【正文】 nch troupes 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。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 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 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 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 cultural foray overseas, has been widely panned by its home audience. Retitled Empresses in the Palace, the American version has been shortened from its original 76 episodes at 45 minutes each, to six 90minute episodes. The quick pacing threw off many native viewers, who are accustomed to a more leisurely daytimesoapstyle narrative rhythm. (Chinese TV stations would run two or three episodes every day.) I did not finish the fulllength version and found the truncated one not difficult to follow. What39。s to e and recapping the key points. This device, not used in the original, is culturally understandable but artistically mediocre. What puzzles me is the two new songs for the opening and end credits. They were written in English, but sung by Chinese with an unfortable accent. They were obviously designed to appeal to an Englishspeaking base, but do not jibe with the Chinese dialogue. Speaking of the dialogue, the English translation, picked apart by some Chinese, is too literal for my taste. I can imagine a typical American hit by a flurry of royal ranks, addresses and greetings, even multiple names and titles for the same person. The first half hour must be a swamp to wade through, very much like my experience of getting through a Tolstoy tome with its endless inflections of names transliterated into lengthy Chinese. I see the choice of verbatim translation as an effort for conveying exotica. It is fairly petent, with no error that I could detect, but fails to rise above words or capture the essence of the language. A cultural product usually crosses over to a foreign territory first by an emphasis on the monalities. But whether inside or outside China, the temptation to sell it for the differences is just too great. Sure, the sumptuous sets and costumes are a big attraction, but the narrative technique has bee－ how shall I put it?－ a bit anglicized, which is necessary for cultural export. Judging by the responses, this legend, which, contrary to the claim of the English trailer, is totally fictitious, has departed from China but not yet landed on American shores. I am a big fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson39。ve not yet read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. In this essay, the venerable Emerson talks about eschewing the trappings of society and finding one39。 he wondered how in the world he came to belong there. Indeed his penning and publishing this essay caused his exmunication from high society and also caused him a lot of legal trouble. The legal trouble came as a result of the fact that he was speaking out against the government. I like to reference such texts from time to time as an example both of the fact that history does repeat itself and that this world is not so big that what applies to one society does not in any way touch another society. On a much smaller scale,Emerson39。m nothing if not that! In his text he expounds on the idea that one must give their life a purpose. And that is the true topic of this entry. These last four years have been so easy: teach for a grand total of six hours a week, and the rest of my time is mine. Since I39。 names and figuring out what to do with them for the brief time each week that I stand in front of them. I do not consider the challenges of learning to live here part of a purposeful life. I consider those issues existential in nature. One of the problems with my life in America was that I felt it had no purpose. I went to work every day and even did what I could to make my colleagues39