New Chinese Movie Pays Tribute to "Seven Samurai"
"Bitter Bamboo Grove" stars Hu Jun, Jiang Wu, Yu Xiaolei, Li Liqun

http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/09/23/1221s408383.htm

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/p/2008-09-23 ... 9747.shtml

Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu, Carlos Chan Kar Lok and Fan Siu Wong - Connected


http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/p/2008-09-22 ... 8310.shtml

S.P.L. to get remade by Hollywood with Donnie Yen's help (Thanks, to Fan)
Says he might participate if Wilson Yip returns to direct

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/f/2008-09-22/08462177554.shtml

Takeshi Kitano's 'Akiresu to Kame' (Achilles and the Tortoise) an inspiration
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/ar ... Y16001.htm

Poster for new comedy

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2008-09-23/11422179699.shtml

Jet Li and actress Hu Jing in advert
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/m/2008-09-23/00572179052.shtml

Has Cecilia Cheung miscarried?
http://justwoman.asiaone.com/Just%2BWom ... 89455.html

"Tian'anmen" Tells Untold Story in 1949
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/09/23/1221s408431.htm

Eric Khoo's 'My Magic' works its spell on its cast
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 02/1/.html
Coffee with the boy who did magic
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 92/1/.html

Huang Shengyi models jadeite


http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/m/p/2008-09-22 ... 8866.shtml

Singapore finds melamine in White Rabbit candies
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/09/22/singa ... hite_r.php

Woman chopped by chef after grumble over food
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... 80923&fc=2

This is NOT Chinese food:
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.msn.c ... date=False

Brian Thibodeau wrote:This is NOT Chinese food:
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.msn.c ... date=False

Great article, Brian.

This is NOT Chinese food:

True story. Yan used to shoot his little show by the lagoon over in a local Foster City mall on Shell Blvd 20 years back where I used to live & I would peek into his class whenever I got sushi next door at his neighbor's eatery (Tokie's still rocks!). I've never been much into Martin's histrionic style of what non-Chinese might expect a garden-variety immigrant from southern China might talk but the truth is he's much more pensive, professional & much less pidgin one-on-one than you might expect (yes the accent is overstated...guess that's show biz) but I know first hand that the man can cook cuz in the 90s, I had the pleasure eating Martin's 'Hu Tou Ji Yi' (taro root chicken wings) from his own home kitchen when his wife brought a party size chafing dish over to a poolside get-together at a mutual friend's & their kids up in nearby Hillsborough where they all soccer mommed, traded play-dates & literally grew up together and where Martin spends a fraction of the year, even less now that he spends more time overseas when not up in Sacto filming his syndicated show (I'm sure our local PBS station's been smarting over their failure in contract negotiations leading to his departure from SF).

Anyway, the 'woo tao' stood out unlike anything grandma ever made. My palette was smart enough to know that the dish was unencumbered by an onslaught of MSG, overbearing competing spices & fillers like the synthetic melamines that retail eats are spiked with to slowly kill us all on a daily basis. There was beer for grown-ups, tea & soft drinks all around but I would have none of it, just a glass of our local Hetchy-Hetchy tap was fine thank you. Didn't want any outside 'cloaking devices' to mask my eating experience, no such liquid contraband would betray his ingredients - just a scoop of long grain on a paper plate near the kids' table, I was good. Baked chicken parts pasted with bits of woo tao, garlic, pepper, soy & fresh green onions and I thought, healthy, hearty & zen and the raw materials must be all but about 8-10 bucks tops in 1997 bucks, the whole dish. I know Yan woulda dropped in a splash of chardonnay if it were a cocktail party & not the children's pool party but you can't win them all. First bite & the pure simplicity of this dish did me in; I'll never forget it. I do wonder what Martin & Alice Waters talk about when they bump into each other. The West coast food titans are aplenty around here & I can live on their scraps the rest of my life.

After that one rapturous meal as a guest, I knew that I would never be able to replicate that experience retail anywhere, not even in China and anywhere in-between ever since.

Great story!

Up here in Canada, we had our own cooking show hosted by a Yan. In this case it was "Wok With Yan" hosted by a manic/comic fellow named Stephen Yan, a Hong Kong-born chef who came to Canada in the 60's, ran a couple of chi-chi Chinese restaurants, then debuted on TV in the early 80's, and again in the early 90's. Not sure who came first, though: Wikipedia notes that Martin Yan was an employee of Stephen, demonstrating the latter's products, but since Wikipedia seems to be the only place to find such info, I'd take it with a drop of soy sauce. Wok With Yan was possibly a little more gimmicky than Yan Can Cook as I recall, with Stephen Yan garbling syntax with a sly grin, donning a new t-shirt emblazoned with a Cooper-font "Wok" pun in every episode ("Stuck Between a Wok and a Hard Place") and telling goofy jokes that only he seemed to get, which would then make the audience laugh too. His personality was infectious, though (the accent seemed genuine, but now I wonder ), and it was fascinating to watch him at work, even for this then-12-ish-year-old. I suppose woks, and the general healthiness of the food created within them, were starting to catch on with non-Asian communities in Canada at the time, so his show (possibly both of these shows) benefitted from the surge in popularity of the device. Tough to find much info on what happened to Stephen Yan after the 90's, but one wishes he could have kept on keepin' on. He lives on in re-runs up here, so there's always that, I suppose.

http://www.tvarchive.ca/database/19059/ ... n/details/

Well TV kitchens from the gimmicky Iron Chef on back, have come and gone but anybody old enough from the Los Angeles community should recall Cheng Pei Pei doing her wok fu on a local UHF broadcast cooking show for the immigrant contingency down in San Gabriel during the 80s as well. When her Eugenia & Marsha became old enough to sport training bras, mom freed up her own time back into the public eye. Hell why not, she lived near Hollywood. She did liven up this quaint little bare bones 1/2 hour weekly for a few annums a program previously hosted by an old expat Taiwan matron who targeted a small niche audience: immigrant LA Chinese housewives who understood Mandarin. No crossover wok puns or histrionics here. The community knew who Cheng Pei Pei was but if she wasn't on-screen, someone like me would only watch that show if they had insomnia & wanted some quick REM sleep...on a Saturday morning.

The point is Chinese cuisine like language & culture has really changed, especially during our lifetime. Last time I was overseas, my HK relatives told me that they ironically got their best Cantonese meals in San Francisco, Vancouver or Toronto now & not in HK. They say nearly ALL the established name chefs within their sphere have either gone to Shanghai, Canada, the States & beyond so go figure. Overall, Mainland tastes has replaced the old colonial HK-nese palette. Of course, I'll qualify the opinion that their palettes are prolly akin to mine i.e. of a past generation but here out in the open, there's truth in the content of the article on the substandard quality of food now being served not only in your neck of Canada but all around.