film festival, festival of china, terra cotta warriors

October is turning out to be quite a month for Asian culture here in DC, with two major festivals:

DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival
6-16 October 2005
Over 80 films will be featured in this year's festival, which takes place over the course of two weeks at venues including: Landmark E Street Cinema, AFI Silver Theatre, the National Museum of American History, and the Freer and Sackler Galleries.

The Kennedy Center Festival of China
October 2005
The month-long Festival of China is unprecedented in size and vision. Over 900 performers from China, Hong Kong, and here in the United States will be presenting dance, theater, opera, and exhibitions. Eve Zibart previewed the festival in East Meets West, published in last Friday's Washington Post. The schedule of events looks amazing, but I guess that's to be expected considering they are celebrating 5,000 years of history and over 50 ethnicities of people just in one country alone :) Oh, the other thing to check out is the small selection of terra cotta warriors on display from the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin (circa 210 B.C.E.) -- this is literally chapter 1 of most asian art history textbooks. Here's what mine (Sherman E. Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art) says:

The discovery in early 1974 of but a distant and small part of the burials surrounding the giant tumulus-tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di excites the imagination and gives a hint of the concentrated power and megalomania of the First Emperor. Originally over six hundred feet high, the man-made hill dominates the plain west of Mount Li near Xi'an. Almost half a mile from the hill well-diggers chanced on a part of the clay civil and military entourage buried around the central tomb mound. At least seven thousand life-sized clay figures of warriors and horses, together with wooden chariots, were discovered in military formation, symbolically guarding the approaches to the tomb. Originally richly polychromed, the figures now reveal their material of fired gray clay, modeled with the same careful realism as the much smaller late Zhou figurines found at Hui Xian. The various provincial headdresses of the warriors are depicted in specific detail, and the small, closely coupled horses stand stiffly, ready for mounting or harnessing.

capitol city brewing oktoberfest 2005

It's finally that time of year again -- time for Octoberfest (I'm referring to both the Octoberfest amber-malty beers and Octoberfest festivals). One of my favorite annual events in this area is back:

Capitol City Brewing Company Oktoberfest
Saturday 8 October 2005, Noon to 7 PM
The Village at Shirlington, Arlington, VA

There will be more than 70 beers on tap from a variety of mid-Atlantic breweries, some pretty good food (the corn dogs that Cap City makes are soooo good), an "om-pah" band, and some alpine dancers (wearing their lederhosen). You can futz around with beer mugs and tickets, but $20 will get you a bottomless 3 oz tasting glass. Besides, with over 70 beers to try, who has room for more than 3 oz of each?!