Arts & Culture

In China, the craze for buying sneakers is at a fever pitch. With the growth of digital platforms, fueled by China’s deep love for basketball, the resale sneaker business is growing and enthusiasts are driving soaring prices on online “sneaker exchange” platforms.

The Shanghai visual arts scene is buzzing and everyone wants a piece of the action. Leading the pack is France’s Pompidou Centre, which opened its first outpost outside Europe on the West Bund last week. Inaugurated by French President Emmanuel Macron and opened to the public last Friday, the Pompidou Centre x West Bund Museum Project is the latest in a series of institutional collaborations that exemplify the Chinese city’s growing appetite for culture. There is the privately run Yuz Museum, led by Indonesian-Chinese art collector Budi Tek, which has announced a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Qatar Museums and cites exposure and cross-cultural exchange as

Almost five years ago on a local TV show in New York, the host was taken aback when the Jamaican reggae artist Gyptian was introduced by a diminutive, elderly Asian woman. “He was not expecting to see a Chinese woman talking about reggae,” Patricia Chin, now 82, recalls with a laugh, during a telephone interview from New York. But the half-Chinese, half-Indian Chin, who was born in Jamaica, knows just about everything there is to know about reggae.  She and her late husband, Vincent “Randy” Chin, helped build the nascent reggae music scene in the late 1950s from their home in Kingston, Jamaica, along with the likes of the legendary Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. In 1975, the Chins emigrated to t

Artem Zhdanov fell in love with Chinese culture during his first trip to China. He settled down in Shenzhen to start a business, and now the 29-year-old Russian has lived in China for seven years.  After stumbling on a hit product combining Western and Chinese humor, he started selling his T-shirts online under the LaowaiMe (“I’m a foreigner”) label. The clothing features Chinese phrases like “ni hao, xie xie, ting bu dong” (hello, thank you, I don't understand). Zhdanov says they’re his way of bridging the culture gap between China and the rest of the world. Check out our video, above, for more.

The Chinese-owned Pearl River Piano Group makes around 150,000 instruments each year. But while the factory in the southern city of Guangzhou supplies more pianos than any other manufacturer in the world, only about 10% of their products reach international customers. The reason: an enormous domestic market, and limited interest from overseas. China may have the volume, but it has yet to nail the level of quality sought by international musicians. Check out our video, above, for a look inside the factory.

Beijing-based photographer Sim Chi Yin has been named this year’s winner of the Getty Images and Chris Hondros Fund Award. The award and its grant supports photographers whose work shines a light on the shared human experience. It was created in memory of Chris Hondros, a Getty Images photographer who was killed in 2011 while on assignment in Misrata, Libya. Christina Piaia, the president of the Chris Hondros Fund board, noted the ”intelligence and rigor” of Sim's documentary work. Sim’s series ”Dying to Breathe” tells the story of some of the millions of Chinese workers struggling to survive after being afflicted with "black lung" disease. And ”The Rat Tribe” focuses on some of the one mill

Singer Jessie J has just won the Chinese version of “American Idol,” with a stirring rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” Whitney Houston’s version of the Dolly Parton song is hugely popular with Chinese audiences. In China, she has become known as “Stone Sister,” a name which sounds similar to “Jessie J.”  The British singer, best known for her hits “Price Tag,” “Domino” and “Bang Bang,” was the first non-Asian participant in “Singer,” a televised competition for professional musicians. She won at the final broadcast last Friday evening.  The show assembled some of the region’s most respected musicians, although none of the others have the international profile of Jessie J. Other competi

The annual WYNG Media Award (WMA) is one of the largest photography contests in Hong Kong. The theme of 2018’s edition is “Transition,” and the finalists have explored different contexts of transition in the city – from historical and political to spatial and gender-related.  If you’re in Hong Kong, their works are on show at the city’s Hong Kong Central Library through April 24.

American theater director Joseph Graves has been bringing western musicals and theater plays to China since 2002. In 2014, he directed the Chinese version of the smash-hit Broadway show Avenue Q, which played in theaters across 30 different cities in China. This year, Graves and his crew of performers at Seven Ages productions are presenting a classic story – Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella – to audiences in Chinese. Theater-goers in Shanghai will first see it in May, before it tours the country in Shenzhen and Beijing. It’s a fascinating story that resonates across cultures and across languages, Graves says. There’s growing appreciation for western musicals in China and the majority of

Liu Tao, 36, is a water meter inspector working in Hefei, a city of 7.9 million in eastern China. As he has to travel around the city every day for his job, he uses the opportunity to take photos of the daily lives of Chinese people – from market workers to commuters.  His humorous photos caught the attention of readers worldwide and went viral. If you happen to be in Hong Kong, his photographs are on display in the city’s .jpg cafe until June 1.