Features
HOT TICKETS
by Claire Conceison
Beijing director Meng Jinghui and Shanghai playwright Yu Rongjun are drawing enthusiastic audiences into Chinas theaters.

THE DEATH OF AN EMPIRE
by Ashis Nandy
A memoir of the partition of India and reflections on its consequences.

On-Site: LETTER FROM ULAANBAATAR
by Jessica Woodworth
A documentary film festival in post-communist Mongolia.

Fiction
AN EMPTY ROOM
by Mu Xin
Love letters lost.

NEW YORK AFTER MIDNIGHT
by Akhudiat
Late night street life.

INDEPENDENCE DAY
by Shashi Deshpande
A personal memory.

Departments
CITY SCAN - Ho Chi Minh City, Karachi, Manila, Qingdao, Singapore

GLEANINGS

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

ART
"Art Mama": Move over, Whistler, here comes Tatsumi Orimoto
by Caroline Herrick
Defying Catastrophe: Artist, writer, and musician Mu Xin
by Suzanne Charlé
Courting Ambiguity: Chinese artist Xu Bing's inventive "word play"
by Adrienne Mong

MUSIC
Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project: Musical innovation at the crossroads of East and West
by Adrienne Mong

FILM
Metropolis: A tribute to pioneer animator Osamu Tezuka
by Mark Schilling
What Time Is It There?: Tsai Ming-liang's comedy of rebirth
by Shelly Kraicer

BOOK REVIEWS
The Donald Richie Reader: 50 Years of Writing on Japan by Donald Richie, reviewed by Eve Kushner
The Lhasa Atlas: Traditional Tibetan Architecture and Townscape by Knud Larsen and Amund Sinding-Larsen, reviewed by Valrae Reynolds
The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, reviewed by George Kallander
A Memoir of Misfortune by Su Xiaokang, reviewed by Shin Yu Pai
A Woman Soldier's Own Story: The Autobiography of Xie Bingying, reviewed by Michael Berry
One Man's Justice by Akira Yoshimura, reviewed by Janice P. Nimura
Riot: A Love Story by Shashi Tharoor, reviewed by Karline McLain
Green River Daydreams by Liu Heng, reviewed by Tony Giffone
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, reviewed by Andrea Kempf

POETRY
Craquelure
by Alfred A. Yuson