Exactly 20 years ago today, Diane Wei Liang said goodbye to the love of her young life forever. Almost. The preternatural calm over Weiming Lake at Beijing University, patiently awaiting the arrival of army tanks, would have been the perfect setting for two would-be revolutionaries to end their romance that was never-to-be. "Weiming Lake was as peaceful as ever," Liang writes in her memoirs of the heady days of 1989. more ›

In the spirit of cultural sharing and collaborative willingness, Warren Chang, the Founder and Music Director of the Chinese Arts and Music Association, has created a theme this season of presenting Chinese traditional music at Western-oriented musical institutions in the Puget Sound region. On Friday, January 16th (tomorrow) at 6:00 p.m., in a mixed program of the Eastern and Western repertoire, the Seattle Symphony will be performing the beautiful and lush Butterfly Lovers Concerto, not with a violin soloist as is typical for this piece, but rather with Mr. Chang playing the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument. Then, on January 25th at 3:00 p.m., the US China Music Ensemble, again directed by Mr. Chang, will celebrate the Chinese New Year with a concert at St. Mark’s Cathedral, the vast acoustics of which should provide an expansive aural experience for those who are able to attend. more ›

It's a live question. Still Life is a docudrama about the aftereffects of China’s Three Gorges hydro project: a 2,000-year-old town has been submerged, the new version isn't quite built yet, and people are feeling more than a little rootless. The drama comes from Sanming, a miner looking for his ex-wife, and Shen Hong, a nurse looking for her husband. No less a personage than Manohla Dargis called the film "a human triumph," but it closes on October 2. Not much time left! more ›

Over three weeks, SIFF Cinema is showing a really gorgeous black-and-white CinemaScope print of Masaki Kobayashi’s 10-hour 1959 epic The Human Condition, starting with the 208-minute Part 1: "No Greater Love." That closes this Thursday night, so if you want to catch it, get thee to McCaw Hall. more ›

Seattlest’s Olympic correspondent Mark Siano has been hard at work in Beijing getting the stories that you won’t hear about anywhere else. more ›

That feeling of oppression, smog, and soy sauce in the air can only mean one thing; the Beijing Olympics are underway. more ›

The bountiful ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest is worth between $243 billion and $1.22.1 trillion, economic and environmentalist researchers announced late last night. Phew! Numbers are far easier to work with than poetic sentiments about our "introverted, feral, buddhistically cool" raindrops (Tom Robbins), "unruly mobs of young clouds" and "green stand of mountains" (Ken Kesey), or Chief Sealth's sacred, inter-connected vision of "every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods." more ›

It is the kind of event for which cliche sayings like "it's the end of an era" were made. Today is Bill Gates' last day as the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he created and made into an all-encompassing empire. While Gates will remain the non-executive chairman of Microsoft, his full-time job will be with the Gates Foundation, he and wife Melinda's international health non-profit. One of his first stops after bowing out of day-to-day decisions at MS will be to China, where the Gates Foundation is launching a slew of new health initiatives. more ›

TODAY IS WORLD REFUGEE DAY! The International Rescue Committee is hosting a benefit night of poetry, music, dance and crafts from our local refugee community at the Seattle Center, and John Hilde's Made In China (a documentary about his father's childhood in pre-WWII China) is screening at the NWFF with proceeds going to Mercy Corps' work in the devastated Sichuan province of China. Be a good neighbor and enjoy these artsy celebrations of diversity and tradition! more ›

FULL PUPPET NUDITY: You might have noticed that big banner on the side of the Paramount advertising puppet cleavage Avenue Q. Well, tonight is opening night, so if you haven't gotten your tickets for this ever-so-brief run of the Tony Award-winning show, now's your time. Seattlest will be there tonight for the kick-off, but then it's up to you to get out and see those puppets sing and swear all over the place. more ›

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"yellow dragon on pole" by Seattlest Flickr Pool Contributor Seattle rainscreen. Thanks! more ›

Chinese Official: The world’s media is here, and they are going to be looking around. I need you to make sure that these Tibetan monks are locked up and don’t disrupt anything. more ›

Seattlest first heard about the Raveonettes from a troubled, neurotic friend. He recommended their '03 release , which struck us as analogous to that friendship: addictive and harping on the same two or three themes. more ›

href="http://londonist.com/2008/02/air_bound.php"> remove one man from Gatwick.

The old cliché is that if you eat Chinese food, you’ll be hungry again one hour later. We’re not sure of that, but in reviewing restaurants, we surely want to know what’s enduring one hour, one day, even one week later. Delicious when dining, perhaps, but ultimately fantastic… or forgettable? more ›

The latest session of the state legislature is now in full swing and most people are watching the big-ticket items under discussion. The supplemental budget and what to do with our $1.5 billion surplus are at the top of the list. Also high on the agenda are transportation issues like a new vote on light rail and a toll on 520. But there are always niche issues under consideration. They probably won't get the limelight coverage the budget and Sound Transit will, but when we find something interesting, we'll let you know. more ›

Boeing's announced yet another delay in production of its Dreamliner jet. It's the third such delay, almost sure to push back completion and require late delivery penalty payments to customers. more ›

In previous posts, we’ve name-dropped the mighty Meyer Lemon at the slightest provocation, but it is our fear that mere passing mention may have failed to entice you to leap from your seat and immediately buy one; which is of course the only sane reaction to the arrival of these splendid fruits. So here goes, our most desperate and heartfelt plea. more ›

That sure didn't last long, did it? Barely nine months. more ›

As an alumnus of Centralia Community College (out of boredom, we took a Latin class there one fall) and former southwest Washington resident, we've been following the flooding thataway with interest. A friend of ours just passed along two emails from K. in Centralia, and they can't be beat for a you-are-there feel that balances some of the apocalyptic news coverage -- let's face it, if nothing terrible happened to you, you aren't news. On... more ›

(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.) more ›

Chicken broth-based soups are some of the ultimate comfort foods, and are especially good when sick. We love them all, from matzo ball soup (a.k.a. “Jewish penicillin”) to tortilla soup to good ol’ Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (or, better yet, Chicken & Stars – our childhood favorite, though we shudder to think about the sodium content). more ›

Dogfish Head (DFH) has been a rock for the craft brewing industry for years. Never afraid to go out on a limb and try something different, DFH offers a variety of adventurous beers. more ›

Are you there Seattle art world? It's us, Seattlest. We're trying our best to talk up your First Thursday openings, but it looks like you've crapped out on us this month. We understand: you're on vacation or something, it's kinda hot out, the BLUE ANGELS are in the sky ... We've got posts to post, however, and damned if we won't find something to recommend from your namby-pamby Art Walk offerings. more ›

, is about a very different set of Chinese women trying to communicate their thoughts. more ›

N.P. Thompson went to SIFF, and we all benefit now that he's written about the best and worst films of the festival -- and launched a few broadsides at SIFF and select members of its audience:

The 33rd Seattle International Film Festival ended two weeks ago; it’s taken me this long to gain enough distance to sort and sift through all I might conceivably have to say on the subject. Even so, the movies under discussion here represent only a small fraction of what I took in. There were several screenings I walked out on, a few more I considered walking out on, and perhaps a baker's dozen of screener discs I couldn’t eject quickly enough. This year, as in other years, festival officials emphasized the sheer quantity of it all: 25 days, 600 screenings, X-number of North American premieres. They take this approach, because qualitatively, especially this time, there was almost nothing to point to. Which isn’t to say that weren’t some good films, but that they were in short supply.

He was speaking about another quiz he'd been to, but by the end of the quiz at Fremont's George & Dragon pub we were chuckling wryly at his foresight. more ›

Sniff sniff, single tear. It's the last full week of SIFF, so you're well approaching your last chance till next year to take in some of that sweet filmy goodness. SIFF's not just movies; this week offers both the Opticlash 2 VJ battle at the CHAC and the Face the Music party at Neumo's, the latter of which includes performances by Viva Voce, Jesse Sykes, and Siberian. Tickets for both are going fast! more ›

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! more ›