Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture will take place from October 11 to November 24 at Orange County Performing Arts Center. The New York festival will be presented from October 21 to November 10 at Carnegie Hall and New York partner institutions.

The first festival presented under the partnership between Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Ancient Paths, Modern Voices will feature performances by leading international musicians, including some artists and ensembles traveling outside China for the first time. The festival will include Western symphonic and chamber music influenced by Chinese culture, traditional folk music and contemporary music as well as traditional marionette theater, dance, film screenings, calligraphy, art exhibitions and much more.

“By partnering with Carnegie Hall and other prominent institutions, Segerstrom Center for the Arts achieves a new level of excellence in serving Southern California, and reaching out as never before on the international stage,” stated Henry Segerstrom, Managing Partner of South Coast Plaza, presenting sponsor. “I am delighted that this vibrant celebration of Chinese culture presented by Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will be able to enrich and enliven the experience of audiences on both coasts.”

“Perhaps more than ever before, the incredibly diverse aspects of China—its history, timeless traditions, and lively contemporary arts scene—have captured the imagination of the world,” said Clive Gillinson, Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall. “With Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, we invite audiences on a cross-disciplinary exploration of this world, examining China’s traditional and contemporary culture, and how it has influenced artists around the globe.”

Lenovo, Acer and Sony have all stopped bundling the program, named Green Dam Youth Escort, with PCs sold in China, the companies said. The companies were among the few that went ahead with plans to distribute the software after China softened its order for PC makers to do so.

In another sign of fading enforcement, at least one Chinese high school has removed Green Dam from its computers after the software caused “severe conflicts” with programs used for roll and grading.

China originally ordered PC makers to start bundling Green Dam with all computers sold in the country by July to battle Internet pornography, but it postponed the deadline under pressure from foreign PC vendors and the U.S. government. China last month took another step back when it said it would not require mass installation of the program by consumers. But the country still said installation would be required for computers in public schools, Internet cafes and other public places.

China has said the software, which turned out to filter sensitive political content online in addition to pornography, was meant to protect children.

China-based Lenovo, the world’s number four PC maker, is no longer pre-installing the program on PCs, though it will include a copy when requested by a buyer, a company spokeswoman said by e-mail.

Taiwan-based Acer, which was shipping a Green Dam CD-ROM with new machines, stopped the practice for new shipments this month, a company spokeswoman said. When asked why, the spokeswoman said China is no longer requiring distribution of the software.

Sony stopped shipping the software about two months ago, following Beijing’s delay of its mandate, a company spokesman said.

Beijing Number 50 High School began installing Green Dam on its computers in June to comply with a government order, but this month it decided to uninstall the program from its networked PCs to ensure “smooth operation of teaching work”, according to posts on the school’s official blog that have since been removed.

The organizer last Friday unveiled this year’s trophies named the “China Cup”, saying the Chinese-flavored trophies would be a cultural mark of China and Beijing.

Unlike the previous five sessions, this year’s Open will reward both the winners and runner-ups. Designed and created by Chinese artifacts experts and gold artisans, the trophies take the archetypes of national treasure relics from the Palace Museum and National Museum in terms of both materials and craftsmanship.

The women’s singles trophy takes the shape of a bronze Ding named Zilong from the National Museum. Ding, in Chinese culture, is a noble ritual bronze article representing power; and in Chinese language, it means prosperity, conveying good wishes to New China’s 60th anniversary falling on October 1st. It has phoenix and lucky cloud designs on the surface, meaning female power.

China has repeatedly warned other countries against protectionism, particularly in light of the economic crisis, but foreign businesses say it is at least as culpable.

Mandelson, who is on a five-day trip to promote UK-Chinese trade, said “We have got a lot out of China in fulfilment of WTO obligations. In the main they have followed them to the letter. But in other cases, I don’t think they are keeping to the spirit of their commitments.

He said it was in everyone’s interests for China to continue growing, but continued: “We need a constant dialogue with the government to exert quite legitimate pressure; when we are open to China’s goods and services, it must become progressively and more speedily open to ours.”

China is increasingly alarmed by moves such as the EU’s recently imposed tariffs on steel pipe imports and the United States’ consideration of restrictions on Chinese-made tyres. Once any WTO member imposes a China safeguard on imports, others can do so without examining whether their own industries have been affected.

But critics point to China’s own failings. Last month, the WTO ruled against Beijing for forcing American media products such as movies and books to be distributed through Chinese state-owned companies, in a move which some believe could set a precedent for other industries and which China may yet challenge.

Mandelson will meet Premier Wen Jiabao tomorrow. Yesterday, Vice Premier Wang Qishan pressed for Britain to push China’s bid for formal recognition as a market economy. Beijing believes it is losing out in anti-dumping cases because of its non-market categorisation, agreed when it joined the WTO in 2001.

Leonardo Da Vinci would probably be quite surprised to see his genteel aristocratic lady of another softer time and place transformed into a high tech, interactive art exhibit. Be that as it may, the lady with the enigmatic smile is only one of 61 high-tech replicas on display at the World Classic Interactive Arts Exhibition, which opened last week in Beijing.

Originally crafted by a South Korean art gallery to bring these incredible recreations of renowned masterpieces to a Chinese audience took two years of preparation not to mention a great deal of money.

Some other Chinese speaking masterpieces include Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” in which Jesus talks to the apostles and moves across the plasma canvas. There is also a multimedia play by life-size replicas of ancient statues of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, who brag about their virtues and beauty while striking poses.

Chinese Central Television showed Hu meeting with ethnic groups and local residents, visiting factories and talking with military troops.

“You should make upholding social stability the most urgent task and maintain great strength to ensure triumph in the struggle to maintain stability in Xinjiang,” Hu told a group of soldiers and police who had been involved in quelling the violence that left nearly 200 people dead and another 1,700 injured.

The unrest marked China’s worst ethnic rioting in decades, exposing deep anger among the minority Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) and prompting outrage among the majority Han Chinese.

Violence broke out July 5 after police stopped an initially peaceful protest by Uighur youths, prompting crowds to smash windows, burn cars and attack Han Chinese. Two days later, Han vigilantes carried out revenge attacks on Uighurs.

Uighurs have long complained of discrimination and economic marginalization by Han migrants who have flooded into Xinjiang since communist troops entered the region in 1949. Like Tibetans, another restive minority, many Uighurs claim they were independent for much of their history.

The ethnic violence shook China’s leadership, prompting Hu to cut short his trip to a G-8 summit in Italy to return home to deal with the domestic crisis.

The device, which likely breaks almost every airspace and safety law simultaneously, is made from steel scaffold, has blades cut from Elm and is powered by an old motorcycle engine. Zhongyuan says that the ‘copter, which took three months and around $1600 to build, can soar to 800 meters (2600 feet). We’re not sure if it can even get airborne, though, as currently the machine is grounded by Chinese authorities.

How did he come up with his ramshackle design? The internet, of course. “I didn’t have a design. The only source for me to get relevant knowledge was surfing the internet via my mobile phone,” he said.

Regarding Tibet’s quest for autonomy, he said “from a wider perspective, things are very hopeful”.  The Dalai Lama said even some Chinese officials told him in private that they are concerned about Tibet.

He added that the international community should send investigators to Tibet for a thorough probe into the violent crackdown of Tibetan protests last year.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Switzerland on Monday afternoon for the start of a five-day visit, which will not include a formal meeting with cabinet ministers. He is however set to meet Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi, the speaker of the House of Representatives.

On Thursday he will travel to Geneva for a Sino-Tibetan conference.

Chinese Internet company Netease received approval Tuesday from the Ministry of Culture to offer the World of Warcraft online role-playing game, according to portal Techweb. The Chinese government agency’s Web site showed the game had passed its content examination.

World of Warcraft will still need an approval from another regulator, the General Administration of Press and Publication, or GAPP, before it can be relaunched. Analysts said that it’s very likely the game will be relaunched in late August or early September.

In April, World of Warcraft’s owner, Activision Blizzard of the U.S., picked Netease to replace a company called The9 in running the game in mainland China. NetEase and Activision Blizzard jointly issued a public letter stating that the first batch of game servers will be opened in late June.

But the game has been unavailable in China since June 7 as its operators awaited regulatory approval. That has led to grumblings among fans of a game that — as anyone who has stepped foot in an Internet café in China can tell you — borders on an obsession.

One of the texts, discovered in Qingdao, is thought to be the smallest book ever found in Eastern China. The 160 page text is two-and-a-half inches long and under two inches wide and can fit into a matchbox. It contains 140,000 characters drawn from exam texts.

The other book, found on the southern island of Hainan, is slightly larger but contains 32 million characters over 32 pages. Experts estimate it could be worth around £10,000.

The fearsome Imperial exams were used for 1,300 years to decide admission to the civil service. This tradition ended only in 1905 during the last years of the Qing Dynasty. Theoretically, they were open to any man in China, but the education required to become an official was prodigious.

Candidates were tested on military strategy, law, taxation, agriculture, geography, music, arithmetic, writing and in some cases archery and horsemanship.

Chinese students are still required to memorise long texts and cheating remains widespread. In the past few years, several students have been caught with near-invisible earpieces, some the size of a pea, while others have been found with bottles of water which reveal text once enough liquid has been drunk.