Word: xu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Physically, the city has undergone a breathtaking destruction and reconstruction. "I went away for three months, and when I came back, I couldn't even recognize a neighborhood near my home. I hardly knew it was my city," says film director Xu Jinglei, 33, born and bred in Beijing. Astonishing buildings are starting to appear: the iconic Bird's Nest Olympic stadium; Rem Koolhaas' cantilevered towers for broadcaster CCTV; the National Theater, a doorless silver dome perched on the corner of Tiananmen Square like a newly landed UFO. Numberless dilapidated eyesores thrown up by central planners in the 1950s...
...picnic. Most of the courtyard houses that held one family before Beijing fell to the Communists in 1949 are now packed with five or six. Toilets and showers are communal and sometimes hundreds of meters away. Heating comes from smoky coal fires, and deaths from asphyxiation are common. Xu Xiaotang, who has lived in the same central-Beijing alley for nearly a half- century, would move out tomorrow if he could afford to. "This is not a place for humans to live," Xu says...
...Even scientists are not above turning to Chaoyang's markets in the interests of science. Xu Xing, a paleontologist who has discovered more dinosaur species than anyone in history, says several of his finds came from such dealers. "I don't feel good when I buy fossils, so I'm trying to step away from this market," he says. Although sales of dinosaurs are strictly illegal, local officials tend to look the other way. "The middlemen and authorities are in bed together," says Zhang Wanlian, a retired reporter for the Chaoyang Daily, who has investigated the local fossil trade...
...China Film Co-production Corporation, the government branch that oversees all aspects of foreign production down to visas for directors, vice president Susan Xu agrees the fund will usher in a boom in filmmaking. "Our door is ready to receive a lot more knocking," she says...
...floodwaters have now receded. But with crops destroyed and livestock killed, the prices for meat and vegetables are soaring. And, as residents begin to rebuild, they also think about what could happen next time. "The floods in this area have gotten worse and worse over the years," says Xu. "I was never worried about the flood...