Culture

Cheng Pei-kai grows despondent on a dark day of winter in Suzhou, but perks up instantly with one whiff of wintersweet’s enigmatic scent.

Criticisms have been levelled at the Palace Museum’s heavy use of the institution’s cultural capital for commercial gains. Museum officials rationalise that government funding alone is not enough to keep them going; tasteful product lines and festive promotions are just some of their means of survival.

Young academic Chen Nahui, assistant professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, thinks about the confluence of time and space as she flits between New Year memories long past. What has become of her hometown Shenjiamen, a port town in Zhejiang?

Chinese New Year customs and practices can be different depending on where one is, whether within or outside of China. Young academic Pang Ruizhi describes his Chinese New Year as a child in Shandong, northern China.

There was a time when “fatty” and “oily” were signs of prosperity. Young academic Wei Shuang reminisces that gone are the days of fighting over the last meatball as the post-80s and post-90s generation Chinese become more wealthy. But with material abundance comes emptiness. Is it harder to be happy? The realities of Chinese life hit home as the Spring Festival draws near.

Lost love, tumultuous times. Teo Soon Kim, Singapore’s first female lawyer and daughter of rubber magnate and revolutionary Teo Eng Hock, may have had the most beautiful wedding in Singapore during the 1920s, but she passed away in her staff quarters in China that was just 15sqm in size. In the end, her ashes were laid to rest in Singapore's Choa Chu Kang Christian Columbarium. Chia Yei Yei, senior correspondent of Zaobao, talks to family members and pieces together this poignant story.

Recalling her days in Taiwan, Brigitte goes on a vivid journey down memory lane that’s as winding as the streets and alleys she dreams about.

The Chinese calendar, based on observations of sun and moon, was chiefly used to mark agrarian time. With the dawn of the Republic of China in 1912, official calendars were reset to the Gregorian system. No matter that the start of the year was now 1 January, people’s lives were still much tied to the land. They welcomed the Spring Festival and Chinese New Year with relish, celebrating their well-earned rest from toil. Photo collector Hsu Chung-mao shares his precious images of celebrations in Beijing and Nanjing from a bygone era.

Prof Zheng Yongnian bemoans the “culturally-bereft” middle class in China, and labels them the “hooligan middle class”. He opines that the absence of a cultural middle class is the reason why China lacks originality in technology and innovation, why the intellectual community produces little useful knowledge, and why China has not been able to advance towards qualitative economic growth. He offers the solution.