Peking Opera master Mei Baojiu dies at 82

Mei in Paris in 2005. [Photo/China News Service]

Mei Baojiu, a Peking Opera master, died at the age of 82 on April 25 in Beijing. He had been hospitalized since March 31 after falling into a coma following a bronchial spasm.

Mei Baojiu was the ninth son of Mei Lanfang (1894-1961), who is considered the most outstanding Peking Opera artist of all time and is credited with bringing Peking Opera to the United States and Europe in the 1930s.

Related:

Peking Opera master Mei Baojiu dies at 82

Mei Baojiu: A lifetime of promoting Peking Opera

Celebrated Chinese writer Yang Jiang dies at 104

Yang Jiang (left), her husband, Qian Zhongshu, and their daughter, Qian Yuan, in 1981. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese writer and translator Yang Jiang died on May 25 in Beijing at 104. As the longest-living Chinese woman writer, she was known for her modest, subtle and witty writing style.

Yang became a household name in China for her novels, essays, plays and translated works.

Her most popular novel, Baptism, depicting a group of intellectuals adjusting to a new society in the early 1950s, has been translated into French and English.

She was married to Qian Zhongshu, a renowned scholar and author of the best-selling novel Fortress Besieged.

Related: Remembering Yang Jiang