Cross-talk, a traditional and popular form of *satire, has lost its *charm because artists today cannot satirize current social issues, film director Guo Baochang said last month on the 100th anniversary of Ma Sanli, a famous cross-talk artist. Now that people are facing many new problems and conflicts as the country experiences deep reforms, cross-talk artists should reflect the opinion of the majority instead of being reduced to a tool for singing praises of officials, says Jiang Bojing in an opinion piece in Beijing News.