China Visual Festival 2016

The China Visual Festival is in full swing at the moment and there are still some great films to catch.

For all the details go to: http://chinesevisualfestival.org

The closing gala film is Panay (Wawa No Cidal) - a drama following the struggle of an indigenous community in Taiwan with urban development and gentrification.


Singer songwriter and TV host Ado’ Kaliting Pacidal stars in Panay and will also be giving a Q&A after the film.  Ado'Kaliting hails from an Amis background - a Taiwanese ethnic minority group, much like the community portrayed in the film. Check out her Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyuhZzjr5k9oaKZdO-K-WJQ

 

Soft Film Jukebox on Lucky Cat this Saturday

Soft Film Jukebox
Vintage Vinyl from Hong Kong, Singapore & Taiwan (1957-73)

This week's show features a guest mix from the vinyl collection of David Wells (aka Durian Dave). Dave is a blogger who has written extensively on Chinese cinema and has an impressive collection of movie memoribilia.

moviefanprincess.com was Dave's first web site, dedicated to Hong Kong singer, actress and 1960s teen idol Connie Chan Pao Chu.
Dave then went on to create softfilm.blogspot.co.uk: "Exploring the ephemeral past of Chinese entertainment from Hong Kong, the U.S.A., and around the world: vaudeville pioneers, flappers, aviatrices, burlesque dancers, hula hoopers, movie queens, sex bombs, jade girls, tomboys, pin-ups, sour beauties, girl jocks, swordswomen, and go-go girls." Accompanied by the tumblr: http://softfilm.tumblr.com/

His latest obsession is Taiwanese auteur and actress Pearl Chang, see: fuckyeahpearlchang.tumblr.com/

Tomorrow's mix features a marvellous selection of vintage Singaporean, Chinese & Taiwanese vinyl goodies from the vaults of a Sinophile extraordinaire. Thanks Dave! Tune in at 3.30pm GMT on Resonance 104.4FM

Today's Lucky Cat - Sat Feb 19th 2011

Today I will be joined by Daney Hsu of Mr Hsu's Taiwanese Kitchen to discuss Taiwanese cuisine. Daney (pictured above - he works on the oyster stall in Borough market) will be bringing in some of the delicious products that he makes for on air sampling. All I know about Taiwanese cuisine is oyster omelettes and milk pearl ball tea so I'm intrigued to know more...

Today is also about free music and songs with talking in.
Expect Grace Chang, The Ink Spots and Taiwanese film soundtracks (and you will not be disappointed).

Taiwanese Film Festival

Taiwan Cinefest is at Riverside Studios in London 17th -21st March. (poster for the film Step by Step is pictured). Apologies for not posting about this earlier but I just found out about it.

2nd Pan Asian Film Festival @ Asia House

27th November - 11th December 2009

Asia House presents the 2nd Pan-Asia Film Festival at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly Circus, London.

The festival opens with the new film by iconic Chinese director Zhang Yimou Riding Alone for a Thousand Miles.
Films by award-winning film-makers and emerging talent from China, Japan, Iran, Taiwan Bhutan and the Philippines will be shown. This year there will also be an evening of award-winning short films from Asia selected by Future Shorts.

For more information see the Asia House web site and download their events pdf.

Radiodiffusion Blog

A few nights ago whilst doing some late night searching for images of the Taiwanese girl group The Petals (as you do) I found this amazing blog:
http://radiodiffusion.wordpress.com
I can't believe I didn't know about it before, the information on there is incredible, it catalogues recorded popular music of the '60's and '70's from many, many countries including East Asia (which obviously I am particularly interested in). What a brilliant resource: cover art, mp3s and historical and cultural information.
Just take a look, for instance, at the Singapore page.
The creator Stuart Ellis compiled the excellent Bollywood Steel Guitar CD for Sublime Frequencies and he will be doing some other compilations for them soon.
I found this picture of Cai Mi Mi & Five Petals Guitar Band too (see above) on the Taiwanese page too.
For more info see: http://radiodiffusion.net

Lion Sculpture for London's Chinatown

Next month a sculpture will be unveiled in Wardour Street. Hsiao-Chi Tsai from Taiwan and Kimiya Yoshikawa from Japan have created The Lion sculpture, commissioned by Chinatown Arts Space and Shaftesbury PLC.
The Lion is a striking contemporary interpretation of a traditional Chinese symbol of greeting and guardianship made of jesmonite, brightly coloured Perspex and treated steel, the colour and pattern of The Lion are used to represent the diversity of East Asians living and working in the UK. The sculpture will be approximately three metres in height and will be installed permanently on the corner of Wardour Street and Shaftesbury Avenue at the unveiling on 8th April 2009.

Chinatown Arts Space are running FREE sculpture workshops in the run up to the unveiling, for dates and info. see:
www.chinatownartsspace.com

I will definitely attend the unveiling and will take my camera. I hope to have the artists come on my Resonance FM radio show to discuss this exciting new work.
More news soon.....

Movie News - January 2009

The Korean Hansel and Gretel is showing at the ICA at the moment. Alex Fitch has reviewed the tale here (definitely not for kids).

On last week's Lucky Cat Alex, Dan Lester and I all agreed that Tetsuya Nakashima's Kamikaze Girls is a splendid film and it gets a Lucky Cat recommendation. Ten minutes into the film I was in love: with the cinematography, the actors, the silly hairstyles, the comedy yakuzas and the kitsch wonderland that the film inhabits.
Memories of Matsuko also gets a Lucky Cat meow. With a stronger narrative of epic proportions this film will take you on a sour sweet adventure.
Both are out on 26th January.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching (actual date 25th Jan) and the London Chinese Film Festival takes place 31st January - 19th February at various London venues.
See www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/4301297 for details. Some great films are showing, including Hollywood Chinese, a documentary on Chinese in American cinema. I mentioned it last year as it won the award for best documentary at the Taiwanese Golden Horse Film Awards.
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol is also showing, which I saw a few years ago. It is a wonderful film set in Tibet (read my old post here).
The image above is from the documentary Young and Restless in China

Taiwanese Snacks

Anchovies with Peanuts
Fishy salty and delicious, serve on its own or add it to congee.

80g dried anchovies (medium size about 5cm)
100g peanuts (shelled and plain NOT salted)
2 cups oil
2 large chillies, sliced
3 cloves garlic roughly chopped
3 spring onions chopped
1 tablespoon rice wine (Shaohsing)
pinch of pepper

Deep Fry fish in wok and drain. Remove most of the oil. Re heat and add chillies, spring onions, garlic and rice wine stir fry for 2 mins, add fish and peanuts and fry for a further 5 mins. If you like it spicy add chilli sauce or if you like it sweet add sugar. Or if you like it really fishy add fish sauce, yum.

Oyster omelette is apparently the most popular snack served in Taiwanese night markets (according to the China Post). I found a recipe here:
http://hipfood.wordpress.com

Taiwanese Beatbox TV show

Check out the crazy on screen graphics and does that guy on the panel have an afro? The beatboxer is pretty good - Stand by Me with singing and beatbox at the end!

RIP Papa Noodle

Creator of the first instant noodles Momofuku Ando has passed away age 96. Born in Taiwan whilst it was under Japanese rule he then moved to Japan. In the World War II when food was scarce he came up with the idea of dried, flavoured instant noodles. The first instant falvour was chicken ramen, launched in 1958. The Cup Noodle was created in 1971 (Pot Noodle is the preferred brand in the UK) and his most recent product was for astronauts - Space Ram.
There is even a museum in Japan dedicated to Momofuku's life in the noodle world:
http://www.nissin-noodles.com/index_new.html
And so farewell Cup Noodle King......

Together At Last

R Kelly style RnB and Peking Opera! Stumbled across this on YouTube. It's by Lee-Hom Wang, American born Taiwanese singer/songwriter. It's not to my taste but it's an interesting product of the global diaspora.
Find out more about him at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Hom_Wang