Chinese

Beijing And for their final surprise, the Chinese laughed. Formally ending an Olympics that was as much mystery as majesty, the host nation unfolded its arms, threw back its head, and howled. There were silly flying drummers, a human tambourine composed of thousands of shimmying women, and chugging unicyclists rolling giant glowing circles. There were guns shooting confetti into the stands, gymnasts bouncing on stilts, and Power Ranger look-alikes soaring up and down on ropes just for the heck of it. In the closing ceremony Sunday, after two weeks of an Olympics that was run as sternly as the thousands of soldiers who guarded it, the Chinese finally let that guard down.

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group's landmark deal to buy AMC Entertainment Inc. for $2.6 billion could be a catalyst for similar acquisitions of American theater chains and other U.S. entertainment properties, industry analysts said. The deal announced Sunday — which pairs China's biggest theater operator with the second-largest chain in the U.S. — marks the largest investment to date by a Chinese company in the U.S. entertainment industry. Most of the deal making has been Hollywood companies striking business deals in China.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

In the stream of photos on their Facebook pages, Javier Bolden and Bryan Barnes look like the life of the party. The young men hung out with a group that dubbed itself "No Respect Inc.," a "party crew" that followed a local DJ to parties and other events across South Los Angeles. The photos show Bolden and Barnes dancing, shirtless, showing off their tattoos and muscles, and striking poses with young women. Under one photo Barnes took of himself in December, he wrote: "Merry Christmas To All Da Females Dat Didnt Have A Good Christmas :)"

The "Made in Italy" label conjures images of little old men and women in aprons and spectacles, stooped over wooden tables, cutting leather and sewing by hand in workshops that dot the hills of Tuscany. It certainly doesn't make you picture Chinese immigrants toiling long hours in ramshackle, poorly illuminated sheds, and then sleeping in small rooms behind thin plywood right there in the factories.

Hollywood High School keeps its doors open 12 months a year to ease overcrowding. The year-round schedule allows the campus to run hundreds more students through its cramped classrooms. It also chips away at their education. Teachers skip pages of material, assign less homework and give fewer tests because their school year has been slashed by 17 days. Hundreds of pupils take the Stanford 9 exam shortly after returning from an eight-week vacation.

Sixteen Chinese men and teenage boys were discovered Saturday morning in a cargo container at the Port of Long Beach, immigration authorities said. The men were in "relatively good condition," said Tom Graber, area port director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS arrested all 16 stowaways, two of whom said they were minors. They are being held at the INS processing center on Terminal Island. The stowaways were found before 11 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31% and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry. The Commerce Department announced the stiff duties Thursday after making a preliminary finding that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "dumped" their goods - that is, sold them at below fair-market value. The widely anticipated ruling, if affirmed by U.S. trade officials this fall, is expected to have significant implications for both the global production of solar cells, now largely in China, and the growth of the solar energy industry in the U.S., which employs about 100,000 people in manufacturing, installation and services.

The documents Chan Share clutched as he left China were forged. It was 1939 and Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States. So, like many others, Share claimed he was a "paper son" and had a California-born relative whose records were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

It was with equal parts amusement and dismay that I read the heading " 'Flower Drum' Sayonara" (Morning Report, Dec. 16). It was not the content of the article that I was reacting to (though I'm sorry the musical is not being mounted), but rather the presumption to use a Japanese word of farewell in reference to the departure of a show that is distinctly Chinese in content. Are we now to believe that all things Asian are one and the same? LINDA L. KENT Los Angeles

A Chinese conglomerate took a big leap forward into the U.S. market late Sunday by acquiring AMC Entertainment Inc., the nation's second-largest theater chain. It was the latest in a flurry of high-profile deals between the nations' entertainment industries. Dalian Wanda Group said in a statement it had reached an agreement to acquire AMC's 5,034 screens in 346 multiplexes in the U.S. and Canada. AMC, based in Kansas City, Mo., is owned by several investment firms, including JPMorgan Partners, Apollo Investment Fund and Bain Capital Investors.

WASHINGTON - After years of detention and a bold escape to the U.S. Embassyin Beijing, blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States, a bittersweet moment in a harrowing journey that had touched off a diplomatic crisis and poses continued challenges for U.S.-Chinese relations. The human rights leader and his family were whisked quickly and suddenly out of Beijing, as Chen expressed gratitude but also concerns about the safety of the relatives he was leaving behind in China.

BEIJING - On a warm summer night in 1989, a 21-year-old Chinese student waded into the South China Sea from a deserted beach. Still wearing his clothes and Nike sneakers, he swam to a speedboat waiting 200 yards offshore. Wuer Kaixi's role as a student leader in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests had landed him the No. 2 spot on the Chinese government's list of 21 most-wanted organizers. His plan was to escape with the help of activists in Hong Kong, who had arranged for the speedboat, and return to China when things calmed down.

The parents of two USC graduate students slain near the campus last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university, saying the school misled them when it claimed that it ranks among the safest in the nation. Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23-year-old electronic engineering students from China, were fatally shot April 11 while sitting in a parked BMW in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue. No arrests have been made, but Los Angeles police say they believe the killings were the result of a robbery gone wrong.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31% and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry. The Commerce Department announced the stiff duties Thursday after making a preliminary finding that Chinese solar panel manufacturers "dumped" their goods - that is, sold them at below fair-market value. The widely anticipated ruling, if affirmed by U.S. trade officials this fall, is expected to have significant implications for both the global production of solar cells, now largely in China, and the growth of the solar energy industry in the U.S., which employs about 100,000 people in manufacturing, installation and services.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

The man who fell to his knees when a nation expected the most from him is back on his feet. Chinese track fans had watched in anger and frustration as superstar hurdler Liu Xiang hobbled off the field at the Beijing Olympics. Now that he has returned to win his third consecutive Asian Athletics Championships and China's National Games titles, fans are wondering: Is their Flying Man back? Liu Xiang -- his name means "to soar" -- defended his 110-meter hurdles title at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong on Friday, finishing in 13.66 seconds and fueling hopes that the answer is yes. Liu knows what it is to carry the hopes of a nation.

China on Wednesday opened its first pawnshop since the 1949 Communist takeover, the New China News Agency reported. The Huamao Pawnshop went into operation in Chengdu, the capital of central Sichuan province, as a pilot project for the city's economic reforms.

BEIJING - Orgies and anal sex hardly seem the usual fodder of traditional Chinese folk art, but that is exactly what one Chinese artist is depicting in a series of provocative paper-cuts that are now being exhibited in Los Angeles for the first time. Paper-cuts originated in Eastern Han Dynasty China (AD 25-220) and are hung on windows or doors for good luck. But instead of the usual decorative flowers and birds, Xiyadie, whose pseudonym means "Siberian Butterfly," portrays graphic and daring depictions of homosexual love - long considered taboo in China.