Word: gobi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Inner Mongolia resembles the mighty Mongol empire of the great khans. Chinese jeeps and motorcycles have largely replaced the hardy Mongolian ponies of the khans' cavalry, and camels carry as many tourists as traders over the dunes of A-la Shan. But the storied deserts of the region?the Gobi, the Tengger and the Badain Jaran?still offer a staggering variety of landscapes. Flat stretches of sand and rock alternate with Sahara-like dunes, dramatic canyons and plateaus covered with hardy shrubs. The extreme austerity makes you marvel that the Mongol hordes managed to survive, much less conquer...
...doubtful Woody's descendants--or anyone else's--will hang around for the cookout. One possible escape route: an exodus to Mars, which is farther from the sun and hence cooler. But it would take a lot of engineering to turn Mars' frozen, Gobi-like surface into a livable habitat. (Among proposals that have been floated: heating the planet with artificial greenhouse gases, deploying huge orbiting mirrors to catch sunlight and sprinkling heat-absorbing soot on the Martian icecaps.) Eventually, says Mars promoter Robert Zubrin, visitors wouldn't need spacesuits anymore...
...reminded me of a trip I took in 1999 to one of China's most remote villages, Kashgar, which is across the Gobi desert from the rest of China. Three young boys were sitting in the back of a coffee shop at a computer, and they told me they were on the net. I tried to type in TIME.com and then CNN.com, but got messages saying they were blocked. Then one of the kids pushed me aside, typed in something, and TIME.com and then CNN.com popped up. I asked what he did. He said, "We know how to go through...
From the beginning, the film seemed cursed. "We started shooting in the Gobi Desert," recalls director Ang Lee, dimpled but unsmiling. "That night the crew got lost in the desert until 7 a.m. We finally got going, and after the second shot, a sandstorm came in." Could things get worse? Ask producer Bill Kong. "The Gobi is the hottest, dryest place on earth," he says. "So each morning we lit incense for good luck. Well, we had dreadful luck--it rained sheets, nonstop, ruining our schedule. After a while one of the local people came around and said the gods...
There are fierce sword fights and ancient enmities, gravity-defying battles on rooftops and treetops, rapturous smooches in the Gobi Desert--genuine old-fashioned movie magic all around. As the willful princess, 20-year-old Zhang realizes a fairy-tale destiny. In only her second film, she gives a star-is-made performance that heralds a bright future in Mandarin-language movies--and beyond them. Asked recently what her plans are, she said, "Learn English." The young beguiler is fresh out of acting school in Beijing; now she seems prepared to go Hollywood. If Hollywood is smart, it will...