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位置:顺河三巷,北京市,中国

"UFO"( Copyright © 2009 Peng Hua All rights reserved)

It is a sunny day. The scene is so beautiful after sunset. Look!! There is a ‘UFO’ in the sky, actually it is the reflection of my fluorescent.

( Copyright © 2009 Peng Hua All rights reserved)

That is why the recent auction of fountainheads in Paris headlined almost all newspapers in China.

The two items, bronze rabbit and rat head sculptures, are of  the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and were kept in Yuan Ming Yuan.

Beijing’s Imperial Summer Palace was auctioned by Christie’s in Paris from Feb. 23 th to 25th. They were lost when the palace was burned down by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War in 1860.

Tens of thousands of treasures were shipped out of the country, and the fire after plundering destroyed the magnificent palace dubbed “Eastern Versailles”.

Auction backlash

The still-painful memory of being bullied is quite emotional and still felt throughout China.

After news of the auction spread, many online forums were flooded with angry demands for the return of the relics.

The three main Chinese news websites reporting the story ended up with 103,798, 48,309 and 23,797 comments respectively.

On the legal front, 81 Chinese lawyers spontaneously joined forces and wrote to Christie’s in an effort to stop the sale.

People will find many Chinese movies on this subject, behind which the same kind of emotion can be sensed.

These films can help an outsider to understand why the Chinese were so angry with the auction.

Reason behind the anger

One of these films is the box office blockbusters-documentary YUAN MIN YUAN, named after the Summer Palace in 2006, which earned  ￥5,000,000 (about ￡500,000).

This film’s first half is told from the viewpoint of Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian who arrived in China in 1714.

As the emperor’s painter, he witnessed the wonders of the Yuan Min Yuan gardens.

The latter half of the film is narrated by a missionary from an Anglo-French allied army, who described the destruction of this garden, which is the miniaturised landscape of China.

A summer palace for emperors

A touched viewer wrote on his blog after watching the film, “I held the arms of the seat tightly to help me hold the feeling of being about to cry when I was watching the movie.

If I were in my youth, I would cry at that time.

It is a summer palace for emperors, but it is a work of art for those architects, the sweat of construction workers’ brow and the symbol of China.”

For many Chinese, the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan was the opening that industrialized nations forced the old agricultural country to take a new road to industrialization following their rules by speedy ships and fierce fire.

If there is anything that can make reality more like a dream and drive dream far away, it is addiction, whether to drug, dream or truth.
When Sara (Ellen Burstyn) was chasing her star dream desperately in Requiem for a Dream, her son (Jared Leto) and his girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly) who were rapt in the fantasy of happy life were addicted to drugs in real life. Only warm but hopeless dream connected them tightly together. Whether getting the satisfaction of mind or body while ignorance the other one of them, they may end up with endless pain.

Using: drugs in China

Another Chinese documentary film Using tells a real story also about an addict, while dreams shattered in Requiem for a Dream. A Long and A Jun are couples one of whom is addicted to drugs and have a friend who is also an addict.

The difference is instead of dream-chasing Mom here is the film director after truth who also is in the film. He makes friends with the addict, buys him meal and lends money to him, however, ends up with being cheated two hundred Yuan by the addict to buy drugs.

The filmmaker recorded the close relationship between him and the addicts in order to reflect authenticity of the story but the lie that addicts told him ruined his plan..

What makes the difference….

What really differentiates the two films is the source of pain which pushed them to the devil kiss of drugs step by step. In the Requiem for a Dream, the desperation comes from the confliction between body and mind, the constraint on dreams and restlessness of the heart.

However in the Using, the pain roots in the black side of the society which come along with prosperity of economics. Vulnerable people can hardly survive the social crisis like distrust between people, indifference to each other and polarization between the rich and the poor

Apart from investigating at close range a dark and cruel layer of reality of contemporary Chinese society that has rarely been broadcast, the documentary is also reveal the mutually using relationship between the filmmaker and the filmed subject, the director used the record of their relationship to go after his effect and the addict used the director’s trust to cheat him which added a kind of black humor flavor to the film.

(The Chinese documentary film Using will be premiered at 6pm on 24th of February in NLT2 Lecture Theatre 1 & 2, Regent Campus, University of Westminster)

Constitutional Court building(free photo from wiki)

South Korea actress Ok So-ri, 40, gets an eight-month suspended jail term for adultery, according to the JoongAng Daily.

She admitted having an affair with a well-known opera singer.

She blamed all this on a hapless  marriage. Her husband, Park Chul, a radio talk show host, sought the maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.

Goyang, Gyeonggi Province Regional court Judge Cho Min-seok said they took into account the her husband’s indifference to his wife and the mental agony Ok So-ri has already gone through immense since the trial started.

She was sentenced to eight months in prison, but avoided jail because the sentence was suspended for two years.

But some women’s rights groups in Korea disagreed with the law which considers adultery as a crime. But the top judge adultery is damaging to social order, and the offence should therefore remain a crime.

There are many other countries in the world also considering it as a crime which are :

In ancient China adultery was considered as a severe crime. Adultery has been kick out of law system in Republic of China.

People argued that adultery should be considered as a crime because it won’t hurt people physically as murder; it doesn’t damage the plaintiff’s reputation as defamation.

According the post on the internet, the government offical’s wages can’t afford those watches he wore which are Vacheron Constantin, Rolex and tudor.

director's watch

director's watch

director's watch

And the cigarettes beside him are the local most famous cigarretes a carton of which is worth about 1500Yuan (about 150 pounds)

cigarrete he takes

cigarrete he takes

Now Zhou Jiugeng may be the the last Internet hit personality of the year 2008.

It is said that he has a brother who is the general manage of estate company. The two brothers, one is the official in charge of housing department, the other is a real-estate developer, “match” peferctly

Netizen made fun of that. They said from that officials should learn some lessons:

First of all, government officials should never flaunt their wealth.  They should try to keep a low profile.  Why did he have to smoke that brand of cigarettes and wear those watches?  Those items are clearly not commensurate with your salary.

Secondly, you should learn to choose the right time and place.  Leaders should be able to enjoy luxury items, but you should learn to choose when and where.  At a public meeting with television and newspaper reporters, you have to be wary about their image.

No.1 Wenchuan earthquake

On May 12, 2008, an earthquake happened in Si Chuan province. For the first time, national flag was lowered to half mast and we held a national day of mourning.

Official figures state that 69,227 are confirmed dead.The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless,though the number could be as high as 11 million.

On the morning of May 13, there were 2,710,000 searches for “earthquake,” 4,950,000 for “Wenchuan” and 3,820,000 for “Sichuan earthquake.”

No.2 Beijing Olympics

footprint of 2008 Olympics(photo by Yao)

At 8:08pm on the 8th of August the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics started.

A series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks processed gloriously  from Tiananmen Square.It took one minute for the footsteps created by the fireworks to traverse Beijing. But Chinese waited for many years just for this moment.

No.3 Sexy photo gate

Photos about a male celebrity having sex with a lot of female celebrities have been exposed on the internet.

People could not help but snigger secretly,but what more important what our journalists should do, when the public interest conflicted with  celebrities privacy.

No.4 Sanlu milk powder

Sanlu, China’s biggest milk powder manufacturer, sold contaminated milk which caused thousands of baby sick.

This raised the alarm, which hopefully made 2008 the year of food safety in China.

No.5 Global downturn.

In the economic crisis, China became the focus of the whole world. Other countries also count on China to rescue the world.

But China  suffered more deeply from the crisis than the US or Europe. Because the leading economic growth supported by export  has declined sharply.

The technician found the document in the Shai Hai tube station. To find contact information of owner, he looked at those files and realized that it was  the arrangement of Xin Yu and Wen Zhou‘s government official tourist trip at public expense.

He told the China Youth Daily he was very angry about that . He wouldn’t let the taxes he paid being wasted on the

tour trip by miao

so-called “inspection” tour.

He decided to expose the information.Then he went home, scanned the files and uploaded part of them on the internet.

For his own safety He used a Chinese jumping board first,then an overseas proxy to make post.

The power of the Internet.

He had mailed out the information about the Xin Yu “inspection” tour group to the Jiangxi provincial party disciplinary committee on the day when the committee began a hearing on the case.

That is to say, the committee had called for a hearing according to the Internet information alone.

He  was still very disappointed with the attitude of Wen Zhou government.

The response from Wen Zhou government was  that “Las Vegas is a typical city and it is reasonable for the cadres to study and inspect urban infrastructure there.”

Netizen questioned the qualification of some companies on the list of nominees at the first, especially the six tobacco companies, according to the Xinjing newspaper. .

Companies on the list were selected according to the amount of money they donnated.The China National Tobacco Company was ranked number one.

China Charity Awards

But letters from domestic and international organization were all opposite to giving the awards to tobacco companies, which included the China Smoking Control Association,the China Disease Control Centre’s Tobacco Control Office and the World Health Organisation.They said that it would violate the Tobacco Control Framework Treaty and harm the international image of China if the awards was given to the tobacco companies.

Wang Zhenyao,the Civil Affairs Bureau Social Welfare and Charitable Activities Promotion Office director was interviewed by Beijing News, said that certain overseas organizations will not accept donations from companies which are not environmentally friendly.

But charity cause in China has only just begun, and “we should not set up a rigorous moral standard for the corporations at this time yet.”

But in the awarding evening, The China Charity Awards had excluded the tobacco companies.

Wang Zhenyao explained that many organizations wrote to the Civil Affairs Bureau to protest that the tobacco companies were on the list. The bureau had to remove the tobacco companies from the list.

Meanwhile, International Tobacco Control Conference was held in South Africa from 17th to 22th of Nov.in Durban. During the conference, China was given the “ashtray award.”

The official reason given for the award to China was that China “would rather have pretty cigarette packs than healthy citizens.”

“In the bleak midwinter”  was named the best carol in the poll of 51 directors of music in the UK and US. In the BBC Music magazine poll, those exp erts were asked to select their five favourite carols and Christmas motets.

“In the Bleak Midwinter was  from Christina Rossetti‘s poem. The popular version of the song was written by Gustav Holst in 1911, then arranged by Harold Darke in 1911. Harold turned it from full choir to solo voice.

Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford said it was easy to understand why it hold first place: “It’s a really good start to any carol service and of course it gets an airing each year with the broadcast of the King’s College service.”

Some famous carols that were omitted  may disappoint many,such as Shepherds Watched, The 12 Days of Christmas, The Holly and the Ivy and I Saw Three Ships.

Several other well known and much sung carols take lower spots in the survey. These include:

Once in Royal David’s City (11),

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (14),

God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen (22),

Silent Night (25),

O Little Town of Bethlehem (27),

Good King Wenceslas (42)

Away in a Manger (50).