Entertainment

Honors for most influential

By Xu Fan (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-07 08:08

American-born author Sidney Shapiro, 95, receives a lifetime-achievement award at the 2010-2011 Chinese Influencing the World awards ceremony.

Top: China's Top 1 tennis player Li Na received an award for her sports achievement at the 2010-2011 Chinese Influencing the World awards ceremony. Also present were above: leading figures of The National Ballet of China; bottom left: popular singer Han Geng, who performed on stage; and bottom right: dancer Yang Liping dressed in traditional skirt with dragon and phoenix embroidery. Photos by Zou Hong / China Daily

Writer, actors and scientists among stars celebrated with awards, Xu Fan reports.

When 95-year-old Sidney Shapiro tottered on stage to make his acceptance speech in which he said he was "Chinese until the last breath of my life", it was probably the most touching moment of the 2010-2011 Chinese Influencing the World awards ceremony.

Shapiro, an American-born author and translator, was among the 12 individuals and groups to be honored as the most influential Chinese during the ceremony, an annual pageant that was launched by Phoenix TV in 2006 and jointly sponsored by more than 10 Chinese media organizations.

Past recipients include Nobel Prize winner Chen-Ning Yang, agriculturist Yuan Longping and scientist Qian Xuesen, founder of China's space program.

Shapiro, also known by his Chinese name, Sha Boli, arrived in China from New York in 1947 and was granted Chinese citizenship in 1963. He has been at the forefront of promoting Chinese literature and culture overseas.

Supported by two ladies, Shapiro, in a dark Tang suit, trembled as he took out his speech notes and read in fluent Mandarin with an accent similar to natives growing up in Beijing hutong.

Other award winners included top comedy actor Ge You, the first Chinese person to win the best actor award at Cannes, and dancer Yang Liping.

Ge's trademark shaved head was mocked by Phoenix anchor Dou Wentao who said: "Ge can light up the hall with his head even when the power is turned off".

Compared to most award winners in their formal suits, Yang, dressed in an old-style red skirt with dragon and phoenix embroidery, was the most eye-catching figure at the scene. She has captivated Chinese audience with her performances in Dynamic Yunnan, Echoes of Shangri-La and Tibetan Myth.

Awards also went to China's No 1 tennis player Li Na, leading dancers with The National Ballet of China, scientists on the research team for the world's fastest supercomputer Tianhe-1, Chinese American scientist Bao Zhenan, the Expo Shanghai Bureau, Taipei International Flora Exposition, and social entrepreneur Nathanael Ming-Yan Wei, now a UK baron, water ballet twins Jiang Tingting and Jiang Wenwen, and Li Yingxin, Yang Zhaonan and Chen Wanling from Foshan No 2 Middle School in Guangdong province who recently won the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, the most prestigious international student award for water-related research.

(China Daily 04/07/2011)