Snowgazing at Asia’s OTHER breathtaking winter festival.
For seven days every February, Sapporo, Japan, transforms into a winter wonderland for its annual Snow and Ice Festival. Now in its 59th year, this celebration of snow attracts two million visitors annually, easily outdoing Harbin’s famous ice festival, with its ... Read More
Chinese performance comes of age as Paul Andreu’s egg finally hatches.
Paul Andreu’s vision has become reality. His masterpiece, The National Center for the Performing Arts, or NCPA, the giant silver dome west of Tiananmen Square, has been brilliantly lit for its December debut and ticket sales are ... Read More
DIRECTORS: Wong Kar-wai
It’s criminal of a critic to give a Wong Kar-wai film less than four stars, the famed Hong Kong director is a legend, perhaps one of the last few standing. This year he was chosen to head the jury at Cannes, the first director from the ... Read More
Steve Zdarsky takes us on a 540 double twist spin through last year’s Red Bull Nanshan Open qualifier.
6:30 a.m.
Home—Miyun, near Beijing
I wake up because my phone alarm is ringing like crazy. Then it's straight to the bathroom.
6:40 Get cleaned up ... Read More
AUTHOR: Adam Kern
There are few Sinophiles out there without a healthy respect, even envy, for the vibrancy of Japanese culture, especially its all-powerful manga comics which have permanently emblazoned the Barbie Doll sex babe and the unstoppable ninja warrior on the popular imagination. These constructs have antecedents and Adam ... Read More
ARTIST: Mary J. Blige
In her first new album since 2005’s multiple Grammy-Award winning "The Breakthrough," Mary J. Blige makes the artistic admission that, despite all the success, she is still human. While sincere, the album isn’t painful, and the first single “Just Fine” proved an instant hit ... Read More
**pianographique.net
Used to be you needed thousands of kuai of equipage to spin mad tracks. No longer. Pianographique turns your QWERTY keyboard into an audio/visual sampler, with every letter and number setting off a snippet of music and an animated visual. Different sets give you a separate collection ... Read More
DIRECTOR: Marc Forster
This tale of betrayal and repentance from director Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") begins in 2000, when an Afghan emigre returns to Kabul and confronts painful memories from his childhood in the 1970’s. Based on the best selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, the film ... Read More
Karen Mok goes public about her break up in the middle of an emotional concert.
Breaking up is hard to do, but it's even more difficult for celebs. Not only do they have to face mutual friends and family but also legions of fans, reporters and paparazzi who chronicle ... Read More
Beijing
I want to explore Chinese philosophy, in Chinese. Really. I got my masters in Chinese philosophy in Canada, and I’m here now studying at Beida getting ready before I do my Ph.D. work. So my goal this year is to finally be able to take a class ... Read More
It seems reminiscent of your friendly neighborhood “Oriental Palace” restaurant, but where are the General Tsao’s chicken and fluorescent pink sweet and sour pork? The smells and greasy tables are strangely familiar, but restaurants in China aren’t the take-out from back home. Check out our January 1 lesson ... Read More
Beijing
Miss Olympics
In Changping, a little town just outside Beijing, 1,250 young women are engaged in intensive Olympic training. They’re not athletes, but they will be on the world’s TV screens handing out medals to the lucky ones on the winner’s podium. What’s it ... Read More
2008. Year of the Rat. Year of the Beijing Olympics. The year Chinese electronica broke. The year of Shanghai. The year they solved Beijing’s traffic problem. The year of breathing easy. The year of eco-friendly fuwa warrior vigilante justice. The year to cash in on Olympic tourists. The year ... Read More
Just like on some virtual playground, bullies emerge from the murk of online communities.
Readers of this column know that I am unabashedly excited about social media. Far from destroying the very fabric of human interaction as many Luddites feared, Web 2.0 did for socializing what photography did for ... Read More
China expects some 20,000 accredited journalists at the Olympics next summer, nearly twice the number of athletes. CW takes a look at four foreign correspondents to see what makes them tick.
Chicago Tribune correspondent Evan Osnos spent last month traveling through Sichuan by boat, bus, car, and on foot ... Read More
When Nagano hosted the Winter Olympics in 1998, Asia finally came of age as a real destination for snow junkies. Ten years on, CW rounds up Asia’s top spots to shred some powder.
Best for Families
Xiling, Sichuan
US$1,000/Week
Thrill factor: Low
Named after a poem ... Read More
First time filmmaker David Harris goes inside the Public Kingdom for Teens.
In an industry clouded with pretension and delusions of grandeur, David Harris is a breath of fresh air.
The New Zealand-born director, who has been honing his craft for only a few years, says he learned everything he ... Read More
Joanna Tan runs her own company helping expats find the home of their dreams for the duration of their time in China.
7:00 a.m.
_Home—Beijing's Central Park_
I’m woken up by my daughter's sweet kiss. I give her a hug and say morning to ... Read More
For some of the Sinosphere’s biggest celebs, it’s been a very “marry” Christmas indeed.
Love is in the air for many Asian celeb couples, who, one after another, bade goodbye to single status and held luxurious weddings, feasts for guests and tabloids.
The most recent is bang-up nuptial ... Read More
Want to network with Tiger Woods, Quentin Tarantino and Paris Hilton? Get invited to ASmallWorld.
The first time someone told me about the social networking site, ASmallWorld, I thought “what an incredible douche.” The friend in question takes pride in being a socialite, the type who would go to the ... Read More
Beijing
I would write about the secret lives of the five Olympic mascots. Too few people know of Beibei's nights out in Sanlitun, Huanhuan's life as a poet or Nini's affairs with numerous high profile Beijing laowais. The world must know. -Sam Byfield
Shanghai
Population control and ... Read More
Though they scare us, drive too fast and don’t wash the seat covers enough, getting a taxi is a major spoil of urban warfare in China. Our December 17 lesson, “Taxi for Tired Feet,” reminds us of all the times we wanted to kiss the taxi driver that stopped ... Read More
DIRECTOR: Chris Weitz
Based on the first book of Philip Pullman's “His Dark Materials” trilogy, this elaborate fantasy transports us to a world where people’s souls manifest themselves as animals, bears talk and 12-year-old Lyra (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards) embarks on a perilous adventure to the ... Read More
postsecret.blogspot.com
What started as an art project has become one of the Web's most viewed blogs. People anonymously mail in secrets on the back of homemade postcards to Postsecret, anything from the trivial to the profound, from embarrassing habits to hopes and dreams. At the moment blogspot ... Read More
ARTIST: Alicia Keys
The long-awaited follow up to the award-winning “Diary of Alicia Keys” brings even more soulful and gut-wrenchingly emotional songwriting to the table, embodied by the album’s first single, “No One.” A slight departure from previous work, expect to hear more echoes of Keys’ early R’n ... Read More