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The under-production TV series, “Zhou Xuan,” starring Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung and mainland star Huang Shengyi, ran into trouble recently with Huang’s former agent, Stephen Chow’s Star Overseas Ltd., claiming that the contract Huang signed with the producer of “Zhou Xuan” is invalid.

Lu Jun, the producer of the TV drama said he received the fax from Star Overseas, but would not comment on it. Huang said she thought what Star Overseas had done was ridiculous.

Huang was reported to have ended the contract when she accepted a role in CCTV’s “Sword Stained with Blood” last year. But Star Overseas claimed that Huang was still under its management, and Huang should have informed them before agreeing to play the role of actress Wang Renmei in “Zhou Xuan.”

According to Star Overseas, the contract is valid until 2011, so the producer of “Zhou Xuan” should have contacted Star Overseas first, and it was the agent’s responsibility to sign the contract for Huang, not herself. Also, the producer should have paid Huang through Star Overseas.

The agent said it was considering legal action.

A man surnamed Jin, representing Huang, responded: “It’s really ridiculous that Star Overseas made this movement. Huang has made an announcement to terminate the contract, which is valid based on the Hong Kong laws. Huang is now free. She can do what she wants to do.”

Jin also said if the Star Overseas claim was valid, it should have stopped CCTV from completing “Sword Stained with Blood” last year.

At the end of 2005, Star Overseas announced that Huang didn’t obey the company’s rules and it decided to stop seeking work for her after she posed for the cover of a men’s magazine in a bikini without informing the company.

Huang then said to the public that she planned to terminate the contract even if she had to pay a lot of money in compensation.

The story of Zhou Xuan(1920-57), the legendary singer and actress who was a household name in the 1930s, will be retold in a TV drama now being shot in Shanghai.

Shooting of the 40-part TV drama began in late March and is expected to be finished next year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Zhou’s death.

The drama will focus on Zhou’s prime time when she was between 16 and 28 years old. In order to depict the singer’s diverse social circle, many famous celebrities back in that time, including renowned novelist Eileen Cheung, musician Nie Er and playwright Tian Han, will be featured in the drama.

The lead role of Zhou Xuan is played by Hong Kong A-list film actress Cecelia Cheung. According to media reports, the film actress is paid a stunning 200,000 yuan(US$24,660) for each episode in her soap opera premiere. Her salary takes up about one quarter of the total investment.

Cheung is said to have paid great attention to her TV debut and signed a very detailed contract with the project’s production company, the Shanghai Film Group.

The contract commits Cheung to completing her scenes within 43 days, while working for no longer than 13 hours every day.

Pan Yueming, a Chinese mainland actor, will be Zhou Xuan’s husband Yan Hua. But in the drama the character’s name is changed to Qiming and the crew has not given a reason for that.

The head of the TV drama is Hong Kong director Yim Ho, whose previous works include”Red Dust” in 1990 and”A West Lake Moment” in 2004.

The TV drama is mainly based on the biography,”My Mother Zhou Xuan,” written by one of Zhou’s sons, Zhou Wei. However, Zhou, who has been invited to be the drama’s consultant, said he was very unsatisfied with the adapted script.

Some parts of the script, Zhou Wei was quoted as saying,”are fake and do not accord with the historical facts, and could damage Zhou Xuan’s reputation.”

Zhou Wei also felt unsatisfied with Cecilia Cheung, saying she does not fit the role. Cheung responded to the comment, saying that she would definitely not worry what people think of her in the role.

Zhou Xuan began her acting career in 1935. One of her most famous movies is”Street Angel”(Malu Tianshi), which was shot in 1937. She continued her singing and acting career throughout the war years and by 1949 she had made more than 200 records and performed in scores of films.

Her personal and professional career declined in 1951 when she suffered a nervous breakdown resulting from family problems and a disastrous love affair. She passed away in Shanghai in 1957.

The TV drama “Zhou Xuan，” depicting the life story of the legendary 1930s actress and singer Zhou Xuan， has drawn wide attention since shooting began in mid-March. However， Zhou Wei， Zhou Xuan’s son and the art consultant of the drama， said he was very unsatisfied with the script.

The TV series is adapted from the biography， “My Mother， Zhou Xuan，” written by Zhou Wei. But Zhou said the script had been totally different from what he wrote in the book after he read it.

In the book， the son said Zhou Xuan was adopted by a woman who later became her foster mother. Her foster mother was kind to her and sent her to school， so Zhou Xuan still lived with her foster mother after she became famous. But according to the first two episodes of the TV play script， the foster mother was described as an evil woman who often beat Zhou Xuan.

Zhou Wei is also very upset about the description of Zhou Xuan. Zhou said although his mother only studied in school for three years， she was smart. But some plots describe Zhou Xuan as a stupid and babyish girl when she was at school. Zhou Wei said: “How could such a girl become a famous artist?”

What makes Zhou Wei more upset is that the script says Zhou Xuan was a child bride to Zhou Lu’an. Actually， Zhou Lu’an， the eldest son of Zhou Xuan’s foster father， was a well-known actor， who was very kind to Zhou Xuan. Zhou Wei claims their relationship was like brother and sister.

So Zhou Wei said all the untrue descriptions have damaged Zhou Xuan’s reputation.

He also said the Hong Kong A-list star Cecilia Cheung does not fit the role of his mother. Cheung commented on the criticism， saying she would definitely not involve what people think of her in the role.

“I have learnt from some veteran actors who had cooperate with Zhou Xuan in the 1930s， although I have little information on the late actress in hand.” Cheung also said the most annoying thing around her in the play was not the performance criticism but the paparazzi who focus her everyday. “They wait for me everyday， shooting my daily life.”

“She sells sea shells by the seashore,” parroted 40 Chinese youngsters with perfect diction in a steaming summer-holiday classroom.

Your scribe was taken aback by this linguistic display after inadvertently finding himself in front of a chalkboard for the first time following a move to Hainan to study Mandarin - full-time!

Although the sharp group of 12-year-olds easily twisted their little tongues around the sentence above, they found more mirth than success in, “How much wood would a wood chop chop if a wood chop could chop wood?” (spoken at a hundred miles an hour).

Out of sympathy for my charges, I then took a shot at one of the most infamous Chinese tongue twisters.

“Si shi si (4 is 4), shi shi shi (10 is 10), shi si shi shi si (14 is 14),” I stuttered with a modicum of success. When my attempt at 40 is 40 (si shi shi si shi) and 44 is 44 (si shi si shi si shi si) degenerated into “shi shi shi si si si”, we were in the same boat.

By now, still sweating profusely from nerves and the absence of air-conditioning in a tropical classroom, I had run out of quirky lines and the interest in my lesson began to wane.

But just as I resorted to a text book, thankfully an illustration of a chicken led me to a teacher’s aide infinitely more helpful than a tongue twister: onomatopoeia.

Now, with good authority, I can say that “b’gerk” should be the first thing taught to young Chinese learning English.

The students laughed wildly each time I bellowed it out, although the accompanying dance and flying sweat beads may have also had something to do with it.

More accustomed to “gu, gu, gu” when imitating a chicken, the sound of the above even caught the attention of those daydreamers thinking of any place cooler than that sweat box.

When they repeated “b’gerk’ too flatly, my advice - to pronounce the second syllable using Mandarin’s first and highest tone - worked a treat and the school soon sounded like a fox in a hen house.

Naturally a rooster’s “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” followed suit - much to the dismay of my protgs, for whom “zhi zhi zha zha,” had always been the sound of the bird shaped like their own country.

Now all and sundry were eagerly anticipating which member of the animal kingdom their crazy Australian would imitate next, as my teaching debut morphed into what Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons would surely “declare Onomatopoeia Day”.

Again all were agog, and some in fits of laughter, to learn Westerners used “woof woof” for a dog’s “wang wang”. “Wang wang?” I asked, silently incredulous.

And a few sparse eyebrows were raised at the news “a-choo” was actually how those silly foreigners mimicked a sneeze - not “a-ti” - and that a “dong” (first tone) at the door was actually a knock.

Continuing the hilarity, “gua gua” (fourth tone) gave way to “ribbit” as we impersonated a frog together, just as “ba-a-ah, ba-a-ah” replaced “mie” as the din of a sheep flock.

As “quack quack” flew south from my mouth to their developing minds, “ga ga” (first tone) passed for a duck to my growing ear for Chinese.

The humor the youngsters found in these examples came as a pleasant surprise to a complete novice of a teacher, as did their ability to pronounce difficult words correctly.

Although a lumberjack’s productivity was out of reach, in just one attempt they had mastered the word “usually”, a word even the most fluent Chinese English speakers make a hash of. “Ewerully” has indeed provided me a chuckle or two over the past two years.

But I’ve never laughed as hard as those kids when they first heard a waiguoren playing chicken.

Chinese scholar-officials, who possessed power, wealth and dominated the arts over a span of nearly 1,000 years prior to the country’s forced opening and modernization, were devoted to making every artefact in their studios a piece of art.

But steeped in Confucian values of moderation and respect for tradition, they generally favoured subtly decorated objects that required a high degree of cultural expertise to appreciate.

One of the most important contemporary art collections from a scholar’s studio is the Li Song Ju Collection, owned by Wang Shixiang, scholar of traditional Chinese culture and retired researcher at the Palace Museum in Beijing, and his late wife, Yuan Quanyou.

The 150 artefacts in this famous collection were all sold in 2003 under the hammer of China Guardian Auction Co Ltd for a stunning price of 63 million yuan (US$7.88 million) in total.

One of them, a qin, or seven-stringed musical instrument from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), sold for 8.91 million yuan (US$1.11 million) a world record for a Chinese qin.

Three years later, another major collection of the same kind, known as the Jian Song Ge Collection and owned by H. L. Huang in Taiwan, will be sold by the same auction house next Saturday at the Kerry Centre Hotel in Beijing.

It will be the first of the company’s three-day spring auctions of Chinese art, and a preview is to be held at the hotel from next Wednesday to Friday.

The 120 objects on sale include nearly every piece of a scholar’s studio, ranging from precious ink stones and hardwood brush pots to bronze incense burners and cups delicately carved out of rhinoceros horns.

The potential buyers of these pieces are different from most who collect ceramics, paintings and calligraphy on the Chinese mainland, according to Yan Dongmei, specialist at the auction house.

“More than 90 per cent of the collectors of arts from the scholar’s studio buy them simply because they love them,” she said. “In some other fields of art, many buyers in the mainland’s heated art market are making purchases with the primary intention of investment.”

But there are fewer collectors of studio objects, because of the high requirements set for people to appreciate them, she said.

Many who are interested in these objects are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the overseas, she added.

“As the economy further develops and the collectors get more mature, more people will turn from the eye-catching works of art to these with refined aesthetic tastes,” said the specialist.

The aesthetic taste for scholars’ studio arts formed as early as in the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279), when the class of scholar-officials came into being, according to Huang, the owner of Jian Song Ge Collection.

It combined the Confucian values of moderation, the naturalist philosophy of Taoism and the scholars’ pursuit of a lingering charm integrated with simplicity.

When the handicraft industry arose to an unprecedented prosperity in the middle part of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), objects in the scholar’s studio also achieved a remarkable artistic level and, in the meantime, the scholar’s taste began to rule the overall handicraft industry, said Huang.

The best work in the Jian Song Ge Collection is considered to be a 17-centimetre-tall cup made of a mottled rhinoceros horn, amber in colour and slightly translucent. There is a spring landscape carved on the outside, inspired by a poem by Meng Jiao in the Tang Dynasty, which was also inscribed on the cup in calligraphy.

Two dragons were carved on the inside of the cup and their agile movement was styled after the artistic trend of the time.

The artist, Fang Zhushi, later took monastic vows and became a monk. As a master carver of rhinoceros horns and agate, he was distinguished by his attention to the smallest details and fine workmanship.

But the greatest achievements in the genre of art in the Ming Dynasty may be the xuan de lu, or burners made during the Xuande Period (1426-1435). They are attached with the same importance as bronze ware of the Shang (1600-1046 BC) and Zhou (1046-256 BC) dynasties, according to Huang.

It was in 1428 that Emperor Xuanzong instructed the Ministry of Works to make bronze out of precious metals including brass, zinc and tin. Liquefied bronze was to be used for casting only, after having gone through the smelting process 12 times, and the resulting bronze is only one-fourth of the weight of the raw material.

That is why Xuande bronze ware was admired for its purity and quality.

“Xuande burners were rare even during the Ming Dynasty, and they were frequently imitated in the later periods,” said Huang. “Imitations during the mid-Ming Dynasty, in particular, were so well done that they could easily be taken for the genuine pieces.”

The one Xuande burner in the Jian Song Ge Collection bears a Xuande mark in seal script at its base.

According to its collector, the burner originally had a coat in “crimson cloud red,” but as it aged, it has taken on a yellowish-brown patina that is like the colour of the faded papers of ancient scriptures.

The piece, covered with small, irregular splashes of gold, is especially heavy because of the high quality of bronze it is made of.

Such luxurious works lost their popularity at the end of the Ming Dynasty when many scholars retreated from the messy politics of the time. They preferred arts with a quiet mood, made of natural materials such as bamboo, clay, stones and wood.

Pieces in these scholars’ studios could be illustrated by a bamboo wrist rest in the Jian Song Ge Collection. The 23-centimetre-long, 5.5-centimetre-wide piece was carved in the then-popular technique of liu qing, or “retaining the green.”

West Lake of Hangzhou in the spring rain is depicted on it, created with as many details as in a Chinese ink painting.

“The landscape suggests depth in spatial distribution, as the mountains are seen receding to the background through a masterly gradation of tones, which was a hallmark of Zhang Xihuang,” remarked Huang, the collector.

“Zhang would spend three, up to six, months on a small piece to bring out the desired detail,” he said.

In the following Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), emperors were all interested in arts and they set up workshop to produce artefacts for their studios. These objects for royal use were usually more colourful and glamorous than those in scholars’ studios.

Among the Qing emperors, Emperor Qianlong had a good knowledge of antiquities and he liked choosing antique jade or wood wares made in the imperial workshop.

A ruyi scepter, which was allegedly placed in Emperor Qianlong’s studio, is included in the Jian Song Ge Collection. Made of fine sandalwood, the scepter has a piece of white jade from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) with a checked design set in the groove surrounding the centre of its head.

Its shaft is carved with animal masks and C-shaped cloud patterns.

Despite all their beauty, arts in the scholars’ studios declined rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Although a few good artists emerged on the scene, few contemporary pieces can match the classical pieces.

Talented Chinese actress and director Xu Jinglei sings the theme song for her upcoming new film “Dream Sheds Light on Reality,” which is based on the story by renowned novelist Wang Shuo.

This is the first time the star shows her singing prowess, said composer Huang Shaofeng, who is also a new artist at Chinese mainland recording giant TR Music.

The film, directed by and starring Xu Jinglei, has finished production and according to producer Liu Xuan will hit Chinese cinemas at the end of this month around June 30.

A former United Nations biological weapons inspector is leading a campaign to educate the world on the germ warfare practiced by the Japanese in China from 1931 to 1945.

German cell biologist and former weapons inspector with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Jan van Aken has just completed a research tour of war crime sites in China.

“I was astonished at the fact that the Chinese victims of Japanese biological weapons have suffered so much in the past 60 years,” said the Hamburg University biologist.

“However, very few people know this fact. It is essential for more people to know this history of inhumanity so as to prevent similar tragedies,” van Aken said in Yiwu City, east China’s Zhejiang Province.

Van Aken has visited Quzhou, Jinhua, and Yiwu, in Zhejiang, to collect evidence of germ warfare.

He was accompanied by his assistant, Matthias Ziegler, and WangXuan, head of the Plaintiffs Delegation of Chinese War Victims, which has lobbied for compensation from the Japanese government and helped in lawsuits.

Van Aken said he would file the findings of the investigation with the sixth deliberation meeting of United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons and their Destruction to be held in Geneva in November.

He would also publicize Japanese germ warfare crimes to the world via the Internet and international media.

“My nine-year-old younger brother suffered so much that he kept scratching the bed board with his bleeding hands,” said Wu Shigen, a citizen of Quzhou, who escaped the atrocities, telling van Aken how his younger brother and sister died of plague in 1942.

Qiu Mingxuan, a former head of Quzhou Health and Epidemic Prevention Station, has investigated Japanese germ warfare allegations for years. He discovered that more than 50,000 people in Quzhou died of plague from 1940 to 1948.

At Caojie Village of Jinhua, 70-year-old villager Dai Zhaokai rolled up his trousers and revealed to van Aken the yellowish-white scars of anthrax and answered van Aken’s questionsabout his infection.

Later, van Aken went to Chongshan Village of Yiwu to research the claims of human experiments and vivisection.

Wang Peigen, secretary-general of the Plaintiffs Delegation, said 403 people in the village fell victim to germ warfare in 1942. “The Japanese captured villagers infected with plague and pulled out their internal organs to make bacteria bombs. The old villagers still remember the screams.”

Van Aken and Ziegler said they were overwhelmed by the evidence.

“It is hard to express my feelings,” said van Aken. “On the one hand, it is distressing to see the long-lasting torture Japanese germ warfare brought to the Chinese people; on the other, I find myself grateful that Wang Xuan et al are saving the living evidence.

“Through this investigation, I believe the Japanese did practice germ warfare. This is a fact, not a theory.” He said a wider knowledge of the story might help prevent future tragedies.

Wang Xuan said, “This investigation has reinforced our determination to carry out lawsuits against the Japanese for their atrocities to the end.”

Since August 1997, the Plaintiffs’ Delegation has been appealing for the Japanese government to apologize and compensate victims.

Studies by Chinese and foreign scholars have shown that between1931 and 1945, Japanese troop Unit 731 with its human biological weapons laboratory, and other units repeatedly practiced germ warfare in China.

If time could be turned back what would you do? Fifty students from all over the country gathered in Shanghai yesterday to speak on the subject in English.

It was the final of the Fifth “21st Century-Scholastic Cup” National High School and Primary School English Speaking Competition.

Zhang Rong from Diocean Girls School in Hong Kong was judged the Grand Champion in the Senior High School section, and Yuan Siying, also from Diocean Girls School, was judged the Grand Champion of the Primary School section.

The first runner-up in the High School section was Wang Xuan from No 10 Middle School of Nanchong, Sichuan. Liu Huixue from Qingdao Jinmen Road Primary School was the first runner-up in the Primary School section.

Wang Xuan will represent the Chinese mainland at the International English Speech Competition to be held by the English Speaking Union in London in May next year. He will be the first Chinese mainland high school student to participate in the London competition.

Sponsored by China Daily and Scholastic, the leading children’s book publisher in the United States, the competition attracted tens of thousands of students from across the Chinese mainland and from the Hong Kong.

The purpose of the competition was to promote English learning and teaching in China and promote cross- culture exchanges.

“I was amazed by the performance of the Chinese students who used excellent English to express their vivid imaginations. Some of them sounded like native English speakers,” said Verner Bickely, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the English Speaking Union Hong Kong.

Professor Chen Lin, a senior educator in China, who has been teaching English for more than 50 year, said he would encourage his students to read more newspapers and magazines instead of just text books.

Sixty college students in east China will soon begin collecting oral evidence from victims of germ warfare launched by Japanese troops during World War II (WWII), which may be used in future lawsuits against the Japanese government.

The students, from Hangzhou University of Electronic Science and Technology, will visit 208 households in Yiwu City in Zhejiang Province where more than 1,200 people died of the plague which was deliberately spread by Japanese troops between 1931 and 1945.

The surviving victims’ stories need to be written down before it is too late, says Wang Xuan, a lawyer representing people who suffered in the atrocity.

“Many of the victims have died or become aged, but few of them or their families have recorded the brutal facts from that period in any form,” said Wang.

The students will spend their upcoming winter vacation interviewing the elderly victims. The victims’ stories will be compiled and form part of the collection of a local museum.

Historians say at least 270,000 Chinese in Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces were victims of Japanese warfare which was mainly conducted by the notorious Unit 731 based in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.

In the city of Quzhou in western Zhejiang, more than 50,000 people were killed by Japanese troops using germ warfare, according to Chinese scholars.

In August 1997, a team of 108 Chinese germ warfare victims launched the first lawsuit in a Tokyo District Court demanding an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. They lost the case and their appeal was rejected.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee here Tuesday on implementing plans to deepen strategic partnership between the two countries.

During the meeting, Li said the Sino-India relations have maintained a favorable momentum of comprehensive development with the successful visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao last November and the recent meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the East Asian Summit in the Philippines.

The two countries have reached the mutual understanding on how to deepen the Sino-India strategic partnership and improve the bilateral ties in the future, he said.

China is willing to work with India on fully implementing the 10-point plan to deepen the Sino-India strategic partnership, which was agreed during President Hu’s visit, he said.

On his part, Mukherjee said the development of India-China relations is conducive to both sides as well as the regional and world peace and stability.

With the landmark visit of the Chinese president and the meeting between the Chinese premier and the Indian prime minister,the two countries should realize the mutual understanding as quickly as possible in a bid to push forwards the bilateral ties, he said.

The two foreign ministers also announced the formal start of a hotline between them, which was part of the 10-point plan.

China and India will also open the consulates general in Kolkata, capital of east Indian state West Bengal, and Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, by the end of this year.

Li started his four-day visit to India on Sunday. On Monday, he attended the opening ceremony of the memorial hall for Xuan Zang, a renowned Chinese monk traveling to India 1,300 years ago for Buddhism study, in Nalanda of north Indian state Bihar.

On Wednesday he will kick off the China-India Friendship Year Through Tourism along with Mukherjee and Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni and hold talks with Mukherjee and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.