London, Aug 2 : The audiences will see a tale of joy and sorrow when the film titled “8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain” is released in autumn, dramatizing the lives of thousands of girls aged 13 to 19 who went to China’s remote far west in the 1950s to follow soldiers sent to colonise the turbulent Muslim region.
In real life it was a trip to purgatory. As shooting for the film unfolds in Beijing under the watchful gaze of party censors, an astonishing story of mass deception, forced marriages and suicides has come to light, The Times reported.
Elderly women have come forward to tell how they were lured to China’s new frontier by false promises of training and education - only to find themselves locked in barracks and coerced into marrying soldiers.
Chinese journalists have also discovered that Chairman Mao Tse-tung approved the dispatch of 900 prostitutes from the brothels of Shanghaito undergo “thought reform” at the hands of the troops, The Times reports.
Thousands of war widows were also conscripted to go forth and multiply in the desert with new husbands from the People’s Liberation Army.
It casts new light on the leadership’s determination to occupy and populate the far west, known as Xinjiang, in the early 1950s.
Ethnic conflict between Chinese and the Uighur Muslim population has flared ever since. The area recently witnessed its worst riots since an insurrection in 1997 The Times reports.
The stoical endurance of hundreds of thousands of Chinese settlers has rarely been described in such bleak terms as in the accounts of the 8,000 women from Hunan province collected by Lu Yiping, an author.
He spent five years tracing the survivors of that naive pilgrimage, simple rural girls infused with the idealism of the “new China”, The Times reports.
“There were 200,000 soldiers in Xinjiang and only a handful had wives. So from 1949 to 1954 the military authorities, hushing up their real motive, recruited 40,000 women from all over China,” he said.
“They were told that
Showing posts with label chinese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chinese. Show all posts
Raising funds for orphans while keeping mum on Obama
SHENZHEN: The news release didn't say who Mark Ndesandjo was. Nor did the posters and emails promoting the Friday concert in this southern Chinese boomtown where he played piano to raise money for orphans.
But the 200 or so people who showed up for the fundraiser at a posh resort knew the man in a Chinese-style brown silk shirt was the half-brother of US President-elect Barack Obama.
They had a rare encounter with Ndesandjo, who has been dodging the media since his family ties were made public last year.
For the past seven years, Ndesandjo has been living in this freewheeling city just across the border from Hong Kong. The announcement for his piano concert identified him as a strategic marketing consultant. He also helped start a chain of eateries in China called Cabin BBQ.
Ndesandjo has a thin mustache, shaved head and a gold stud in his left earlobe. He slightly resembles his half-brother, and shares the same trim, athletic physique. He speaks Mandarin, is a vegetarian and practises Chinese calligraphy.
He said he had just finished a novel called Nairobi to Shenzhen, but has no publisher yet.
Ndesandjo apparently wants a low-key life separate from Obama. No one mentioned his family when he was introduced at the charity concert and cocktail party sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China.
During brief remarks on stage, Ndesandjo mentioned that he would visit the US in a couple of days, apparently to attend Tuesday's presidential inauguration. He said if he didn't make the trip in time, he would embarrass his family.
He told the crowd that chamber president Harley Seyedin was fond of the president-elect and added: "I like my president, too!"
That was the closest he came to mentioning Barack Obama.
Ndesandjo's reluctance to play up his famous relative is unusual in China, where people commonly name drop and use their connections to advance their interests.
In China, relationships, or guanxi, with powerful people are golden and rarely wasted in winning new business or opening other doors.
As his Chinese wife watched, Ndesandjo began his performance with a Chinese tune called Liuyang River followed by what he said was Chopin's First Nocturne. His third and final piece was a jazz tune by Fats Waller called Viper's Drag.
He played with passion, at times hunched over the keyboard or rocking back with his eyes closed and lips slightly parted in expressions of ecstasy and agony.
His Chinese friend and restaurant business partner, Sui Zhenjun, said he had known Ndesandjo since he arrived in China in 2002.
"It wasn't until in July, when media reports started surfacing about him being related to Obama that I found out they were related," he said.
Ndesandjo declined to answer questions from the press at the concert. He wouldn't confirm basic details about his past or discuss his relationship with Obama.
He uses the surname of his mother, Ruth, the third wife of his father, who died in 1982. He was born in Kenya and moved to the United States when he was a child.
Footage from a Chinese TV news show posted on Youtube shows him practising calligraphy at home and teaching children how to play the piano, praising them in Mandarin and English.
After the event, Ndesandjo chatted with friends and shook hands as he slowly walked out of the venue pursued by journalists hoping for a comment.
He slipped into an elevator and continued to ignore questions as the door slowly closed. -- AP
But the 200 or so people who showed up for the fundraiser at a posh resort knew the man in a Chinese-style brown silk shirt was the half-brother of US President-elect Barack Obama.
They had a rare encounter with Ndesandjo, who has been dodging the media since his family ties were made public last year.
For the past seven years, Ndesandjo has been living in this freewheeling city just across the border from Hong Kong. The announcement for his piano concert identified him as a strategic marketing consultant. He also helped start a chain of eateries in China called Cabin BBQ.
Ndesandjo has a thin mustache, shaved head and a gold stud in his left earlobe. He slightly resembles his half-brother, and shares the same trim, athletic physique. He speaks Mandarin, is a vegetarian and practises Chinese calligraphy.
He said he had just finished a novel called Nairobi to Shenzhen, but has no publisher yet.
Ndesandjo apparently wants a low-key life separate from Obama. No one mentioned his family when he was introduced at the charity concert and cocktail party sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China.
During brief remarks on stage, Ndesandjo mentioned that he would visit the US in a couple of days, apparently to attend Tuesday's presidential inauguration. He said if he didn't make the trip in time, he would embarrass his family.
He told the crowd that chamber president Harley Seyedin was fond of the president-elect and added: "I like my president, too!"
That was the closest he came to mentioning Barack Obama.
Ndesandjo's reluctance to play up his famous relative is unusual in China, where people commonly name drop and use their connections to advance their interests.
In China, relationships, or guanxi, with powerful people are golden and rarely wasted in winning new business or opening other doors.
As his Chinese wife watched, Ndesandjo began his performance with a Chinese tune called Liuyang River followed by what he said was Chopin's First Nocturne. His third and final piece was a jazz tune by Fats Waller called Viper's Drag.
He played with passion, at times hunched over the keyboard or rocking back with his eyes closed and lips slightly parted in expressions of ecstasy and agony.
His Chinese friend and restaurant business partner, Sui Zhenjun, said he had known Ndesandjo since he arrived in China in 2002.
"It wasn't until in July, when media reports started surfacing about him being related to Obama that I found out they were related," he said.
Ndesandjo declined to answer questions from the press at the concert. He wouldn't confirm basic details about his past or discuss his relationship with Obama.
He uses the surname of his mother, Ruth, the third wife of his father, who died in 1982. He was born in Kenya and moved to the United States when he was a child.
Footage from a Chinese TV news show posted on Youtube shows him practising calligraphy at home and teaching children how to play the piano, praising them in Mandarin and English.
After the event, Ndesandjo chatted with friends and shook hands as he slowly walked out of the venue pursued by journalists hoping for a comment.
He slipped into an elevator and continued to ignore questions as the door slowly closed. -- AP
Internet main source of news for 206 million Chinese
New Delhi, Dec 25 : The Internet is the main source of news for about 206 million Chinese, according to a new report.
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a top academic institution, released the figure in the Blue Book of China's Economy (2009) report, reports the China Daily.
Zhu Huaxin, author of the report, said that disasters such as snowstorms during the Lunar New Year holiday, the massive earthquake that struck the southwestern Sichuan province in May as well as the Olympics stimulated the growth of the online news population.
"The year 2008 saw rapid development and wide application of the Internet in China," he said.
Chinese Internet users hit 253 million at the end of June, the most in the world.
The latest official figures put users at 290 million. That's 80 million more Internet users than in 2007, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
About 80 percent of these users look for information and news through the Internet. Around 60 percent of them use search engines.
CNNIC found that people younger than 30 are the majority of online news readers, accounting for about 69 percent of total Internet users.
ANI
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a top academic institution, released the figure in the Blue Book of China's Economy (2009) report, reports the China Daily.
Zhu Huaxin, author of the report, said that disasters such as snowstorms during the Lunar New Year holiday, the massive earthquake that struck the southwestern Sichuan province in May as well as the Olympics stimulated the growth of the online news population.
"The year 2008 saw rapid development and wide application of the Internet in China," he said.
Chinese Internet users hit 253 million at the end of June, the most in the world.
The latest official figures put users at 290 million. That's 80 million more Internet users than in 2007, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
About 80 percent of these users look for information and news through the Internet. Around 60 percent of them use search engines.
CNNIC found that people younger than 30 are the majority of online news readers, accounting for about 69 percent of total Internet users.
ANI
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