performed five songs in the new album by combining folk tunes, contemporary styles and elements of improvisation, which seem to create a conversation between these two ancient Chinese and Japanese musical instruments.

Their solo and duo works on this album portray seasonal changes in a traditional Chinese garden, offering the listeners a unique musical experience.

The Chinese pipa and Japanese shakuhachi are two of the most important and recognizable instruments in the East Asian musical tradition, says Wu. They both date back to ancient times, and each has its own unique story, sound, technique and expressive charm.

She adds that the music on this new album draws upon a wide range of influences－from Chinese and Japanese folk tunes to the contemporary styles that the two musicians have each cultivated over the course of their careers.

Improvisation and timbral interplay are also important elements throughout. The shakuhachi has a distinctive sonority that always reminds me of autumn in Japan, while the lute-like pipa distinguishes itself through its characteristic tremolos and unique style of melodic ornamentation, among other qualities. Together, these two ancient musical instruments create a musical experience unlike any other, says Wu.

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(Xinhua)15:44, January 16, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) — Chinese feature film A Little Red Flower on Friday remained the top-grossing title on the Chinese mainland market, raking in 18.94 million yuan (around 2.93 million U.S. dollars) within the day.

The film, telling a heartwarming story of two families battling cancer, had topped the box office chart since its debut on Dec. 31, 2020, generating a total of 1.14 billion yuan, data from the China Movie Data Information Network showed Saturday.

The Chinese sci-fi crime movie The Soul grossed about 17.78 million yuan and ranked second on the box office chart on the first day of its rollout.

Coming in third was the crime thriller hit Shock Wave 2, which generated 10.76 million yuan on Friday. Co-starring Andy Lau and Ni Ni, the film has raked in 1.03 billion yuan since its Dec. 24 debut.