Acclaimed artist Liu Linghua has made Peking Opera come back to life with his original and striking oil paintings. Wang Jie explores the man who is trying to keep an ancient art alive.
Falsetto voices, richly embroidered costumes and extravagant headwear are all part of the tradition of Peking Opera but seem to be losing their [...]
The artist whose paintings sing with life
Bird’s Nest
The National Stadium, as the main track and field stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics, is dubbed the “bird’s nest” because of its innovative grid formation.
The twig-like structural elements and the bowl-shaped roof are the masterpiece of the project, yet they pose great challenges for technicians and workers to make the building stand on its own [...]
Slim West Lake
The Slim West Lake in the western suburb of Yangzhou was originally known as the Baozhang River, a natural river course through which runoffs from Zhugang Mountain empties into the Grand Canal.
In comparison with the West Lake of Hangzhou, the Slim West Lake is marked for its natural elfish beauty. The lake extends for 4.3 [...]
Beijing Int’l Airport Terminal 3
Construction of Terminal 3 started on March 28, 2004 and was opened on February 29, 2008, becoming fully operational on March 26, 2008, when Air China, Shanghai Airlines, other Star Alliance members, and other international airlines moved in.
The iconic terminal building is intended to be one of the most modern and passenger friendly super-hub facilities [...]
Hongluo Temple
Introduction
Hongluo Temple Tourist Resort lies at the foot of the Hongluo Mountain. The main structure is the 1,000-year-old Hongluo Temple. The resort is set in the natural scene of the area. Hongluo Temple was first built in Eastern Jin Dynasty and expanded during the prime time of the Tang Dynasty. It was originally known as [...]
The National Grand Theater
The National Grand Theatre of China in Beijing by architect Paul Andreu is one of the most talked-about architectural projects for years, both because of Andreu’s audacious and innovative design, and for the grand scope of the project itself; the Theatre will be Beijing’s foremost cultural center, situated in the heart of the capital, symbolizing [...]
Water Cube
The National Aquatics Center, a major venue for the 2008 Olympic Games, also called the “Water Cube”, was completed on the morning of January 28, 2008.
The “water cube” comprises over 100,000sqm of ETFE foils, making it the single largest, most complicated and most comprehensive ETFE structure in the world to date. The venue will be [...]
Beijing opera
On first exposure, Peking Opera presents a bit of a challenge to your average western art-lover. The unusual (very, to a western ear) melodic structure, and the piercing, (very) high-pitched tones – which apparently evolved to allow the performers to make themselves heard over the noise of the cymbals and drums that accompany a performance [...]
The flowery season
Bees are busy gathering pollen, as shown in this photo taken on March 16, 2009. A crab apple flower festival which opened recently in Nanjing has attracted a large number of tourists eager to enjoy the spring flowers.
Citizens take a stroll among the blossoming magnolia flowers in a park in Shanghai in this photo taken [...]
New feathered dino gives flight to debate
Fossils from a dinosaur species recently discovered in Liaoning province seem to fly in the face of everything the scientific community knows - or at least thought it did - about the evolutionary development of feathers.
The sub-adult Tianyulong Confuciusi, which was covered with feather-like structures, dates back to the early Cretacious Period (144-99 million years [...]
Factory or fantasy?
It is hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction in “24 City (24 Chengji),” the latest project by leading director Jia Zhangke.
The film, which is now showing at cinemas throughout the mainland, was shot at the former site of a vast aeronautics factory in Chengdu, Sichuan province.
Jia interviewed 90 workers after it was [...]
