China Cultural Chronicles October 25, 2012
- Beijing: E
- Tai Chi Chuan in Qingdao
- Table ready for lunch ... what is your place?
Antonio0106 has added a photo to the pool:
Lunch in Tianjing - attention- The towels indicate the importance of the place
- The dawn of Tangra Yumco(དྭངས་རྭ་གཡུ་མཚོ)
- Detian Waterfall 4 - Guangxi, China
- Detian Waterfall 5 - Guangxi, China
- Picturesque sceneries of grasslands in Inner Mongolia
- Scenic view of Wuqizhou Island in China's Sanya
- Shaanxi, a mecca for writers
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下载安装Flash播放器For tourists and locals alike, the city of Xi'an in China's northwest Shaanxi Province is as well-known as the country's capital city of Beijing. Known for signature cultural relics like the Terracotta Warriors and the Greater Wild Goose Pagoda, this ancient capital city is usually on the list of must-see sites.
Shaanxi is not just famous for its concentration of cultural heritage from China's 5,000 years of history; it is also attracting attention for its modern literature. Local writers like Jia Pingwa, Chen Zhongshi and Lu Yao (1949-92) have long become household names.
"Since the opening up (in 1978), three writers received the Mao Dun Literature Prize, the most prestigious literature award in China, six received the Lu Xun Literature Prize and others were recipients of literary prizes like the Bing Xin Award and Jun Ma Award," said Lei Tao, executive vice president of Shaanxi Writers Association.
"Shaanxi novelists represent the pinnacle of literature in the country," Lei told the Global Times.
Consistent development
In the 1950s and 60s, novels like History of Starting up an Undertaking by Liu Qing (1916-78), In the Peaceful Days by Du Pengcheng (1921-91), and On the Beach by Wang Wenshi (1921-99) were representatives of Shaanxi's literature, reflecting a change of pace in rural lives and mentalities during the socialist reforms of that period. Their influence in the literary circle was already obvious.
"Works then featured a revolutionary realism," said cultural critic Xiao Yunru, in an interview with Xi'an Daily in September.
In recent years, Shaanxi literature gained wide recognition following masterpieces like Jia Pingwa's Turbulence (1987), Deserted City (1993) and Qin Qiang (2008) and White Deer Plain (1993) by Chen Zhongshi.
Shaanxi literature of 60 years shares one common characteristic: a realism that reflects local life in different eras, according to Xiao.
"Realism is a tradition among Shaanxi writers," said Lei. "Most writings centered on life in the countryside, reflecting local life and psychological changes."
For example, White Deer Plain, which earned author Chen Zhongshi the 4th Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997, describes three generation of interactions between the Bai and Lu families in their village. The novel chronicles 50 years from the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the beginning of the founding of the country (1949).
Jia Pingwa's Qin Qiang took home the 8th Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2008. The author depicts the profound upheavals in a village, values and interpersonal relationships brought by the period of opening-up in the late 1970s. The story is based on Jia's hometown, Danfeng county, southeast of Shaanxi.
"This is similar to the works of other local writers like Ye Guangqin, Gao Jianqun and Feng Jiqi," said Lei. "They are familiar with this subject. This is an advantage."
- A golden heart and future
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下载安装Flash播放器Village chief Lhagpa has led his fellow villagers to improve their lives.
Lhagpa was the first in Lhasa's destitute Dagze county to achieve relative prosperity - the 46-year-old earns 80,000 yuan ($12,800) a year from his transportation business and owns a two-story house with modern appliances.
And the chief of Bagaxue village hopes to bring the rest of Dagze's residents up with him, he says. He has been elected as a delegate to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to open in Beijing on Nov 8.
Under his leadership, villagers' average annual per capita incomes have doubled since 2005 to 6,000 yuan.
The self-made success story comes from a poor family with a tiny plot of farmland.
His fate changed after he bought a tractor with bank loans at age 16. He made enough money with the tractor to buy a truck. And he earned enough from using the truck to buy a passenger bus.
By 1999, he was the village's richest person. At age 33, he owned two cars and a van.
He invested his fortune in others.
In 1995, Lhagpa bought a 7,500-yuan generator, electric wires, transmission poles and light bulbs to provide electricity to every household.
Until then, the village only had oil lamps, and residents suffered boredom after dusk.
Grateful villagers lined up to present him hada (ceremonial scarves).
He ran the generator until the government completed facilities that ensured the power supply in 2001.
Lhagpa fed the generator more than 6,000 kg of diesel. During the first few months, he'd stop work early to return home before 8 pm to run the generator. He later taught his son and neighbors how to do it.
He also bought a 21-inch color TV and a video player.
Lhagpa put many chairs in his courtyard and played two films a night for the community. It cost him 300 yuan a month to rent the movies from Lhasa.
The movie nights became increasingly popular. Up to 300 people would show up, including many from nearby villages.
In 1996, he spent 7,000 yuan to buy a satellite dish and invited villagers to his home to watch TV.
There was usually a huge pile of trash for his wife, Drolma Yangtse, to clean in the mornings.
Lhagpa was honored as a National Model Worker in 2001. He joined the CPC in July 2002 and was later unanimously elected village chief.
He has contracted his transport business, so he can focus on village affairs. His company still offers free rides for sick villagers heading to the hospital, and he covers their medical fees if they're impoverished.
His farm machines help locals plow, seed and harvest.
He taught six young men how to drive. Three of them bought their own buses to make better livings.
His newest ambition is his greatest yet. Construction has begun on a green tourism center expected to create jobs for 200 people - construction workers, maintenance people, managers and entrepreneurs.
"Every family in the village will have someone working at the center and enjoy better incomes," he says.
- Growing the grassroots
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下载安装Flash播放器A Tibetan girl herds yaks at Maqu township, Nagqu prefecture, in northern Tibet.
Sending local urbanites to become village officials in Tibetan townships cultivates their understandings of nomadic life. Da Qiong and Li Yao report in Nagqu prefecture, Tibet.
Although Todlhamo grew up and works in Tibet's Nagqu prefecture, her eight-month stint as a village official multiplied what she knew about Tibetan herders' lives at an average altitude of 4,500 meters.
She was among the 21,804 officials in the Tibet autonomous region who've been dispatched to 5,451 villages since October 2011, to understand pressing problems facing the villagers and use their resources to make a difference.
Todlhamo, from Amdo county's education bureau, stayed in the No 2 village in Maqu township. Her teammate was Tsering Paldron from Amdo's Party discipline committee.
Todlhamo was born in Sog county and educated in Nagqu until she enrolled in Gansu province's Lanzhou Jiaotong University. After graduating in 2007, she became a public servant in Amdo.
"Office life is totally different from working with the grassroots," the 27-year-old says. "Every little thing we did in the field was helpful and led to direct changes in villagers' lives."
Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron paid home visits to all families.
The sparsely inhabited village has 92 households. Five were virtually unreachable because they're on the other side of a river without a bridge.
Every team gets 100,000 yuan ($15,900) to run projects to help villagers. Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron considered building a bridge, but the funding was insufficient.
In the end, they used the money to build a store and hired a poor villager to run it.
Goods are purchased from Qinghai province's capital Xining, which is closer to the village than Nagqu or Tibet's capital Lhasa. Profits are used for the villagers' public welfare.
Villagers prefer clinics in Qinghai province because they're closer and people there speak the same dialect. But the expenses aren't covered by Tibet's medical insurance system.
Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron lent a helping hand in emergencies.
Lutso was 46 when she got pregnant in 2011. She already had nine children, not including four who'd died as infants, and she is the only able-bodied family member. Lutso was caring for her husband, who was disabled by a stroke, and her 90-year-old mother-in-law.
Lutso had a massive hemorrhage and went into shock during labor. Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron found a pickup truck and accompanied her to the township hospital.
They later raised 5,000 yuan ($800) from colleagues and bought milk powder for the infant, nutritious food for the mother and traditional Tibetan medicines to treat her husband.
Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron explained the dangers of getting pregnant so late in life.
Poverty and parental negligence are inevitable if people have another child every year, they explained.
They also persuaded parents to send their dropout children back to school. They saw through herders' excuses about tuition fee burdens because enrollment and boarding are free until university.
The duo was often suspicious of parents' promises to send their children to school, so they'd call the principal to confirm the kids were attending.
During one home visit, they met Ribu, a 9-year-old boy born out of wedlock, who lived with his mother and grandmother.
He's a second-year primary school student and only goes home during summer and winter holidays. There's nobody to send him to, or pick him up from, school.
Todlhamo and Tsering Paldron bought Ribu new clothes and shoes. They also purged his sheepskin jacket of fleas.
"Ribu was very brave and didn't cry when we took him to a doctor, who used a syringe to drain the pus from the chilblains covering his hands," Todlhamo recalls.
But her team didn't just assist the villagers. It often received their help, too.
In February, they set out for a meeting at the village head's office to elect a delegate to the county-level people's congress.
It usually takes two hours to make the 35-km journey. But heavy snow meant the trip took four times as long.
They were surprised when they finally arrived in the evening to find all the villagers waiting for them with hot butter-tea. Many had been there since 10 am.
Locals took the vote seriously. Every family sent at least one member to the meeting. They asked for corrections to inaccuracies on their voter cards, such as ages or names. Illiterate villagers asked others to write their selections for them, Todlhamo recalls.
Living conditions are harsh. There is no electricity or plumbing.
The first thing everyone does every morning is haul bags or blocks of ice to melt for water for drinking and washing. The water contained dirt and grass.
Todlhamo was indefinitely transferred to the prefecture's administration in Nagqu in June. "I used to be casual with money and never thought it was a big deal to have running water," she says.
"Now, I lead a more modest life and remember to use as little water as possible."
Tsering Paldron still works in the village. She has a 3-year-old son who lives with her parents in Lhasa.
"She cries every time she talks with her son on the phone," Todlhamo says.
The officials can take five days off a month, but the time is usually too short for a return trip because of the bad roads.
Nagqu prefecture has stationed more than 3,500 such village officials. Many have spouses living in other counties, Lhasa or Sichuan province, says Hu Rong, vice-secretary-general of Nagqu's Party committee.
"The officials get firsthand understandings and experiences in the villages," Hu says.
- Celebrating age and wisdom
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下载安装Flash播放器Senior residents present a show of tai chi in Dongxiang county, Jiangxi province, to celebrate the Chongyang Festival. The age-old practice is considered one of the secrets of longevity.
On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, Chinese celebrate Chongyang, a festival where filial piety and respect for the elderly are recognized. Liu Zhihua takes note to look at how the elderly in China live better and longer.
Aging is part of life. In China, where the philosophies of Confucius and Mencius prevailed for thousands of years, aging also means an increase in wisdom, rather than the absolute decline of body.
On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, which fell on Tuesday this year, Chinese across the country celebrated the Chongyang Festival, that one day in the year that is specially reserved for the elderly.
For the Chinese, it means a day out with the family, climbing the hills, appreciating the seasonal chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine and eating the cakes specially made for Chongyang.
It is a day dedicated to the old, who have always had a special place in Chinese culture and in modern China.
Apart from the respect and care owed to them from younger generations, the gray generation also draws benefits from the practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is not just about treating illness but, rather, is about the holistic approach of maintaining body, mind and spirit.
"The essence of TCM is to keep a balance within the body and between the body and mind, and then to achieve harmony with the outer world," says Wang Weigang, an experienced TCM practitioner with China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing.
"When such balance is achieved, people will not have physical or mental problems."
Wang goes on to give an example of how it works.
- Nomadic region, Tibet 2012
reurinkjan has added a photo to the pool:
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While Rebkong and Labrang are mostly farming areas, Taktsang Lhamo is mostly a nomadic region. Large herds of yaks and sheep can be found and Tibetans live in traditional style tents during the summer and fall. Two large monasteries, Sertri and Kirti, are in the area. The town, lying at 3300m, is surrounded by mountains which are covered in snow for most of the year. Taktsang Lhamo offers excellent horse trekking through the grasslands and mountains.
www.footprinttravelguides.com/c/2848/tibet/&Action=pr...
Seven more monks arrested in Wonpo www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=32310&article=Sev...
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