The Last Emperor

David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which... was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, and non-fiction. He has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards and been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, to Tom and Emma Byrne. He was the elder of two children. Two years later, his parents moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, Maryland, when he was 8 or 9 years old. His father worked as an electronics engineer. Before high school, David Byrne already knew how to play the guitar, accordion, and violin. He was rejected from his middle school’s choir because they claimed he was "off-key and too withdrawn." From a young age, Byrne had a strong interest in music. His parents say that he would constantly play his phonograph from age three and he learned how to play the harmonica at age five. In his journals he says, "I was a peculiar young man — borderline Asperger's, I would guess.
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The Summer Palace is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. Longevity Hill is about 60 meters high and houses many buildings positioned in sequence.... The front hill is rich in the splendid halls and pavilions, while the back hill, in sharp contrast, is quiet with natural beauty The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In the Summer Palace, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures. In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value.
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Beijing , formerly romanized as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The metropolis, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national... government, with 14 urban and suburban districts and two rural counties. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast. Beijing is China's second largest city by urban population after Shanghai and is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's largest state-owned companies. Beijing is a major transportation hub in the national highway, expressway, railway and high-speed rail network. Beijing's Capital International Airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic. Few cities in the world have been the political and cultural centre of an area as immense for so long. Beijing is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China.
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Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast... China . This region is the traditional homeland of the Xianbei, Khitan, and Jurchen peoples, who built several dynasties in northern China. The region is also the home of the Manchus, after whom Manchuria is named. Manchuria can refer to any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest: "Manchuria" is a translation of the Manchu word Manju . According to the Manchu Veritable Records, the name Manju was originally given by the legendary dynastic founder Bukūri Yongšon to the country he established when he united the three warring clans of Odoli, at the location of the modern city of Dunhua in Jilin province. This name was used in Chinese documents until the early 20th century, when Manchuria was converted into three provinces by the late Qing government.
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