Chinese media, advertising, and urban life.

Disney is coming to Shanghai.

The Shanghai government announced yesterday that its proposal for a Disney theme park in the city had been approved by the central government. Today's Xinhua Daily Telegraph announced the news with a front-page cover image of a woman pedaling down a street in rural Pudong, where the project will be located.

An inset photo shows a reporter taking a shot of a village committee notice concerning land rights for the project.

A flashy graphic that Xinhua prepared for its feature on the Disney story ran on the cover of a number of papers, including Taiyuan's San Jin City News (above right), Ningbo's Southeast Business, and the Jinan Evening News.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Disney and the Shanghai municipal government jointly submitted plans in January to build a $3.59-billion park to open as early as 2014. It would be the entertainment giant's fourth theme park outside the U.S., after Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong -- and the first in mainland China, the fastest-growing mass market in the world.

The Chinese central government approved a broad agreement, outlining the legal and financial framework for the park. The decision clears the way for Disney and Shanghai to work out detailed plans for building and operating the park, addressing such issues as subway and road access to the park as well as finances.

Our new series, Danwei Canteen is a quick guide to traditional Chinese food as it's prepared where the cuisine was born: in Chinese rural areas and villages. We'll accompany the food with originally recorded music from parks and villages, and new interpretations of Chinese folk songs and the traditional repertoire. The video is also on Tudou for faster loading in China, and on Youtube.

Today's Daily Sunshine, a Shenzhen-based commercial paper, talked to the former abbot of Hongfa Temple ahead of his 103rd birthday on the 21st day of the 9th lunar month (November 7 this year).

Master Benhuan (本焕), born in Hubei in 1907, has been a monk for 81 years and is currently director of the Shenzhen Buddhist Association. He told the newspaper that he still rises at 4:18 every morning, naps from 12 to 1:48 every afternoon, and goes to sleep at 9 every night. He plans to retire when he turns 120, and is counting on living another thirty years after that.

One of Benhuan's daily pleasures is reading the newspaper:

On the day of the interview, the reporter watched in silence outside the abbot's chamber. For several hours, an endless stream of people flowed in for blessings, and from time to time someone would rush up to Master Benhuan and ask for an adhistana blessing, or for a prayer for wealth or a promotion. The din continued inside the four square meter abbot's cell until around nine, newspaper time, when Benhuan was able to enjoy a brief moment to himself.

"Today's paper talks about relations between Australia and China...." An assistant carrying a copy of Reference News drew close to Master Benhuan's ear and read the newspaper cover to cover. This was the daily "newspaper lesson," a practice that he was said to have carried on for decades. Reference News was an old friend.

This reporter also ran across an eighty-year-old man who had come up the mountain especially to read a newspaper to the old monk. He had already clipped out some stories, and the old monk listened with rapt attention.

Reading the headlines

"Bo Xilai is fighting the mafia in Chongqing, and they say he's going to drive them out." Holding a copy of the Hong Kong Commercial Daily, the old man spoke into Benhuan's ear while the old monk listened intently in silence. "Impressive," he responded softly, his attention unwavering. Then with his right hand he picked up a magnifying glass from the table and drew close to the newspaper to inspect the magnified headline. Then, as if by some unspoken agreement, the old man took back the newspaper and continued to read, while the old monk continued to listen. The old man made a deliberate pause after every critical point for the old monk to nod his head knowingly.

When he heard that a suspected gang member was also a representative at the municipal People's Congress, Master Benhuan gestured forcefully with his right index finger and exclaimed, "That's not an easy problem to solve. It's not simple. It's got to have the strong support of the central government." The old man nodded his head, and for a moment, harmony filled the abbot's cell.

As an impressively old monk who occupies an important position at an influential Buddhist temple in Shenzhen, Master Benhuan turns up in the news fairly frequently. He was last seen in July after he sued a businessman over a 1.2 million-yuan debt.

A giant statue of a young Mao Zedong emerged from scaffolding in Changsha this week.

Standing on Juzi Island in the middle of Xiang River, the statue and its flowing hair were revealed to the world for the first time through an image splashed on the cover of yesterday's Xiaoxiang Morning Herald (far left).

In today's issue, the paper followed up with an article on the statue's design process. It spoke with Xie Liwen, a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts who was on the creative team:

Now that workmen have taken down the scaffolding and the statue has revealed its face, many locals are surprised at the "smart, stylish long hair," because the Mao statues with which everyone is most familiar either have the leader waving to the people or standing impressively dressed in an overcoat. Other poses are relatively rare.

"This design isn't all that strange. The Mao statues people typically see are mostly of him standing and waving, or else fairly formal and serious. During the creation of this statue of a seated, young Mao Zedong, we were particularly concerned with differentiating it from past images," said Xie Liwen.

The design of the seated, young Mao statue was hatched in 2006. "Our first concern was uniqueness and artistry," said Xie. He said that at the suggestion Li Ming, president of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and another lead designer, they collected images of Mao at different stages of his life, ultimately selecting Mao at 32. "That was the year he wrote 'Changsha,' and besides, we wanted the design to capture the expansive abandon of the poem."

To properly recreate Mao Zedong's true image, the creative team repeatedly consulted historical materials and produced drafts that they sent off for Mao Zedong's daughter-in-law Shao Hua to review. "Shao Hua was quite pleased with the design," said Xie. Unfortunately, Shao passed away last year and was unable to see the completed statue for herself.
[...]
The poem "Changsha" describes what Mao Zedong saw while standing on Juzi Island looking at Yuelu Mountain. But perceptive locals noticed that the newly revealed Mao statue is facing toward the southeast, with his back toward the mountain. Why?

Xie explained that the southeast orientation was selected primarily for artistic reasons: "The light is better facing the southeast, and it has a stronger sense of shape." Xie said that they performed a special survey of Juzi Island and its surroundings to address the orientation issue, and after considering multiple factors, they ultimately decided that the statue should face the southeast.

For the torso of the young Mao Zedong statue, the creative team chose the form of a mountain: "It expresses Mao's magnificence, and also shows that he came out of Shaoshan."

The statue measures 32 meters high and 83 by 41 meters on the ground. It is constructed out of granite quarried in Fujian Province.

Two teenage girls from rural Siping in Jilin Province conspired with a 19-year-old high school dropout who was working in a bar, to sell local middle school girls into prostitution.

Zhao and Dong, both fourteen years old, tricked five middle-school students into coming with them to the city of Gongzhuling, where they held them for 68 hours before they were discovered by police.

Zhao and Zou, the 19-year-old, hatched the unsuccessful moneymaking scheme online. "I wanted to take them off to be working girls. They'd sell their bodies and we'd make money," Zou later confessed to police.

Here's how things went down, according to a report in the City Evening News:

On October 15, Zhao called up Zou and arranged for him to rent a car to pick up a few girls from Gujiazi. She and Dong would meet him there. At 10 am on the 16th, Zou rented a Songhuajiang mini-van and arrived at the gate to Middle School #2 in the Liaohe rural administration district. When classes let out at 11, Zhao had five of her classmates get in the car by telling them that it was her birthday and she was taking them to lunch. She first said that they were going to eat in Lishu, but when they got there she said they would go on to the city of Gongzhuling. Zou lied to a friend, saying that his girlfriend was in town but had no place to stay. He borrowed a key and took them to his friend's place. At 6 that evening, Zou went out to ask around but was unable to find any place to "take in" the girls, so he returned after buying some things to eat.

After supper on the 16th, one girl said that she wanted to go home, and the other girls began to agitate for hiring a cab home. The suspects placated them by saying they'd be sent home the following day. After the argument, Zhao dragged the girl who first suggested going home into the next room and beat her with a belt.

The article goes on to describe more beatings at the hands of Zhao and Dong over the next two days. Zou was apparently prepared to take the girls back home on the morning of the 17th after he was unable to sell them into prostitution.

Parents of the missing girls notified police on the afternoon of the 17th, and the girls were rescued at 7 am on the 19th after a 39-hour investigation.

The happy conclusion:

A recent and very well-received speech by Kaiser Kuo at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln on Sino-American relations and the Internet.

The Beijing Subway system recently issued a bilingual safety manual for riders on the Airport Express line. Zhai Hua, a blogger who posts on cross-cultural issues, noted several types of problems with the booklet:

• Typos: From the title, "Passenter Safety Tips," to "swiping the card gentaally";
• Infelicitous translations: "do not attack door" (不要扒门: "Do Not Force Door"), "Please ask for the working staff of station for help if need," and "Waiting as your line No." (按线候车, apparently an instruction to stand as directed by yellow lines on the floor);
• Mystifying cover design: A shapely woman silhouetted over a pink heart.

On October 30, the Beijing Youth Daily summarized Zhai's blog post and asked the subway company for an explanation:

A representative of the subway company said that some controversial translations, apart from obvious spelling errors, required expert assessment. "There are multiple translations for ditie (地铁), including 'metro' and 'subway,' and you can't say any particular one is wrong." The representative said that the operating company was responsible for printing the manual, and that he would handle the matter after looking into it further. As for the controversy over the cover image, that was a case of difference of opinion.

"Experts" could conceivably argue over whether to use "metro" or "subway," if the city hadn't already decided on the latter, but many of the errors in the pamphlet are indefensible.

Zhai notes that few years ago, an "expert" was cited in defense of Shanghai's use of "model unit" as a translation of 文明单位, an honor bestowed on organizations that meet certain standards of excellence. Zhai and other Internet commentators felt that the city's translation captured none of the meaning of the original and could be misinterpreted as referring to a promotional apartment unit in a new development.

The city's response to Xinmin Online:

Selection of "model units" in Shanghai is undertaken by the Shanghai Municipal Civilization Office, and the city government issues "model unit" plaques. The English translation is attested by the authority of an expert in English linguistics and has been in use for many years. It is authoritative and will continue to be used in the future.

Other parts of the country use "civilized unit," a translation that has its own problems. Yet when pressed, they would probably be able to justify the choice by appealing to the judgment of an expert.

Marketing Services Assistant, Weber Shandwick Asia Pacific

Job Description:

Weber Shandwick, the world’s leading global public relations firm, seeks an assistant for its Asia Pacific marketing team. Based in Beijing, this early-career position demands a versatile communicator who has a strong background in, and knowledge of, multi-media communication channels. Working closely with our senior marketing services team, the successful candidate will be responsible for compiling reports and newsletters, managing web content and tracking media activity. Excellence in English language is essential.

Requirements:

* University degree
* Native-level English ability with excellent oral and written communication skills
* Digital video editing skills desirable
* Experience in desktop publishing and graphic design desirable
* Experience and an interest using popular online platforms
* Competency with Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
* A self-starter who is extremely well-organized and motivated
* Conversational Mandarin ability is an advantage

Please submit an English cover letter and resume or CV to tmgingrich@webershandwick.com to be considered.

Come 2012, medical facilities in Sichuan will require you to step outside for your smoke break.

Today's Chengdu Evening News announced the start of an anti-smoking campaign intended to bring the province in line with the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Twenty percent of the province's hospitals should go smoke-free by the end of this year, 50% by the end of 2010, and the rest by the end of 2011.

Conspicuous "no smoking" signs will go up, ash trays will be removed from conference rooms, and cigarette ads will be barred from hospital shops. Additionally, smoking will be incorporated into performance reviews for medical staff and their employers.

Some statistics provided by the newspaper:

• Percentage of doctors in Sichuan who smoke: 16.89% (33.9% of male doctors and 13.8% of female doctors);
• Average number of cigarettes smoked per day by male doctors who smoke: 12;
• Percentage of doctors aged 60-69 who smoke: over 50%;
• Percentage of doctors who have smoked in front of patients: 4.3%.

The money quote:

Professor Li Jing, head of the Huaxi Hospital Mental Health Center's Substance Dependence Department at Sichuan University, told this reporter yesterday...that although doctors may be more knowledgeable about medical matters than ordinary people, some doctors who smoke are insufficiently aware of how unhealthy smoking is, and believe that smoking is not very harmful.

Hong Kong's Blacksmith Books has published a short story collection by Xujun Eberlein. Below is an introduction to the book by Pete Spurrier, of Blacksmith, followed by an extract from the book.

It was some decade. The universities were closed. Students were at war. Poetry was banned. And the word “love,” unless applied to Mao, was expressly forbidden. Artists were denounced, and many opted for suicide. This is the time – its madness, its passion, its complexity – that Xujun Eberlein brings to life in Apologies Forthcoming, her moving collection of short stories about those who lived during and after China’s Cultural Revolution.

This book won the third annual Tartt Fiction Award when it first appeared in the United States, and an Asian edition has been published in Hong Kong.

Xujun is “a fresh voice in American fiction, a Chinese writer with a remarkably shrewd, interesting tongue” according to Jay Parini. But the stories here are based on true experience. Born in Chongqing, Xujun was sent to the countryside after leaving high school, and emigrated to the US in 1988. She blogs about current affairs at Insideout China.

“My big sister died at the age of 16 as a Red Guard,” she says. “She was both a participant and a victim of the Cultural Revolution, but foremost she was my dear sister. Her death planted in me a ‘Cultural Revolution complex.’ For three decades after her death in 1968, I couldn’t bear to look back at that summer, yet the wound in my heart was never healed. It was only after 9/11 that I finally began to write a memoir piece about her. I cried constantly when I was writing and revising it. This non-fiction piece, titled Swimming with Mao, was later published in Walrus in 2006. The story Feathers in this collection is a fictionalized account of that same incident, from a different angle by a more distant narrator. That story then became the first of a bunch featuring young protagonists of the time.”

The best annual Internet event in China, the China Blogger Conference, is next weekend in Lianzhou, a small mountain town in western Guangdong Province.

If you want to sign up for it, go to this page. 100 yuan a person, not including hotel.

If you can't or are too lazy to read Chinese and are a journalist or active blogger, send an email to jeremy -at- danwei.org if you want to attend.

Austin Ramzy has been reporting for TIME for 6 years, starting in Hong Kong and moving to Beijing in 2007. Since then he has covered the Hong Kong Chief Executive election in 2007, the Beijing Olympics, Wenchuan earthquake and the Xinjiang riots.

Working in regional journalism in the US before moving to Hong Kong, Ramzy has a Bachelor degree in East Asian Studies from Middlebury College and a Masters in Journalism from Berkeley. He was in Harbin for a term during his university days.

His most recent articles in TIME includes ones on the Global Media Summit, China and Russia
seeking an oil pact, China's 3rd Quarter GDP rise and the economy and Censorship at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Ramzy was also the main contributor to TIME China's blog, which recently stopped operating.

Danwei asks Ramzy questions about his reporting background, the stories that he has written from Beijing (above), and why TIME closed down the TIME China blog.

---

Danwei: How long have you been covering China affairs for TIME? Did your methods of working change when you moved from Hong Kong to Beijing? Did any new difficulties arise or was Beijing a easier place to be a China journalist?
Austin Ramzy: I started as an intern at TIME Asia in 2003. I was eventually hired full-time and worked four years as a reporter-researcher. That's TIME-speak for a fact checker who is sometimes uncaged to write book reviews, obituaries, short pieces based on reporting from stringers in the field and occasionally even cover stories. The opportunities to cover China from that job were somewhat limited. I did write about Hong Kong politics, but only made a few reporting trips to the mainland.

When I moved to Beijing in the summer of 2007 someone I interviewed often told me that reporters used to sit in Hong Kong trying to figure out what was happening in Beijing, now they go to Beijing to figure out what is happening in Hong Kong. This city has become an important place for journalism, not just for covering China but global issues as well. The variety of interesting people and stories you can find in Beijing more than make up for the difficulties of living and working here.

Today's Hefei Evening News features an image of the glittering high-rises that will go up in place of a declining commercial district.

The urban renewal project will displace 2,500 households, but they'll be able to move back eventually: "National Day two years from now will be the day for displaced households to move back home," said Hu Mingwen, vice-secretary of Yaohai District.

The paper also offers a bit more information about Zhang Yimou's new film, Three Shots (三枪), his first in three years, set to premiere on December 11:

Zhang Yimou's Three Shots is adapted from the Coen brothers' Blood Simple, with the setting changed to ancient China. However, a source in the audience for the "rough cut" screening yesterday said that Three Shots was basically a combination of "northeastern errenzhuan" and My Own Swordsman, "with Xiao Shenyang speaking instead of singing." The first fifth of the film is a comedy, and then it turns into a thriller. Three Shots continues the Zhang Yimou cinematographic style, with colors so rich and vibrant that outside scenes resemble paintings. Interiors feature actors in lush, eye-catching costumes.

Three Shots calls itself a comic thriller, but the comedy section only makes up one-fifth of the film and it remains to be seen how its laughs will test out with audiences. One member of yesterday's audience told this reporter that the first fifth of the film did have lots of laughs, the best of which came during a cameo by Zhao Benshan. A group of men and women suspected of improper activities were hauled out of an inn and forced to squat at the base of a wall. Then Uncle Benshan, decked out in period costume, walked casually over and said in all seriousness, "Our chief task now is to gain a grip on behavior problems." At this, all of the cinema heads in the audience erupted in laughter.

The film stars Xiao Shenyang a student of Zhao Benshan's who found national popularity for his performance in a skit during the previous Spring Festival Gala. According to the paper, producer Zhang Weiping said the actor was chosen "because he came cheap."

This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads.

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Art Designer and Editor Needed For Trade Magazine

Creative art designer and professional editor/copy editor both needed for top Chinese language furniture trade magazine in Shenzhen. Must be a native Chinese speaker. Knowledge of furniture industry, interior design a plus, but not a must. Relocation expenses paid if needed. Salary negotiable depending on experience.

Contact: cbingbing01@yahoo.com with resume.

Here's an oil painting done by Li Yueliang (李跃亮) in 2003. It was shown at a recent exhibition of sports art held alongside the National Games in Jinan:

Here's an earlier photograph taken by Hu Wugong (胡武功) in 1996:

A member of the Professional Photographers of America identified the plagiarism in a short post submitted to the Fengniao website:

At the Seventh Chinese Sports Art Exhibition held recently in Jinan, Shandong Province, the oil painting When I Was Young by an artist named Li Yueliang from Zhejiang Province caught my attention, as familiar framing, characters, and setting all appeared before my eyes. Wasn't this "Push-Ups," a photograph taken by Hu Wugong in the 1990s? Hu is the chairman of the Shaanxi Province Photographers Association and a professor at the Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. His photograph was taken in the Minleyuan slums in Xi'an in 1996. More than a decade later, how had it turned into an oil painting on display at a national art exhibition?

So I called up Hu Wugong to ask whether he had assigned rights, and he answered in the negative. He also sent me the original, and I put the photograph next to the painting and discovered that apart from the artist and date, everything else about the two pieces was identical. The painter's skill at copying was extraordinary — no detail seemed to escape his notice. He merely substituted pigments for silver salts to clone a photograph with brush-strokes. We all know that for painter and photographer alike, the achievement of an artistic work should be a result of involvement in life, and a painter cut off from the world, appropriating the results of someone else's involvement in life and using a copy as his own original work is incredibly sad, ridiculous, and shameful! Such shameful plagiarism should be criticized and wiped out by us all.

I urge my colleagues in the world of photography and fine art to open up a discussion for people to air their opinions, so that this phenomenon does not spread, desecrating art!

Via Wang Xiaofeng, who presents the two images with a snide remark about how easy it is to simulate an oil painting using Photoshop.

You've taken a trip to Hong Kong and are returning with a stack of reading material that you can't normally find on the mainland. To your dismay, the customs agent seizes your books, but won't tell you why. What do you do? Sue!

Southern Weekly reported last week on a professor who is suing a customs office in Guangzhou over the confiscation of seven books he brought back from Hong Kong.

Most of the books that Feng Chongyi had confiscated by the Tianhe Terminal Customs Office were written by mainland authors and did not violate national laws or regulations. But the heart of his complaint is more general: there is no publicly-available index of banned books, and no clear public standard of what constitutes illicit printed material. Feng argues that this violates Chinese law.

Feng's lawsuit mirrors an earlier attempt by the Fujian-based author Chen Xiwo to retrieve twelve copies of the Taiwan edition of his novella collection Book of Offenses from Fuzhou customs officials. Southern Weekly summarizes his case, in which the appeals court found that his book "disseminated pornography" and deserved to be confiscated.

The article also digs up an interesting older case in which Zhu Yuantao, a Beijing-based lawyer who won a fleeting victory over the Beijing Airport Customs Office.

In 2002, Zhu returned from a trip to Hong Kong with a copy of Gao Hua's account of the Yan'an Rectification Campaign, which customs agents seized as a banned book. He sued, lost, and then won on appeal in the Beijing Municipal People's High Court, which said that in the absence of a clear, public standard for banned publications, the confiscation of his book lacked a legal basis.

However, two months later the court revised its decision to uphold the seizure, and subsequent lawsuits over confiscated books have never been successful. Perhaps authorities are nervous that making the customs blacklist public would set an unfortunate precedent for information control in other areas — domestic media and publishing, for example, where unwritten rules abound.

It's an illuminating article, and its first line is particularly interesting in what it reveals about Southern Weekly's intended readership.

Many people have had the following experience: they bring back certain books from overseas, but when they pass through Chinese customs, the books get confiscated as illegal printed material. Most people simply accept this, but noted academic Feng Chongyi has chosen to go to court.

Feng, who carries a Chinese passport, is currently an associate professor and deputy director of the China Research Center at the University of Technology, Syndey, as well as an adjunct professor at Nankai University.

Ralph Jennings is a journalist and long time resident of China. He currently lives in Taipei. From mid-2000 to 2006, he had an advice column in the 21st Century weekly newspaper in which he answered letters from thousands of students and young professionals. Below is a letter from the archive, with an introduction by Jennings.

A mother can be trouble enough. She insists on study over play. She’s always hounding the kid to pass some test. She censors dates and mates. But add to that a failure, minor as it may be, that sparks Mom’s sense of do-die-or-be-killed competition: My child must beat others at school and it’s the child’s fault if she falls behind. Cinderella tells the story vividly.

Dear Ralph,

I'm a girl in senior middle school grade two. In junior middle school I did very well in my studies. But when I entered senior middle school I began to taste the bitterness of failing. A girl who was not as good as me in junior middle school surpassed me. I was very sad. My mother often scolded me. She couldn't understand me. All she knows how to do is scold and satirize me. I can't stand her, so when I return home I don't want to talk to her. She never wants to encourage me. When I do a good job, she only says, "Don't be so proud. Do you think you really did that well? Think of (insert name), she did better than you." When I do something bad, she says, "What are you doing? Think of (insert name), she is always better than you." I don't want to be compared! We are different persons! All she does is reduce my self confidence. I had an open-heart talk with her. But she just said coldly, "When you grow up, you will know that I did good for you. I don't want you to be proud." Am I proud? Never. I just want to give myself confidence. You may think she is just strict with me. She isn't. She never forces me to do anything. She just thought I wasn't so good, but she never helps me. My mother was my idol. She was beautiful and intelligent. When I was young, I could tell my friends proudly, "My mother is an undergraduate!" But now she has turned into a vulgar woman. I can't communicate with her. I don't want to go near her. What should I do?

Cinderella, Shanxi

April 2002

This amusing ad for one of Lenovo's ThinkPad line of laptops was put up on Youku a few days ago.

In Zhuhai yesterday morning, metal scaffolding peeled off the side of a building, crushing seven cars and injuring two workmen.

Zhujiang Evening News devoted most of its front page to a large photo of the accident site, and covered the incident in detail inside:

"It was a sharp sound, like a child shouting," said a cook at a neighboring restaurant who had come out when he heard the sound to see the scaffolding slumping downward. It was about 10:30 in the morning, and the entire process lasted just a few seconds.

"There was so much dust!" said Mr. Zhou, a guard in the area. He rushed over when he saw the situation and then called the police. Soon after, he saw the two workmen get rescued. "The building has been there for years. It's now being renovated for the opening of the Longfa Hotel, and it's been under construction for about two months."

"It's got nothing to do with us," said a middle-aged man instructing service staff at the Longfa Seafood Pavilion just across the street. Though his clothing was clean, his shoes were covered in dust. He said that he was a manager at Longfa, but that the incident at the building had "nothing to do" with Longfa, nor did he know the purpose of the renovations. "It probably collapsed when they were taking down the scaffolding." For quite some time, the attention of the man and his companions was held by the building where the accident had occurred.

Only two workmen were in the area at the time of the collapse. Mr. Huang, who was on the second level of the scaffolding, jumped off when he noticed bars bending but ended up getting crushed by falling bars and breaking his pelvis. Mr. Li was on the ground and ran toward the building when the scaffolding started to fall. He escaped with minor injuries.

Construction methods are being blamed:

"I put up the scaffolding," said Mr. Li. He said that at first, the steel rods attaching the scaffolding to the building were the same as what made up the scaffolding itself, but a few days ago when the time came to install window glass, someone suggested exchanging the steel rods for cables. He had objected: "There's no way those would be able to handle as much as steel rods. But they've already swapped most of them out."

An employee of the Xiangzhou District Safety Supervision Bureau said that their initial investigation had found that the incident was related to the way the scaffolding was attached to the building wall, but hidden causes had not been ruled out because access was still impossible, so a specific reason awaited further investigation. "The building used to be a workshop, and Longfa wants to turn it into a hotel."

The newspaper also reports that proper permits were not obtained for the work on the building, so the authorities have not yet been able to locate anyone in charge of the renovations.

Geoffrey Robertson is a well-known human rights lawyer whose reputation extends around the world. He has written numerous books about his occupation and the latest, Tyrannicide Brief, is a historical account about putting King Charles I on trial in England in 1649, a King who everyone regarded as having the divine right to rule.

Robertson relates this to modern cases such as that of Sadam Hussein and talks about the lawyer, John Cooke of Oxford and Inns of Court, who devised the idea that the King was guilty of "tyranny" for oppressing his people despite the divine right to rule.

The book was translated into Chinese by Emily Xu. Danwei wrote to the translator for an account of her landing the translation deal as well as how she felt about the book. Xu's answers were in English.

---

Danwei: Did you find the subject matter of the novel easy to relate to?
Emily Xu: Indeed. First of all, it's a non-fiction book rather than a novel. That's why I was so impressed because the story had really happened in the UK. All the trials and events had sources. This is the strength of truth. Secondly, the social conditions described by the book are strikingly similar to today's China, and this inspires many readers to reflect upon many of China's own problems, especially in the spotlight of the 60th anniversary of the PRC. But on the whole this is a book about a brave lawyer who pursued his conscience and challenged tyranny and carried forward the spirit of the law. Nowadays, there are many examples of this at an international level.

Danwei: What about it drew you to the novel?
EX: I should thank my mentor, Professor Ying Chan at the University of Hong Kong. She gave me the book on a windy winter night when I was doing some freelancing work for JMSC. The book is a 17th century British drama. During the turbulent times, people argued vehemently about the re-establishment of government and society; the destiny of individuals intertwined with the tide of history. The book also depicts the trajectory of growth of an ordinary lawyer and legal education in UK.