Month: June 2020

(Xinhua)15:56, August 08, 2019

SHIJIAZHUANG, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — A stone tablet dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1384-1644) has been discovered in northern Chinas Hebei Province, according to local authorities.

With a height of 1.38 meters and width of 48 cm, the tablet was found in Nanhe County and has a history of 441 years, according to the countys cultural heritage administration.

A total of 518 characters were carved on the tablet, which recorded the history of a Fan family, as well as the local conditions of central and southern Hebei in the Ming Dynasty.

The tablet has great historical value for studying the migration history, social and economic development, as well as folk customs in the region, said local history expert Lan Jianhui. Enditem

(Xinhua)10:30, August 02, 2019

CHICAGO, Aug. 1 — Researchers at the University of Chicago (UChicago) found in a new study that children preferred urban environments much more than adult participants.

In the study posted on UChicagos website on Thursday, a team of UChicago psychologists surveyed 239 children aged four to 11, asking them to rank pictures of urban and natural environments.

They interviewed more than 90 children from Chicago and other parts of Illinois, more than 100 from other states and 11 from other English-speaking countries. They sought to have at least 20 children of each age group, and also analyzed a subset of their sample that excluded siblings.

The researchers used images that were equated in visual appeal, so as to account for aesthetic preferences unrelated to natural or urban environments

They found that those children preferred urban environments much more than the 167 adult participants. They also found that childrens preferences were not related to the amount of time they spent outdoors in natural environments.

However, preferences for urban environments were significantly lower among older children, suggesting that an affinity for nature may develop gradually in life, rather than being inherent at a young age.

The researchers have not yet identified an obvious cause for why childrens preferences counter those of adults. One theory is that the children are influenced by their parents, and that those influences may take time to manifest. That idea is bolstered by the researchers data, which show that older childrens preferences increasingly mirrored those of their parents.

The researchers hope to continue investigating whether there are other mechanisms at play, and if adults and children weigh environmental preferences to different degrees. They also hope to conduct similar research on the preferences of adolescents.

Our study also found evidence for the cognitive benefits of nature exposure in kids, and it was entirely unrelated to preference, said UChicago doctoral student Kim Lewis Meidenbauer, lead author of the study. This is important because it really suggests that kids dont need to like nature for it to be good for them.

The study has been published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

(Xinhua)11:09, August 07, 2019

BEIJING, Aug. 7 — Chinese animated film Ne Zha continued to top the Chinese mainland box office on Tuesday, its twelfth day of screening, the China Movie Data Information Network said Wednesday.

The domestic full-length animated feature raked in 151.61 million yuan (about 21.6 million U.S. dollars) on Tuesday. Its total box office reached over 2.6 billion yuan, making it the highest-grossing domestic animated film.

Telling the story of Nezha, a beloved Chinese mythical figure, the film features a daring overhaul of Nezhas appearance and depicts him more as a mischievous boy instead of the hero kid in previous cinematic works.

Ne Zha was followed by a Chinese feature film putting spotlight on firefighters, The Bravest, and domestic comedy Coward Hero, which grossed 83.97 million yuan and 7.16 million yuan, respectively.

Ne Zha took in over 59 percent of the daily total box office.

(Xinhua)15:35, August 07, 2019

BEIJING, Aug. 7 — The Secret of China, a film inspired by American journalist Edgar Snows book Red Star over China, is set to open in Chinese theaters on Thursday, Aug. 8, according to the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association.

Based on historical events in 1936, the movie tells of Snow venturing into a town in northern Shaanxi Province, then known as the red capital of China, where he interviewed Mao Zedong and other leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The interviews, observations and experiences that Snow compiled later became Red Star over China, a best-selling book that introduced the CPC to the rest of the world.

Starring Wang Pengkai and Kenan Heppe, The Secret of China was directed by Wang Jixing.

(Xinhua)13:30, August 06, 2019

BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — Ne Zha, Chinas top-grossing animated film with a total box office of 2.5 billion yuan (354 million U.S. dollars) as of Monday, has led an audience satisfaction survey for domestic films screened during the summer break of 2019, according to the China Film Archive.

Earning 87.5 points out of 100, the fantasy film became the champion for audience satisfaction out of all 26 domestic animated films ever surveyed and came fourth place out of all Chinese films on the survey records, the archive said.

Based on a Chinese fairy tale, Ne Zha tells of the birth and growing up of Nezha, who was born a devil but strived to change his own destiny and became a hero.

The film reconstructs the classic story from a modern perspective, which is highly praised by the audience, said a statement by the archive.

The archive hailed Ne Zha as a new pacesetter on domestic animated film market and a first highlight of the ongoing summer break.

(Peoples Daily Online)15:56, August 06, 2019

The cultural and creative industry has witnessed a boom in recent years. (Photo/Xinhua)

A boom in creative cultural products, increasing popularity of cultural tourism, and growing nighttime cultural consumption in China have revealed the tremendous potential of cultural consumption to drive domestic demand.

According to Chinas National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese enterprises above the designated size in the cultural industry witnessed a 7.9 percent rise in revenue during the first half of this year.

During this years 618 online shopping festival held around June 18 in China, book sales sold via Alibabas online shopping platform Tmall within the first hour of the festival grew 550 percent compared with the previous year.

Moreover, Tmalls sales volume of books sold in the first three minutes of the 618 shopping festival this year surpassed the number sold in the first hour of the festival last year.

Besides books, various cultural products such as Terracotta Warrior garage kits, Sichuan Opera face masks, and sparkling water makers in the form of Long March rockets became must-have items.

These cultural products are the outcome of a project launched by Alibabas major e-commerce platform Taobao, which announced on May 21 that it would work with online shop owners and designers to develop over 100 intellectual property products based on Chinas national treasures in the next three years, aiming to create a market worth over 10 billion yuan (about $1.42 billion).

During the recently concluded 12th China Art Festival, more than 5,700 kinds of creative cultural products were displayed, attracting over 50,000 visitors and generating a sales volume exceeding 340 million yuan within four days.

Cultural tourism is becoming a new fashion in China, especially culture-oriented travel to places such as museums and exhibitions halls.

According to big data on entrance tickets released by Chinas online group purchase platform Meituan.com, searches for cultural tourism-related products including museums and exhibition halls has been growing at more than 200 percent year-on-year.

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, disclosed that monitoring tourism during holidays in recent years showed that more than 90 percent of tourists now participate in various cultural activities, while 40 percent visit a museum while traveling.

Tourism has also stimulated consumption of such areas as bags and suitcases as well as cosmetics. In the first half of 2019, sales of bags and suitcases grew by 202 percent compared with the same period last year, while sales of sunblock products, lipstick, and face masks rose by 573 percent, 347 percent, and 242 percent respectively year-on-year, as shown by big data from Chinese e-commerce platform Suning.com.

In addition, China has been making efforts to boost supply-side reform for cultural consumption, with the nighttime economy a key target area.

On July 31, the 7th Beijing People Beneficial Cultural Consumption Season opened in Chinas capital, Beijing. The event this year aimed to tap into the potential of nighttime cultural consumption and develop the nighttime economy by encouraging shopping malls, theaters, cinemas, and parks to extend business hours.

The call has so far received a wide response in Beijing. The National Museum of China extended business hours until 9 p.m. every Sunday, the Museum of Chinese Gardens and Landscape Architecture held an evening event from July 31 to August 4, and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing extended its business hours until 9 p.m. from Friday to Sunday every week, with the number of nighttime visitors accounting for 10 percent of daily visits.

Today, watching films and shows has become a regularity for many Chinese people and a new highlight of Chinas nighttime economy. According to Chinas major online ticketing platform, Damai.cn, from May to August this year, a total of 19 concerts and music festivals were held in the northeast region of China, an increase of 110 percent when compared with the previous year.

Concerts and music festivals are expected to attract 350,000 spectators during the same period, up 25 percent from last year, while the events will generate a year-on-year growth of 15 percent at the box-office, suggested Damai.cn.

Since shows such as stage play, opera, and concerts are usually held between 19:00 and 22:00, such cultural consumption will become an essential part of the nighttime economy, said an expert, adding that leisure integrated into tourism has greater nighttime development space.

(Xinhua)13:54, August 05, 2019

BEIJING, Aug. 5 — Chinas National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has rolled out a plan for further improving the accessibility of TCM services among the public.

The administration will launch easy-to-use navigation bars on government websites and the website of the China News of Traditional Chinese Medicine to display information about key TCM hospitals and experienced practitioners nationwide before the end of August this year, according to a circular released by the agency.

While asking for one-stop before-treatment services to be put in place before the same deadline, the circular orders TCM hospitals at and above the provincial level to offer at least three methods of making reservations via WeChat, mobile applications, websites, telephone, self-help machines or service windows in hospitals before the end of December.

To better deliver quality TCM services to the public, TCM hospitals supervised by the administration are urged to send teams of experienced TCM practitioners to communities for half-day visits at least twice a month starting from the end of August.

(Xinhua)13:53, August 05, 2019

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — A new study showed that people being more socially active in their 50s and 60s could have a lower risk of developing dementia later on.

The study, published in the latest edition PLOS Medicine, provided the most robust evidence to date that social contact earlier in life could play an important role in preventing dementia.

The research team from University College London (UCL) tracked 10,228 participants who had been asked on six occasions between 1985 and 2013 about their frequency of social contact with friends and relatives.

Those participants also completed cognitive testing from 1997 onwards to see if they were ever diagnosed with dementia.

The researchers found that increased social contact at age 60 is associated with a significantly lower risk of developing dementia later in life.

Those who saw friends almost daily at age 60 was 12 percent less likely to develop dementia than those who only saw one or two friends every few months, according to the study.

There are similar strong associations between social contact at ages 50 and 70 and subsequent dementia, though they dont reach statistical significance.

Previous studies revealed such relationship but they couldnt rule out the possibility that the cognitive decline causes people to see fewer people rather than the other way around.

The new study with a long follow-up solidifies the evidence that social engagement could protect people from dementia in the long run.

People who are socially engaged are exercising cognitive skills such as memory and language, which may help them to develop cognitive reserve, said the papers senior author Gill Livingston at UCL. The cognitive reserve could help people cope better with the effects of age and delay any symptoms of dementia.

(Peoples Daily Online)14:00, August 05, 2019

Chang Xiufeng, an amateur artist dubbed “Grandma Van Gogh” in China, paints a picture. (Photo/CCTVs official Weibo account)

Chang Xiufeng, an amateur artist dubbed “Grandma Van Gogh” in China, died on August 1 at the age of 83, according to Nanfang Metropolis Daily and CCTV News.

Chang was an illiterate woman from the countryside in central China’s Henan province. She was not able to read or write, and never trained to be a painter.

She started painting in her 70s, to show the country scenes to her granddaughter, who was born and raised in the city. The best-known piece from Chang is Sunflowers, with the same name as Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece.

“I can express myself through art as long as I can pick up my crayons,” Chang once said.

In 2007, Chang displayed her work at an exhibition for charity in Hong Kong and donated all the proceeds to poverty-stricken areas of the mainland.

The painting ofChang Xiufeng. (Photo/Chang Xiufengs official Weibo account)

The painting of Chang Xiufeng. (Photo/Chang Xiufengs official Weibo account)

The painting of Chang Xiufeng. (Photo/Chang Xiufengs official Weibo account)

(Peoples Daily Online)15:24, August 05, 2019

“Prince Ne Zhas Triumph Against the Dragon King” (Photo provided by JC Cartoon Art Museum)

Chinese animations have adopted traditional cultural elements and attracted global attention thanks to their unique style.

Animators have combined traditional culture with animation since 1956, when Te Wei, then director of Shanghai Animation Film Studio, proposed that domestic animations should integrate national characteristics.

Wan Guchan, a veteran animator, applied the art of paper-cutting to create the cartoon Pigsy Eats Watermelon in 1958, the first of its kind in the country.

Baby Tadpoles Look for Their Mother (Photo provided by JC Cartoon Art Museum)

In 1960, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio introduced ink-wash paintings into its work Baby Tadpoles Look for Their Mother, Chinas first ink-wash cartoon.

The animators created many excellent movies, many of which even won a reputation in the global market. The ink-wash cartoon Feeling from Mountain and Water received five major awards including Best Short Film at the 14th Montreal International Film Festival of Canada in 1990.

Chinas animation industry has developed rapidly since the 1980s as the country furthered cooperation with international cartoon corporations. In 1985, the first Chinese-foreign joint venture that produced cartoons was established in China. Within the following eight or nine years, nearly 100 cartoon enterprises came into being.

Feeling from Mountain and Water (Photo provided by JC Cartoon Art Museum)

The booming industry stimulated the production of cartoons. In 2010, 220,000 minutes of animation were produced, making China the worlds biggest producer of TV cartoons.

In recent years, China has held cartoon exhibitions around the world to bring domestic works to the global market. This year, the country exhibited more than 130 animated cartoons in Japan to showcase the progress of Chinas animation industry.