Jim Wong

He was considered as one of the most gifted scholars and best-known comperes in Hong Kong. More importantly, he was also renowned as one of the best lyricists to emerge from the area. Jim Wong, or Huang Zhan, a renowned songwriter, died of lung cancer in the early morning of November 24. Born in 1941 in southern China's Guangzhou City, Jim Wong moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of eight. He stepped into the Hong Kong entertainment circle as a lyricist in 1961, when he was still an undergraduate in Hong Kong University. However, it was not until the late 1960s and 70s that his name was on the lips and in the minds of pop fans. Of the 2000 songs he created, many have become classics of Chinese pop music, and Jim Wong is known as the Master of Pop Song Lyrics.

    
Chang Xiangyu
In the early morning of June 1, 2004, the "Queen of Yuju Opera" Chang Xiangyu died at the age of 81 in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan province, the birth place of Yuju Opera. Chang was born to a poor family in Henan's Gongxian County in 1923, and her father was a popular Yuju Opera actor in their hometown. At the age of 13, Chang Xiangyu won stage fame when she acted the part of a lively maid in the "Romance of the Western Chamber". From then on, she started her life-long involvement in this traditional Chinese art form. All the efforts and labor of Chang Xiangyu paid off as her performance won greater and greater applause from Yuju Opera fans. Her unique style of singing and performing became known as the Chang Style, and she became known as the Queen of Yuju Opera. Chang's style distinguishes itself by beautiful music and loud and sonorous singing, as well as its vigorous movements and exquisite performances. Chang's art is considered the epitome of Yuju Opera.

    
Yang Liping

Born in the Bai ethnic group in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Yang Liping walked out the village she was born in to Xishuangbanna Song and Dance Ensemble at the age of 13. In 1986, the dancer became a household name because of her unique solo dance Soul of Peacock, which is regarded as a classic of the Chinese artistic works in 20th century. Yang Liping wants to explore and salvage the folk art forms that are on the verge of extinction and leave a live folk custom and culture museum for her offspring. The "Dynamic Yunnan", a large-scale grassroots song and dance gathering, is her latest masterpiece in 2004, in which she serves as artistic supervisor, general director and dance lead. In the 120-minute performance, more than 100 amateur dancers coming from villages in Yunnan Province show the audience vivid scenes of ethnic life in the province. So far, the Dynamic Yunnan has been staged more than 120 times around the country and won several awards in national dance competitions.

    
Zhang Yimou

A native of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, Zhang Yimou is already a world-renowned film director who has won a number of important domestic and international awards. In 2004, however, this talented and creative artist received a lot of criticism from the audience and film critics. In August, his short film 'Eight Minutes of China' presented in the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games at Athens, was criticized as being uncreative and low-browed. In November, a Seminar on Zhang Yimou and Chinese Film Arts was held in Beijing, on which some famous scholars commented on the director's works. A common theme is that Zhang Yimou has contributed a great deal to the development of the Chinese film industry, but his latest two martial art films, Hero and House of Flying Daggers, lack spiritual essence.

    
Iris Chang

On November 11th, Iris Chang, the author of the international bestseller The Rape of Nanking, was found dead in her car of a self-inflicted gunshot. She was 36. Born and educated in the United States, she worked briefly as a reporter for The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune. In 1997, Chang published the critically acclaimed book The Rape of Nanking, which described the rape, torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former Chinese capital during the late 1930s. It is Iris Chang who brought the atrocities to light¡£. Chang describes Nanking as a kind of laboratory in which Japanese soldiers were taught to slaughter unarmed, unresisting civilians, as they would later do through Asia. Likening their victims to insects and animals, the Japanese commanders orchestrated a campaign in which several hundred thousand--no one is sure just how many--Chinese soldiers and noncombatants were killed.

    
Lu Chuan

In 2002 director Lu Chuan's first film, The Missing Gun was released in China. The low-cost film, which describes the painful struggling of a policeman who loses his gun, was an instant success, paving the road for the talented director's future success. In 2004 Lu Chuan completed his second film, Kekexili: Mountain Patrol. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo Film Festival held in October. It was the only Chinese film running for this year's award in Competition Part. Compared to other domestic blockbusters produced in 2004, the film is not graphic at all. In fact, few films this brutal and moving have ever been produced on the Chinese mainland. It is based on the true story of the volunteer patrols that formed in 1992 to protect the endangered Tibetan antelopes from poachers in Kekexili, an animal reserve in Qinghai Province. The film reflects the realistic style of Lu Chuan's previous film. The seemingly insignificant death of the patrols is a scene hard to forget. In short, Lu Chuan made people reconsider the meaning of existence by presenting the harsh and contradictory side of it.

    
Li Shasha

In a ranking of China's young writers born in the 1980s by a Guangzhou based newspaper in mid 2004, Li Shasha outdid such big names as Han Han, Chunshu and Guo Jingming to become the top talented writer. Li, still an undergraduate in Xi'an, is different from his urban counterparts in that he recounts the happenings in China's countryside, which is where he comes from. Also unlike the young writers who are prone to present their rebellious attitudes and ¡®linglei', which is a word coined by Time magazine to describe China's new young writers, Li Shasha showed he was a more mature writer. He first made his appearance on the Internet with elegantly written essays and novellas, which alerted literature circles to his talent and changed the common belief that writers born in the 80s are superficial due to lack their lack of life experience. Because of Li's popularity, three major Internet portals, namely Sohu, Sina and Netease all launched feature columns for the writer. Li's biggest success in 2004 is a novel named Red X, a book about a teenager's unsteady spiritual and physical life.

    
Bai Xianyong

In 2004, Bai Xianyong, a world-famous Chinese writer and professor of literature, has his name linked with Kunqu Opera, the "mother of all traditional Chinese opera". As the producer, Bai Xianyong cooperated with Suzhou Kun Opera Theatre to put 'Peony Pavilion,' on stage, one of the classics of Kunqu Opera. This time, he extended the title of the classic calling it ¡®Peony Pavilion, A New Generation'. Since its debut in Taiwan, it has had sell out shows in Hong Kong, Suzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, attracting many young people, especially college students. 'Peony Pavilion' is considered one of the best works of Chinese Romanism literature, and has been a classic in Kunqu Opera for more than 400 years. To make is accessible and relevant more people Bai Xianyong, who once said that he was a volunteer worker of Kunqu Opera, dedicated himself to this re-interpretation of 'Pony Pavilion'. It has been performed at university campus allowing students the chance to experience this uniquely Chinese art form. Bai Xianyong once said, "I hope to sow the seed of loving Kunqu Opera in these young people's minds. One day perhaps they can produce Kunqu Opera, just like me, or at least they can become devoted audience of Kunqu Opera". Because of Bai Xianyong and people like him, Kunqu Opera can be experienced by more people as part of the revival of the fascinating Chinese cultural tradition.

    
Yu Qiuyu

Chinese writer Yu Qiuyu, the 58-year-old who is an expert in play writing and the author of several famous works including 'Stressful Cultural Journeying', and 'Mountain Home Notes', attracted public attention in 2004. In April, he published a monograph on Kunqu Opera, but the critics said there was nothing new in his book. In July, he said he would quit writing, but in August, he published a controversial autobiography. Then in September he was back in the media, this time to open a cultural-related business. His decision to quit writing attracted media attention.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)