The Beijinger Blog - Alice Xin Liu

New Openings: Amilal

thebeijinger — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:00:06 +0800

When I told friends I was writing about Amilal Bar, they vehemently objected and told me not to. At the moment, it’s possibly the most secluded bar in Beijing, occupying 110 square meters of renovated courtyard home. The Inner Mongolian owner, Alc, has refined the space with secondhand furniture bought around Beijing and his misty black-and-white photography.

Review: The Beijing International Book Fair 2008

thebeijinger — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:23:52 +0800

Sep 1-Sep 4

The Beijing International Book Fair 2008

Tianjin International Exhibition Center
(022 2801 2976)

Tianjin is one of those small-scale towns that feel like a quainter version of Beijing. While the city has it's own Central Business District, it's located in what my taxi driver called the bailou qu (the white buildings district) - it is dwarfed by even the shortest of Beijing's CBD office buildings. The quaintness of the city and its contrast with Beijing is further sharpened by the experience of taking the new super duper high-speed train which transports you from the capital to Tianjin in only 30 minutes - at one point when I checked on the overhead electronic board it announced we'd reached a speed of 327km/hr. The train was very clean and neatly kept and amazingly the train stewardness, given that they're only on duty for half an hour, are impeccably dressed and even don an air-hostess hat.

Translation Station

thebeijinger — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:00:07 +0800

Anyone who takes their writing seriously knows that an entire morning could be spent – scrunched up in a chair – searching for the perfect sentence. Given the time it takes to produce good writing in a familiar language, the task of producing a beautiful translation of a sentence from another language could well end up condemning a writer to a lonely existence. Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin China, and Kate Griffin, literature officer from Arts Council England, were well aware of the difficulties associated with achieving quality translations when they decided to organize the first-ever Sino-British Literary Translation Course in an attempt to encourage communication between the normally reclusive translators and also for them to get feedback from the authors whose works they are translating. The course, which involved forty translation students, four professional translators (both English to Chinese and Chinese to English) and four celebrated authors (whose work the students were going to translate) took place over one week in late March at Zhejiang's damp, foggy but graceful Moganshan.

Twenty Chinese to English translators were coached by authorities Howard Goldblatt and Bonnie McDougall to produce excerpts of Chinese authors Li Er and Tie Ning's novels. Our counterparts were twenty Chinese publishing house editors translating British novelists Hari Kunzru and Bernadine Evaristo into Chinese, under the tuition of Fudan University professor Zhang Chong and Shanghai Foreign Languages University professor Shi Zhikang. Former that's Beijing Staff Writer Alice Xin Liu (who attended the course) offers this summary of the advice offered and lessons learned at the course.

Yiyun Li at The Bookworm

thebeijinger — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:15:41 +0800

Native Beijinger Yiyun Li moved to the US in 1996 to pursue a PhD in immunology. Less than ten years later, however, she still didn't have that doctorate, but she'd earned three Master's degrees - in immunology, creative writing and non-fiction - published a book (A Thousand Years of Good Prayers) and was in the midst of attempting to convince US immigration officials that she was a writer "of extraordinary ability."

People in the know had no doubt of Li's extraordinary ability. The literary world rallied to her defense in her quest to gain residency: Salman Rushdie called her "the real thing," New Yorker editor David Remnick named Li "destined to become the leading writers of their generation," Pulitzer prizewinning short story writer James Alan McPherson described her as "reinvigorating the English language." Meanwhile, her first book, a collection of short stories titled A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, received award after award (Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction).

Li's travails with US Immigration are not yet finished, but even the bureaucratic stooges can't stay blind to Li's ability forever. In the meantime, she's living and teaching in California, and this week, she's back in Beijing for the Bookworm Literary Festival, talking tonight and Thursday (for the festival closing, with author/director Zhu Wen - see below for more detail on the events). tbjblog asked Li a few questions about her love of writing and the experience of being a writer abroad.

tbjblog: Much like most of our readers, you yourself are an "expatriate." How has
that experience shaped your writing?

YL:: Interesting. I have never thought of myself as an expatriate. I am the kind of person who would stay in a hotel room and imagine about the world whether I am in New York or London, but I do have to admit that living in a foreign land one does, from time to time, obtain an invisibility, which is great for a writer, so when I am not hiding behind the curtain I go into the world to look at people's faces.

tbjblog: You're quoted in an article in the Washington Post as saying that you can only really write in English - can you comment on that a bit more?

YL:: I had never written anything (creatively) in Chinese and when I started writing I picked up English, which has become my first language in writing. When I write I think in English, and the language is as an important part of the storytelling as the rest of the stories, so it's hard to imagine to write the stories in Chinese.

Committing Journalism - Interview with Melinda Liu

thebeijinger — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:40:31 +0800

The Committing Journalism session of the Beijing Bookworm's International Literary Festival started about five minutes ago, and before you start complaining about why we didn’t tell you earlier (we did by the way), let us reassure you that the session was one of the most popular of all the events associated with the festival and tickets sold out long ago. Those lucky few who did manage to get a ticket, will currently be listening to three veteran journalists: Rob Gifford (NPR), James Kynge (Financial Times) and Jonathan Watts (The Guardian), discuss the ethics, challenges and joys of being a journalist in China. Melinda Liu, currently Newsweek Beijing Bureau chief and president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, is moderating the session. Former that’s Beijing staff writer Alice Xin Liu caught up with Melinda before the session to ask her a few questions about being a journalist in China.

tbjblog: What is the biggest surprise that you have had during your time in China?

ML: That mainland Chinese could become so greedy and so tacky so fast. The level of bad taste and money-grubbing that you see here today took many decades of nurturing for other cultures to achieve – not just the West but also places like Taiwan. When I moved here to open the Newsweek bureau in 1980, people still spent a lot of energy trying to seem egalitarian. This weekend on the highway I passed a wedding motorcade with dozens of brand-new black Mercedes' trailing a white stretch Hummer festooned with roses. I found it revolting — and was mesmerized.

New Issue of Urbane - Interview with Chinese Artist Zhang Xiaogang

thebeijinger — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:51:46 +0800

The tbjblog offers you this small slice taken from the latest issue of Urbane, in which Zhang Xiaogang talks to Alice Xin Liu about why he's one of the most expensive Chinese avant-garde artists out there, and discusses the lengthy road he has traveled. For the full interview, pick up a February issue of Urbane and turn to page 26 or go to the Urbane website http://www.urbanechina.com and download the PDF of the Upfront section.

Zhang was a member of China's '85 New Wave art movement, which is credited for bringing Chinese art to international attention, and sparking a new wave of domestic creativity. Currently, the only place that you can see any of Zhang's work here in Beijing (though it's simply one very early piece) is at the '85 New Wave exhibition currently on show at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art.

Stage Review: Bahok at Tianqiao

thebeijinger — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:00:40 +0800

To Khan or not to Khan?

London-based choreographer Akram Khan led his dance company, the Akram Khan Dance Company, to perform alongside the National Ballet of China at Beijing's Tiaoqiao Theater this past weekend. Akram Khan has been influential in bringing together two very different dancing traditions: modern dance and an Indian dance known as Kathak and his latest work, Bahok is no exception. Bahok is Bangladeshi for "carrier" and what Khan hopes to convey is how cultural identity can be carried using the body. The dance is set in a waiting room of a train station or airport departure lounge, with a large indicator board hanging from above the stage. However, the characters that emerge on the screen are not departure and arrival times but rather symbols that echo the scenes on stage. So, when the Korean dancer tells a story from his childhood and the words are played on the screen, the letters also zig-zag, Matrix like, emphasizing the confusion and tension between the characters when they are having a dance-off.

When the Cat's away... in China

thebeijinger — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:15:22 +0800

The Really Useful Group's CATS began its run at the Beijing Exhibition Theater last Friday and fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber have until the 27th of this month to catch the show. Chinese audiences seemed to have enjoyed the musical, transfixed from the moment the meowing-singing actors crawled onto the Beijing stage. They tapped their feet to the melodies and enthusiastically applauded after the musical numbers. On the premier night of the second Beijing Cats tour (the first tour was in 2004), there was a distinct feeling of uncertainty before it begun, as if the Chinese viewers didn't quite know what to expect. It was a good show though, especially if you are a musicals or Cats fan. Even if you aren't, which I didn't think I was, the show still impressed.

Kanawa Inside The Egg

thebeijinger — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:40:37 +0800

The Concert Hall of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (former official name the National Grand Theater) opened to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa on Wednesday, and it was to a crowd that was mostly white collar Westerners and Chinese officials looking a bit confused and disgruntled. We most definitely appreciated having the renowned soprano so close, but with tickets for RMB 1,280 for the inner ring, we wonder how many appreciated the price.

CCTV sport anchor resigns after wife exposes his adultery on air

thebeijinger — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:00:00 +0800

Last week the deputy head of CCTV’s sports center and main sports anchor Zhang Bin was publicly humiliated by his wife, Hu Ziwei, also a well-known presenter at BTV, during a broadcast marking CCTV5’s relaunch as the “Olympic Channel.” Hu climbed onto the stage where Zhang was presenting, and despite CCTV workers trying to pull her off, gave a heated narrative concerning Zhang’s “improper relations with another woman.” She also said that if China didn’t reassess its value system then the country could not become a great power.