Eileen Chang and cinema

The death of Eileen Chang on September 8, 1995 in Los Angeles made headlines in all the Chinese newspapers. In the Chinese-speaking areas of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, a veritable cult of mystique has been built around her by both public media and the large number of her fans (who called themselves Chang-mi or Chang-fans”). However, in the last twenty-three years of her life Chang lived quietly and incognito in Los Angeles, shunning all social contact and escaping publicity by constantly changing her residences in numerous hotels, motels, and small apartment houses until her death in an obscure apartment building in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. This “mystery” of her last years adds only more glamour to her legend: she was like a retired movie star past her prime, like Greta Garbo

Cosmopolitanism, civil disobedience and the global legacy of Martin Luther King

Through the 19th century, the motor of China’s geopolitical change shifted from Eurasia to its southern coast. The impact of the West on China, while resulting in disastrous territorial concessions, also gave rise to a Southern Cosmopolitanism, with Guangdong native, Kang Youwei, becoming a cutting edge figure. 120 years ago, Kang led the first major drive to modernize China in the ill-fated Hundred Days Reform. Three years earlier, in 1895, he organized Gongche Shangshu, the first Chinese “student movement” to petition the royal court for political reform. For many, this activist lineage’s latest manifestation was the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong’s 79-day Occupy demonstration for universal suffrage in 2014. Following the Arab Spring and a worldwide economic justice movement spearheaded by Occupy Wall Street, the Umbrella Movement originated as a civil disobedience campaign called “Occupy Central with Love and Peace.” One crucial document that inspired Benny Tai, law professor and conceiver of Occupy Central, is Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963). The Occupy campaign used the “Birmingham” essay as the foundation for an outstanding civic education initiative drawing upon a global legacy evolved from Thoreau and Gandhi. Evans Chan, New York-based film critic and director of “Raise the Umbrellas” (2016/2018) and acclaimed documentaries about Kang Youwei, explores this early stage of the Umbrella Movement to survey the continuing relevance of King’s legacy in the US, Hong Kong, and the world today. Speaker Born in Guangdong and grew up in Macau and Hong Kong, Evans Chan is an internationally renowned critic, librettist, playwright, and filmmaker. He received his Master’s degree from the New School for Social Research in New York and PhD in Screen Culture at Northwestern University, USA. Currently based in New York, Chan is one of Hong Kong’s leading independent filmmakers. His award-winning films have been shown at the Berlin, Rotterdam, London, Moscow, Vancouver, San Francisco and Taiwan film festivals, among others. In his dramatic and documentary films Chan explores the challenges confronting Hong Kong before and after its return to Chinese rule in 1997. To Liv(e) (1991) was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films by Time Out Magazine in Hong Kong. Raise the Umbrellas (2016–2018) documents the 79-day massive democratic protests known as the Umbrella Movement in 2014. As a playwright, Chan developed in 2015 his award-winning film Datong: The Great Society (2011) into the libretto as Datong: The Chinese Utopia, which was presented by the Hong Kong Arts Festival and staged in London in 2017. Chan is also a writer whose work has appeared in many Chinese and English publications. His English-language play, adapted from Chinese writer Eileen Chang’s novel Naked Earth, was staged at New York’s Bank Street Theater. Filmography: To Liv(e) (1992), Crossings (1994), Journey to Beijing (1998), Adeus Macau (2000), The Map of Sex and Love (2001), Bauhinia (2002), The Life and Times of Wu Zhongxian (2002), Sorceress of the New Piano: The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan (2004), Makrokosmos I & II (2004), The Maverick Piano (2007), Datong: The Great Society (2011), Two or Three Things About Kang Youwei (2012), The Rose of the Name: Writing Hong Kong (2014), Raise the Umbrellas (2016), Death in Montmartre (2017). www.evanschan.com Discussant Leo Ou-fan Lee is currently the Sin Wai Kin Professor of Chinese Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph. D. degree from Harvard in 1970 and has taught at Harvard, UCLA, Chicago, Indiana, and Princeton Universities in the United States, as well as the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as visiting professor. His scholarly publications in English include: Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Form of Urban Culture, 1930-1945 (Harvard University Press, 1999), Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun (Indiana University Press, 1987), The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers (Harvard, 1973), City between Worlds: My Hong Kong (Harvard University Press, 2008), and Musings: Reading Hong Kong, China and the World (Hong Kong: Muse Books, 2011). In Hong Kong, he is known as both a scholar and cultural critic and has published more than 20 books in Chinese across a wide spectrum of subjects: literature, Hong Kong culture, film, classic music, and architecture. Moderator Stephen Ching-kiu Chan is Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University. He is the current Chair of the international Association for Cultural Studies, and the Chair of Board of Directors, The House of Hong Kong Literature. HKAC Website: https://www.hkac.org.hk/calendar_detail/?u=VEfBtuw6w_U&lang=e

Lung Yingtai, Da jiang da hai - 1949 (Big River, big sea. untold stories of 1949) and Chi pang-yuan, Ju liu he (The River of Big Torrents)

Lung Yingtai, Da jiang da hai - 1949 (Big River, big sea. Untold stories of 1949), Hong Kong, Cosmos books, 2009, 440 pp. and Chi Pang-yuan, Ju liu he (The River of Big Torrents) The year 1949 was a momentous one. It marked the beginning of the “great divide” between Nationalists and Communists following the Civil War (1946-49). With the victory of the Communists and the founding of the People’s Republic, the “losers” withdrew to Taiwan and became wai sheng ren 外省 人(outsiders) and refugees o..

Lung Yingtai, Da jiang da hai - 1949 (Big River, big sea. untold stories of 1949) and Chi pang-yuan, Ju liu he (The River of Big Torrents)

Lung Yingtai, Da jiang da hai - 1949 (Big River, big sea. Untold stories of 1949), Hong Kong, Cosmos books, 2009, 440 pp. and Chi Pang-yuan, Ju liu he (The River of Big Torrents) The year 1949 was a momentous one. It marked the beginning of the “great divide” between Nationalists and Communists following the Civil War (1946-49). With the victory of the Communists and the founding of the People’s Republic, the “losers” withdrew to Taiwan and became wai sheng ren 外省 人(outsiders) and refugees o..

Drug-eluting bead transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma: does size really matter?

PURPOSEWe aimed to compare the safety and effectiveness of 100–300 μm versus 300–500 μm drug-eluting bead transarterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE) and to investigate the impact of tumor and feeding artery size on treatment outcome of different particle sizes in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).METHODSThis retrospective cohort study enrolled 234 consecutive patients who underwent TACE using 100–300 μm DEB (Group A, n=75) and 300–500 μm DEB (Group B, n=159) in a tertiary center between August 2012 and March 2017. Initial treatment response and adverse events were assessed using modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (mRECIST) and National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) version 5.0, respectively.RESULTSA total of 704 HCCs in 234 patients were evaluated. The average index tumor size was 3.8 cm. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor size, lobe involvement, particle size, and tumor location were significant predictive factors of complete response. The overall rate of complete response in groups A and B were 56.0% and 33.3% (P = 0.001), respectively. Group A had higher complete response rate than group B in the subgroup of BCLC B with tumor <3 cm (57.9% vs. 21.1%; P = 0.020) and subgroup of feeding artery ≥0.9 mm (55.2% vs. 30.9%; P = 0.014). There were fewer major complications in group A compared with group B (0% vs. 6.9%, P = 0.018).CONCLUSIONTACE with 100–300 μm DEB is associated with better initial treatment response and fewer major complications compared with 300–500 μm. Our study also highlights the impact of tumor characteristics on treatment outcome of different DEB size, which might help to select the optimal sphere size for TACE in the treatment of HCC

Efficacy and safety of splenic artery embolization for intractable ascites using Amplatzer vascular plug versus coil after living donor liver transplantation

PURPOSEIntractable ascites (IA) is an uncommon but challenging complication after liver transplantation. Splenic artery embolization (SAE) modulates the splenic artery and regulates portal flow. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of SAE using the Amplatzer vascular plug (AVP) versus coil embolization for post-living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT) IA.METHODSThis retrospective study evaluated consecutive patients from 1 center who received LDLT (n=1410) between March 2006 and August 2019. The inclusion criteria for SAE were splenomegaly with IA after LDLT.RESULTSTotally 15 patients underwent SAE for post-LDLT IA. Eleven patients who received AVP embolization (age, 51.2 ± 15.1 years; range, 8-63 years; 5 men and 6 women) were compared with 4 patients receiving coil embolization (age, 30.8 ± 30.8 years; range, 1.5-63 years; 2 men and 2 women). AVP and coil embolization both significantly reduced portal vein hyperflow (plug/ coil; P <.001/.006) and decreased ascites volume (plug/coil; P <.003/.042). The benefits of AVP embolization included shorter procedure time (P =.029), significantly reduced splenic volume (P =.012), increased liver volume (P =.012), decreased spleen/liver ratio (P =.012), and improvement of pancytopenia (P =.008) due to secondary hypersplenism. No significant differences were found between the two groups in the length of hospital stay or complications such as splenic infarction, pancreatitis, or sepsis.CONCLUSIONSAE using AVP and coil embolization provide effective and safe methods for managing patients with IA after LDLT. AVP embolization may be more efficient than coil embolization, providing more effective reduction of ascites volume and the advantages of shortened procedure time and improvement of hypersplenism