A Village Preserves A Shangri-La
New York Times, November 21, 2004
I was in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, only a few miles from Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of China's loveliest cities. Its old town of cobblestone lanes were crisscrossed with perfectly clean canals, and in the distance, the 18,360-foot Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towered over the green landscape of corn and young barley fields. The local people, a minority called the Naxi (pronounced NAH-shee), have preserved some of their traditional matriarchal society and, from what I could see, all of their incredible tradition of hospitality to strangers.
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Silk Road
New York Times, November 21, 2004
The pounding drums drew me into the alley. Stepping off the main street, I saw an old man with a thick beard and a white skullcap sitting in front of a shop, banging an insistent, Arab-sounding rhythm on a hand drum. Next to him, a younger man with thin stubble kept up a keening wail, like a snake charmer, on a tiny flute.
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Steamy Times Come to Chinese Films
New York Times, November 29, 2004
Early in Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers," the hero, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), unsheathes a sword to slice the buttons off a showgirl's robe. This scandalizes onlookers despite the setting - a brothel. Later, the drunken Jin pulls the dancer to the ground, flips her over and tears her dress.
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Searching for Scenes From Shanghai's Lost Past
New York Times, November 28, 2004
NOW and again throughout history, there have been cities that seem to define what is modern, to which people of all descriptions have been drawn together by ambitions for power, money and pleasure, along with the sense of seemingly unlimited possibility that can attend the birth of an era and sometimes the death of one, too.
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