Actresses wearing cat ears

Zhang Jingchu and Sammi Cheng each decided to wear a hat with cat ears, one at the airport the other at a fashion event. I don't know if this is the start of trend, but if it is there have been worse celebrity inspired clothing trends.

Zhang Jingchu with the cuteness meter turned to eleven:

Sammi Cheng looking glam wearing sunglasses at night:

The same outfit with some of the color removed:

Sina; Yahoo China

Vivian Chow and Sammi Cheng save Africa

A quick detour from our usual fare of celebrity fluff:

Vivian Chow has long been committed to World Vision and its child sponsorship program, having raised funds and given concerts or them over the past 10 years. She and Sammi Cheng flew out to East Africa recently to bring some publicity to the death by starvation and faced by children there. World Vision is a powerful force among aid organizations in the United States where it raises a lot of money using images like these:

In the U.S. and the UK this is called poverty porn--Vivian and Sammi would be replaced with the appropriate actresses and singers, still surrounded by not-quite starving Somali or Kenyan kids, rescued by the "whites in shining armor". Image of white western aid workers flying in to save starving African children are the norm with black Africans as victims and white foreigners as their saviors. World Vision is using the same images as western aid, only these are Asians as the savior instead of Americans or Europeans.

Owen Barder, a long time aid worker, manager and much respected commentator discusses of the World Vision tactic of "adopting" a child in an impoverished land and how it is pernicious although seemingly necessary in his blog:

[A] broader problem, with the citizens of rich countries who seem to be unwilling to sacrifice a tiny part of their income to help a fellow human being unless they feel some sort of personal connection with the recipient. This is charity of a Dickensien sort: not a system of social justice and protection, but throwing some coins to a beggar in the street and expecting to be lavishly thanked.

World Vision or its supporters including Sammi Cheng and Vivian Chow aren't the problem, of course--but they aren't the solution either. World Vision raises money in Hong Kong; they would like to have their donors "sponsor" children in the PRC by sending World Vision $35.00 per month per child but those who make such decisions in Beijing aren't interested. One reason may be that World Vision is a very Christian humanitarian organization; another that China's image would be harmed if seen as being dependent on aid from foreigners; a third that the People's Republic has a very well defined and generally well executed strategy of tying aid to poor countries with Chinese investments in those countries. A good review of the politics and economics of this is The Dragon's Gift by Deborah Brautigam.

Images from Yahoo China. World Vision website. More cogent thoughts on all this from Texas in Africa, Good Intentions are not enough and Jason Stearns who asks if we really need white people to save Africa.

Fun loving Sammi Cheng wears strange hats and plaid slacks tucked into her boots, for fashion

Sammi Cheng closed things out at a multi-brand show at Pacific Place.

Xinhua

Black lace at the 2012 Huabiao Awards

The government sponsored Huabiao awards are given every other year where official PRC stamps of approval are stuck on movies, directors, actors and actresses. There was a lot of glamor on the red carpet in Beijing the other day but it wasn't all grace and style.
Gong Li hits the floor while Chow Yun Fat looks on

Zhou Xun is not thrilled holding hands with Yan Ni

Still wishing she were somewhere else

A curvier than usual Zhang Ziyi in black lace by Tom Ford. The dress was said to have been flown from Ford's New York City studio for her.

Angelababy in black lace

Li Yuan takes the black lace look about as far as it could go in Beijing

Zhang Wu with a dress slit up the there

Joey Yung had the strange dress and odd shoes award all to herself

Zhang Ziyi helps Zhang Gou Li with his cool dude shades as Wong Kar-Wai looks on approvingly

Huang Xiaoming, Tang Wei and Sammi Cheng; a lot of great hair in this shot

Zhou Dong-Yu is left in middle of stage while others are busy exiting and entering

Gong Li

Zhang Ziyi

Li Yuan

Zhang Wu

Xinhua; Sina;F-paper; Variety

Behind the scenes with Sammi Cheng (not really)

The sponsor of the ad campaign featuring recent birthday girl Sammi Cheng may not have been thrilled when the "behind the scenes" pictorial they set up referred only to (according to the English rendering) "a well-known jewelry brand".

Xinhua

Sammi Cheng models topcoats for Greater China

Sammi Cheng looking gorgeous and sexy modeling coats for (according to the translation) "Greater China".

This is a lovely and almost suggestive pose that she brings off very well even though at first glance it seems Sammi is wearing a Burberry coat turned inside out.

A staple of corporate or image campaigns, a picture showing how the shoot is done. It doesn't really happen this way, of course--the model has no more input regarding how the final image will look than does the coat she is wearing. It does make a good composition.

Sina