Return of the King?
by Cathy Barbash
Last weekend in Xi’an, my local cultural official friend, discreetly told us that artists in Shaanxi Province are quietly telling each other that “spring is coming.” Why their optimism? Shaanxi native Xi Jingping will become the next president of China. “The Tang Emperor is returning,” they say.
They will need all the help they can get–the local revival/repatriation of Ping Chong’s Cathay: Three Tales of China, was, albeit a huge artistic success, fraught with nightmarish production problems. This was a sobering reminder of how the interior still lags behind the coast, and how government affiliated culture companies lag behind private entrepreneurial companies in the same city.
Tags: cathy barbash, China, Xi Jingping