YOU MAY NEVER have been anywhere near the Wudang Mountains (武當山) in the northwestern part of Hubei, China, but it will probably still be very familiar to you.
And that’s true, whether you are from the east or the west.
That’s because it is the archetypal location of so many books and movies and television…
Culture
MOVE OVER, The Lord of the Rings. There’s a new three-part big-budget fantasy movie in town, and it is making a big splash.
Part one of the Fengshen Trilogy has a tight grip on the top of the box office chart in China, and is far ahead of Hollywood’s Barbie in popularity and earnings in…
CANTONESE OPERA (粵劇), one of the most representative cultural symbols of the Lingnan region (嶺南地區), the area south of the Nanling mountains (南嶺山脈), is the foundation and origin of modern Cantonese music.
The first time I heard about Cantonese music was when I was learning the Guzheng (古箏). My teacher said that it would be…
As U.S. politicians call for laws against Chinese people buying property in the country, there are fears that the dark mentality behind the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act is still present, and may even be growing. Portia Chung reports.
ISSUES INVOLVING PEOPLE with Asian roots are burning hot in the headlines in the United States right…
THREE DECADES AGO, Chinese archeologists found an ancient book written on 800 strips of bamboo. It was more than 23 centuries old.
The text was identified as a partial copy of the Tao Te Ching (道德經), the book on which Taoism (or Daoism) is based—and which introduced the world to the classic Chinese sage Laozu…
GOLD ISN’T JUST BEAUTIFUL AND RARE. It is also durable. No historian can document every detail of history, but burial objects in gold often tell a story better than other records.
Thanks to the generous donation from the owners of Mengdiexuan (夢蝶軒), Betty Lo(盧茵茵) and Kenneth Chu (朱偉基), the public has the opportunity to remember…
SURVIVING ZODIAC HEAD STATUES from a glorious imperial garden destroyed by British and French soldiers in the Opium War in 1860 are on show at City University of Hong Kong.
The Old Summer Palace, known as Yuanmingyuan (圓明園), was a huge area, covering more than 3.5 square kilometres of land in Beijing. Historians say it…
IT WAS EXTRAORDINARILY RISKY to be the brother of Yinzhen (胤禛), the fourth son of Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝).
Yinzhen wanted the throne really badly. A cold-blooded man, he imprisoned some of his 23 brothers and killed one who had the same mother as he did. He wanted to get rid of competition to become the…
CATS AT THE FORBIDDEN CITY in Beijing have become celebrities. They now regularly appear in TV programs and on social media.
They also count as part of the historical tale of the complex.
In ancient times, emperors and other royal family members owned cats which they pampered, just like modern cat-lovers. In the Ming…
IN A SNOWY VILLAGE high above cloud level, two fur-clad young girls travel to a frozen mountain top lake and stand on the surface, surrounded by elders.
They smash through the ice to take a ceremonial ladleful of sacred water, and then everyone sings and dances.
It is the most ancient of rituals in a…