Fornew readers and those who request to be “好友good friends” please read my 公告栏 first.
Tonight, the US Public Broadcasting System (PBS) premiered the documentary film of “I.M.Pei -Building Chinese Modern” which chronicled the design and construction of the new Suzhou Museum (completed 10/2006) http://www.szmuseum.com/szbwgen/html/xw/2006/0930/157.html
American Masters’s I.M. Pei: Building China Modern follows Pei on this historic journey to define China’s architectural vision as it comes into its own on the world stage. Post-broadcast (3/31/2010), the film will stream online for 3 months on the American Masters Web site.
For Chinese viewers, you don’t have to read the English captions since half of the film was in spoken Chinese (Mandarin and Suzhou dialects). For Chinese Americans, the film also captures the emotion and feeling of those of us who were born in China but came of age and built our career in America. Definitely worth seeing.
(note added 4/4/10: I just leanred that admission to the museum is FREE. Unfortunately, as a result this is avoided by all commercial tours for Suzhou since they don't receive any financial kickbacks . As a result tourists must find out and go to the museum by themselves. What a pity!)