1.
Run Run Shaw
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Sir Run Run Shaw, GBM, CBE, also known as Shao Yifu and Siu Yat-fu, was a Hong Kong entertainment mogul and philanthropist. He was one of the most influential figures in the Asian entertainment industry and he founded the Shaw Brothers Studio, one of the largest film production companies in Hong Kong, and TVB, the dominant television company in Hong Kong. A well-known philanthropist, Shaw donated billions of Hong Kong dollars to educational institutions in Hong Kong, more than 5,000 buildings on Chinese college campuses bear his name, as does Shaw College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also established the Shaw Prize for Astronomy, Life Science & Medicine, Run Run Shaw was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, Qing China, and moved to Shanghai as a child. He was the youngest of the six sons of Shanghai textile merchant Shaw Yuh Hsuen and his name at birth was Shao Renleng, which was later changed to Shao Yifu because he thought that the average Chinese person would not know how to pronounce the character 楞. There is some confusion surrounding Run Run Shaws exact date of birth and he celebrated his birthdays on the 14th day of the 10th month of the Chinese calendar, which fell on 23 November in 2007, his 100th birthday. Many sources use 23 November 1907 as his birthdate, however, the 14th day of the 10th month of the Chinese calendar in 1907 corresponds to 19 November 1907 on the Gregorian calendar, which, according to China Daily was his birthdate. He graduated from the Shanghai YMCA School, where he learned English, in 1925, Shaws brothers, led by the eldest brother Runje Shaw, established Tianyi Film Company in Shanghai, and Run Run began his film career doing odd jobs for the company. In 1927, Shaw, then 19 years old, went to Singapore to assist his elder brother Runme Shaw in their business venture there. They established the company that would become the Shaw Organisation. Tianyi produced what is considered the first sound-on-film Chinese talkie in 1931 and it was highly successful, and Tianyi established a branch in Hong Kong in 1934. Just before the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937, Tianyi moved its operation to Hong Kong, shipping its equipment from Shanghai and its studio in Shanghai was destroyed when the Japanese occupied the city. In Hong Kong, Tianyi was reorganised as Nanyang Studio, which later became Shaw Brothers Studio, Shaw was credited with scripting and directing the 1937 comedy film Country Bumpkin Visits His In-laws. In his early days in Singapore, Run Run Shaw supervised the business while Runme travelled north to Malaya to establish ties with local theatre owners. In 1927, having noticed that there were few cinemas in Malaya, by 1939, the brothers owned a chain of 139 cinemas across the region, the chain would later include Singapores first air-conditioned cinema, at Beach Road. They also established a number of amusement parks throughout the region, including Borneo, Thailand and Java, the brothers began to make Malay films in Singapore in 1937. Inspired by the success of films intended for Malay audiences, for example Leila Majnun in 1934, and other films from the Dutch East Indies, the brothers established Malay Film Productions. This company would produce over 160 Malay films, many of them starring and directed by P. Ramlee
2.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
3.
Manchu people
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The Manchu are an ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus, a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats, the Later Jin, and Qing dynasty are established by Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty in China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China and they can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. They also form the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region, among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. The Sushen used flint-headed wooden arrows, farmed, hunted and fished, the cognates Sushen or Jichen again appear in the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei during the dynastic era referring to the Tungusic Mohe tribes of the far northeast. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were sedentary. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in the 10th century CE, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, in the year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars. During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in the 1120s and it was mainly derived from the Khitan script. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture and they farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was different from the pastoral nomadism of the Mongols. In 1206, the Mongols, vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia and their leader, Genghis Khan, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized and they adopted Mongolian customs, names and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachus resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area, at the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai. Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard, the Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks
4.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
5.
Revenge
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Revenge is a form of primitive justice usually assumed to be enacted in the absence of the norms of formal law and jurisprudence. Often, revenge is defined as being an action against a person or group in response to a grievance. It is used to right a wrong by going outside of the law and this is because the individual taking revenge feels as though the law will not do justice. Francis Bacon described it as a kind of justice that does. Offend the law putteth the law out of office, primitive justice or retributive justice is often differentiated from more formal and refined forms of justice such as distributive justice and divine judgment. Detractors argue that revenge is simply wrong, of the design as two wrongs make a right. They dont want to lose face, some societies encourage vengeful behavior, which is called feud. These societies usually regard the honor of individuals and groups as of central importance, thus, while protecting of his reputation an avenger feels as if he restores the previous state of dignity and justice. According to Michael Ignatieff, revenge is a profound desire to keep faith with the dead. Thus, honor may become a heritage that passes from generation to generation, whenever it is compromised, the affected family or community members might feel compelled to retaliate against an offender to restore the initial balance of honor that preceded the perceived injury. This cycle of honor might expand by bringing the family members and they still persist in some areas, notably in Albania with its tradition of gjakmarrja or blood feuds. Blood feuds are still practiced in parts of the world, including Kurdish regions of Turkey. Honoring ones family, clan, or lord through the practice of revenge killings and these killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. Today, katakiuchi is most often pursued by means. The motto of Scotland is Nemo me impune lacessit, Latin for Nobody shall provoke/injure me with impunity, the origin of the motto reflects the feudal clan system of ancient Scotland, particularly the Highlands. Modern Western legal systems usually state as their goal the reform or reeducation of a convicted criminal, Sudan has suffered cycles of revenge for many years, for example tribal conflicts in Darfur. South Sudan is torn by conflicts with ethnic cleansing between the Nuer and Dinka peoples, fueled by appetite for revenge. The French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord has been credited with the saying, La vengeance est un met que lon doit manger froid and it has been wrongly credited to the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses
6.
Shaolin Monastery
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The Shaolin Monastery, also known as the Shaolin Temple, is a Chan Buddhist temple in Dengfeng County, Henan Province, China. Dating back 1,500 years when founded by Fang Lu-Hao, Shaolin Monastery and its Pagoda Forest were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010 as part of the Historic Monuments of Dengfeng. The name refers to the forests of Shaoshi mountain, one of the seven peaks of Song mountains, the first Shaolin Monastery abbot was Batuo, a dhyāna master who came to China from India or from Greco-Buddhist Central Asia in 464 AD to spread Buddhist teachings. Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang, the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty was a supporter of Shaolin Temple, and he wrote the calligraphic inscriptions that still hang over the Heavenly King Hall and the Buddha Hall today. Traditionally Bodhidharma is credited as founder of the arts at the Shaolin Temple. However, martial arts historians have shown this legend stems from a 17th-century qigong manual known as the Yijin Jing, the authenticity of the Yi Jin Jing has been discredited by some historians including Tang Hao, Xu Zhen and Ryuchi Matsuda. Tiantai, and falsely attributed to Bodhidharma, forged prefaces, attributed to the Tang general Li Jing and the Southern Song general Niu Gao were written. The Shaolin monks have made some fame for themselves through their fighting skill, based on this, Bodhidharma was claimed to be the ancestor of Shaolin martial arts. This manuscript is full of errors, absurdities and fantastic claims, the oldest available copy was published in 1827. The composition of the text itself has been dated to 1624. d and this story first appeared in a popular novel, The Travels of Lao T’san, published as a series in a literary magazine in 1907. As a result, it has enjoyed vast oral circulation and is one of the most “sacred” of the narratives shared within Chinese, other scholars see an earlier connection between Da Mo and the Shaolin Monastery. Scholars generally accept the historicity of Da Mo who arrived in China from his country India around 480, Da Mo and his disciples are said to have lived a spot about a mile from the Shaolin Temple that is now a small nunnery. In the 6th century, around 547, The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries says Da Mo visited the area near Mount Song, in 645 The Continuation of the Biographies of Eminent Monks describes him as being active in the Mount Song region. Around 710 Da Mo is identified specifically with the Shaolin Temple and it also speaks of Huikes many trials in his efforts to receive instruction from Da Mo. In the 11th century a work embellishes Da Mo legends with great detail, a stele inscription at the Shaolin Monastery dated 728 reveals Da Mo residing on Mount Song. Another stele in 798 speaks of Huike seeking instruction from Da Mo, another engraving dated 1209 depicts the barefoot saint holding a shoe according to the ancient legend of Da Mo. A plethora of 13th- and 14th-century steles feature Da Mo in Various roles, one 13th-century image shows him riding a fragile stalk across the Yangtze River. In 1125 a special temple was constructed in his honor at the Shaolin Monastery, the monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt many times
7.
Bhikkhu
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A bhikkhu is an ordained male monastic in Buddhism. Male and female monastics (nun, bhikkhuni are members of the Buddhist community, the lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the prātimokṣa or pātimokkha. Their lifestyles are shaped to support their practice, to live a simple and meditative life. A person under the age of 20 cannot be ordained as a bhikkhu or bhikkhuni, bhikkhu literally means beggar or one who lives by alms. The historical Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, having abandoned a life of pleasure and status and those of his more serious students who abandoned their lives as householders and came to study full-time under his supervision also adopted this lifestyle. In the Dhammapada commentary of Buddhaghosa, a bhikkhu is defined as the person who sees danger and he therefore seeks ordination to obtain release from it. The Dhammapada states, He is not a monk just because he lives on others alms, not by adopting outward form does one become a true monk. Whoever here lives a life, transcending both merit and demerit, and walks with understanding in this world — he is truly called a monk. In English literature before the century, Buddhist monks were often referred to by the term bonze, particularly when describing monks from East Asia. This term is derived Portuguese and French from Japanese bonsō, meaning priest and it is rare in modern literature. Buddhist monks were also called talapoy or talapoin from French talapoin, itself from Portuguese talapão, ultimately from Mon tala pōi. Having no tie, which unites their interests with those of the people, they are ready, at all times, with spiritual arms, the talapoin is a monkey named after Buddhist monks just as the capuchin monkey is named after the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Theravada monasticism is organized around the guidelines found within a division of the Pāli Canon called the Vinaya Pitaka, Laypeople undergo ordination as a novitiate in a rite known as the going forth. Sāmaneras are subject to the Ten Precepts, from there full ordination may take place. Bhikkhus are subject to a longer set of rules known. In the Mahayana monasticism is part of the system of vows of individual liberation and these vows are taken by monks and nuns from the ordinary sangha, in order to develop personal ethical discipline. In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, the term sangha is, in principle, often understood to refer particularly to the aryasangha and these, however, need not be monks and nuns. The vows of individual liberation are taken in four steps, a lay person may take the five Upāsaka and Upāsikā vows
8.
Abbot
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Abbot, meaning father, is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as a title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The word is derived from the Aramaic av meaning father or abba, in the Septuagint, it was written as abbas. At first it was employed as a title for any monk. The title abbot came into general use in western monastic orders whose members include priests. An abbot is the head and chief governor of a community of monks, the English version for a female monastic head is abbess. In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was, sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him, by the Rule of St Benedict, which, until the Cluniac reforms, was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community. Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception, for the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church. This rule proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, the change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century. The ecclesiastical leadership exercised by abbots despite their frequent lay status is proved by their attendance, thus at the first Council of Constantinople, AD448,23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops. The second Council of Nicaea, AD787, recognized the right of abbots to ordain their monks to the inferior orders below the diaconate, abbots used to be subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century. The Code of Justinian expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight, in the 12th century, the abbots of Fulda claimed precedence of the archbishop of Cologne. It has been maintained that the right to wear mitres was sometimes granted by the popes to abbots before the 11th century, but the documents on which this claim is based are not genuine. The first undoubted instance is the bull by which Alexander II in 1063 granted the use of the mitre to Egelsinus, abbot of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury. Of these the precedence was yielded to the abbot of Glastonbury, until in AD1154 Adrian IV granted it to the abbot of St Albans, next after the abbot of St Albans ranked the abbot of Westminster and then Ramsey. Of course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting their own monks, the power of the abbot was paternal but absolute, limited, however, by the canon law. One of the goals of monasticism was the purgation of self and selfishness
9.
Revolution
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Aristotle described two types of political revolution, Complete change from one constitution to another Modification of an existing constitution. Revolutions have occurred through history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions, scholarly debates about what does and does not constitute a revolution center on several issues. Several generations of scholarly thought on revolutions have generated many competing theories, the word revolucion is known in French from the 13th century, and revolution in English by the late fourteenth century, with regards to the revolving motion of celestial bodies. Revolution in the sense of representing abrupt change in an order is attested by at least 1450. Political usage of the term had been established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. The process was termed The Glorious Revolution, there are many different typologies of revolutions in social science and literature. One of several different Marxist typologies divides revolutions into pre-capitalist, early bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic, early proletarian, Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between a coup, a top-down seizure of power, a civil war, a revolt and a great revolution. Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include the social revolutions, proletarian or communist revolutions, failed or abortive revolutions, the term revolution has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed in society, culture, philosophy and technology much more than political systems, some can be global, while others are limited to single countries. One of the examples of the usage of the word revolution in such context is the Industrial Revolution. Note that such revolutions also fit the slow revolution definition of Tocqueville, a similar example is the Digital Revolution. Perhaps most often, the revolution is employed to denote a change in socio-political institutions. Jeff Goodwin gives two definitions of a revolution, political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many social sciences, particularly sociology, political sciences and history. Scholars of revolutions, like Jack Goldstone, differentiate four current generations of scholarly research dealing with revolutions, the scholars of the first generation such as Gustave Le Bon, Charles A. Second generation theorists sought to develop detailed theories of why and when revolutions arise and they can be divided into three major approaches, psychological, sociological and political. The works of Ted Robert Gurr, Ivo K. Feierbrand, Rosalind L. Feierbrand, James A. Geschwender, David C. Schwartz, the second group, composed of academics such as Chalmers Johnson, Neil Smelser, Bob Jessop, Mark Hart, Edward A. As in the school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium
10.
Time Out (magazine)
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Time Out is a magazine published by Time Out Digital Ltd. In 2012, the became a free publication with a weekly readership of over 307,000. In addition to print, the Time Out London website has seven million unique users, Time Outs global market presence includes partnerships with Nokia and mobile apps for iOS and Android operating systems. It was the recipient of the International Consumer Magazine of the Year award in both 2010 and 2011 and the renamed International Consumer Media Brand of the Year in 2013 and 2014. Time Out started as a magazine created in 1968 by Tony Elliott, the first product was titled Where Its At, before being inspired by Dave Brubecks album Time Out. The magazine was initially a counter-culture publication which took a non-conformist stance on such as gay rights, racial equality. As one example of its editorial stance, in 1976 Londons Time Out published the names of 60 purported CIA agents stationed in England. Early issues had a print run of around 5,000, Elliott launched Time Out New York, his North American magazine debut, in 1995. The magazine procured young and upcoming talent to provide cultural reviews for young New Yorkers at the time, the success of TONY led to the introduction of Time Out New York Kids, a quarterly magazine aimed at families. The expansion continued with Elliott licensing the Time Out brand worldwide spreading the magazine to 39 cities including Istanbul, Dubai, Beijing, Hong Kong, additional Time Out products included travel magazines, city guides, and books. In 2010, Time Out became the publisher of travel guides. The group, founded by Peter Dubens, was owned by Tony Elliott and Oakley Capital until 2016, Time Out has subsequently launched websites for an additional 33 cities including Delhi, Washington D. C. Boston, Manchester and Bristol. when it was listed on Londons AIM stock exchange, in June 2016, Time Out Group underwent an IPO and is listed on Londons AIM stock exchange. The London edition of Time Out became a magazine in September 2012. This strategy increased revenue by 80 percent with continued upsurge, Time Out has also invited a number of guest columnists to write for the magazine. The columnist as of 2014 was Giles Coren, in April 2015, Time Out switched its New York magazine to the free distribution model to increase the reader base and grow brand awareness. This transition doubled circulation by increasing its Web audience, estimated around 3.5 million unique visitors a month, Time Out increased its weekly magazine circulation to over 305,000 copies complementing millions of digital users of Time Out New York. Free magazines are distributed at bars, restaurants, gyms, subway stations, and theaters, in addition, a subscription service is offered to those that prefer the magazine to be physically delivered and paid subscribers have access to a digital edition of the magazine
11.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
12.
Shaw Brothers Studio
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Shaw Brothers Ltd. was the largest film production company of Hong Kong. Runme and Run Run took over the film business of its Hong Kong-based sister company, Shaw & Sons Ltd. and in 1958. In the 1960s, Shaw Brothers established what was once the largest privately owned studio in the world, over the years the film company produced some 1,000 films, some of them being the most popular and significant Chinese-language films of the period. It also popularized the genre of films. In 1987, the company suspended production in order to concentrate on the television industry through its subsidiary TVB. Film production resumed in limited capacity in 2009, in 2011 Shaw Brothers was reorganized into the Clear Water Bay Land Company Limited, its film production business being taken over by other companies within the Shaw conglomerate. Prior to their involvement in the business, the Shaw brothers were interested in opera and owned a theatre in Shanghai. One of the plays in their theatre, The Man from Shensi, was very popular, the Shaw brothers then bought their first camera, and Runje Shaw made this play into a silent film which turned out to be a success. Runje Shaw and his brothers Runde and Runme formed a production company in 1924 in Shanghai called the Tianyi Film Company. The companys earliest films, New Leaf and Heroine Li Feifei, were shown in Shanghai in 1925, Runme incorporated the Hai Seng Co. to distribute films made by Tianyi and other studios. In 1927, they operated their own cinema in Tanjong Pagar in Singapore, expanded in Malaya, the number of cinemas owned by the Shaw chain in South East Asia would eventually reach 200 by the 1970s before it declined. In 1928 Run Run Shaw moved to Singapore to assist Runme, in 1931, the Tianyi Studio in Shanghai produced what is considered by some to be the very first sound-on-film Chinese talkie, Spring on Stage. In 1932, they teamed up with Cantonese opera singer Sit Gok-Sin to make the first Cantonese talkie and this film proved to be very successful, and in 1934, they established the Tianyi Studio in Kowloon to make Cantonese films. Tianyi was reorganized into Nanyang Productions with Runde Shaw as the studio head and they also started making Malay films in 1937 in Singapore under the studio named Malay Film Productions which, apart from a period of interruption due to the Japanese invasion, lasted until 1967. The most prominent Malay actor, director and producer of this period was P. Ramlee, the Shaw Brothers continued to expand but suffered a setback during the Second World War when the Japanese occupied Malaya and Singapore. They began rebuilding after the war, in the 1950s, Nanyang began to switch film production from Cantonese to Mandarin as Communist takeover in mainland China cut off the supply of Mandarin films to overseas Chinese communities. In this period, Nanyang Studio operated under the name of Shaw. In 1957, Run Run Shaw moved to Hong Kong, set up a new company, Shaw Brothers Ltd. and built a new studio at Clearwater Bay, which officially opened in 1961 as Movietown
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