HONG KONG (AFP) ― Squatting at a makeshift shrine with joss sticks burning beside her, Granny Leung starts bashing a manlike paper cut-out with a pair of sandals. “I beat you little people, I’m sending you away!” chants the 76-year-old woman, one of the last practitioners in Hong Kong of the ancient Chinese ritual of “da siu yan,” or “beating the petty little people.” Granny Leung performs her ...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― Yellowed cover pages of South Africa’s iconic Drum magazine evoke a 1950s black fashion and jazz culture which perished when apartheid forces razed Sophiatown, a racially-mixed Johannesburg suburb. This year Drum turned 60 and even today South Africans link the magazine to Sophiatown, a restless and vibrant suburb which was home to blacks, coloureds, Indians and Chinese. Be...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Elton John is working on a biopic about himself and would like Justin Timberlake to take on the lead role, he said in an interview published Sunday. The British veteran star also spoke about his and partner David Furnish’s love for their son Zachary ― whose first birthday was on Christmas Day ― saying the child was the “light of our lives.” An announcement about the biopic i...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) ― The American premiere of the Philip Glass opera “Kepler,’’ a concert by vocalist k.d. lang, and the return of Dublin’s Gate Theatre highlight the 36th season of the Spoleto Festival USA this spring. Chamber music, acrobatic performances and orchestral concerts are also on the schedule for the festival that will light up 13 venues including theaters, churches and...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ― Woody Guthrie’s writings, recordings and artwork will land in his native state after an Oklahoma foundation bought the collection, with plans for a display that concentrates on his artistry rather than the populist politics that divided local opinion over the years. Guthrie, known for the anthem, “This Land is Your Land’’ and his songs about the poor and downtrodden, is reme...

ROME (AFP) ― Ancient manuscripts are treated like hospital patients at a famous book restoration institute in Rome that has worked on everything from the Dead Sea Scrolls to one of the oldest Korans in the world. “Look at this poor man suffering!” exclaimed Marina Bicchieri, head of the chemistry department at the Institute of the Pathology of the Book, as she examined oxidation levels on the un...