Rock Hits Peking With a Wham!

Eastern toes tapped to a Western beat as the British pop duo Wham! sang “Love Machine,” “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” and other songs to a full house of 10,000 Chinese fans in Peking’s Workers Gymnasium in China’s biggest live rock concert. The duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley got a roar of applause when they performed their chart-topper “Careless Whispers,” recognized by many in the audience because at least five versions have been translated and sung in Chinese. Three Chinese youths who got up to dance were hauled away by green-uniformed security guards. But most stared in polite bewilderment as Michael and Ridgeley strutted, clapped, crooned and bumped with two scantily clad women dancers who changed outfits six times in the show, from skimpy, strapless black costumes to purple polka-dot miniskirts. Wham!’s music has officially been labeled “healthy” in China’s changing society, where in the 1960s and ‘70s the Communist Party banned dancing and considered Western pop as banal and filthy. Some foreign rock songs and dances are still regarded with suspicion.

--Paul Butski of Niagara Falls, N.Y., beat 28 of the best turkey imitators in the nation to gobble up the All-American Turkey Calling Championship and the $5,000 top prize in Scranton, Pa. Butski, 31, captured the Grand National championship in Des Moines earlier this year, but said this victory was sweeter. “Anytime you win $5,000, it becomes your best,” said Butski, who won a shotgun and a trophy for his earlier triumph. “The money gives you an extra incentive to go out and give it your best shot.” The $5,000 prize was the largest ever given out during any turkey-calling championship. Usually, the gobblers work for pride and a chance to showcase various turkey-calling devices. The callers were required to imitate five turkey sounds, from the barely audible “tree call” to the wild cackle of the “kiki run.” The imitators used devices ranging from a tiny diaphragm to a friction slate board.

--Actress Brigitte Bardot may be gone from movie screens but the French government hasn’t forgotten her. Bardot, 50, was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor for her “36 years of cinematographic activity.” upon the recommendation of Culture Minister Jack Lang. She retired from films in 1973 and has spent much of her time since in semi-seclusion in St. Tropez. Her principal public activity has been as a champion for animal rights. Meanwhile, Bardot has ordered her lawyers to sue singer Sacha Distel for publishing details about their life together in the early 1960s that she alleges are overly intimate.