ALFRED LEE reports

The street party was organised by BBC Television and their cameras recorded the festivities, for a short film to be screened regularly on TV, to promote their coverage of all the main celebrations to take place during the extended Diamond Jubilee holiday weekend on June 2, 3, 4 and 5.
 
Thousands of similar street parties will take place in most villages, towns and cities in Britain to commemorate 60 years of the Queen's reign.
Chopsticks Club members can organise their own local street party for friends and neighjbours. Here's how:
 
Just contact your council or communities team and fill in a simple application form.You will be asked to give the date and time of your party and if you want a street or section of road blocked off to traffic.If you don't want a closure, you can have your party in a park or cul-de-sac.
 
If alcohol is provided free, no licence is needed. If beer or wine is sold, a licence will cost £21. Food can served without a licence until 11 p.m. and no permission is needed for music, either live or recorded. You can even have raffles with prizes up to £500 for this special day.
 

Events to mark the Queen's Jubilee have already started.
 
I was invited by the Royal Anniversary Trust to be a judge of projects of world-class excellence and achievement, submitted by universities and higher education institutions throughout Britain. 
 
The winners were announced at a lavish reception in St James's Palace, attended by the country's leading academics. and the Queen, with the Duke of Edinburgh, presented the awards.  
 
Chopstick Club members and friends will be able to join in many of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
 
Probably the best and most colourful will be the Thames River pageant of over 1,000 boats of all sizes and types, between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 3. 
 
It will be the biggest flotilla ever assembled on the Thames -- and may never be repeated. Most of the vessels will be dressed with streamers and Union Jacks and they will muster between Hammersmith and Battersea Bridges, before proceeding along the Thames to Tower Bridge, dispersing in the waters up to West India Docks.
 
There will be historic boats, pleasure craft, passenger vessels carrying up to 30,000 flag-waving members of the public, rowing and work boats and vessels of the armed services, police, fire and rescue organisations.
 
One stand-out vessel will be the magnificent dark-blue MV Leander, owned by charity benefactor  Rear Admiral Sir Donald Gosling, one of the best friends of all senior members of the Royal family.  
 
Other highlights of the Quyeen's Diamond Jubilee weekend include:
 
** Anybody can go the Epsom Derby on Saturday June 2 -- and the Queen will be there too.
 
* * A festival of music, art, film, fashion and food in Battersea Park on Sunday June 3.
 
** A star-studded concert at Buckingham Palace, attended by members of the Royal Family. If you weren't lucky enough to get a ballot ticket, don't worry -- the BBC will televise it.
 
** Jubilee beacons to be lit around the world on June 4, to mark Her Majesty's 60-rfeiegn overf the UK and as Head of the Commonwealth.
 
** A Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral and churches throughout London and around Britain on Tuesday June 5.. 
 
** After the cathedral service, the Queen and the Duke of Edinb urgh will travel back to Buckingham Palace by carriage, along a processional route. At the Palace, the Royal Family will appear on the balcony and a RAF flypast will take place.   
 
alfredlee39@hotmail.com

Hundreds of people of Chinese origin living in London applied to be an extra and all had stars in their eyes. After auditions, I was told I had been selected -- possibly because I had been a professional actor for a year in Australia, in the stage production of The World of Suzie Wong.
Others hoping to be in the cast included chefs from Gerrard Street, university students, an energy company engineer, a grandfather from the Chinese Emmanuel Church, a recent PhD graduate, a lecturer from Cambridge -- and lots and lots of girls wanting to see and meet heart-throb Keanu Reeves. 
At Shepperton Studios, I saw the huge sets which had been built for 47 Ronin -- an entire village with rustic homes made of stone and thatched roofs, a feudal palace complete with high ramparts, a medieval bridge, battlefields for sword-fighting scenes and a giant hall for an important wedding scene.

He said: "I would play a baddie in Man of Tai Chi, which has a modern-day setting. There will be lots and lots of action -- 18 different fights, amounting to 40 minutes of high-energy fighting." 
Keanu, 46,  who is of mixed Chinese, English, Hawaiian, Portuguese heritage, lived in Australia as a youngster and was brought up in Canada, where he was a talented  hockey player. He is not married, but has frequently been seen in the company of glamorous Chinese actress and model China Chow, daughter of London and American restaurant owner Mr (Michael) Chow and brilliant designer, the late Tina Chow. China's aunt is Tsai Chin, the famous actress who took the lead role in the London stage version The World of Suzie Wong.    
Watching Keanu in action on the sets of 47 Ronin, I was amazed at his speed, his ground-eating leaps and bounds and his skill at the double-handed wielding of Japanese swords. No doubles were used -- it was always Keanu himself.
 And there was no stand-in for the shooting of the final scene, when Keanu is captured by two enemy warriors and is tossed face-first into a muddy pool of paddyfield water. I was standing just a few feet away, dressed as a Villager. Keanu was thrown into the dirty water five times, until everything was pefect.
 
Finally, Director Carl Rinsch shouted: "Cut ! That's a wrap !!"
The film is now being edited and sound-tracked and will be released in November, 2012. It will be in 3-Dimension. 
 
 alfredlee39@hotmail.com               

Ai Weiwei told me in a special interview for the Chopsticks Club just after his exhibit opened: “People are also sitting on the seeds and are even lying down on them. I am very happy they have found different ways to interact with my exhibit."

But sensationally, just three days after the sea of sunflower seeds was opened to the public, Tate Modern banned people from going on it -- because they were kicking up dust which could be harmful to health.Not only were visitors walking, sitting and lying on the seeds -- others were running the full length of Turbine Hall, stomping on the seeds and using them as a bed to kiss and cuddle.

Over 14,000 people flocked to the exhibit on the first day and they created clouds of almost-invisible particles to rise into the air. Tate Modern were given expert advice that the dust could be a health hazard and the decision was quickly made to ban public movement on the seeds. If the dust had affected the lungs of visitors, the museum would have been open to huge lawsuits. Visitors were disappointed they could not walk on the seeds but they still marvelled at the exhibit.
Ai Weiwei told me:  “The concept for using sunflower seeds is that people everywhere in China eat them. I can remember that during the very hard times of the Cultural Revolution, students carried sunflower seeds in their pockets and shared them with friends during long marches. 
    “Chairman Mao Zedong was often portrayed in propaganda films and photos as the sun – and the adoring people as sunflowers, facing him.
    “I decided the seeds should be made of porcelain, because this is material associated with China – its porcelain vases, bowls and other artefacts.
    “And I chose the city of Jingdezhen as the place to mould, fire and paint the sunflower seeds, because it has over a history of over 1,000 years of making fine imperial porcelain-ware.”
    More than 1,600 artisans took two-and-a-half years to make the 100-million seeds. They were paid at an above-average rate for their work – welcome extra money for the households. Each porcelain piece needed three or four brushstrokes of black paint to replicate  a sunflower seed in its husk. They were then packed into padded crates and shipped to London.
    Unilever is sponsoring the installation and Tate Modern press officer Mr Duncan Holden told me: “Already it’s proving immensely popular. We organised a talk by Ai Weiwei, followed a Q and A session and it was booked out.
    “There are two large screens near the exhibit showing a continuous film telling the story of how the seeds are made and visitors are finding it very interesting.”
    The exhibition is free and runs until May next year. Over 2,000,000 people are expected to view it.
    If they were still allowed to walk on the seeds, Ai Weiwei would not have been surprised if they had taken a “souvenir” of a seed, saying: “I would certainly put one in my pocket.”
    But even if every visitor had taken a seed, that would still leave an awful lot to be sent back to Beijing, where Ai Weiwei lives and has his studios.          

In the rampant rush since the 1980s to make Shanghai the economic centre of China, little thought had been given to the preservation of historic buildings, old-style Chinese homes and traditional factories and shops.
 
These treasured heritage sites which should have been conserved had been pulled down to such an extent that foreign tourists were today asking: Where is the China of old, in Shanghai?
 
In a late move to give these tourists what they want to see, developers are now constructing “fake antique homes” and other make-believe, fairytale buildings, replicas of what used to be in old Shanghai.
 
Professor Ruan was giving an address titled “Shanghai: Impossible City” at the Royal Institute of British Architects for the Meridian Society.
The professor told his audience that there were over 5,000 high-rise buildings in Shanghai, structures that were 12-storeys or more. This was far more than most cities around the world and they had been constructed only at the expense of clearing built Chinese heritage sites.
 
But at last, said Pro Ruan, government authorities in Shanghai recognised the importance of preserving remaining important traditional-style homes and historic buildings. Many had now been listed, stopping developers from pulling them down.
 
Pro Ruan praised the listing of hundreds of great old buildings in London and other British cities, including York. He called on British architects and people in the United Kingdom to support campaigns to preserve China’s built heritage.
 
Among Shanghai’s historic buildings which had been listed were those in The Bund,  the former British, French and other foreign Concessions and the Jewish settlement, which had been home to 30,000 Jews given safety and shelter by Shanghai, after they fled Nazi death squads during the Second World War.
 
One example of preservation, the professor said, was the iconic circular former abattoir in the city, designed by a British architect and built in 1933, Instead of being bulldozed as had been the fate of a similar abattoir in Japan, the exterior of the old Shanghai slaughter house had been maintained and the interior converted into art studios, research units, restaurants and shopping precincts.
 
During the Q and A session, I asked Pro Ruan what the teenagers and children of Shanghai thought of the campaigns to keep historic buildings.
 
He replied that quite naturally, the young preferred to live in tall, modern apartment blocks offering good views. These had more room, improved living conditions and better bath and toilet facilities, than old-style dwellings. But when they grew up, these youngsters would want to know how and where their parents, grand-parents and great grand-parents lived – and that was why heritage sites had to be preserved. 
 
At a reception, students and professionals from Shanghai living in London were able to meet and talk to Pro Ruan about “home.”          

Somehow, it ended up in a British family’s four-bedroomed home in Pinner, north-west London, in the 1930s. For decades, it was left on top of a bookcase gathering dust, after the owner was told by a famous television antiques expert that it was a fake.
 
After the owner died several years ago, his family began clearing out his possessions and gave the elaborately-decorated vase in dynastic blue, yellow and pale pink to auctioneers Bainbridges to sell. There has probably never been an auction like it. The relic was expected to sell for about £1-million, but frantic bidding quickly pushed the price past five, past 10, past 15, and past 20-million pounds.
 
Most of the serious bidders at the auction were Chinese and there were three making their offers on the telephone. Bids zoomed over 25, 30 and 35 million pounds – and a few minutes later, it was hammered as sold to a Chinese man wearing jeans, but given a seat on a red velvet, gilded couch near the auctioneer’s podium.
 
He was an agent, acting for principals in China – believed to be a multi-billionaire industrialist with huge projects in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities. But one expert speculated that the buyer is the Chinese Government, determined to recover an irreplaceable historic treasure. The identities of the family members who sold the vase also remain a mystery.
 
The vase, with its iconic ovoid body, has a trumpet neck. Chilong dragons decorate the yellow shoulders of the treasure and solid roundels on the lattice work body show a carp leaping out of turbulent waters; and fish playfully swimming among floating weeds and flowers.
 
A Bainbridges spokesman told me: “You do not have to be an expert to appreciate the delicate beauty of this vase. The remarkable thing is that this relic is in the same pristine condition as the time it was created, hundreds of years ago.
 
It is not generally known, but there is also a galaxy of enamelled porcelain urns, vases, bowls, plates and eating utensils in a treasure trove of historic artefacts from Ancient China locked in vaults in the cellars of the British Museum.
 
The museum has only limited exhibition space in its China Gallery --  
other antiques are kept in the safe-rooms of the museum, not easily-accessed by members of the public, but available for study by scholars and academic.
 
I have been told by the British Museum that there are also scrolls, paintings and documents from China’s famous Dunhuang Caves, in its vaults.
 
Almost all the Chinese relics at the museum have been looted from palaces, Imperial homes of the ultra-wealthy, heritage sites and monasteries in China by British explorers, archaeologists, adventurers, treasure-seekers and thieves.
 
Virtually all have been illegally smuggled out of China – the Chinese Government has never, and never will, authorise the permanent export of historical relics.
 
The Dunhuang Cave artefacts were ransacked by British explorers. Sometimes, monks were given food, Western trinkets or small amounts of money to hand over priceless antiques. The objects then had to be secretly shipped from China.
 
But the British Museum will never return a single antique back to China -- just as it will never return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, or the Rosetta Stone, whose three texts unlocked the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to Egypt.
 
A museum official told me: “We have the Chinese artefacts in safe-keeping. We are not sure of the exact provenance of many of the items – how, for instance, they came to arrive in Britain. We do not intend to return any relic back to China. In fact, there are laws which prevent us from doing so.”
 
If the museum could sell any of the vases or old Chinese crockery it has, it would be a nice little urner. But selecting the most valuable item would be pot luck.
 
ALFRED LEE.
 
alfredlee39@hotmail.com