Beijing’s Tianqiaole Teahouse

SINCE the Tianqiaole Tea-house opened In a small,out-of-the-way lane in the south-ern part of Beijing last October,anumber of overseas tourists,bus-inessmen and diplomats living inBeijing have frequented the newestablishment.Hundreds of foreignstudents in Beijing often come tospend their weekends;CEOs frommany joint venture enterprises holdtheir banquets here;the“MadameAmbassadors Federation”of the for-eign diplomatic corps in Beijing alsouses the spot to hold their socials.InApril of this year Richard Nixon,the former US president,visited the     

Beijing’s Architectural Axis Line

<正>It defines the architectural structure of a historic capital built over 850 years ago. It highlights the best of Chinese architectural traditions. It reflect...     

Miao People’s Dragon-Patterned Embroidery

Embroidery is a distinctive folk art of China that dates back to ancient times.Embroiders stitch various patterns and characters with needles on silk and cloth fabrics,creating unique pieces of art.There are many embroidery styles in China,among which Miao people’s dragon-patterned embroidery     

China Children’s Art Theatec

CHINA Chilren’s Art Thea-ter,located just off Wangfuj-ing Street in downtown Bei-jing,is the only state-level children’sart palace in China.It was built in1956.Kalimeris Flower,the first play toopen the theater,set a record for thelongest run in cnildren’s theater andbecame a milestone in the historyof moden children’s drama in newChina.Kalimeris Flower is a movingfairy tale of a boy living in the     

‘We want everybody’s salvage!’: Recycling,Voluntarism, and the People’s War

ABSTRACT

This article reveals the role of volunteers in the British government’s campaign to increase recycling during the Second World War. It uses their experience to deconstuct the idea of a 'people's war', showing how this concept was invoked in several different ways. The article demonstrates that voluntary recycling schemes were led from the bottom-up, shifted the balance of power between private citizens and local authorities, and highlighted difference based on age, socio-economic status, gender, and geographical location. It concludes that official appeals may have invoked the ‘people’s war’, but the way that these messages were received was of most importance.     

Wuyutai’s Tea Shop in Huhhot

<正>An outstanding enterprise must be an enterprise with cultural pursuit.Wuyutai has developed a unique corporate culture through its chain store operation.Wuyu...     

Wuyutai’s Tea Shop in Harbin

<正>An outstanding enterprise must be an enterprise with cultural pursuit. Wuyutai has developed a unique corporate culture through its chain store operation.Wuy...     

On the Chinese People’s Aesthetics

正Appreciation of art is not a birthright. In the prehistoric primitive society, the ancestors of the Chinese people rooted in the harsh natural environment of t...     

Poet Zang Kejia Talks About Mao Zedong’s Poetry—Commemorating Mao Zedong’s Centenary

ZANG Kejla was already a well-known fi-gure in Chinese literary circles during the1930s.Mao Zedong used to invite him tothe Qingzheng Hall to talk about poetry and edita few pieces,and the two became good friends.AsMao’s 100th birthday approached,I visited thepoet to talk with him about the late chairman’spoetry.Mao Zedong is a name known across theworld.A great revolutionary,politician and mili-tary scientist,he was also a poet at heart.Someforeign observers once wondered that“a poet hadcreated a new China.”His pieces have a veryrevolutionary flavor that recount to his readers the     

Liu Jilin’s Shadow Play Art

Shadow play is an art expression featuring the combination of various art forms, including painting, carving, music, image art, stage performance and opera singing. It is known for its fascinating performance and cultural richness and contains rich and authentic information about the folk life and agricultural society of ancient China.     

Chen Jinpeng’s Colored Ink Painting

Chen Jinpeng is currently a council member of the Artists Association of Zhaotong, Yunnan Province. Born in Yanjin, Yunnan Province in 1957, he was taught flower-and-bird painting in Chinese traditional style by     

Suzhou’s Taohuawu New Year Prints

<正>Taohuawu woodblock New Year prints are considered to be one of the finest examples of Suzhou folk art expressions. With rich and extensive subjects of expres...     

Reform of China’s Cultural Undertakings

CHINA’S reform of culturalundertakings started in 1979,when the Communist Partyof China(CPC)proposed a generalreform and opening to the outsideworld and began China’s economicrestructuring.The key and difficultreform was in the operation of per-forming troupes.The reform under-went four stages.     

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.     

Aromatic Tea in Wuyutai’s Nanchang Store

Nanchang enjoys a reputation for numerous lakes in the city. The mother river, Ganjiang River traverses the city, and the Teng Wang Pavilion nestles near water, constituting a magnificent picture of autumn scenery. My visit to Nanchang this time was totally for tea. Jiangxi province is traditionally noted as a tea     

Asianism in Korea’s politics of identity

Abstract

This article examines Korea’s politics of identity in the form of Asianism in the modern period, especially since Korea’s incorporation into the modern world system in the late nineteenth century. Asianism, and regionalism generally, has become a salient policy strategy for the current South Korean government. However, Asianism has been a primary ideological current in modern Korea whose most recent incarnation should be understood in the larger historical context. This study traces the development of Asianism in four different periods: precolonial, colonial, Cold War, and post‐Cold War. Initially emerging as a bulwark against Western encroachment, the Asianism narrative became irrelevant upon Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 and only survived as a discourse about a glorified cultural past during colonial rule. Upon liberation, Asianism rescinded as the Japan‐centered regional order was replaced by a new Cold War alignment, capitalist (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) versus communist (China and North Korea). Although discussion about Asianism and a new East Asian regional order have recently resurfaced, the historical legacy of colonialism, war, and national division has added much complexity to the debate. Explicating how the Asianism narrative emerged and evolved through these various historical contexts sheds light on the complexities and difficulties inherent in the current attempt to forge an Asian regional order. By looking at Asianism from a historical perspective, we can also better appreciate the continuity and discontinuity in Korea’s politics of identity. While it is still uncertain what the foundation of a new Asianism will be, it is equally obvious that regional interactions will continue to be an important part of the global world order. This study concludes with policy implications of how a historically sensitive understanding of the development of an Asian regional identity can further interaction and integration of East Asian nations.     

Form without Content Lin Zhaohua’s Drama Practice in the 1990s

“In essence, art is an ability to express one’s feeling to others and this ability is expressed by materializing a proper form for some feeling.” This aggressive motto by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche has been venerated as a guiding principle by experimental artists. Drama experiments done by Lin Zhaohua in the 1990s, in some sense, have testified to the definition that drama is a living text. Lin, as an experimental drama director, has not only planned but also presented this living text o…