Happy Lunar New Year from the USC US-China Institute!
Talking Points – Vacation Issue
Chinese food can be found nearly everywhere. It’s easily China’s most successful export.
July 11, 2016
Over 330,000 Chinese are studying in the US and on average more than 8,000 Chinese come to the US everyday to study, do business and travel. Many tourist destinations have caught on, beginning with Los Angeles, New York, amusement parks and outlet malls. But the tourists are increasingly visiting a greater variety of places, including national parks.
This week, the Idaho Falls newspaper reported that the flow of Yellowstone-bound Chinese tourists had caused one local hotel to hire a Chinese-speaking receptionist and other businesses were printing information in Chinese. The Billings, Montana paper reported that Yellowstone had recruited three Chinese-speaking rangers to offer guided walks, introductions to the park and more.
By chance, we tied a Montana business training program into a quick visit to the park just last week, encountering more than a few of the visiting Chinese. Many were students in pairs or families, but others were on package tours.
In some of the park's visitor centers you displays include Chinese translations (though they are inexplicably listed as 普通话 rather than 简体字中文) along with translations in Spanish, Japanese, and other languages. (Click here for general guides in various languages.)
Sadly, we don't know if visiting Chinese are stopping at and asking about the use of the yin-yang symbol at the Billings Depot. The symbol is used because it was the symbol of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Billings is named after Fredrick Billings, who was Northern Pacific's president 1873-1881.
We do know that some of the region's Chinese restaurants, such as Chinatown (in Chinese a different name: 金厨， Golden Kitchen) in Cody, Wyoming (pop. 9,520 in 2010) and Red Lodge, Montana (pop. 2,125) are doing a booming business serving hungry tourists, including many arriving on Chinese tour buses.
Chinese food can be found nearly everywhere. It’s easily China’s most successful export. Please send us ph
otos you take of Chinese restaurants on your travels (outside of China, Hong Kong/Macau, and Taiwan). Include your name, the location of the restaurant and when you visited. We’ll compile these on our website and will be happy to credit you. Send your photos to uschina@usc.edu.
July 12, 2016 - 4:00pm
San Diego, California
A panel of experts from the People's Republic and the United States will discuss the Chinese government's new regulations on religion and their implications for Christian communities, focusing on the interplay between the globalization and localization processes of Christianity in China.
July 12, 2016 - 8:00pm
Los Angeles, California
Gustavo Dudamel launches the Bowl's classical season with the passionate glories of Tchaikovsky - joined by superstar pianist Lang Lang - and the Russian drama of Rimsky-Korsakov.
July 17, 2016 - 2:00pm
Hollywood, California
Author and Art Deco Society of California Preservation Director Therese Poletti will give an illustrated presentation on Chinese motifs as a form of exotica in architecture and design in the Golden State.
July 17, 2016 - 5:00pm
Los Angeles, California
The Getty Center hosts a discussion with renown composer Tan Dun following a performance inspired by Dunhuang.
July 17, 2016 - 6:30pm
Los Angeles, California
Ms. Sara Velas, President of the International Panorama Council will present a lecture as an overview of 20th & 21st century panoramas in Asia, with a focus on the panoramas of China. Enjoy the gardens and exhibits of the Velaslavasay Panorama before and after this lecture. Ambient Folk & Classical Chinese music will be performed in the garden after the presentation by musician Susien Cheng.
July 21, 2016 - 8:00pm
Los Angeles, California
Pure summer magic: the astonishing Yuja Wang plays jazzy classics by Ravel and Gershwin conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel.
July 27, 2016 - 9:30am
Berkeley, California
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive presents an exhibition of Buddhist art from Nepal and Tibet.
August 3, 2016 - 4:00pm
San Francisco, California
Curator Abby Chen will lead us through the newly energized galleries at the Chinese Culture Center.
August 4, 2016 - 3:00pm
Berkeley, California
Professor Bixiao He presents a talk on Chinese modern journalism and interpreting the particular role of Chinese modern journalism played in the process of the China's transition from an empire to party state. This study puts forward a parallel concept of "national press" and "urban press" to examine the interaction between the two different kinds of modernity-pursuing in the specific spatial-temporal historical context.
August 23, 2016 - 7:30pm
Los Angeles, California
Chuen-Fung Wong brings the Silk Road to life via a performance of traditional Chinese chamber music and poetry. Hosted by the Hammer Museum.
August 24, 2016 - 7:30pm
Los Angeles, California
The Getty Center hosts the Los Angeles premiere of Dan Duyu's first screen adaptation of "Journey to the West" with live musical accompaniment.
August 27, 2016 - 10:30am
San Francisco, California
This talk will explore the role of Emperors, Empresses, and other imperial men and women of the Chinese courts in the sponsorship, design, and fashioning of paintings, from the 11th through the 18th centuries.
August 28, 2016 - 4:00pm
Los Angeles, California
The Getty Center will provide an overview of the wide spectrum of activities that were undertaken, including scientific research into causes of deterioration of walls paintings.
July 12, 2016 - 10:00am
Oberlin, Ohio
Allen Memorial Art Museum presents an exhibition connecting past and present art from China, Japan, Korea, the U.S., and Canada.
July 13, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
The Energy and National Security Program and the Freeman Chair in China Studies is pleased to host Kevin Gallagher and Bo Kong to discuss the role of Chinese state financing in global energy development and to present findings from two of their recently published studies from the Global Economic Governance Initiative at Boston University.
July 14, 2016 - 5:30pm
New York, New York
Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt M. Campbell, one of the chief architects of the pivot (also known as the rebalance), states in his new book, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia, that one of the central tenets of the Obama Administration's pivot was building relationships with emerging Asian powers.
July 15, 2016 - 7:00pm
Houston, Texas
"The Way of the Dragon" stars Lee as Tang Lung, a martial arts expert recruited to protect his relatives' Chinese restaurant from gangsters in Rome. The film broke Hong Kong box office records, outperforming The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, Lee's earlier cinematic successes.
July 15, 2016 - 7:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
Kara Wai gives a powerful performance in the world premiere of Andy Lo's directorial debut. In her role as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's, she takes under her wing an aimless young man (Chan) who has come to Hong Kong to look for the father who abandoned him.
July 17, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
Kara Wai won her first Hong Kong Film Award for her effervescent performance in this delightful kung fu comedy. She plays a young student who marries her dying teacher to keep his inheritance away from his untrustworthy relatives.
July 19, 2016 - 1:30pm
Houston, Texas
Asia Society Texas Center presents a mid-summer family film screening of one of the earliest U.S.-created animated features with a focus on China.
July 19, 2016 - 7:00pm
New York, New York
The film will be followed by a Q&A with actors Kara Wai and Carlos Chan.
July 21, 2016 - 6:00pm
New York, New York
Danielle Chang, founder of LUCKYRICE, brings night markets, grand feasts, and dumpling-making sessions to America's biggest cities.
July 22, 2016 - 7:00pm
New York, New York
In this Tibetan Buddhist art workshop you will learn how to draw the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion according to the Tibetan thangka tradition. Avalokiteshvara ("One who hears the cries of the world") is the Bodhisattva of Compassion and protector of Tibet. He is the Buddha of the famous mantra om mani padme hum, and the Dalai Lama is considered to be the earthly incarnation of Avalokiteshvara.
July 23, 2016 - 7:00pm
Houston, Texas
Continuing its summer film series, Asia Society Texas Center presents the first title in the Rush Hour franchise, which spawned three films and a recent television series. Global icon Jackie Chan stars as Detective Inspector Lee, who is tracking down a Chinese crime syndicate in Los Angeles after Hong Kong's transfer from British rule. Chris Tucker plays an LA police officer, assigned to divert Lee from an FBI investigation into the kidnapping of the local Chinese Consul's daughter.
July 24, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
See the micro-budget sci-fi omnibus that beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Hong Kong box office. Chinese authorities considered Ten Years so dangerous that they banned it from theaters and even blacked out broadcast of the Hong Kong Film Awards simply because it was nominated. Made for the equivalent of about $70,000, this collection of five short films, each by a different director, speculates darkly on what Hong Kong will look like in 2025.
July 25, 2016 - 8:30am
Seattle, Washington
China's Past: New Strategies for Teaching the Sources of Chinese Civilization will use primary sources, rich text, and images to build an understanding of selected topics in early Chinese history and civilization. The week will focus on adapting content and materials to one's own classroom in grades 3-8.
July 29, 2016 - 7:00pm
Houston, Texas
Detective Inspector Lee and Detective Carter return in the second installment of the Rush Hour franchise, this time both venturing to Lee's home of Hong Kong. Chinese cinematic superstar Zhang Ziyi joins the star-studded cast, along with Don Cheadle and Roselyn Sánchez.
July 30, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
Based on Design for Living, a popular stage play by Sylvia Chang (who stars in the movie alongside the eternally suave Chow Yun-fat), Office depicts the ups and downs-romantic and financial-of a financial firm's staff during 2008's global economic turmoil.
July 31, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
In the third installment of this popular franchise, Donnie Yen reprises his role as the real-life kung fu master best known for having trained a young Bruce Lee. In this edition, which was nominated for eight Hong Kong Film Awards, Ip is settling into life as a family man, but he's soon called to protect Hong Kong from a ruthless American businessman (with surprisingly strong boxing skills) who is trying to make a land grab.
August 6, 2016 - 1:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
The Blade is Tsui Hark's masterful tribute to the martial arts films of his youth. A reimagining of director Chang Cheh's 1967 wuxia landmark The One-Armed Swordsman, this phantasmagoric action film moves like an out-of-control freight train.
August 6, 2016 - 3:30pm
Washington, District of Columbia
Zhang Yimou and Gong Li-then China's cinematic power couple-star as an imperial soldier and the woman who brings him back to life after he's spent centuries encased in clay in the emperor's tomb.
August 7, 2016 - 2:00pm
Washington, District of Columbia
The first African American to be inducted into the Hong Kong Stuntman's Association, Bobby Samuels worked with some of Hong Kong's biggest movie stars during his career there in the 1990s.
August 18, 2016 - 12:00pm
Houston, Texas
Tibetan Buddhist monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery will construct a mandala sand painting and perform special ceremonies August 18-21 in Asia Society Texas Center's Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery. During this ritual, millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place in order to purify and heal the environment and its inhabitants.
August 20, 2016 - 7:00pm
Houston, Texas
Robed in magnificent costumes and playing traditional Tibetan instruments, the Drepung Loseling monks will perform ancient temple music and dance intended to kindle world healing.
August 21, 2016 - 4:30pm
Washington, District of Columbia
Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) accompanies the prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke on a walk down memory lane as Jia revisits his hometown and other locations from his ever-growing body of work.
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