Conferences & Meetings \>\> In China

China 2013 Compensation & Benefit Trends, Shanghai

The cost of finding, training, and retaining qualified employees remains a top challenge for US companies operating in China. Expert views about the latest developments in compensation trends across various job functions and cities in China, structuring benefits packages, and managing employee concerns about healthcare, disability, and retirement planning.

Date: Feb 28

Venue: Hilton Hotel, Magnolia Room, 2nd Floor, 250 Huashan Road, Shanghai

Website: www.uschina.org

International Trade Show for Sports Equipment and Fashion, Beijing

A trade event to generate success in the booming outdoor, snow-sports and sports fashion markets - for retailers, brands, distributors, rep groups, athletes and media alike.

Date: Feb 27 - March 2

Venue: China National Convention Center

Website: www.ispo.com/beijing/

Conferences & Meetings \>\> In the US

David Shambaugh: China Goes Global, New York

China scholar David Shambaugh (Tangled Titans: The United States and China and Charting China's Future) in conversation with Orville Schell, Arthur Ross, director of the Center on US-China Relations at Asia Society, as they discuss Shambaugh's latest book, China Goes Global.

Date: Feb 27

Venue: 725 Park Avenue at East 70th Street

Website: asiasociety.org/new-york/events

Innovations in Biologics Discovery and Development, San Diego

The SABPA Science & Technology Forum XI brings together leaders in the academic and pharma/biotech industry to discuss current trends in biologics discovery and development, as well as challenges facing the field. The presentations will look at new technologies in discovering novel biologic therapeutics.

Date: March 23

Venue: Institute of Americas, University of California, San Diego

Website: www.sabpa.org

SWIFT Operations Forum - Americas 2013, New York

Speakers from J.P. Morgan, Microsoft Corporation and State Street will talk about how to harness technology to its full potential, which regulatory changes are likely to have the greatest impact on technology and how firms can get greater benefit from industry-shared services. Another plenary session will talk about the rapidly changing world of payments.

Date: March 5

Venue: Sentry Centers, 730 Third Avenue, 17th Floor

Website: www.swift.com/events

Culture \>\> In China

Things From the Gallery Warehouse 5 Group Exhibition, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai

ShanghART is pleased to present Things from the Warehouse 5 as part of a continuing program at the beginning of 2013.

Date: Jan 25-March 4

Venue: ShanghART H-space, Bldg 18, No.50 Moganshan Rd.

Website: www.shanghartgallery.com

Adam Lambert Shanghai Concert 2013 Presented by Hennessy V.S.O.P, Shanghai

The former American Idol finalist and the rock and pop icon will make his China solo concert debut with an explosive stage show and electrifying live performance.

Date: March 3

Venue: Mercedes-Benz Arena

Website: en.piao.com.cn/shanghai

NCPA's Production of Bizet's Opera Carmen, Beijing

Adapted from the novel by Prosper Merimee, the opera Carmen was completed in the autumn of 1874. It was the last work of Georges Bizet, and is also the most popular opera in the world. Bizet, through his music, told us a tragic story behind brightness, and depicted the optimistic, straightforward but wild personality of a Gipsy girl called Carmen.

Date: Feb 21-Feb 24

Venue: National Center for the Performing Arts

Website: www.chncpa.org

American Ballet Theatre Mixed Repertory, Beijing

American Ballet Theatre is recognized as one of the great dance companies of the world. The witty, romantic piano etudes of Virgil Thomson are echoed in Mark Morris' valentine to classical ballet.

Dates: March 6-March 7

Venue: National Center for the Performing Arts

Website: www.chncpa.org

Culture \>\> In the US

I Sing Beijing, New York

As Chinese New Year is rapidly approaching, I Sing Beijing, a pioneering operatic exchange program, will launch its US debut at the Lincoln Center in New York. Western opera singers will perform in Mandarin Chinese, alongside rising Chinese singers performing Western opera. The singers will be accompanied by the New York City Opera Orchestra.

Date: Feb 16

Venue: Lincoln Center, New York City

Website: lc.lincolncenter.org

The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17th-Century China, New York

This is the first exhibition to explore the theme of reclusion in Chinese painting and calligraphy within the broader context of political and social changes during the 17th century, a time of rich cultural expression and dramatic political change.

Date: March 6-June 2

Venue: 725 Park Avenue

Website: asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions

Belief in Song Religion: Writings From Longshu on the Pure Land (Longshu Jingtu Wen), Cambridge, Massachusetts

Robert Hymes, H. Walpole Carpentier, professor of Chinese History at Columbia University, focuses on the social and cultural history of middle-period and early-modern China, using the methods of the local historian to study elite culture, family and kinship, medicine, religion, gender, and (now) the changing role and form of Chinese social networks from the 10th to the 17th centuries.

Date: Feb 11, 4 pm

Venue: CGIS South, Room S030, 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University.

Website: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/calendar

Diplomatic pouch

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke by telephone on Jan 5 with his new US counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, congratulating him on his appointment after his swearing-in. Yang said that with concerted efforts from both sides, China-US relations had made steady progress over the past four years, according to the foreign ministry's website.

Sun Guoxiang, consul-general of China in New York, hosted a Lunar New Year reception last week. Guests included Ambassador Wu Hongbo, undersecretary-general of the United Nations; Ambassador Wang Min, deputy permanent representative of China to the UN; and more than 800 overseas Chinese students and scholars.

Chinese missions in the US are promoting the 2013 global "Happy Chinese New Year" online quiz and essay contest, which opened on Feb 1. You can show off your knowledge about China and share your China stories, learn interesting things, and have the opportunity to win a special prize in a quiz presented in English and Spanish by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. The competition will run until the end of April.

The top 200 quiz scorers will be put into a draw, and 100 will be randomly chosen. Twenty winners will be selected from the essay contest. The results will be announced in late May on Chinaculture.org.

In the wake of the Super Bowl and the imminent celebration of Mardi Gras, the US embassy website is celebrating the city of New Orleans and its unofficial motto: "Let the good times roll". Mardi Gras, marked by parades and unrestrained revelry each year on the Tuesday before the start of Lent, was declared a legal state holiday by Louisiana in 1875.

US Ambassador to China Gary Locke told an economic conference in Hong Kong that the US-China relationship remains "fundamentally very, very strong" and saluted Hong Kong as "an excellent example of what can be done and how important it is to lead in the economic realm with the principles of openness, freedom and transparency."

He told the conference, organized by US bank Goldman Sachs, that Hong Kong's success is an example that can help to optimize the Chinese mainland's progress and development.

Send embassy and consulate information to michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 02/08/2013 page23)