Charm of Chinese characters

An interactive cultural event titled Best Wishes to Beijing: Charm of Chinese Characters in the Olympic Village has attracted attention from athletes, coaches and other visitors from China and abroad.

The cultural event, housed in a 50-sq-m pavilion in the Olympic Village, is designed to give visitors a chance to learn more about Chinese culture and arts, says Sun Jidong, an organizer with the World of Chinese magazine.

Viewers will see Chinese calligraphy, ink paintings, photographs, posters, woodblock prints and installations from 12 veteran Chinese artists, including Ouyang Zhongshi, Xie Xiaoqing, Wang Wangwang, Shen Yanxiang and Yu Anmin.

Any foreign visitors can ask the organizers for the Chinese equivalents of their names and then learn how write them down on Chinese rice paper with a paintbrush.

Overseas visitors can also learn basic spoken Chinese with the help of Chinese language coaches at the pavilion and get free copies of World of Chinese, published by Commercial Press, one of the most authoritative publications on Chinese language learning.

The cultural event runs until August 20.

The guessing game

While Chinese athletes are competing on the sports grounds, an online poll to choose the Top 10 Most Popular Chinese Athletes has also been launched.

Chinese netizens and sports fans are invited to vote for their favorite sports stars from Aug 29- Sep 5 .

The event is part of a project entitled Best Luck Beijing & Glory of China.

Initiated last August by Wanglaoji Herbal Tea and the Sohu.com and Huaao Xingkong Wap websites, the campaign also includes the selection of 56 ethnic Chinese cultural envoys from their home provinces and regions to deliver performances for the ongoing Olympic Cultural Festival in Beijing.

Public interest blossoms

There has been a huge increase in public votes for this year's 29th Full Blossom Film Festival, China's version of the Academy Awards.

The festival, which is in Dalian from Sep 10-13, is distinguished by its use of both professional and amateur judges.

This year's event received more than two millions online and paper votes from movie lovers, a 134 percent increase on last year.

Of those voters, 101 have been chosen to be judges on award ceremony night and will decide the final winners.

Ten films, including Feng Xiaogang's war epic Assembly (Jijie Hao), have now been shortlisted to compete for the Best Film award and two Excellent Film awards.

China Daily