LinkChinese UK News

Writer and director Dai Sijie’s (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress) new book Once on a Moonless Night will be publised on 1 Jan 2009. Introduction from the publisher:

Beguiling and ambitious, this new novel by the author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, is ostensibly a search for an ancient text, and a love story. But beneath that is a haunting tale about language and identity, about the shifting layers of history under the confusing surface of Chinese life and politics, with a final Buddhist twist.

A young French woman in Peking in the late 1970s interprets between Chinese professors and Bertolucci for his film The Last Emperor. Afterwards, she follows a disgruntled old professor who tells her about a text believed to be taken directly from Buddha’s teachings and inscribed on silk cloth centuries ago. It was written in a now-dead language called Tumchooq (coincidentally, the name of a young Chinese man she has just met), so beautiful in its simplicity it is almost impossible to render accurately in translation. Puyi, the last emperor and last owner of this relic, allegedly tore the silk in two with his teeth while being flown to Manchuria by the Japanese, and threw the fragments from the plane. Only half of the mutilated manuscript was recovered, and the reader, like the narrator, must wait till the end of the novel to discover the rest. When the complete text is finally pieced together, its message is devastatingly simple, and all the more poignant because it has taken such sacrifice and effort to decipher.

Comprising ancient texts and fables, stories within stories, and a young man’s desperate search for his father’s legacy, this brilliant novel, covering almost a century of China’s history, has the modernity and tenderness of the film, Lost in Translation.

 

Tina Freeth’s short story Growing up on Lard is chosen to be included in The Map of Me: True Tales of Mixed-Heritage Experience, an anthology by Penguin in collaboration with decibel, the ethnic diversity unit of the Arts Council.
The stories in the anthology were written by people who have a mixed heritage, and selected a panel of six judges.

Tina Freeth is of Chinese descent and grew up in Birmingham with her white foster family. She wrote her first piece of creative non-fiction, Growing up on Lard, in 2006. Since then she has had some short stories published and a play recently performed. She is a student at the National Academy of Writing and currently writing her memoir.

 

UK Border Agency will accept application for tiers 2 and 5 of the points-bases system. These two tiers have replaced the following schemes:

* Work permits
* Sportspeople and entertainers
* Overseas qualified nurses and midwives
* Representatives of overseas media organisations
* Airport ground crew
* Some seafarers including those working on vessels on one-port voyages
* Missionaries and minsters of religion
* China graduate work experience scheme
* Training and work experience scheme
* Overseas government employees
* General agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
* Domestic workers in diplomatic households
* Voluntary workers
* Working holidaymaker scheme
* Au pairs
* Gap year
* Japan: youth exchange scheme

UK Border Agency announcement in full.

 

China Daily’s journalist Fu Jing, who’s part of the Sichuan Earthquake Update team, has recently traveled to Sichuan and started a new programme to help the poor families in Pingwu county and other areas of Sichuan. If you’d like to help, please contact Fu Jing or write to us and we’re happy to pass your message.

Extend help to quake victims
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-08 08:00

Charitable deeds should be done without publicity.

This my friend James Jao believes is a traditional Chinese virtue, and he has engraved it in his mind as one of life’s philosophies. I agree.

But after an enlightening weekend tour of Sichuan’s earthquake zone, we decided to put aside that belief for a while. Our desire was to share what we were doing in a ruined primary school - bring hope, more help and assistance to kids enveloped in the scarred mountains.

It began half year ago when I was reporting the earthquake. In the ruins of Hongbai Primary School of Shifang, one of the severely hit cities near the epicenter, I found a dozen paintings by kids, which were themed “Green Earth” and “World Full of Love.”

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Newcastle University expelled fifty Chinese students (49 from mainland China, one from Taiwan) for using the forged documents when applying for the position in the universities, most of whom had enrolled in the business school of the University.

BBC reports:

The forgeries, mainly certificates for English language qualifications or degrees awarded by other universities, were of such high quality that they had not been detected by the usual checks.

They have all been handed to the police and the Home Office has also been informed.

Newcastle University said many of the students appeared to be victims of bogus agents based either in China or the UK and who were paid to submit applications, including supporting documents, on their behalf.

However, it was necessary to exclude them to protect the interests of hundreds of properly qualified students, and the reputation of the university.

Read the full story.

 

David Tse Ka-Shing of the Yellow Earth Theatre writes on the Guardian:

It’s time to put British east Asian theatre in the spotlight

Of the three largest ethnic minority groups in the UK, the British east Asian (BEA) presence in arts and culture is still the most invisible. Go to any subsidised theatre or turn on the TV and you’ll know what I mean. EastEnders, in 23 years of being broadcast, has regularly featured south Asian and black families but the only Chinese presence so far has been someone selling dodgy DVDs. It’s a far cry from the 100,000 or so British east Asians – the majority of them professionals – living and working in London.

The need for accurate representation – and cultural change – is paramount. Typhoon 5, the east Asian play-reading festival I’m currently organising at Soho theatre in London, is just one attempt to redress that.

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BBC reports:

A man has appeared in court charged with the murders of a Chinese couple at their flat in Newcastle.

The mutilated bodies of Zhen Xing Yang and his girlfriend Xi Zhou, both 25, were discovered in their home in Croydon Road on 9 August.

Guang Hui Cao, 30, of Castle Close, Morpeth, was remanded in custody during a hearing at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

He is now due to appear before the city’s crown court on 10 November.

Two other men arrested in connection with the killings have been bailed pending further inquiries.

 

Minister tells Times of urgent need for policy change to ease racial tension.
Richard Ford, Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson report on Times

Strict limits are to be imposed on immigration amid fears that unemployment rises in the economic downturn will fuel racial tension.

Phil Woolas, in his first interview since taking over as Immigration Minister, said that he wanted to see a dramatic reduction in the number of migrants coming to Britain.

In what many will see as extraordinary remarks for a Labour minister, he told The Times that the economic backdrop changed everything. “If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny . . . It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past and it’s going to get harder,” he said.

Ministers intended to introduce changes to allow it to set a limit on migration, he said. “This Government isn’t going to allow the population to go up to 70 million. There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving.”

Read the full story

 

Lu Ning’s comment first appered on the Guardian.

While the financial crisis is deepening and spreading, attention is turning to the east. A cartoon in the Australian shows a character saying that western capitalists are looking for eastern socialists to save them.

To Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, this is not a joke. He argued during a Radio Australia interview that the steady growth of China’s economy would be extremely helpful for getting Australia out of the financial crisis.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s economic forecast published last week, most western countries are facing recession next year, while China’s economy will keep growing at 9%. Rudd believes this is good news for Australia. China’s demands for ore, coal and other materials has fuelled the growth of Australia in the recent years. At the moment, China is Australia’s largest trading partner.

Last week’s announcement of interest rates cuts by China was part of a coordinated effort by the world’s central banks. It was seen by most media commentators not as a necessary step to protect China’s financial system, but as a signal showing China’s willingness to take more responsibilities on the international stage.

It is obvious to China that in economic, political and diplomatic terms, it is now in good position in relation to Australia, US and Europe.

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Interval II  - Suki Chan’s beautiful new film installation exploring our transient relationship to the built environment – showing at Chinese Arts Centre until 22 December 2008

Interval II is a high definition tryptich film installation examining the traces of human presence between two contrasting landscapes: a cast-iron pier on the northwest coast of England and a traditional Hakka roundhouse in southwest China. Using light, sound and moving image, Interval II presents a poetic portrait of the significance within the architectures and invite the viewer to slow down and contemplate our relationship to the world around us.

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