By Lisa Hix — When "talking pictures" took over the cinema in the early 1930s, America's fascination with Hollywood blossomed into a full-on love affair. Naturally, little girls and boys across the country dreamed of becoming glamorous starlets and debonair leading men, dancing and singing their way to stardom. It was no different for the first generation of natural-born Chinese Americans, who longed to escape from the traditional values of their parents. The shining beacon that called to these young...

The Mao Mango Cult of 1968 and the Rise of China's Working Class

By Ben Marks — For 2,000 years, the peach was the iconic fruit of China, an auspicious symbol of good health and a long life. But from August of 1968 until roughly the fall of the following year, the mango was China’s most revered produce item, whose meaning was unwittingly bestowed upon it by none other than Mao Zedong. “Apparently, Mao didn’t like fruit. It was an easy re-gift." Now an exhibition about the mango's short-lived sanctification has opened at Museum Reitberg in Zurich, Switzerland....

Record-Breaking Chinese Vase Still Unpaid

By Ben Marks — In November of 2010, serious collectors of Chinese antiques gasped when an 18th-century Qianlong porcelain vase (right), which was expected to fetch no more than £1.2 million at a modest West London auction house called Bainbridges, brought £43 million. The buyer’s premium of 20 percent, plus the English VAT, pushed the final price above £53 million. The vase gained notoriety because a 54-year-old man named Anthony Johnson and his 85-year-old mum found the piece amid other items inherited...