E-paper
News Digest Comment Life Focus Cover Story Business Business Focus China News Spotlight Last Word

Focus

Home is where art is ignored

2013-03-01 09:18

Chinese contemporary art seems to be entering its springtime. Overseas buyers - both individuals and institutions - have begun to take a keen interest in the genre in recent years, with work being snapped up and shipped abroad. And Chinese cities too appear to have embraced it, with areas such as Beijing's 789 Art District dedicated to providing a space for artists to be inspired and create.

Grape Potential

2013-03-01 09:18

Commitment to the long term has enabled Miguel Torres to build a thriving wine distribution business in China which now has annual revenue in excess of 20 million euros.

High ideals

2013-02-22 09:45

Timothy O'Shea has a dream for the University of Edinburgh's Confucius Institute - to promote mutual understanding internationally. "If there are more people in Scotland who understand China, and more people in China who understand Scotland, then we will have more mutual understanding at the world level," says the University's vice-chancellor, sitting in his office at the heart of the Scottish capital.

How to behave

2013-02-22 09:45

Traditional finishing schools are a dying breed in the West, where young women from wealthy families no longer feel the need to be instructed on how to behave in polite society. But in China, Sara Jane Ho, a former student of Switzerland's last finishing school - Institut Villa Pierrefeu - sees a new market emerging.

Aiming for the A-list

2013-02-08 09:12

China's most flamboyant designer, Guo Pei, whose outrageously extravagant gowns are much sought after by movie stars and socialites, aims to make an international impact in the near future. Beijing-based Guo is famous in her native country for producing her signature gowns, one-offs that can cost up to $50,000 a time. Among her clients have been A-list stars such as Li Bingbing and Zhang Ziyi and singers Tang Can and Sun Yue.

Baba's birth

2013-02-08 09:12

Ten months ago Eric Lozachmeur quit his job as an engineer and was ready to enjoy retirement in the southern city of Zhongshan, Guangdong province. But then a drink with Luigi Castagnanova changed his plans and his life. After two hours, the pair decided to open a restaurant together, and Baba was born.

Not lost in translation

2013-02-01 09:16

Despite the language barrier, Marcello Lippi, coach of Italy's 2006 World Cup winning team, has found success in Guangzhou.

A different kind of goal

2013-02-01 09:16

A former Gaelic football player and now Ireland's culture minister, Jimmy Deenihan switches his ambitions from scoring on the pitch to forging cultural ties.

Shine a light

2013-01-25 09:37

Following a night-time arrival into the blackness of Beijing in 1976, Hans Boller has dedicated himself to telling the world about China.

The Nixon connection

2013-01-25 09:37

From a classroom talk on China to one of Switzerland's experts on the country, Gerald Beroud's life has had an intimate connection with the Far East.

Life and art

2013-01-18 09:09

Liliane Fawcett says her gallery Themes & Variations has never attracted as much media coverage as in the past month, when it hosted its first exhibition of Chinese contemporary design.

Dream career

2013-01-18 09:09

From writing on T-shirts to leading one of the Britain's best-known fashion brands, Henry Holland has had a career path most young designers can only dream of. As his brand enters China, the editor-turned-fashion-designer shared the secrets of his success, and his sense of humor, with local designers and fashion students.

Musical fusion

2013-01-11 09:47

As the concert drew to an end, Chen Xiaoyong sighed with relief. An acclaimed composer based in Germany, his expectations back home in Beijing are unreasonably low. "I'm really delighted to have seen the audience make it to the end," he says.

Tailored for tots

2013-01-11 09:47

Inspired by Chinese culture and their own background in France, Pierre-Yves Babin and Amelie Peraud have crossed cultural lines to create a growing business making children's clothes.

Made in China

2013-01-04 09:48

Drawn to Beijing by talk of rapid economic development, Spanish scientist Mario Lanza has found freedom, opportunity and a place to call home

Forgotten history

2013-01-04 09:48

The Chinese director Feng Xiaogang's latest movie Back to 1942 is, as the title suggests, a story from China's recent history. Epic in scale and designed to tug at the heartstrings, it was prompted by a desire to tell people about an almost forgotten event in the hope that it may never happen again.

Love across cultures

2012-12-28 14:30

Enough cliched stories have been told about cross-cultural romance, especially between Asian women and Caucasian men, so when French director Fabien Gaillard decided to tell a Chinese-French love story, he wanted to make it different. In his new movie Foreigner, or Lao Wai in Mandarin, a seemingly "impossible couple" - Paul, a French IT engineer and musician, and Mei, a traditional Wuhan girl - fall in love and strive to stay together despite the obstacles of language, culture and a troublesome ex-girlfriend.

As They like it

2012-12-28 14:30

As she studied English Literature at Cambridge University 20 years ago, it never occurred to Fuchsia Dunlop that her life might take a Chinese culinary path. But nearly two years' stay in Chengdu, Sichuan province, from 1994 opened her eyes to Chinese cuisine and altered the course of this Briton's life. Dunlop was the first foreigner to be accepted into Chengdu's prestigious Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine and went on to become one of the leading authorities on Chinese cuisine in the English-speaking world.

Planetary presence

2012-12-14 09:40

There is a Chinese saying that travel is as important as reading the classics. For Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-British architect who was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, there has never been a truer word. Her 47,000-square-meter Galaxy Soho, inspired by a trip to the Great Wall, was completed in October and is now a landmark in Beijing.

Horse sense

2012-12-14 09:40

On a snowy windswept Friday night, horse enthusiasts crowd into a seminar room at an equestrian center in the northeastern suburbs of Beijing. The reason they have braved the weather? Jeremy Michaels, one of just 50 people across Europe to have gained a British Horse Society Fellowship, the highest teaching and riding qualification that the BHS can offer. "When I came here, people were so hungry for knowledge, which made me enjoy being with them very much," he says.

European Edition