An event celebrating the 80th anniversary of Yueju Opera’s reform and the 100th birthday of Yueju master Yuan Xuefen (1922 — 2011) was held in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, on Monday.

Yueju Opera, a national intangible cultural heritage, originated in Shaoxing before it became popular in Shanghai. It is a respected and widely praised art form that combines Chinese folk stories, music and drama.

Yuan is credited with leading the reform of Yueju, including the extensive use of lighting and scenery. She is best known for playing the title role in Sister Xianglin by Lu Xun, one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century.

The event was part of the Fifth Chinese Yueju Opera Festival, which opened in Shaoxing on Sunday. At the festival’s opening ceremony, many Yueju masters signed an agreement to inherit and further develop the art. Sheng Yuechun, Party secretary of Shaoxing, said the city will help build county- and city-level Yueju Opera groups by supplying 10 million yuan ($1.48 million) every year to the creation of new Yueju plays.

This year, during the Fifth Yueju Opera Festival, 45 plays, including 20 traditional ones and 15 new ones, were performed to show the achievements and developments of Yueju Opera since 2018. The Chinese Yueju Opera Festival is a national art festival held in Zhejiang every four years, started in 2006. It aims to preserve the culture of Yueju Opera and promote the development and prosperity of Yueju Opera.

Yueju Opera is not only a representative of Zhejiang opera, but is also one of the five major opera genres in China. It was included on the first national intangible cultural heritage list.

Have you ever noticed a character on a TV show or in a movie drinking your favorite brand of cola or driving your favorite type of sports car? This is called “product placement”, or PPL for short, and it is a form of advertising in which a product is inserted (插入) into the scene of a movie or a TV program. PPL has increased greatly in recent years, and has become some companies’ favorite method of advertising their products. If you saw the movie Spider-Man, you might have noticed ads for Samsung Electronics, Toyota cars, and Dr. Pepper soda.

Companies love the convenience of PPL: there are no commercials to make, models to hire, nor concepts to dream up. By featuring their product in a popular TV show or movie, that product is naturally associated with an appealing character in a comfortable setting. Take one of the main characters on Friends for example. Think about Rachel in a fine Ralph Lauren suit, working at a Ralph Lauren store in New York City. And entertainment producers have a crush on the money PPL brings in — in fact, the entire production budget for some movies is sometimes paid by the films’ PPL advertisers.

However, there is mounting opposition to the growing PPL trend. Critics say obvious PPL in movies or TV shows destroys viewers’ ability to escape into the fantasy world on the screen. Directors and writers hate having to include a product in a scene, ruining the writing and aesthetic (美学的) quality of the piece. And consumer groups warn that kids cannot discern (觉察出) PPL. When, for example, a child sees his favorite character wiping her lips with a Kleenex after drinking Coca-Cola, and it is likely that the child would falsely think that Kleenex and Coca-Cola are the general terms for all similar products. This suggests that PPL can be a powerfully subconscious tool that encourages kids to develop preferences for certain brands.

Regardless of how critics feel about it, there is little doubt that PPL will continue to play a significant part in entertainment for the foreseeable future.

Hollywood is still seen as a“man's world",but one woman is doing her best to change that.

In May,2017,the US director Sofia Coppola,46,became the second woman in the history of the Cannes Film Festival to win the Best Director Award for her movie The Beguiled.The last time a woman won the award was 56 years ago.

Coppola seemed to be born for a career in film.Her father is Francis Ford Coppola,who directed the famous movie The Godfather.Coppola first appeared as a baby in The Godfather.However,it didn't make her path to success easier.Instead,she grew up in the shadow of her father.People often criticized her for nepotism（裙带关系）and bad acting.She was named the“Worst Supporting Actress（女配角）”and the“Worst New Star”at the 1991 Golden Raspberry Awards for her acting in The Godfather Part III.

After that,she turned to directing—what she really wanted to do all along.Her first film Lick the Star came out in 1998.And Lost in Translation soon won her an Academy Award in 2003.She gradually became famous for films focusing on women."I just think,half the world is females,"she told Elle.She makes films with these females in mind.From the cute Lisbon girls in The Virgin Suicides to the teen queen Marie Antoinette,Coppola brings us into the amazing worlds of girls,rather than simply showing them as stupid,unimportant or useless.