Hello all,

On Wednesday, October 12, American poet Scott Ezell will read from his books PETROGLYPH AMERICANA and SONGS FROM A YAHI BOW, at 7:30 pm at the Black Dragon Cafe.

Scott has spent many years in China and other parts of Asia, and his work resonates with landscapes and cultures from both sides of the Pacific.

He will also read from a recent series of poems, "Hanoi Rhapsodies," and part of the program will include musical accompaniment.

Hope you’ll be able to come!

All the best,

CC

Then, on the taobao homepage click on the Register for Free (“免费注册”) link on the top left.

Step 1: Fill in your account details….

会员名 – Account name
5-20 letters (or 3-10 Chinese characters). Using Chinese characters is recommended.
Note: Once you’ve chosen your account name it cannot be changed.

登录密码 – Password
6-16 letters, no Chinese characters allowed, you must choose a combination of letters, numbers and symbols (dashes, commas etc).

确认密码 – Confirm password
Enter the same as above.

验证码 – Verification code
Type the letters that appear in the image.

Then click on the big orange button, which says you agree to the terms and conditions and would like to register (“同意以下协议并注册”).

Step 2: Enter your email address….

Use the same email that you used to register your Alipay account, and make sure you tick the box so that your Alipay (支付宝) account is linked to your Taobao account.

Last step: Activate your account

An email should have been sent to you, just click on the orange button (or the link in the yellow box) to activate your account. This should open the following page, telling you that you’ve been successful:

You can now start buying stuff, but it’s good to download the Taobao instant messenger program, called Ali Wang Wang. (“阿里旺旺聊天工具”). It works the same as MSN messenger, QQ etc, and lets you talk with sellers directly, to ask them details about a product and to get them to adjust the postage if you’re buying multiple items (it doesn’t always happen automatically). There’s a link to it on the page you’re on now, the one telling you you’ve successfully activated your account. Click here:

Then once it’s downloaded, install it – your account name and password is the same as those for your Taobao account.

Next post, how to buy stuff on Taobao….

Impressive toilet sign in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils Film City (天龙八部电视城), a tourist spot above Dali old town.

Hello everyone,

As you probably already know, next Monday through Sunday (the 21st to
the 27th), YUNFEST, Yunnan’s own independent documentary film festival
and one of China’s most unique cultural events, will be held at the
Provincial Library near Green Lake (just down the street from Wenlin
Jie and popular foreign haunts like Salvador’s, French Cafe, etc) in
Kunming. Over 100 films from China and abroad will be screened in
three screening rooms from 9 in the morning till late at night, with
discussion periods with filmmakers edged in between screenings. A
fourth room is dedicated to film archive equipped with television
monitors where festival-goers can watch festival selected and entry
films outside their usual screening times.

Most of the films this year are provided with simultaneous English and
Chinese subtitles, which makes the event more accessible to the
foreign community. Also, this year YUNFEST will be screening several
foreign-language films, mainly from Belgium and Switzerland in
YUNFEST’s Media Melanges segment:

German-speakers are the best served this year, with several films
being screened in German. Peter Lietchi’s (Switzerland) “Lucky Jack”
takes a humorous look at a man’s quest to quit smoking. “The Women
with the Five Elephants,” is a portrait of the translator of
Dostoyevsky, 85-year-old Swetlana Geier (yes, you probably have read
her translations), and her unique passion of words and language. Yours
truly is very jealous of those of you who speak German and are able to
see this film. This woman is an inspiration.

Classical music fans will enjoy “Shadows” (OV French and German), a
unique visual exploration of Hollinger’s “Concerto for Violin” and the
sources of the piece’s inspiration.

Filmmaker and cinematographer for the Dardenne brothers Benoit
Derveaux will be present at the festival and will be showing two of
his films, “Gigi, Monica…& Bianca” (OV. Romanian), about Romanian
street children, and “La Deviniere” (OV French) about a mental
institution in Belgium. French speakers will be equally delighted to
hear that “Teen Stories” (Romans d’ados, OV French) will also be
shown in its original language. The four-part, extremely committed
documentary project followed several adolescents over the course of
their teenage years. On the other side of the spectrum, “EXIT–the
Right to Die” by French-speaking Swiss filmmaker Fernand Mulgar takes
a sober look at EXIT, a Swiss organization that provides suicide
assistance to the terminally ill.

English-language films presented this year focus on the environment
and will be shown in YUNFEST’s segment dedicated to NGO and
development work, “Participatory Visual Education”. Films include
“King Corn” and its sequel “Big River”, “The Power of Community: How
Cuba Survived Peak Oil”, “The Story of Stuff” and “Soil in Good Heart”
by Deborah Koons Garcia, wife of the late Jerry Garcia.

As for Chinese-language films, I can only say that I personnaly feel
like the filmmakers are finally coming into their own this year. Of
course the subject matter is dazzling, as contemporary China offers so
many fascinating stories, however we see a much more personal
treatment of these stories on behalf of the filmmaker, as well as a
more sophisticated filmic language. In short, one has less and less
the impression of watching a 3-hour home movie and feels like one is
in the presence of a work of filmic art.

I have attached a version of the schedule and the press release.
Please check our website www.yunfest.org for the programme and a
fuller description of the films. Please forgive any errors, it went
online before it got proofed.

I wish you all well and hope to see you at the festival! As a deep,
cloaked voice used to say before each screening at the cinema club I
used to go to in my hometown in Quebec “Bon Cinema!”.

Dena

YUNFEST 2011 Schedule.doc
YUNFEST2011[2].doc

We’re very happy to help bring Sinne Eeg’s stunning music to Dali, with the peerless J.Q. on trumpet. Please stay tuned for more details.

SOLD

Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
Hot, Flat, and Crowded – Thomas L. Friedman
Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder
Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking – Malcolm Gladwell
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days – Jeff Kinney
Star Wars: Before the Storm – Michael P. Kube-McDowell
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson (two copies)
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Fifth Woman – Henning Mankell
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet – Colleen McCullough
The Host – Stephenie Meyer
Pillow Talk – Freya North
Paper Doll – Robert B. Parker
Degree of Guilt – Richard North Patterson
The Road Less Travelled – M. Scott Peck
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Gender and the Politics of History – Joan Wallach Scott
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
朋友 – 贾平凹

BORROWED

Chronicles – Bob Dylan
Oracle Bones – Peter Hessler
The Tao of Health and Longevity – Da Liu
法国史 – Outils
The Great Blue Yonder – Alex Shearer