5 Baristas show off skills

FOUR baristas from four coffee shops in Jing’an gave a presentation on how to select the best premium beans and prepare artistic latte art at HKRI Taikoo Hui late last month.

Jing’an has an active coffee culture, with many cafes in the district, including the popular Starbucks Roastery.

The district sponsors a coffee festival every year for local cafes to promote their brands and highlight coffee culture. The festival spans a variety of activities, like turning out specialty brews and offering free tasting to visitors in popular retail malls. gave a performance at the legendary Paramount ballroom in Jing’an earlier this month.

The young dance sensations blended the ballroom’s history and Shanghai culture into their performance.

The British Blackpool Dance Festival is known as the “Olympics of ballroom dancing.”

The 85-year-old Paramount ballroom, one of the most glamorous dance halls of the Far East in the 1930s, played an important role in introducing ballroom dancing and popularizing it in China. The ballroom is celebrated as the site where Charlie Chaplin once danced, “golden voice” Zhou Xuan once crooned and movie queen Hu Die once got engaged.

This year, the Paramount ballroom dancing alliance was formed to better promote its history and culture.