【正文】 oupes across Inner Mongolia and actors give around 100 shows every year to local nomadic people. I can still recall the days when I toured with the troupe in the early 39。80s. We sat on the back of pickup trucks for hours. The sky was blue, and we couldn39。t help but sing the folk songs, Nasun says. The vastness of Inner Mongolia and the lack of entertainment options for people living there, made their lives lonely. The nomadic people were very excited about our visits, Nasun recalls. We didn39。t have a formal stage. The audience just sat on the grass. Usually, the performances became a big party with local people joining in. For him, the rewarding part about touring isn39。t just about sharing art with nomadic families but also about gaining inspiration for the music and dance. Ulan Muqir literally translates as red burgeon, and today39。s performers of the troupe still tour the region39。s villages and entertain nomadic families, but their fame has spread around the world. On May 16 and 17, nearly 100 singers and dancers from the troupe performed at Beijing39。s Poly Theater. Their show, titled Ulan Muqir on the Grassland, depicted the history and development of the art troupe. Being from the region allowed me to embrace the culture of Inner Mongolia and being a member of the troupe showed me where I belonged, Nasun, the art troupe39。s president, who is also a renowned tenor, tells China Daily. During a tour in 1985, he went to a village and met an elderly local man, who told him a story about his friendship with a solider from Shenyang, capital of Northeast China39。s Liaoning province, decades ago. The solider gave the old man a handmade saddle when they bid farewell. The story inspired Nasun to write Carved Saddle, a song that later became one of his most popular numbers. Now, every year, Nasun recruits young singers and dancers for the troupe. The troupe has also designed a new repertoire, which is mostly based on the daily lives of Mongolian people, especially the lives of nomadic families, and has bined contemporary musical elements with folk songs of the region. Haimu, a 25yearold khoomei (a local variant of overtone singing) singer, joined the troupe three years ago. Along with a sixmember band, he performs fast songs and soft ones that he writes－ all while playing the horsehead fiddle.Although I learned the piano since childhood and grew up listening to various kinds of music, to me, the folk music of Inner Mongolia is the root, he says. Performing in remote villages is pleasant. I feel at home on the boundless grasslands, and the warm people there make me feel fulfilled. The first round of spring auction season in Beijing ended last week, but it failed to create much spring in the art market. Although two pieces of Chinese painting fetched more than 100 million yuan, the decline in trading volume and sa le rate showed a downturn this year. In the ―Grand View: Chinese Painting Highlight‖ session at China Guardian 2021 spring auctions, Pan Tianshou’s representative work Eagle, Rock and Flora hit a record auction price of 279 million yuan, while Li Keran’s masterwork Jinggang Mountain fetched million yuan, an unexpected high in recent years. However, the trading volume fells to billion yuan from billion yuan in the same period the year before. The Huangchen 2021 Spring Auctions, which recorded million yuan in total sales, experienced the same. The section number went down to 5 from 12 pared to last year. According to expert Shao Jianwu, the art market did not attract much excitement this year due to the booming stock market and the persistent problems of fery and fake deals. The two pieces of Chinese painting notched up high price this spring due to their own value not due to a revival in the market. The successful transaction of two works with a hammer price of more than 100 million yuan once again confirms that valuable and rare works of high quality always earn the longlasting high price. Chinese painting and calligraphy is still the pillar of the market. However, the overall sales rate has dropped slightly, which reflects the demand for the ordinary auction goods has weakened,‖ said the president of China Guardian’s Hu Yanyan. Besides, the entry of new buyers also makes certain changes to the direction of purchasing. In a word, the overall market trend is very unpredictable. Although China Guardian 2021 Spring Auctions has achieved remarkable results, it does not mean that the market has walked out of the predicament. We still have to wait for the big economic boom to invigorate the art market.‖ Even so, the hot pursuit of some special items appeared this spring. A special session of China Guardian Spring Auctions titled ―Fine Gilt—Bronze Buddhist Images‖ achieved a great deal with total sales volume of million yuan and 92 percent sale rate. The 5th Shamar Rinpoche Statue from 16 17th century of Tibet was sold for million yuan. The Beijing Chengxuan Auctions featured almost 2,800 items of coins and stamps in three sessions with good sale rate. The Huachen Auctions also set a special session of photographs under the condition of largescale decline of auction sessions. There was a palpable dull thud of disappointment that acpanied the return of the imperial entourage of Zhen Huan to her homeland. It followed a couple years of hushed excitement as Chinese fans were fed tidbits about their proud concubine who was supposed to conquer the high ground of the North American market. Zhen Huan is, of course, the title character of The Legend of Zhen Huan, a 2021 television series that swept China off its feet and later took other Asian countries by storm. Two years ago, it was reported that HBO, a premium cable service headquartered in the United States, was going to air it in North America after some modification. Now, a condensed version t