"English is quite important for most of us, " gushed Duan Xin, an 18-year-old biology student who goes by the English moniker Duncan.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

Duan is already planning to buy a car to get to work.

BBC: Home ownership dreams in booming Beijing

But another doctor, Duan Qing, explained at the briefing that would be impossible for there to be any such cases of AIDS, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, or syphilis because there is a lengthy incubation period.

CNN: Chinese doctors say some claims of needle-stabbings are mistaken

The movie follows a pair of male Beijing Opera performers, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi), from their school days, in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties, to their farewell performance together, in 1977.

NEWYORKER: Farewell My Concubine

Duan (who plays warriors and kings) and Cheng (who plays the important female roles) have an ideal relationship onstage, but offstage they often seem less like mythic lovers than like miserable, muddling-through partners in an arranged marriage.

NEWYORKER: Farewell My Concubine