Eternal Moment
It’s not really much of a surprise to find Zhang Yibai’s Eternal Moment is very good indeed. Yes, it’s a slick romance pitched as a piece of high-end fanservice for followers of a TV soap opera more than two decades old, but that show – Cherish Our Love Forever – was where the director got his big break. Zhang’s trademark has long since been his ability to mine subtle, genuinely moving emotion out of even the broadest dramatic gestures, whether from his arthouse projects (Spring Subway, Lost Indulgence) or his commercial work (the flawed gem The Longest...
Read MoreUnderstanding the rise of China
Speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Martin Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? The author of “When China Rules the World,” he examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become. The world is changing with really remarkable speed. If you look at the chart at the top here, you’ll see that in 2025, these Goldman Sachs projections suggest that the Chinese economy will be almost the same size as the American...
Read MoreNeighborhoods
Manhattan’s many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention. Some are geographical (the Upper East Side), or ethnically descriptive (Little Italy). Others are acronyms, such as TriBeCa (for “TRIangle BElow CAnal Street”) or SoHo (“SOuth of HOuston”), or the far more recent vintages NoLIta (“NOrth of Little ITAly”), and NoMad (“NOrth of MADison Square Park”). Harlem is a name from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands. Alphabet City comprises Avenues A, B, C and D, to which its...
Read MorePhotos That Changed the World
Any picture can speak 1,000 words, but only a select few say something poignant enough to galvanize an entire society. The following photographs screamed so loudly that the entire world stopped to take notice.Racial segregation is the separation of different racial groups in daily life activities, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or purchasing a home. The United States was highly segregated until a series of Supreme Court decisions changed national regulations, beginning with Brown vs. Board of...
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