Beijing＇s Transportation：Past and Present

Perhaps because I grew up in thiscity, everything here is familiar to me.Perhaps because I work in the transport-related media, any changes affectingpeople, cars and roads in the Chinesecapital catch my attention. And perhapsbecause I studied photography incollege, it is my habit to observe the citythrough camera lens.     

Vigorous and Unrestrained： Weng Changjiang＇ s Painting

On an early summer day of 1995 my wife and I viewed a painting exhibition on eight artists from South China at the Research Institute of Chinese Traditional Painting. After enjoying the nearly 100 painting masterpieces and walking out of the exhibition hall, I noticed a solo exhibition being held in the side hall. The 400-odd ink paintings of portrait and landscape in a freehand brushwork style immediately captured my attention.     

Blend Tradition and Fashion：Liangzi＇s Design

At last winter‘s China International Fashion Week, a fashion show entitled “Sound of Nature“ attracted extensive attention. The young designer Liangzi perfectly blended Chinese tradition with fashionable elements to create masterpieces with both oriental charm and modern passion.     

Past and Present： China＇s Handicraft Art

Traditional handicraft art is part of the traditional culture of China and known as living fossils to record lives of ancient Chinese. There are various forms of traditional handicraft art in China, including ceramics, jade carving, ivory carving, cloisonne, lacquer carving, wood carving, gold and silver wares, shadow play, kites, lanterns,     

Beijing＇s Subway Stations Highlight Art and Design

Since my grand grandfathers, my family has dwelled in Beijing for 300 years. I have untold feelings about this historic city In my childhood, I took the city＇s subway for fun; now it has become a major means of transportation for me. Over the past three decades, I have witnessed the transformation and progress of Beijing＇s subways.     

Colorful and Natural： Yuan Dehua＇s Painting

<正>Viewers who have appreciated Yuan Dehua’s painting works are all amazed by the implicit mystery as demonstrated by their colorful scenes.Yuan Peide,born in t...     

China’s Dragon and Lion Dance Tours Turkey

<正>The end of a nine-hour flight marked the beginning of China Dragon and Lion Dance Troupe’s tour in Turkey. This tour is an important component of the 2012 Ch...     

Let’s Go and See the Outside World!

Two decades ago, traveling abroadwas just a dream for most of Chinesepeople; only those with relatives livingabroad could go abroad in the name of“visiting relatives”. In 1988, Thailandbecame China’ first outbound traveldestination. Now, Chinese travelersappear at every corner of the world,wherever in Champs-Elysees in Paris,Colosseum in Rome, Pyramids in Egyptor the snow mountain in Swiss. I stillrecall that I was often asked if I wereJapanese when I traveled abroad a dozenof years a…     

“Honorable Piracy” and Chile’s Digital Transition

This article examines debates around Chile’s digital television transition in order to trace the socio-historical relation between piracy and social change. During the military dictatorship (1973–1990), media activists used what they called “honorable piracy” for counter-communication efforts aimed at restoring democracy. Following the return to democracy, community television participants have rationalized their unauthorized transmission of alternative programming to low-income sectors using a similar logic of honorable piracy. For these community television participants, the digital transition represented the possibility of redefining democratic access to the public sphere and attaining legal recognition. Through an analysis of citizen activism around the move from analog to digital television, this article argues that discussion of piracy emerges as an expression of conflicting notions of the definition, use, and distribution of public resources.     

Let＇s Go and See the Outside World!

Two decades ago, traveling abroad was just a dream for most of Chinese people; only those with relatives living abroad could go abroad in the name of ＂visiting relatives＂. In 1988, Thailand became China＇ first outbound travel destination. Now, Chinese travelers appear at every corner of the world, wherever in Champs-Elysees in Paris, Colosseum in Rome, Pyramids in Egypt or the snow mountain in Swiss. I still recall that I was often asked if I were Japanese when I traveled abroad a dozen of years ago. But now even handsome boys sailing Gondola in Venice can greet me with ＂Ni Hao＂ （Hello in Chinese）.     

Marginalization and Combination： Liu Mingxlao＇s Oil Paintings

Efforts to localize oil painting have never stopped since this western art was introduced into China, A Chinese educational system on oil painting had not been developed until the era of master Xu Beihong. But if oil painting can be localized or not still remains a question in China. After New China was founded in 1949, influenced by Chairman Mao＇s theories on cultural development, Chinese oil painters were required to, besides serving ideological needs, pursue Chinese characteristics and cater to ordinary people＇s tastes. Dong Xiwen＇s ＂The Founding Ceremony of the New Republic＂ was the pioneer in this endeavor. Following him, almost all Chinese oil artists rushed into this direction, except some who made breakthroughs in landscape subjects. For instance, Wu Zuoren combined Chinese water and ink painting with western oil painting, creating a simplistic style.     

Political aesthetics: activism,everyday life,and art’s object in 1960s’ Japan

Abstract

Around 1960, revolutionary forms of activism and critique emerged to challenge administrative forms of politics and daily life. In Japan, despite massive strikes and widespread protest, the ruling party used a Diet majority and riot police to renew the USA–Japan Security Treaty. After this display of force, this party’s new administration sought a new legitimacy, and a means to assuage and co‐opt the defeated opposition, through promoting a depoliticized everyday world of high growth and consumption, and a dehistoricized national image in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Among those activists who emerged to contest this new cultural politics, a diverse group of young artists worked to repoliticize daily life through an interventionist art practice. Their practices arose out of a particular local, playful art practice, whose focus on the material debris and spaces of the economic expansion led to an engagement with the transformations of daily life. Focusing on the art practices connected with the yearly exhibition, the Yomiuri Indépendant, I examine the advent of a critical art examining the everyday world of Japan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, reflecting on its complex relation with an internationalized art world and domestic art scene, mass culture, and domestic protest movements. Examining the history of this art illuminates the state’s investments in a normative cultural order, and a particular configuration of the politics of culture in the early 1960s.     

Nationalism and internationalism: thoughts on Zhang Chengzhi’s work and Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference

Nationalism in the Third World is shaped through the processes of anti-imperial and anti-feudal modernization, and is closely connected with communist internationalism. It differentiates from the nationalism formed in the context of the European modernization. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the nation-state, in the context of international politics and geopolitics and during the construction of modernization in the realms of politics, economy and culture, progressive nationalism can be reactionary. Via analysing the emotions and thinkings of Zhang Chengzhi’s writing on Japan and reviewing the history of Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in 1950s and 1960s, this essay argues that internationalism is the effective thinking resource to overcome reactionary nationalism.     

Conflict and Integration： A French＇s Life in China

West Street is the oldest in Yangshuo, a small town in Guilin, with towering karst peaks and surrounded by Li River. In this lessthan-one-kilometer street, there are more than 100 cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels, all with both Chinese and English or French ads. Called ＂a foreigner street＂, West Street attracts tens of thousands of foreign tourists every year. Le De （happy）, a French-styled restaurant, and Hong Fu （Big Fortune）, a Chinese-styled hotel, are the most splendid restaurant ＆ hotel in the street, which is situated in an old guild hall with the history of some 200 years and run by French twin brothers whose Chinese names are Wen Shuanefu and Wen Shuanelu.     

Chinese and Japanese Cultures Displayed in Wuyutai’s Flagship Store

An outstanding enterprise must be an enterprise with cultural pursuit.Wuyutai has developed a unique corporate culture through its chain store operation.Wuyutai treats each of its franchised stores as its partner and friend,with an aim to continue and promote the time-honored brand.     

Passion and Greatness： Miao Mo＇s Traditional Chinese Painting

Miao Mo is an accomplished painter nurtured in the time-honored artistic, tradition of Xi＇an, an ancient capital which witnessed heydays of the Chinese civilization. He showed strong interest in painting in his childhood and received academic training in fine arts in his teen years. In 1962, Miao pursued further training in the advanced course offered by the studio of traditional Chinese painting under the Artists Association of Shaanxi Province. In this three-year training program, Miao made remarkable progress in painting skills and deepened his understanding of the traditions and principles of Chinese painting, thanks to the mentorship of master Zhao Wangyun, founder of Chang＇an School of Painting, as well as the guidance of other prestigious artists like Shi Lu, He Haixia and Fang Jizhong.     

Paper Emotions Hu Youben’s Contemporary Ink and Wash Painting

<正>Renowned art critic Liu Xiaochun was not certain if his visit to Hu Youben’s studio in Baoding was worthy or not. However, after several months spent to obse...     

Focus on People＇s Well being and Address Social Problems

The Invitational Exhibition of Chinese Ink Portraits was held in celebration of Jiang Zhaohe＇s 105th anniversary of birth.