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PUBLISHER’S Letter

EDITORS NOTES

CHEERS to

August

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“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

et me introduce myself: I am W’s new Editor in Chief. And beginning with the September issue— redesigned and reimagined—we will learn from one another what a magazine is, and what it can be, in our always changing new world.

To start, let me say that I am a magazine enthusiast, a junkie who from my earliest school days has been obsessed with flipping though the pages of magazines, first absorbed in their images and stories, later assigning and editing my own. But enough theory: Let me tell you about this transitional August issue of Afar. August is time for making decisions before fall starts, and our fashion team has selected the best coats, the best dresses and the best bags of the season, creating the perfect shopping wish list.

Feminine and sexy are back (with a twist) in Alasdair McLellan’s “Sweet & Vicious,” in which Fifties glamour meets vixenish schoolgirl charm, and bright geometric accessories bring a bolt of energy and joy to the magazine’s pages—the perfect cocktail to start the new season.

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Stay with us—and expect more.

All of our articles are from creditable source. We do not make up any information.

Abby Ondar

Producer Editor in Cheif

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august 2015 CONTENTS

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FAN BINGBING

In 2011, Fan starred in Shaolin, The Founding of a Party and Stretch with Nicolas Cazalé and David Carradine. On 4 March, the film Buddha Mountain was released in mainland China. On 28 April, Fan won the Best Actress Award at the 18th Beijing College Student Film Festival for her role in Buddha Mountain.[23] In May, she appeared at the 64th Cannes Film Festival to promote My Way together with director Kang Je-gyu and actors Jang Dong-gun and Joe Odagiri. In October, she became a member of the International Competition Jury of 24th Tokyo International Film Festival.[24]

Fan Bingbing (born 16 September 1981)[2] is a Chinese actress, television producer and pop singer. She topped the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list in 2013, 2014,[3] and 2015, after ranking in the top 10 every year since 2006.

Fan rose to fame in East Asia in 1998–1999 with the mega-hit TV series My Fair Princess.

In 2003, she starred in Cell Phone, which became the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year, winning a Hundred Flowers Award.

Since then she has received awards from the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, Eurasia International Film Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival, Beijing College Student Film Festival and Huading Awards for films like The Matrimony (2007), Lost in Beijing (2007), Buddha Mountain (2011) and Double Xposure (2012). Fan has participated in many foreign-language films, such as the French film Stretch (2011), the Korean film My Way (2011) and the Hollywood blockbuster X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)ances on the red carpet, movie premieres, and fashion shows.

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Editor:Kelda | Source: Xinhua

In the first half of 2012, Fan attended many fashion shows in Paris.[25] [26][27][28] On 16 May, she attended the opening ceremony of 65th Cannes Film Festival as the only East Asian global spokesperson on behalf of Paris L’Oreal.[29] On 21 May, Forbes ranked Fan third on the 2012 Forbes China Celebrity 100 List according to her success in the past year.[30] On 17 July, she appeared at the first press conference to promote the film Double Xposure, which was released in China on 29 September.[31] he also attended The Voice of China final concert to promote the film.[32] In this film, she portrayed a girl who suffered childhood trauma and experienced visual hallucinations after witnessing her father kill her mother. Most film critics gave overwhelmingly high praise to Fan’s performance.[33][34][35] This film was a huge financial success, with a domestic gross of more than ¥100 million,[36] which broke the box

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CHINA An Explosion of Culture and Life C

China, a communist nation in East Asia, is the world’s most populous country. Its vast landscape encompasses grassland, desert, mountain ranges, lakes, rivers and 14,500km of coastline.

Beijing, the capital.

hina is an extremely large country, and the customs and traditions of its people vary by geography and ethnicity.

More than 1 billion people live in China, according to the Asia Society, representing 56 ethnic minority groups. The largest group is the Han Chinese, with about 900 million people.

Other groups include the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Manchus, the Naxi, and the Hezhen, which is smallest group, with fewer than 2,000 people.

“Significantly, individuals within communities create their own culture,” said Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London. Culture includes religion, food, style, language, marriage, music, morals and many other things that make up how a group acts and interacts. Here is a brief overview of some elements of the Chinese culture.

The Chinese Communist Party that rules the nation is officially atheist, though it is gradually becoming more tolerant of religions, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Currently, there are only five official religions. Any religion other than Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism are illegal, even though the Chinese constitution states that people are allowed freedom of religion. The gradual tolerance of religion has only started to progress in the past few decades.

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There are seven major groups of dialects of the Chinese language, which each have their own variations, according to Mount Holyoke College.

Mandarin dialects are spoken by 71.5 percent of the population, followed by Wu (8.5 percent), Yue (also called Cantonese; 5 percent), Xiang (4.8 percent), Min (4.1 percent), Hakka (3.7 percent) and Gan (2.4 percent). The official national language of China is Pŭtōnghuà, a type of Mandarin spoken in the capital Beijing, according to the Order of the President of the People’s Republic of China. Many Chinese are also fluent in English.

Like other aspects of Chinese life, cuisine is heavily influenced by geography and ethnic diversity. Among the main styles of Chinese cooking are Cantonese, which features stir-fried dishes, and Szechuan, which relies heavily on use of peanuts, sesame paste and ginger and is known for its spiciness.Rice is not only a major food source in China; it is also a major element that helped grow their society, according to “Pathways to Asian Civilizations: Tracing the Origins and Spread of Rice and Rice Cultures,” an 2011 article in the journal Rice by Dorian Q. Fuller. The Chinese word for rice is fan, which also means “meal,” and it is a staple of their diet, as are bean sprouts, cabbage and scallions. Because they do not consume a lot of meat — occasionally pork or chicken — tofu is a main source of protein for the Chinese

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The Forbidden City

Beijing Revisited.. The Forgotten City By: Paul Reiffer

Beijing, also known as ‘Peking’ means ‘the Northern Capital.’

THE CLIMB

THEGREATWALL The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-towest line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century bce;[2] these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall.[3] Especially famous is the wall built 220–206 bce by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of brick, tamped earth, wood.

Other purposes of the Great Wall have included bordercontrols, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers,

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troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

The Great Wall stretches from Dandong in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.

A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 8,850 km (5,500 mi).[4] This is made up of 6,259 km (3,889 mi) sections of actual wall, 359 km (223 mi) of trenches and 2,232 km (1,387 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.[4] Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi).[5] Before the use of bricks, the Great Wall was mainly built from rammed earth, stones, and wood.

During the Ming, however, bricks were heavily used in many areas of the wall, as were materials such as tiles, lime, and stone. The size and weight of the bricks made them easier to work with than earth and stone, so construction quickened.

Additionally, bricks could bear more weight and endure better than rammed earth. Stone can hold under its own weight better than brick, but is more difficult to use. Consequently, stones cut in

While some portions north of Beijing and near tourist centers have been preserved and even extensively renovated, in many locations the Wall is in disrepair. Those parts might serve as a village playground or a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads.[53] Sections of the Wall are also prone to graffiti and vandalism, while inscribed bricks were pilfered and sold on the market for up to 50 renminbi.[54] Parts have been destroyed because the Wall is in the way of construction.[55] A 2012 report by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage states that 22% of the Ming Great Wall has disappeared, while 1,961 kilometres (1,219 mi) of wall have vanished.[54] More than 60 km (37 mi) of the wall in Gansu province may disappear in the next 20 years, due to erosion from sandstorms. In places, the height of the wall has been reduced from more than 5 metres (16 feet) to less than 2 metres (6.6 ft). Various square lookout towers that characterize the most famous images of the wall have disappeared. Many western sections of the wall are constructed from mud, rather than brick and stone, and thus are more susceptible to erosion.[56]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Night Club definition: establishment for nighttime entertainment, typically serving drinks and offering music.

Once-secret bar sort of hidden down a Donghu Lane. Used to be called Monkey Lounge, now it's Monkey Champagne. Basically, speakeasy-meets-Volar, with a top 40 hip-hop soundtrack, Philip Starck-ish design, and a predominantly ABC crowd. Expensive drinks, many kinds of Champagne, super-premium whiskies. Entrance through Bonobo restaurant. has become the bar street of choice for Shanghai’s expat commu-

Once-secret bar sort of hidden down a Donghu Lane. asically, speakeasy-meets-Volar, with a top 40 hip-hop soundtrack nity in the past year, with a string of drink-

ing establishments opened along what was once a quiet residential road. The influx has been so great in fact that some residents have taken to throwing buckets of water over drinkers who get too rowdy and most bars now close at 10pm. Nevertheless, it can be a fun place to hang out, especially in summer.

Le Cafe des Stagiaires (No 54) was one of the first bars in and remains one of the best; try their on-tap La Chouffe beer (40RMB). For cocktails, head to either Revolucion Cocktail (No 58) for Cuban twists on the classics such as a Strawberry Mule (48RMB), or to the tiny Ginseng (No 39) for a Martinez (80RMB). If you work up an apetite after

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Dollar shots to their famous fireballs... these drinks brin g the heat

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