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A path of silk

2012-12-07 09:10

When Virginie Fournier first saw Chinese silk brought to Lyon, France, by her grandfather decades ago, she could not help but marvel. Now, after more than a decade spent living in China, the founder and creative director of Shanghai Trio, a fashion brand, is still inspired by the country. "When I'm in China, I see beautiful things everywhere," she says.Beijing

Long break for Coffee

2012-12-07 09:10

When Australian Jackie Yun came to China, it was to learn Chinese for a year. Now 14 years later, she is the co-owner of a successful and expanding cafe business, which has just opened its first store in Beijing.

Designs for life

2012-11-30 09:59

It's not unusual for children to take apart their toys. Exploring how things work and what they're made of is all part of growing up. But for Francisco Gomez Paz, it became a career. The 37-year-old Milan-based industrial designer is at the top of his profession, driven by a desire to always create something new - and it all began as a child.

Heart like a reel

2012-11-30 09:59

Bernardo Bertolucci, the first foreign director to film inside the Forbidden City, tackles the loneliness of youth and its obscure necessity in his new film Me and You, which was released in Italy in October. I met him in Milan, at the Giorgio Armani Hotel. When I entered his hotel suite, he was sitting by the windowsill in his wheelchair, looking out at the sky. He looked relaxed and happy to be back after a nine-year hiatus from filmmaking. "I need to go on now. It's like a therapy," he says.

Silence is golden

2012-11-23 09:10

Philippe Bizot doesn't say a word on stage, and yet he says everything. "The art of pantomime is a universal language, the language of emotion."

Designs on the future

2012-11-23 09:10

As Chinese independent fashion designers have burst on the scene in recent years, many have boasted about being educated overseas. In the fashion industry, having London, New York or Paris embossed on your CV no doubt makes you more marketable to potential employees, but it dawned on someone one day that in all of this there lay another marketing possibility: educating designers in the land of their birth. Thus, seven years ago the venerable French fashion design school Esmod Paris arrived in Beijing aiming to cash in on this idea, and some of the fruits of that work were on display late last month.

A little piece of China

2012-11-16 11:26

More than 8 million euros ($10.2 million) has been invested in the Pairi Daiza zoo park south of Brussels and Chinese craftsmen worked on its construction.

Traditional modernist

2012-11-16 11:26

The one-hour talk extended to one and a half hours and even then, 30 minutes after it ended, members of the audience and media crowded outside the dressing room of Shen Wei, hoping for more. The scene, at a recent event in Beijing, was testimony to the success of Shen, who is among China's most acclaimed choreographers and who worked on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

In a snapshot

2012-11-09 10:07

Sabrina Merolla is enthralled by the images that flit past her eyes every day in Beijing. Through her camera lens those seemingly transient scenes of everyday life take on a more permanent nature.

Taking China to the world

2012-11-09 10:07

This year, for the first time, Janice Blackburn, one of Britain's most influential curators, has been focusing on the work of Chinese design students.

Life through a lens

2012-11-02 10:31

Isabel Wolte has had a lifelong fascination with the human soul and the purpose of life. The philosophical questions attached to these subjects have led her toward Chinese culture, and more particularly Chinese film, as a means to explore them and find answers.

My blessed career

2012-11-02 10:31

Sweet and romantic, Andrea Bocelli's timbre personifies the Italian bel canto. Not only that, his versatile voice can enliven opera as well as pop music. The Italian tenor, who has just turned 54, was recently named International Artist of the Year at the Brit Awards in London while celebrating an extraordinary 20-year career.

Young startups far from upstarts

2012-10-26 12:46

An old pedicab driver and a former professor stricken with cancer, each of whom donated their life savings to help students - these are the people who inspired this year's young Entrepreneur of the Year and the reasons why he chose the education business.

Harmonic maestro

2012-10-26 12:46

It is the kind of music you are likely to hear as you watch the sheriff's posse settle in for the night, warmed by the glowing embers of a campfire. The harmonica is as much a part of Westerns as howling coyotes, cicadas and Colt .45s. But the world-renowned harmonica player Brendan Power is so versatile with the instrument that he can transform it to play music that would not be out of place as the soundtrack to a costume drama set in ancient China.

Top of his game

2012-10-19 10:42

In the game of life, some may have wondered if the career of China's top chess player Wang Hao had come to a stalemate of sorts.

Rags-to-riches story with a green ending

2012-10-19 10:42

A little less than half a lifetime ago Hans Martin Galliker was starting a farming apprenticeship in Switzerland. Now, 17 years later, he is in the fashion business.

The age of inspiration

2012-10-12 11:03

When age freckles appear, some fret, some conceal. For Myriam Herve-Gil, the answer is simple: dance.

Canvases of contrast

2012-10-12 11:03

Who would have thought chess and boxing could be brought together in a hybrid sport that would gain worldwide attention? Enki Bilal, that's who.

Drinking in success

2012-10-05 07:16

A romantic gesture by Frenchman Alexander Cros won the heart of his fellow business-course student and ultimately led him to forge a new and flourishing career on the other side of the world, in China's fast-growing wine industry.

Learning exchange

2012-10-05 07:16

Mike Embley may owe his China experience to a senior teaching colleague at a British grammar school who never came here. "My original career was in medical sciences," says the principal of The British School in the Beijing suburb of Shunyi.

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