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Tintin in Tibet (French: Tintin au Tibet) is the twentieth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was serialised weekly from September 1958 to November 1959 in Tintin magazine and published as a book in 1960. Hergé considered it his favourite Tintin adventure and an emotional effort, as he created it while suffering from traumatic nightmares and a personal conflict while deciding to leave his wife of three decades for a younger woman. The story tells of the young reporter Tintin in search of his friend Chang Chong-Chen, who the authorities claim has died in a plane crash in the Himalayas. Convinced that Chang has survived and accompanied only by Snowy, Captain Haddock and the Sherpa guide Tharkey, Tintin crosses the Himalayas to the plateau of Tibet, along the way encountering the mysterious Yeti.
Following The Red Sea Sharks (1958) and its large number of characters, Tintin in Tibet differs from other stories in the series in that it features only a few familiar characters and is also Hergé's only adventure not to pit Tintin against an antagonist. Themes in Hergé's story include extrasensory perception, the mysticism of Tibetan Buddhism, and friendship. Translated into 32 languages, Tintin in Tibet was widely acclaimed by critics and is generally considered to be Hergé's finest work; it has also been praised by the Dalai Lama, who awarded it the Light of Truth Award. The story was a commercial success and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion; the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Tintin in Tibet was adapted for the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin, the 1992–93 BBC Radio 5 dramatisation of the Adventures, the 1996 video game of the same name, and the 2005–06 Young Vic musical Hergé's Adventures of Tintin; it was also prominently featured in the 2003 documentary Tintin and I and has been the subject of a museum exhibition. (Full article...)
Born in Shanghai, Yao began playing for the Sharks as a teenager, and played on their senior team for five years in the CBA, winning a championship in his final year. After negotiating with the CBA and the Sharks to secure his release, Yao was selected by the Rockets as the first overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft. He reached the NBA playoffs four times, and in 2009, helped the Rockets win their first playoff series since 1997. After missing several games due to a series of foot and ankle injuries in his last six seasons, Yao announced his retirement from professional basketball in 2011. Among Rockets franchise leaders, Yao ranks second in total blocks, sixth in total rebounds, and ranked sixth in total points at the time of his retirement. (Full article...)
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Luo Yixiu (Chinese:羅一秀; 20 October 1889 – 11 February 1910) was the first wife of Chinese communist revolutionary and future leader of China, Mao Zedong, to whom she was married from 1908 until her death. Coming from the area around Shaoshan, Hunan, in south central China – the same region as Mao – her family were impoverished local landowners.
Most of what is known about their marriage comes from an account Mao gave to the American reporter Edgar Snow in 1936, which Snow included in his book Red Star Over China. According to Mao, he and Luo Yixiu were the subject of an arranged marriage organised by their respective fathers, Mao Yichang and Luo Helou. Luo was eighteen and Mao just fourteen years old at the time of their betrothal. Although Mao took part in the wedding ceremony, he later said that he was unhappy with the marriage, never consummating it and refusing to live with his wife. Socially disgraced, she lived with Mao's parents for two years until she died of dysentery, while he moved out of the village to continue his studies elsewhere, eventually becoming a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. Various biographers have suggested that Mao's experience of this marriage affected his later views, leading him to become a critic of arranged marriage and a vocal feminist. He married three more times, to Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen and Jiang Qing, the last of whom was better known as Madame Mao. (Full article...)
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The empire in 661, when it reached its greatest extent
The Li family founded the dynasty after taking advantage of a period of Sui decline and precipitating their final collapse, in turn inaugurating a period of progress and stability in the first half of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty was formally interrupted from 690 to 705 when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Wu Zhou dynasty and becoming the only legitimate Chinese female emperor. The An Lushan rebellion (755–763) led to devastation and the decline of central authority during the latter half of the dynasty. The Tang maintained a civil-service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardised examinations and recommendations to office. The rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century undermined civil order. The dynasty and central government went into decline by the latter half of the 9th century; agrarian rebellions resulted in mass population loss and displacement, widespread poverty, and further government dysfunction that ultimately ended the dynasty in 907. (Full article...)
The modern Chinese varieties make frequent use of what are called classifiers or measure words. One use of classifiers is when a noun is qualified by a numeral or demonstrative. In the Chinese equivalent of a phrase such as "three books" or "that person", it is normally necessary to insert an appropriate classifier between the numeral/demonstrative and the noun. For example, in Standard Chinese, the first of these phrases would be: (Full article...)
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Posthumous portrait
Du Fu (Chinese:杜甫; pinyin:Dù Fǔ; Wade–Giles:Tu Fu; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and government official of the Tang dynasty. Together with his older contemporary and friend Li Bai, he is one of the principal poets associated with Tang poetry. Nearly 1,500 poems attributed to him survive.
Du Fu pursued an official career and briefly served as a remonstrance official at the imperial court. The An Lushan rebellion, which began in 755, displaced him and his family and shaped much of his later writing. He lived in Qinzhou and Chengdu before traveling through the middle Yangtze region. Du Fu died in 770; accounts differ on the place and cause of his death. (Full article...)
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Rob-B-Hood (traditional Chinese:寶貝計劃; simplified Chinese:宝贝计划, also known as Robin-B-Hood, literally: Baby Project) is a 2006 Hong Kong action comedy drama film written, produced and directed by Benny Chan, feature an ensemble cast include Jackie Chan, Louis Koo, Yuen Biao, Michael Hui, Gao Yuanyuan, Charlene Choi, Chen Baoguo and Matthew Medvedev. It tells the story of a kidnapping gone wrong in Hong Kong; a trio of burglars consisting of Thongs (Chan), Octopus (Koo) and the Landlord (Hui) kidnap a baby from a wealthy family on behalf of triads. With the Landlord arrested, Thongs and Octopus take care of the baby for a short time, developing strong bonds with him. Reluctant to hand the baby over, the two are forced to protect him from the triads who hired them in the first place.
Originally announced in 2005, the film marked Benny Chan's third collaboration with Jackie Chan, following Who Am I? and New Police Story. It was produced with a budget of HK$16.8 million and filming took place in Hong Kong between December 2005 and January 2006. Rob-B-Hood is the first film in over 30 years in which Jackie Chan plays as a thief. (Full article...)
Brady was born an American citizen in Tientsin, China, and traveled frequently as a child, spending time in Los Angeles, California, British Columbia, and Austin, Texas. She studied in the University of California system, receiving her bachelor's and master's degrees, and her Ph.D. in 1935. She next became an English instructor at that university's College of Agriculture, and worked as an assistant professor of languages and literature at Berkeley from 1941 to 1946. The following three years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania, until, at the end of 1949, Brady moved to teach at Central Oregon Community College; her resignation due to "ill health" was announced a few months later. After being named the 1952–53 Marion Talbot Fellow of the American Association of University Women and writing two articles, Brady's scholarship ceased for a quarter of a century. In 1979, and posthumously in 1983, her final two articles were published. (Full article...)
St. Michael's Cathedral (German: Kathedrale St. Michael; simplified Chinese:圣弥额尔主教座堂; traditional Chinese:聖彌額爾主教座堂; pinyin:Shèng Mí'ài'ěr Dàjiàotáng), also called the Zhejiang Road Catholic Church (Chinese:浙江路天主教堂), is a Catholic church in Qingdao (Tsingtao), Shandong Province, China, and is the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Qingdao (Tsingtao). It is located in the oldest part of Qingdao, at 15 Zhejiang Road (formerly Bremen Straße), on the east side of Zhongshan Road (formerly Friedrich Straße) in Shinan District. Built by German missionaries, the cathedral stands at the top of a hill in the center of the old German-built part of the city. It is the largest example of Romanesque Revival architecture in the province, resembling a German cathedral of the 12th century.
St. Michael's Cathedral is the product of a strong German presence in Shandong Province in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the mid-19th century the European powers forcibly opened China to foreign trade. The Divine Word Missionaries built a church in the Jiaozhou Bay concession in Shandong in 1902, and in 1934 erected the cathedral, which remained nominally under their administration until 1964. In 1942 it came under the control of the Japanese Army, returning to Chinese control when the Japanese left Qingdao in 1945. In the early 1950s, all foreign missionaries, including the Bishop of Qingdao, were either imprisoned or expelled from China, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the cathedral was defaced and abandoned. In 1981, it was repaired by the government and reopened for services, and in 1992 it was listed as a Provincial Historic Building by the government of Shandong Province. (Full article...)
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Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a 1993 American biographical drama film directed by Rob Cohen. The film stars Jason Scott Lee, with a supporting cast including Lauren Holly, Nancy Kwan, and Robert Wagner. The film follows the life of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee (Jason) from his relocation to the United States from Hong Kong to his career as a martial arts teacher, and then as a television and film actor. It also focuses on the relationship between Bruce and his wife Linda, and the racism to which Bruce was subjected.
The primary source of the screenplay is Cadwell's 1975 biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew. Other sources include Robert Clouse's book Bruce Lee: The Biography and research by Cohen, including interviews with Cadwell and Bruce's son, Brandon Lee. Rather than a traditional biographical film, Cohen decided to include elements of mysticism and to dramatise fight scenes to give it the same tone as the films in which Bruce starred. Dragon was filmed primarily in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Full article...)
The Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) was the second imperial dynasty of China, following the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC). It was divided into the periods of Western (Former) Han (202 BC – 9 AD) and Eastern (Later) Han (25–220 AD), briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) of Wang Mang. The capital of Western Han was Chang'an, and the capital of Eastern Han was Luoyang. The emperor headed the government, promulgating all written laws, serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and presiding as the chief executive official. He appointed all government officials who earned a salary of 600 bushels of grain or more (though these salaries were largely paid in coin cash) with the help of advisors who reviewed each nominee. The empress dowager could either be the emperor's actual or symbolic mother, and was in practice more respected than the emperor, as she could override his decisions; she could even make decisions on behalf of the emperor in dilemma matters of the country or for the order and continuation of the dynasty. If necessary, with the support of the courtiers, she would decide on his successor or his dismissal, although such a challenge was only raised by the empress dowager to the emperor during the emperor's youth or incapacity. The emperor's executive powers could also be practiced by any official upon whom he bestowed the Staff of Authority. These powers included the right to execute criminals without the imperial court's permission.
Pallas's leaf warbler is one of the smallest Palearcticwarblers, with a relatively large head and short tail. It has greenish upperparts and white underparts, a lemon-yellow rump, and yellow double wingbars, supercilia and central crown stripe. It is similar in appearance to several other Asian warblers, including some that were formerly considered to be subspecies of it, although its distinctive vocalisations aid identification. (Full article...)
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Peking opera in Shanghai, 2014
Peking opera, or Beijing opera, Jingju (simplified Chinese:京剧; traditional Chinese:京劇; pinyin:Jīngjù), is the dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines instrumental music, vocal performance, miming, martial arts, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century. The form was extremely popular in the Qing court and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China. Major performance troupes are based in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. The art form is also preserved in Taiwan, where it is also known as Guójù (Chinese:國劇; lit. 'National opera'). It has also spread to other regions such as the United States and Japan.
Peking opera features four main role types: shēng (生; 'gentlemen'), dàn (旦; 'women'), jìng (淨/净; 'rough men'), and chǒu (丑; 'clowns'). Performing troupes often have several of each variety, as well as numerous secondary and tertiary performers. With their elaborate and colorful costumes, performers are the only focal points on Peking opera's characteristically sparse stage. They use the skills of speech, song, dance and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive, rather than realistic. Above all else, the skill of performers is evaluated according to the beauty of their movements. Performers also adhere to a variety of stylistic conventions that help audiences navigate the plot of the production. The layers of meaning within each movement must be expressed in time with music. The music of Peking opera can be divided into the xīpí (西皮) and èrhuáng (二黃/二黄) styles. Melodies include arias, fixed-tune melodies and percussion patterns. The repertoire of Peking opera includes over 1,400 works, which are based on Chinese history, folklore and, increasingly, contemporary life. (Full article...)
Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students. When one of the boys takes off in search of work in the big city, she goes looking for him. The film addresses education reform in China, the economic gap between urban and rural populations, and the prevalence of bureaucracy and authority figures in everyday life. It is filmed in a neorealist/documentary style with a troupe of non-professional actors who play characters with the same names and occupations as the actors have in real life, blurring the boundaries between drama and reality. (Full article...)
Hunan cuisine, also known as Xiang cuisine, consists of the cuisines of the Xiang River region, Dongting Lake and western Hunan Province in China. It is one of the Eight Great Traditions of Chinese cuisine and is well known for its hot and spicy flavours, fresh aroma and deep colours. Despite this, only about 20% of the cuisine uses capsicum to produce a strong spicy taste. Common cooking techniques include stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising and smoking. Due to the high agricultural output of the region, many different ingredients are used in Hunan dishes. (Full article...)
The Sera Monastery, as a complex of structures with the Great Assembly Hall and three colleges, was founded in 1419 by Jamchen Chojey of Sakya Yeshe of Zel Gungtang (1355–1435), a disciple of Je Tsongkhapa. During the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, Sera monastery suffered severe damage, with its colleges destroyed and hundreds of monks killed. The origin of its name is attributed to a fact that during construction, the hill behind the monastery was covered with blooming wild roses (or "sera" in Tibetan). (An alternate etymology holds that the location that was surrounded by raspberry shrubs called 'Sewa' in Tibetan, that formed like a 'Rawa' in Tibetan, meaning "Fence".) (Full article...)
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Gui Minhai (Chinese:桂民海; pinyin:Guì Mínhǎi; Jyutping:gwai3 man4 hoi2; born 5 May 1964), also known as Michael Gui, is a Hong Kong-Swedish book publisher and writer. He is an author of many books related to Chinese politics and Chinese political figures; Gui authored around 200 books during his ten-year career under the pen-name Ah Hai (阿海) and was one of three shareholders of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong.
Gui went missing in Thailand in late 2015, one of five men who vanished in a string of incidents known as the Causeway Bay Books disappearances. The case ignited fears locally and in Britain over the collapse of "one country, two systems", over the possibility that people could be subject to rendition from Hong Kong and from other countries by Chinese law enforcement. The Chinese government had been silent about holding him in custody for three months, at which point a controversial video confession was broadcast on mainland media. In it, Gui said that he had returned to mainland China and surrendered to the authorities of his own volition; he appeared to indicate that he was prepared to follow the course of justice in China, while waiving protection as a Swedish citizen. Gui's case has severely strained the relations between Sweden and China. (Full article...)
Lantian Man (simplified Chinese:蓝田人; traditional Chinese:藍田人; pinyin:Lántián rén), Homo erectus lantianensis) is a subspecies of Homo erectus known from an almost complete mandible from Chenchiawo (陈家窝) Village discovered in 1963, and a partial skull from Gongwangling (公王岭) Village discovered in 1964, situated in Lantian County on the Loess Plateau. The former dates to about 710–684 thousand years ago, and the latter 1.65–1.59 million years ago. This makes Lantian Man the second-oldest firmly dated H. erectus beyond Africa (after H. e. georgicus), and the oldest in East Asia. The fossils were first described by Woo Ju-Kan in 1964, who considered the subspecies an ancestor to Peking Man (H. e. pekinensis).
Like Peking Man, Lantian Man has a heavy brow ridge, a receding forehead, possibly a sagittal keel running across the midline of the skull, and exorbitantly thickened bone. The skull is small by absolute measure, and has narrower postorbital constriction. The teeth are proportionally large compared to other Asian H. erectus. The brain volume of the Gongwangling skull is about 780 cc, similar to contemporary archaic humans in Africa, but much smaller than later Asian H. erectus and modern humans. (Full article...)
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Map of the Luoyang–Hulao campaign
The Battle of Hulao, (Chinese:虎牢之戰) or Battle of Sishui (汜水之戰, Wade–Giles: Ssŭ Shui), was a decisive Tang victory over the rival Zheng and Hebei-based Xia polities during the transition from Sui to Tang. The battle took place during the Luoyang–Hulao campaign on 28 May 621 when a Xia army – led by Dou Jiande, ruler of Xia – was defeated attacking a smaller Tang army – led by Prince Li Shimin – entrenched at the strategic Hulao Pass.
Li launched the Luoyang–Hulao campaign in August 620, attacking eastwards and quickly besieging Wang Shichong, ruler of Zheng, in Luoyang. Zheng attempts to break the siege failed, and they appealed to Xia for help. In April 621, Dou led a Xia army of 100,000–120,000 troops westward to break the siege. Instead of retreating back to the Tang heartland in Shanxi, Li maintained the siege and took a small part of the Tang army further east to the Hulao Pass to block the Xia. A stalemate ensued for a few weeks; the Tang refused to fight outside of their positions, and the Xia refused to outflank Li or redirect their offensive to Shanxi. (Full article...)
Map showing the expansion of Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC
The Han campaigns against Minyue were a series of three Han military campaigns dispatched against the Minyue state. The first campaign was in response to Minyue's invasion of Eastern Ou in 138BC. In 135BC, a second campaign was sent to intervene in a war between Minyue and Nanyue. After the campaign, the Han dynasty divided Minyue among the Minyue king Zou Chou (騶丑) and the Dongyue king Zou Yushan (騶餘善). In 111 BC, the rebellion instigated by Zou Yushan in the hope of self-governance was suppressed, prompting the Han dynasty's complete annexation of Dongyue into its dominion and the conquest of the residual territories that constituted the former Minyue, effectively consolidating the permanent integration of both domains into the Han empire indefinitely. (Full article...)
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On June 2, 2012, Feng Jianmei (Chinese:冯建梅; pinyin:Féng Jiànméi) was forced to have an abortion in Zhenping County, Shaanxi, China, when she was seven months pregnant with her second child. Local officials had demanded that she and her husband pay a 40,000 yuan fine for violating the nation's one-child policy. When they were unable to do so, authorities arrested Feng, made her sign an agreement to have an abortion, and held her down while injecting her with an abortifacient. She was reportedly traumatized by the incident and in poor health afterwards.
On June 11, Feng's family posted graphic pictures of her stillborn child. The images soon became a viral phenomenon, sparking controversy within China and drawing international attention to the issue of forced abortions. In response to national and international attention, the Chinese government launched an investigation. On June 26, the investigation determined that Feng was not legally entitled to a second child, but that her rights had nonetheless been violated by the local family planning bureau, and as a result, two officials were fired and five others punished. On June 27, the National Population and Family Planning Commission announced it would send inspection teams across China to review the practices of local family planning divisions. Feng's husband, Deng Jiyuan (Chinese:邓吉元; pinyin:Dèng Jíyuán), hired a lawyer to pursue criminal charges, but ultimately the family decided to settle out of court. (Full article...)
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The Blue Lotus (French: Le Lotus bleu) is the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from August 1934 to October 1935 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1936. Continuing where the plot of the previous story, Cigars of the Pharaoh, left off, the story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are invited to China in the middle of the 1931 Japanese invasion, where Tintin reveals the machinations of Japanese spies and uncovers a drug-smuggling ring.
In creating The Blue Lotus, Hergé exhibited a newfound emphasis on accuracy and documentation in his portrayal of foreign societies. He was heavily influenced by his close friend Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student studying in Belgium, and the work both satirises common European misconceptions about China as well as criticising the actions of the Japanese invaders. The Blue Lotus was a commercial success in Belgium and was soon serialised in France and Switzerland, while news of the book led the Chinese political leader Chiang Kai-shek to invite Hergé to visit China. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Broken Ear, while the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1946, The Blue Lotus was partially re-drawn and coloured by the cartoonist and his team of assistants; during this process a number of minor plot elements were changed. The adventure introduces the recurring characters J.M. Dawson and Chang Chong-Chen. The story was adapted for a 1991 episode of the Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin. Critical analysis of the story has been positive, with various commentators considering it to be one of Hergé's finest works. (Full article...)
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Map of the expansion of the Han dynasty in 2nd century BC
Han Chinese culture took root into the newly conquered territories and the Baiyue and Dian tribes were eventually assimilated or displaced by the Han Empire. Evidence of Han dynasty influences are apparent in artifacts excavated in the Baiyue tombs of modern southern China. This sphere of influence eventually extended to various ancient Southeast Asian states, where contact led to the spread of Han Chinese culture, trade and political diplomacy. The increased demand for Chinese silk also led to the establishment of the Silk Road connecting Europe, the Near East, and China. (Full article...)
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Wu Zuguang (Chinese:吴祖光; pinyin:Wú Zǔguāng; Wade–Giles:Wu Tsu-kuang; 21 April 1917 – 9 April 2003) was a Chinese playwright, film director and social critic who has been called a "legendary figure in Chinese art and literary circles". He authored more than 40 plays and film scripts, including the patriotic drama City of Phoenix, one of the most influential plays during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Return on a Snowy Night, which is generally considered his masterpiece. He directed The Soul of the Nation, Hong Kong's first colour film, based on his own historical drama Song of Righteousness.
He was also well known as an outspoken critic of China's cultural policies, both of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist governments, and was repeatedly persecuted as a result. He fled to Hong Kong in 1945 to avoid being captured by KMT agents, and returned to Beijing after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. He was denounced as a "rightist" during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and performed hard labour in the "Great Northern Wilderness" for three years, and was again persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. His wife, the celebrated pingju actress Xin Fengxia, refused to divorce him and became disabled after undergoing beatings and penal labour. Despite these ordeals, Wu continued to criticize government censorship and to call for political freedom, and was widely admired for his moral conviction. (Full article...)
Ding Junhui (Chinese:丁俊晖; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport. Throughout his career, he has won 15 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005, 2009, 2019), and in 2014, became the first Asian world number one. He has twice reached the final of the Masters, winning once in 2011. In 2016, he became the first Asian player to reach the final of the World Championship.
Ding began playing snooker at age nine and rose to international prominence in 2002 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championship and the Asian Championship. At age 15, he became the youngest winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. In 2003, Ding turned professional at the age of 16. His first major professional successes came in 2005 when he won the China Open and the UK Championship, becoming the first player from outside Great Britain and Ireland to win the title. (Full article...)
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) is the supreme supervisory organ of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCDI is elected and supervised by the CCP National Congress. It is tasked with defending the party constitution, enforcing inner-party regulations, coordinating anti-corruption work, and safeguarding the core position of the CCP general secretaryXi Jinping and the party as a whole. Safeguarding the political position of Xi and the Central Committee is, officially, the CCDI's highest responsibility. Since the vast majority of officials at all levels of government are also CCP members, the commission is, in practice, the top anti-corruption body in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
At its first plenary session after being elected by a CCP National Congress, the CCDI elect its secretary, deputy secretaries, secretary general and other Standing Committee members. The CCDI then reports the election results to the Central Committee, which can either approve or disapprove of the results. The CCDI Standing Committee is responsible for convening and presiding over plenary sessions of the CCDI. When the CCDI is not in session, its powers and responsibilities are delegated to the CCDI Standing Committee, which has to implement the decisions of the CCP Central Committee and the CCDI plenary sessions. It is held accountable to the CCDI plenary sessions. The secretary convenes, presides over the work and sets the agenda of the CCDI Standing Committee meetings. The current secretary is Li Xi, who was elected by the 1st Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and approved by the 20th Central Committee on 23 October 2022. (Full article...)
Portia labiata is a jumping spider (family Salticidae) found in Sri Lanka, India, southern China, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Singapore, Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. In this medium-sized jumping spider, the front part is orange-brown and the back part is brownish. The conspicuous main eyes provide vision more acute than a cat's during the day and 10times more acute than a dragonfly's, and this is essential in P. labiata′s navigation, hunting and mating.
The genusPortia has been called "eight-legged cats", as their hunting tactics are as versatile and adaptable as a lion's. All members of Portia have instinctive hunting tactics for their most common prey, but often can improvise by trial and error against unfamiliar prey or in unfamiliar situations, and then remember the new approach. While most jumping spiders prey mainly on insects and by active hunting, females of Portia also build webs to catch prey directly and sometimes join their own webs on to those of web-based spiders. Both females and males prefer web spiders as prey, followed by other jumping spiders, and finally insects. In all cases females are more effective predators than males. (Full article...)
Hamilton, the eventual Drivers' Champion, led the Championship going into the race, and started from pole position alongside Räikkönen. Second in the Drivers' Championship, Massa began from third, next to Fernando Alonso of Renault. The first three drivers retained their positions into the first corner, but Alonso was passed by Hamilton's McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen. Alonso, however, was able to regain the place midway through the first lap. Over the course of the race, Hamilton extended a considerable lead over the two Ferraris. Massa passed Räikkönen with seven laps remaining, to improve his chances of surpassing Hamilton's points tally at the final race in Brazil. (Full article...)
Image 18Photo showing serving chopsticks (gongkuai) on the far right, personal chopsticks (putongkuai) in the middle, and a spoon. Serving chopsticks are usually more ornate than the personal ones. (from Chinese culture)
Image 26Relief of a fenghuang in Fuxi Temple (Tianshui). They are mythological birds of East Asia that reign over all other birds. (from Chinese culture)
Image 43Red lanterns are hung from the trees during the Chinese New Year celebrations in Ditan Park (Temple of Earth) in Beijing. (from Chinese culture)
Image 49Gilin with the head and scaly body of a dragon, tail of a lion and cloven hoofs like a deer. Its body enveloped in sacred flames. Detail from Entrance of General Zu Dashou Tomb (Ming Tomb). (from Chinese culture)
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The President of the Republic of China is the head of state of the Republic of China (ROC).
The Constitution names the president as head of state and commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Armed Forces (formerly known as the National Revolutionary Army). The president is responsible for conducting foreign relations, such as concluding treaties, declaring war, and making peace. The president must promulgate all laws and has no right to veto. Other powers of the president include granting amnesty, pardon or clemency, declaring martial law, and conferring honors and decorations.
The current President is Lai Ching-te(pictured), since May 20, 2024. Lai is a Taiwanese politician and former physician, who is currently serving as the eighth president of the Republic of China under the 1947 Constitution and the third president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).