Chinese frescos painted over in botched restoration

Chinese authorities are coming under fire and two municipal officials have reportedly lost their jobs over a controversial, cartoon-like restoration that has covered ancient Buddhist frescos.

The botched effort occurred at the nearly 300-year-old Yunjie Temple in the city of Chaoyang in Liaoning province, located in the northeastern part of the country, bordering North Korea.

The temple's abbot had requested restoration of its delicate and crumbling painted frescos, which date back to the early Qing Dynasty era. The ancient relics were subsequently painted over completely with bright, simplistic, cartoon-like figures, depicting different scenes and Taoist characters.

An official in charge of temple affairs as well as city's head of cultural heritage monitoring have been dismissed over the incident, according to Chinese media.

A blogger first posted photos of the completed "restoration" effort, which sparked widespread public condemnation via Chinese social media. After seeing the images on the internet, Chaoyang officials launched an investigation.

Restoration work on the temple had been approved at the city level, but cultural heritage experts were not consulted to ensure proper adherence to standards, city official Li Haifeng told The Global Times.

A local firm that was not qualified to conduct such cultural repairs was hired to do the work, he said.

Officials continue to investigate the incident and further reprimands could be forthcoming.

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Stephen King and son Owen discuss family and fiction

Stephen King's Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, but the new novel isn't simply an attempt to reclaim the classic story — now often remembered for Stanley Kubrick's subsequent film adaptation.

"People made too much of the way that I feel about the Kubrick film [The Shining]. I've had a lot of books that have been turned into films. I like some of the adaptations — in fact, I like a lot of the adaptations — and there are a few that I don't like. The Shining is one of the few I don't care for, but I don't take it personally and I don't take it to heart," the bestselling novelist told Jian Ghomeshi on CBC's cultural affairs show Q on Thursday.

"Movies and books are apples and oranges... [When] a book gets sold to the movies, it's like sending a kid off to college. You hope they're going to do well and everything. Most of them do. Every now and then, somebody falls by the wayside."

After writing more than 50 novels (which have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide), King says he was inspired to return to The Shining's child protagonist Danny Torrance by those who regularly asked him what happened to the character after the tale ended. He was also inspired by the story of a therapy cat reportedly able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients.

Owen King, seen with Stephen King in the CBC Q studio in Toronto on Thursday, helped offer a fresh-eyed perspective on his father's latest novel Doctor Sleep. (Mitch Pollack/CBC)

Published earlier this fall, Doctor Sleep came to life, in part, thanks to fresh-eyed feedback from King's youngest son, Owen. A screenwriter and author who has just published his comic novel debut, entitled Double Feature, Owen King was born in 1977, the same year The Shining hit bookstores.

The pair arrived in Toronto to speak at writers' rights group PEN Canada's annual benefit, the opening event of the 2013 International Festival of Authors.

In the attached audio, Stephen and Owen King talk to Q about picking up the thread of The Shining in Doctor Sleep, their father-son relationship, the challenges facing King's adult children (now writing novels as well) and whether they might one day collaborate.

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