Month: May 2019

The market in Ruili, Southwest China’s Yunnan province, is the first and only place nationwide that offers online auctions selling and trading raw jade through livestreaming.

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Raw jade, which is mined in mountainous areas, usually comes in the form of boulders that look like any other rocks.

Some jade is processed and made into accessories, while some is set aside and sold directly to collectors as investment pieces.

Raw jade’s sales process is different to other jewelry.

By giving the surface a little scrape – known in the trade as "opening the window" – both sellers and buyers assess the value of the stone before agreeing on a price.

Known as dushi, which means gambling on rocks, trading jade is considered perhaps the riskiest business in the jewelry industry – it’s also one of the most lucrative.

A new lexicon has emerged to describe the uncertainty and difficulty of dushi. According to one saying, with one scrape you are a billionaire, and with another you are a beggar.

There is still no technology capable of penetrating the stone, known as "the skin", to locate the jade and to judge its quality without breaking the stone apart.

In recent years a growing number of amateur collectors, lured by the prospect of instant riches, have flocked to the huge jade market in Ruili to try their luck.

The Ruili government estimated that by the end of 2017 there were more than 20,000 livestream broadcasters from across the country based in the city, which has a population of about 140,000.

To better guarantee and regulate the market, an agreement was reached in December between regional government, the jade association and Taobao to open the Yangyanghao Taobao raw jade trade market in Ruili.

To ensure quality, an initial 415 livestream broadcasters, accounting for 10 percent of those in the industry, were picked, trained and licensed before being allowed enter the market.

Dong Jiajun contributed to this story.

Chinese fashion darling Angel Chen has made a huge splash on the global scene – and the burgeoning designer continues to shine

Acclaimed Chinese fashion designer Angel Chen is distinguished by her colorful approach to style and her aesthetic sensibility that combines East and West. The Shenzhen native graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2014; her placement year included internships with Vera Wang, Marchesa and Alexander Wang in New York. Following her graduate collection, I-D magazine singled her out as one of five designers to watch; Chen debuted her own brand a year later. Part of a new wave of Chinese design talent, she has shown at Milan, London and Shanghai Fashion Weeks, and is stocked at Lane Crawford, Luisa Via Roma and other top international retailers. Now based in Shanghai, she recently took time out of her busy schedule for a candid chat with CDLP.

You made your New York Fashion Week debut with the SS19 collection but the city has always been an influence on you.

Yes. I stayed there for a year before I graduated from Central Saint Martins. New York influenced and shaped me a lot. In the city, I discovered my favorite artists. The brand, Angel Chen, is very young and energetic, which I think is a good match with New York and New York Fashion Week.

Describe a typical work day for you in Shanghai.

I usually arrive at the company around 10 in the morning. When I get there, about 10 people crowd me, asking questions about design details, sales and public relations. We’re now moving our office, so we’re busy with purchasing and decorating.

Pop-up invitations, the release of new collections and collaborations take up much of our time. I often skip lunch and usually eat my second meal at around 10 in the evening. After I go home, sometimes I work a while, until one or two in the morning, before I sleep.

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Palace Museum witnesses changing China.

When Reginald Johnston, a British scholar, first walked into the Forbidden City in the spring of 1919, the vast walled enclosure in the heart of Beijing was “in the strictest sense ‘forbidden’ to all the world except those who had the entree.”

Now it holds the world’s busiest museum, receiving more than 17 million visitors every year.

In his memoir Twilight in the Forbidden City, Johnston describes a world of turmoil, disruption, banditry, famine and civil war.

A century later when the People’s Republic of China is to celebrate its 70th founding anniversary in October, the 599-year-old palace complex flourishes in the world’s second-largest economy and one of the largest tourist markets.

Open to the public

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“All buildings in Beijing, official and private, were low, except for the Forbidden City guarded by high walls and a wide moat,” said Li Wenru, former vice-curator of the Palace Museum, depicting the old imperial capital. “From outside the walls with a glimpse of the golden roof, ordinary people could only imagine what it looked like inside.”

The public had their first view of the interior of the palaces in 1925 when the Palace Museum was established.

The following years saw the museum struggling through tight budgets, political controversy and war threats. During the war against Japanese invasion, it was forced to send away and hide a large number of collections.

In the spring of 1949, a critical moment made history at the Palace Museum. With the city of Beijing, then called Beiping, liberated peacefully, it was taken over by the People’s Liberation Army without a scratch, a few months before Chairman Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China on the Tian’anmen Rostrum.

“In the past seven decades, China has developed into a modern nation with a strong sense of mission,” said Wu Shizhou, a historian and professor with the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “It was in these years that the Palace Museum finally grew out of hardship and unrest and entered a new stage.”

With continuous support from the government, the Palace Museum has upgraded storage, conducted thorough examinations of its collections and launched large-scale restorations of ancient buildings, with conservation institutions established and research advancing.

GENEVA – The World Health Organization (WHO) held a brief certification ceremony on Friday for two international emergency medical teams (EMT) from China, bringing the total number of WHO-certified Chinese EMTs to five.

China International EMT (Tianjin) is set up on the basis of the National Emergency Medical Rescue Team from Tianjin People’s Hospital.

It has undertaken major medical missions during the 13th National Games of China held in Tianjin in 2017, as well as during the Tianjin warehouse explosions in 2015 which killed at least 139 people.

China International EMT (Macao SAR) was drawn from the staff of the Health Bureau and Fire Department of Macao SAR government. A total of 120 members were divided into four squads, each consisting of doctors, paramedics, pharmacists, engineers and logistics personnel.

The standard deployment of the whole team covers an area of 3,600 square meters with 41 tents.

It can diagnose and treat over 100 persons a day, and independently complete the clinical medical work for 14 days.

Since 2015, the WHO EMT Initiative has assisted organizations and member states to build capacity and strengthen health systems by coordinating the deployment of quality assured medical teams in emergencies.

It has focused on helping every country develop its own teams, which can arrive where they are needed in the shortest time.

By WHO definition, there are three types of EMTs. Type 1 should be able to provide outpatient initial emergency care of injuries and other significant health care needs; type 2 to provide emergency care including surgery, 24 hours a day; and type 3 to provide inpatient referral care and complex surgery.

The two Chinese EMTs from Tianjin and Macao SAR are classified as type 2 and type 1 team, respectively, according to WHO definition.

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As of the end of April, the WHO has certified a total of 25 international EMTs from 15 countries. China and Germany are currently tied for the number of teams, with each contributing five EMTs.

Traditional medicine originating from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been incorporated into the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), marking a major step for TCM’s internationalization.

The revision was approved Saturday at the 72 World Health Assembly being held in Geneva, Switzerland, according to China’s National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

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UNITED NATIONS – Two Chinese military officers on Friday were awarded together with 28 others the United Nations Peacekeeping Medal for their contributions to the UN peacekeeping effort.

Colonel Zhang Qiman and lieutenant colonel Duanmu Donglin, currently working at the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO), were recipients of the medal, which was presented to them by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, undersecretary-general for the DPO.

“I feel so proud that I could work at the UN headquarters as a staff officer,” Zhang said, adding that actively participating in UN peacekeeping operations is “a new historic mission and task.”

Zhang expressed her gratitude to the motherland, which she said gives her “confidence and courage” so that she could do her utmost for UN peacekeeping operations.

Both Zhang and Duanmu had worked in UN peacekeeping missions prior to their posting at the UN headquarters.

Lacroix told reporters after the awarding ceremony, “We are thanking them for their services. Peacekeeping is a very demanding work and we are grateful for everything they do.”

“We have excellent colleagues from China. As a permanent member of the Security Council, China’s role is extremely important in the view of improving the impact and performance of peacekeeping,” he added.

Currently, China deploys a total of 2,508 uniformed personnel, including 70 women, to eight of the UN peacekeeping missions, including those in South Sudan, Lebanon, and the mostly deadly Mali, according to the UN.

In December, China’s share of the UN peacekeeping budget was raised from 10.24 percent to 15.22 percent, making it the second largest contributor only after the United States.

UN headquarters observed the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on Friday. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres laid a wreath to honor all UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948 and presided over a ceremony at which the Dag Hammarskjold Medal was awarded posthumously to 119 military, police and civilian peacekeepers, who lost their lives in 2018 and early 2019.

The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers was established by the General Assembly in 2002, to pay tribute to all men and women serving in peacekeeping, and to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.

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The General Assembly designated May 29 as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers in commemoration of the day in 1948 when the UN’s first peacekeeping mission, the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), began operations in Palestine.

The legendary Chinese composer had different names in different places.

In China, he is remembered as Xian Xinghai, one of the country’s greatest composers; in Kazakhstan, he was known as Huang Xun, a refugee with remarkable talent; in Singapore and France, he was Sinn Sing Hol, a poor student with insatiable passion for music.

Wherever he went, whichever name he took, his music gave people courage and strength to fight against fascist invaders in the World War II. Chinese President Xi Jinping told the composer’s story in his first state visit to Kazakhstan in 2013.

Based on that true story, The Composer, a movie launched in Chinese cinemas recently, tugged at the heartstrings of numerous viewers.

When war broke out between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, the composer was working on a documentary for the Communist Party of China under the alias of Huang Xun in Moscow. Forced to abort his mission and evacuate, he tried to return home through a southern part of Soviet Union, today’s Kazakhstan, only to find the borders closed. He was left alone in the Kazakh city of Almaty where he knew no one and had no place to stay.

The composer was sitting on his suitcase with a violin in hand when Kazakh musician Bakhytzhan Baikadamov first spotted him. Baikadamov spoke Kazakh and Russian, the composer responded in English and French. “But it was obvious that the Chinese musician really needed help and had nowhere to go. So my father just took his hand and led him to us,” Baldyrgan Baikadamova, daughter of Baikadamov, recounted the fateful encounter.

Hence began the friendship of two legendary composers of two great nations. “They always supported each other. Together they overcame the wartime hardships and wrote a new chapter in the history of music,” Baikadamova told Kazakh media.

Baikadamov went on to become one of Kazakhstan’s most honored composers, after whom the Kazakh Choral Capella is named. The Chinese composer Xian Xinghai, whose Yellow River Cantata has inspired millions, was a household name in China. But he hid his true identity and contributed to the Kazakh cultural cause anonymously.

Xian incorporated Kazakh traditional music and folklore in his works. Among his masterpieces is Amangeldy, a symphony in honor of the Kazakh national hero. His works served as a rallying call to fight Fascists and proved immensely popular with the local people.

In today’s Almaty, two boulevards are named after Baikadamov and Xian Xinghai. Visitors to Baikadamov’s old house can find letters Xian wrote to his daughter in China, which were never mailed.

Touched by the story, Chinese filmmaker Shen Jian took it upon himself to turn it into a movie so that more people can learn about the friendship between Xian and his Kazakh friends.

Film shooting began in June 2017, when a bilateral agreement was signed to promote cooperation in the film industry. The Composer became the first movie jointly produced by China and Kazakhstan.

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The production unit had a crew of over 300 people from both countries with some additional 20,000 people also involved in the endeavor. And dozens of interpreters bustled in the scene speaking Chinese, Kazakh, Russian and English.

In the beginning, language was the biggest barrier. But the actors took the initiative to learn each other’s language and forged deep bonds of friendship. “I hope this is the first of many more great movies jointly produced by the two countries,” Sabit Kurmanbekov, an art director of the movie, said.

Kazakhstan is among many stops of Xian’s lifelong journey to rallying people in different parts of the world to rise against Fascism. The story of Xian Xinghai is the epitome of how people-to-people exchanges can bridge hearts, enrich cultures and unite nations to address common challenges.

Born in Macao, Xian traveled far and wide. In Singapore, primary schoolteachers found his talent and led him, son of a widowed housemaid, into the world of music. In Paris, the wannabe composer, who worked as a busboy in restaurants and a cleaner in public baths, was admitted into the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris and got his training from world-class masters.

Then there was Kazakhstan, where Xian spent some of his last years with true friends before his death in Moscow at the age of 40. “I am very happy that you understood me. Being understood is the greatest reward an artist can ask for,” one of his Kazakh friends recalled him saying to the audience after his Amangeldy earned thunderous applause.

Survey lists 10 most innovative cities

Beijing and Shanghai are among the 10 most innovative cities in the world, based on published articles in leading academic journals, a survey released on Friday said.

The report by the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science and Springer Nature publishing company surveyed 82 influential academic journals, including Nature, Science, and Cell, from 2012 to 2017, and calculated the contribution of different cities to global innovation according to the location of the authors’ research institutes.

It found that researchers in the 20 most innovative cities contributed more than one-fourth of all the papers, and called those cities “the sources of global innovation in science and technology”.

New York topped the survey, followed by Boston and Beijing. Shanghai ranked seventh. Other cities in the top 10 included San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, Seoul and London.

The most influential research institute was Harvard University, while Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing ranked seventh and 10th place respectively; Shanghai’s Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University were at 21st and 29th.

In terms of major scientific achievements named by Nature and Science, San Francisco ranked first with 12, while Beijing and Shanghai respectively had three and two.

“The strength of academic research in the United States was enhanced by the close collaboration of these innovative cities,” said Wang Xueying, associate researcher at the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science.

“There are strong academic links between San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston, which form a network of innovation,” she said, adding that the cooperation between Beijing and Shanghai and other East Asian cities, such as Tokyo and Seoul, should be strengthened.

The report was published during the Pujiang Innovation Forum, a major annual event in Shanghai for exchanges on science and technology innovation by scientists, entrepreneurs and policymakers from around the world.

Mark Chandler, director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of International Trade and Commerce, suggested at the forum that to further improve Shanghai’s innovative ability, it needs to focus on finance and talent.

“First, it needs more risk-taking and accessible financial institutes, so when someone has a great idea, there will be some support for him,” he said.

“Second is to attract people around the world. Shanghai has a lot of foreigners, but immigration could be made easier to help professors and businessmen move here.”

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An albino panda has been spotted in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province.

The reserve’s administrative bureau issued a photo of the all-white panda on Saturday, showing it passing through a lush forest.

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The photo, believed to be the world’s first image of an albino panda, taken in the wild, and clearly shows the all-white body and paws of the panda captured by an infrared camera around 2,000 meters above sea level in the reserve.

The only part of the panda’s body that is not white are its eyes, which are red, the bureau said.

Analyzing the photo of the panda taken in mid-April, experts from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda agreed that the panda is an albino. The gender of the animal has yet to be determined.

Judging from its size, they estimate, it is a juvenile between 1 to 2 years of age.

“A panda becomes an adult at the age of 4. One year for a panda is the equivalent of about 3.5 years for a human,” said Wang Lun, an official at the center.

Albinism exists in various vertebrates, but it is rare. It is usually caused by genetic mutations in which melanin cannot be synthesized normally, with skin and body hair expressed as white, yellowish-white or light-yellow.

Simple “albinism” mutations do not affect the normal body structure and physiological functions of animals, and have no significant impact on their activities and reproduction except that they are more easily spotted in the wild and their body is more sensitive to direct sunlight, said Li Sheng, a researcher with the School of Life Sciences at Peking University.

Li, a bear specialist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has studied the image of the all-white panda.

The panda is the first all-white individual photographed, suggesting that there is an albinism mutation gene in the regional panda population in the reserve, according to the specialist.

The panda looks strong, and its steps are steady, a sign that the genetic mutation does not affect its daily life, he said.

Albino mutations can be inherited. Each animal has two sets of genes from its parents.

Only when the genes from both parents contain the same mutation do offspring show characteristics of albinism.

Duan Zhaogang, Party secretary of Wolong’s administrative bureau, said that the reserve will install more infrared cameras in the region where the all-white panda was spotted.

If its offspring can be photographed, it will be valuable for further research, he said.

 

When Ma Kuanchi was a tour guide with the China International Travel Agency in the 1980s, he accompanied many American veteran pilots to Yunnan province and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region－places where they had once been based during World War II.

On those trips, Ma learned the history of the Flying Tigers.

It was before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the United States hadn’t officially entered the war, but around 300 American pilots and ground crew had already come to Southwest China to fight against the Japanese air forces under the command of Claire Lee Chennault.

They were officially known as the first American Volunteer Group, or AVG, but after their first combat mission, where they were victorious despite being heavily outnumbered, the Chinese referred to the pilots as the Flying Tigers.

The noses of the P-40 fighter planes they flew were painted with a ferocious shark mouth design, mimicking those flying missions in North Africa, and when the group was later absorbed into US Fourteenth Air Force, the planes retained the fearsome design. Equally, people continued to apply the legendary moniker of the Flying Tigers to later units, including the bomber and transport squadrons, that fought the Japanese in the sky.

“I was touched by their heroic deeds, and then decided to learn more of their history,” Ma says, adding that he visited almost all of the old air bases used by the Flying Tigers in China.

However, when Ma talked to ordinary Americans, he found out that despite the Flying Tigers’ contribution to the victory of the Allies, their story was not that well known in the US.

He organized themed aviation tours in early 2000 with his American friend Larry Jobe, a retired pilot with United Airlines, and the tour features visiting some of the Flying Tigers’ heritage airfields.

James T. Whitehead, a retired US Air Force major general, was in one of the tour groups.

Whitehead says: “Most people didn’t even know there was a war in China at that time. They knew about Normandy, North Africa and the battles with Germany and Italy, but not many people knew about the Flying Tigers except people associated with the military.”

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When the tour visited an old airfield in Guilin, Guangxi, they stood on rock in front of a cave that once served as Chennault’s operation command.

“Standing on the rock, we could see the exact same scene as 1945. There were bomb craters, stone rollers and runways still there with weeds growing up through the cracks－very moving,” Jobe recalls.

However, further down the valley, there was commercial and industrial development happening not far from the site.

“I said to Whitehead that it was good that he came when he did, because by the following year the scene would probably be gone forever,” says Jobe. “And he said that if we don’t do something to save it, the history that goes with it will also be gone.”

The three later founded Flying Tigers Historical Organization, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the shared history, sacrifices and heroics of the American and Chinese people during World War II.

“We felt that it was a story that needs to be told,” Whitehead says. “There was a special relationship between the Americans and Chinese and it’s important to remember that today.”