China Cultural Chronicles November 28, 2012

  • 苗寨清晨

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    苗寨清晨

    作为景区的西江,略不同于其他原始的苗寨侗寨——大多数寨民并不早起,清晨出门的只有赶着上学的孩子和叫卖糍粑的老人。

  • Arrival of the daily freight train in Huancunjin station

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    Arrival of the daily freight train in Huancunjin station

    Yiajiang coal railway (Shibanxi)

    China, Nov. 2005 (scanned slide)

  • Old town of Guilin

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    Old town of Guilin

    China, Sept. 2004 (scanned slide)

  • View of Jinpeng Hill at sunset - Songpan 松潘 Ancient City of Jin'an

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    View of Jinpeng Hill at sunset - Songpan 松潘 Ancient City of Jin'an

    www.sergiodg.com
    Gallery: www.sergiodg.com/china/sichuan/songpan
    Slideshow: www.sergiodg.com/china/sichuan/songpan/slideshow

    © Sergio De Gregorio - Sergio.DG - All rights reserved

  • Labrang Monastery 10

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    Labrang Monastery 10

    Early in the morning, and began to go to the temple low lama, wearing very fashionable.

  • Night Watch of TV; Tharlam Monastery guard with a large mala in the open door, and a Tibetan monk friend at night on Sachen Kunga Nyingpo's memorial, Guardhouse, Sakya Lamdre, Tharlam Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal

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    Night Watch of TV; Tharlam Monastery guard with a large mala in the open door, and a Tibetan monk friend at night on Sachen Kunga Nyingpo's memorial, Guardhouse, Sakya Lamdre, Tharlam Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal

  • The winter appeal of Xijiang Miao Village in Guizhou

    The exotic culture of the Miao ethnic group in southwest China's Guizhou province has always been a fascination for tourists. And the best place to observe the Miao tradition and lifestyle is in Xijiang Miao village, known as the "one-thousand household village" for its extensive coverage of wooden buildings unique to the ethnic group. This group of photos presents the Xijiang Miao village in winter when the swarms of tourists have retreated, leaving locals return to their quiet daily rituals. 

  • Theme park 'Snoopy's World' opens for free in Hong Kong

    Dolls of cartoon characters of "Peanuts" are seen at theme park "Snoopy's World" in Hong Kong's Sha Tin district. The "Snoopy's World" park in Hong Kong ranks first in scale in Asia and second in the world, and it opens for free to tourists. Over 60 different sizes of dolls of "Peanuts" characters are placed around the park. Cartoonist Charles Schulz created the puppy creature, Snoopy, in his cartoon serial "Peanuts" in 1950, and from then on, Snoopy has had millions of fans around the world. 

  • Reviving the cultural power of China's museums

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    China has long been known for the sheer number of its historical relics. Now, however, from the globally renowned Beijing Palace Museum and the privately owned China Red Sandalwood Museum in Beijing to the unique China Paper-cut Museum in Shaanxi, the quality of the institutions housing this treasure is also being recognized.

    Museums are powerful guardians and showcases of cultural identity. As crowds are wowed by the Shanghai Biennial's hosting in an acclaimed new art gallery in the city, experts have told Xinhua how Chinese museums are entering a fresh era.

    QUALITY-FOCUSED STATE-RUN MUSEUMS

    Gone are the days when the only notable Chinese attraction frequented by foreign visitors was Beijing's Forbidden City, officially known as the Palace Museum.

    Around 100 new museums are now opening each year in China. Official statistics show that the number of museums registered in the country increased from 2,200 to 3,589 in the 10 years up to the end of 2011. It means that there is now one museum for every 400,000 Chinese people. And it is predicted that there will be one for every 250,000 Chinese by 2020.

    "The development has entered the fast lane," says Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. "But at the same time, we have also reached a transitional period, that is, from quantity-oriented to quality-focused."

    Among those quality museums, Shanghai's new contemporary art gallery, known as the Power Station of Art, or PSA, has been a must-see since it opened on Oct. 1, 2012.

    A redevelopment of a former power plant built in 1897, it has retained the building's 165-meter-tall chimney, and expanded the interior to more than 41,000 square meters. Its 12 exhibition halls of Chinese artworks from the 1980s earn it the status of China's first state-run contemporary art gallery.

    Home to the ninth Shanghai Biennial which runs until March 31, 2013, the PSA hosts exhibitions ranging from a review of the past 30 years of Chinese contemporary art to works from the Pompidou Center in Paris, giving audiences a feast of world art and a mixture of different cultures.

    In addition, the PSA also promotes art education and international art cooperation. Visitors can participate in art-related lectures, and interact with artists in the museum cafe to further appreciate the displays and learn more about the stories behind the exhibitions.

    "We have deliberately blurred the definition of public space and exhibition space. Even the chimneys are now public spaces, and many people will have the chance to interact with the artwork in the open exhibition hall," says the PSA's designer, Dr. Zhang Ming.

    Thanks to these visitor-friendly designs and free access to more than 1,800 museums nationwide, a total of 400 million tourists are attracted to China's museums annually, a 60 percent rise from 2007, according to latest official figures in 2012.

  • Does culture matter for restoring old towns

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    Demolition and imitation of the historic buildings are becoming a landscape in China's process of urbanization. At present, China has no less than 30 cities planning to invest a large amount of money in reconstruction of historic buildings, but all the payers are generations of local people.

    Ancient cities or city walls are always an extremely important part in human history of urban civilization. They are the cultural symbols indexing the context of urban development and cultural resources helping the development of cities. Sometimes, an ancient city or city wall is enough to demonstrate the city's cultural background and characteristics, and Lijiang and Piyao ancient cities are the best examples. In the context of rapid urbanization, it has significant historical and aesthetic value to properly protect and repair these precious historical sites.

    People expect the reconstruction of historic towns to save civilizations, and consider it as a shortcut to the historical memory of modern cities. However, in the eyes of many local governments, reconstruction of historic towns is nothing but restoration of some old buildings and reconstruction of a few historic streets and blocks. More worryingly, certain local governments appear interested in rebuilding historic towns in the name of protecting historical and cultural heritage and creating new cultural landmarks, but their real purpose is to pursue economic interests.

    As the leaders of historic town reconstruction projects, many local governments attach greater importance to the economic interests and personal benefits brought about by these projects than to the historical and cultural values of historic towns. Large investment in these projects can directly translate into considerable gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and allow local governments to benefit from the tourism economy. Furthermore, the reconstruction of historic towns can easily drive up land prices, which is exactly what local governments and real estate developers expect.

    Local governments' large-scale investment in rebuilding historic towns can easily remind people of the theme park fever more than 10 years ago. At the time, more than 2,500 theme parks that cost a total of over 150 billion yuan were built in over 600 Chinese cities. According to media reports, about 70 percent of these parks are operating at a loss, and only 10 percent are still making profits. Local governments may make the same mistake again while blindly investing in the reconstruction of historic towns.

    Stimulated by potential economic and political interests, many local governments have impulsively and blindly launched historic town reconstruction projects without conducting scientific planning and risk assessment or seeking public advice. These projects could have benefited the people, but have often affected local stability and development in practice.

    What domestic cultural circles worry about the most is that the large-scale reconstruction of historic towns in pursuit of economic interests may produce nothing but forgeries of little cultural significance. After all, originality and integrity are vital lifelines for cultural relics. Many experts and scholars believe that blind investment in restoring historic towns or rebuilding them in other places may destroy rather than protect these non-renewable cultural resources.

  • 'Hello Kitty Polar Tour' exhibition opens in Shanghai

    A little girl plays around a pink Hello Kitty in the Joy City in east China's Shanghai Municipality, Nov. 26, 2012. A big Hello Kitty exhibition themed on Hello Kitty's exploration in the polar regions would last from Nov. 24, 2012 to Feb. 24, 2013 in Shanghai. [Xinhua] 

  • Tibetan family at the shaman festival, 2012

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    Tibetan family at the shaman festival, 2012

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    Shaman Festival is a grand and festive occasion for local people to show their devotion and gratitude to the Mountain God. The Tibetan and Tu ethnic minorities in Tongren County worship the Mountain God as the immortal who protects them. The belief is believed to date back to the ancient worship of totems in the pre-civilization era of this part of Tibet.

  • Lake Yamdrok, Tibet.

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    Lake Yamdrok, Tibet.

  • A prayer flag, at Lhasa, Tibet.

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    A prayer flag, at Lhasa, Tibet.



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