Xu

Meng Meng Xu's art talent began to first emerge when she was 8. "She would borrow books from the library and draw pictures," said Meng Meng's mother, Gui Fang Yan. "She would draw her father." Yan and her husband, Xue Hong Xu, encouraged her interest by finding a private art teacher when Meng Meng was 12. Four years later, those art lessons seemed to have paid off. Meng Meng, 16, is the winner of the Columbia Festival of the Arts' second artwork contest. "I didn't believe it," said Meng Meng, a sophomore at Centennial High School in Ellicott City.

It's called Chesapeake Bay Candle. But for 17 years, all the products in the signature line of Annapolis-born and Rockville-based Pacific Trade International were made by cheaper labor in Asia. On Tuesday, the brand celebrates a sort of homecoming: the official opening of a new plant in Glen Burnie, where a workforce projected to grow to 100 will make the candles the company sells at Target, Kohl's and other retailers. Pacific Trade International is one of a small but growing number of U.S. manufacturers that are bringing production back from overseas.

The Roger Carter Seals sent 18 swimmers to the Bel Air Swim and Racquet Club July 28 to compete in the Prince-Mont Swim League All Stars meet. To qualify, swimmers either had to win the final heat at Divisionals or post one of the top 18 times in a stroke or relay during league competition. The Prince-Mont Swim League contains eight divisions with 40 teams. Seal swimmers who qualified were Jocelyn Choo, Ethan Doan, Mason Doan, Tien Doan, Hannah Green, Zach Grissom, Kevin Hu, Shannon Hochkeppel, Troy Hochkeppel, Anand Iyer, Andrew Li, Anna Li, Maria Liu, Katherine Joseph, Dillon Phamdo, Trueman Phamdo, Jeffrey Tse, Ashley Wong, Joseph Wong, Emily Xu, Hannah Zhang and Sarah Zhang.

Brian Dignan and Jian Shen were married on January 12, 2006. The wedding took place at sunset on the beach on the beautiful island of Oahu in Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. Brian is the son of Helen Dignan of Woodbine, Maryland and Richard Dignan of Woodstock, Maryland. Jian is the daughter of Lee Lei and Ming-Ning Shen of Xu Zhoo, China. The groom is a Senior Sales Engineer for Apptis in Chantilly, Virginia. He is also attending University of Maryland at College Park. The bride is a Financial Service Representative for Sun Trust Bank in Rockville, Maryland.

Here's a tip for any filmmaker anxious to reveal his or her inner grade-schooler. Shift your gaze to high school or risk baggy-pants bathos - exaggerated juvenile weepiness and mirth. That's what Stephen Chow winds up with in the unendurable CJ7. Steven Spielberg leaped from adolescent fantasist to poet of childhood in E.T., and Chow, the wiseacre auteur of Kung Fu Hustle (2004), attempts to do something similar with CJ7. It's the story of a poor Hong Kong boy (played by Jiao Xu -- a girl!

SCHMIDTSDRIFT, South Africa - Every morning the Bushmen living in this dreary outpost of thorn trees, tents and howling wind faithfully tune their radios to 99.4 FM. They wake up to the weather report. Not that the forecast is surprising in the desert. It's hot and sunny in the summer. It's cold and sunny in the winter. During the women's hour they get advice on raising children, taking stains out of clothing and avoiding cholera. The DJs spin a mix of ancient tribal chants, rock and South African hip-hop interrupted by town gossip, crime reports and death notices.

Owen Brown resident Xiao Fang Xu, a distinguished professional dancer, will give a presentation Jan. 25 at the Savage branch library to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Xu, originally from Shanghai, China, will describe the Chinese New Year and show a video of Chinese classical and folk dance. The program will begin at 10 a.m. in the meeting room. The Chinese New Year, which this year begins Feb. 1, is a time of elaborate celebration. Xu said that people might confuse the day with World War III because of its booming firecrackers and boisterous parades.

BEIJING -- One of China's premier nuclear physicists, a designer of the country's first atomic bomb, joined 44 other scientists and intellectuals yesterday in calling on China's leaders to lift the "counterrevolutionary" verdict from those who took part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square.Wang Ganchang, who is now 88, led the elite group of Chinese physicists who developed and tested the explosive assembly and triggering system for the fission bomb that was exploded on Oct. 14, 1964.

Beijing -- Five years ago, Xu Xiaoxue decided to leave her husband and make a life of her own. So she left the southern town of Wuxi and headed north to Beijing to seek her fame and fortune as a superhuman.Now, armed with a client list of top Chinese leaders, plus a finely honed business sense, Ms. Xu has entered the burgeoning ranks of Chinese who make their living by claiming supernatural abilities. Her advertised skills: X-ray vision, faith healing, fortune telling.On good days she can even change the weather.

DUANYUAN, China - Tucked away down an unpaved cart path, behind a high brick fence, is about the strangest thing anyone could expect to find in the middle of rural nowhere, short of a UFO - an "experimental base" for building one. Well, technically, it's not unidentified, and it's not flying, but what Du Wenda is building here in eastern China is indisputably an object. Du, the son of a horse-cart driver, is founder and president of the Global UFO Scientific and Technological Research Institute of Xiao County of Anhui Province, an institute with a single proposition: to make a flying saucer for earthbound travel.