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Penguin recently published a new translation of Lu Xun's works, The Real Story of Ah Q and Other Tales of China. The famous Chinese author's grandson, Zhou Lingfei (周令飞) was in Beijing for the launch of the book. Also on Tudou. Earlier on Danwei: Q&A with translator Julia Lovell. Buy the book on Amazon. |
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Publishing
The highest-paid authors in China, 2009 editionPosted by Joel Martinsen, November 30, 2009 6:26 PM
![]() Zheng Yuanjie, this year's highest-earning author Professional list-maker Wu Huaiyao (吴怀尧) is back with the latest edition of China's top 25 authors as ranked by royalty income. On Wu's list, which appears in the Changjiang Times this year, children's author Zheng Yuanjie seizes the top spot from YA writer and magazine publisher Guo Jingming. Not much has changed on this year's list. Wu and his team tweaked their methodology this year, expanding their range to include business writers like Wu Xiaobo (#5) for the first time (see below). As in years past, CCTV's Lecture Room program continues to make money for its lecturers. This year, Qian Wenzhong joins Yu Dan and Yi Zhongtian on the list. The Rankings
Because the list was only released today, there has not been much response from the writers themselves, but it's likely that it will draw the same complaints as in years past: it's imprecise, it ignores everything but royalties on top-selling books, it's based on crude estimations of sales numbers, and to top it off, the whole list is meaningless. Continue reading The highest-paid authors in China, 2009 edition »
Jobs available
招聘:土豆网公关总监Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 30, 2009 1:17 PM
This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads. 职位名称:公关总监 PR Director for Tudou.com 主要工作职责 : 1、根据公司整体目标制定公关策略并组织实施。 2、能把关公司总体的新闻稿,包含对品牌/行业/销售/内容的全面把握。 3、有效组织常规的发稿,对重要活动新闻发布会的组织。 4、负责国内各类媒体关系维护,在互联网行业/广告行业/主流媒体有广泛的人脉,能有效拓展和利用相关的外部关系。 5、公关危机处理,能有效反应媒体询问组织内部应变,迅速制定回应方案,减低公关危机杀伤力。 6、组织策划和执行土豆网的推广活动。 7、负责与海外媒体沟通。 任职资格: 学历背景/专业:原则不限,传播、新闻本科优先 学位:大学本科或硕士毕业 专业经验和技能:八年以上企业公关或公关公司经验,有相应的媒体关系和网络公关技能,积极主动,热爱挑战,英语程度佳,有超过三年的管理经验并具备出色的管理能力。 Foreign media on China
China: The inevitable next global power?Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 30, 2009 10:34 AM
Hu's head is the biggest Foreign Policy magazine has compiled a list of 'top 100 global thinkers'. They got 63 of them to participate in a survey, blurbed thusly:
Chinese citizens who took part, include erstwhile editor of Caijing magazine Hu Shuli, governor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan and legal scholar and activist Xu Zhiyong China related findings from the survey:
The whole report is titled titled The wisdom of the smart crowd, which is even more cringe-inducing than the tired "Hu' pun in my photo caption above. Despite the title, it's well worth a read, and it comes with charts and illustrations. In the age of Twitter, even sober-minded publications like Foreign Policy need eye candy. Beijing
Slogans on Tiananmen GatePosted by Joel Martinsen, November 27, 2009 6:28 PM
![]() Tiananmen at night Online magazine Slate's Daniel Gross, currently traveling through China, introduces a short post on Marxism in contemporary Chinese society with a surprising historical claim:
Gross must have a particularly lousy tour guide. First he can't manage to find a chocolate bar anywhere in China, and now he's suggesting that explicit mentions of Marx and Lenin once adorned Tiananmen Gate. The slogans have actually changed very little during the PRC's first six decades. At the ceremony to announce the founding of the republic on October 1, 1949, a portrait of Mao Zedong was hung in the center of the gate and slogans reading "Long Live the People's Republic of China" (中華人民共和國萬歲) and "Long Live the Central People's Government" (中央人民政府萬歲) were placed on either side. The following year, the eastern side (bearing the "government" slogan) was replaced with "Long Live the Unity of the World's Peoples" (世界人民大團結萬歲). An expression of solidarity and internationalism, this slogan had the added benefit of containing the same number of characters as its counterpart on the other side. The first simplified writing scheme was promulgated in 1956, and just ahead of Labor Day, 1964, the slogans were converted to simplified characters. Although the display has been renovated with updated materials over the last four decades, the text itself has not changed. Continue reading Slogans on Tiananmen Gate »
Front Page of the Day
No computers allowed for the weekendPosted by Alice Xin Liu, November 27, 2009 5:30 PM
The top headline on today's Morning Post (北京晨报) concerns neighborhood volunteer teams that are going to go around this weekend and "fine" people using their computers to go on the Internet. Their reasoning? Trying to promote the "moderate use of the Internet." Journalist Dong Zheng (董正) reports:
On Wednesday this week the same paper reported that 800 stray cats had been found in Tianjin (天津). As a result, cat lovers and volunteers had gotten into a scrabble with the "cat dealer." In today's Morning Post, there is a follow-up report on the fates of the now estimated 690 cats. The article concentrates on the legal battle between the "friends of cats" and the police and the dealer: the police seem to be allied with the dealer, and knows what's going on with the "cat dealing." Links and Sources
Featured Video
Interview with Zhou Lingfei, whose father's father is Lu XunPosted by Eric Mu, November 27, 2009 2:49 PM
Penguin recently published a new translation of Lu Xun's works, The Real Story of Ah Q and Other Tales of China. The famous Chinese author's grandson, Zhou Lingfei (周令飞) was in Beijing for the launch of the book. Also on Tudou. Earlier on Danwei: Q&A with translator Julia Lovell. Buy the book on Amazon. Newspapers
Dorm storm: Share and bewarePosted by Ralph Jennings, November 27, 2009 12:25 PM
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. The typical low-rise Chinese dormitory looks like a factory block with brick walls and square windows in perfect rows and columns. Three to four wooden bunk beds lie head to foot in each room. Each student gets a bunk and another slab of wood for a desk. Roommates share a phone, a phone line and at better schools an Internet connection for whoever brings a private computer, inevitably sharing it to avoid looking elitist. Windows leak icy air in the winter. Air conditioning is rare. Public restrooms along the cement-floored halls smell like students seldom aim and the staff seldom cleans. Dormitories may face campus construction sites where workers hammer into the night under stadium lights that go off only at sunrise. Through these walls, twice a year, pour 18-year-olds from all over China, lugging cartoon-decorated toiletry bags, clothes for all occasions, celebrity posters, the shock of leaving young beaux behind in distant hometowns and parents trailing along with second thoughts about whether they should have splurged for an off-campus apartment. The results? Student letters to a foreign agony uncleDear Ralph, I am a college junior. These days a problem occupies my mind. On our campus, there are eight students in each dormitory room, and altogether about 450 persons in one building, which has caused many problems. Last term, a student was killed by one of his roommates because of disputes when playing cards. Besides, constant cold wars in the dormitory make it stifling. Furthermore, every year we have to pay a 1,200-yuan (about 7.8 yuan to the U.S. dollar at that time) dorm fee, which is higher than other colleges under the same condition. Sometimes I really don't want to live in such an annoying place, but I have no choice. I think this is quite unfair. As college students, we should have proper rights. But how do we get them? Jerry, via e-mail Front Page of the Day
Police arrest football match fixersPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 26, 2009 2:03 PM
Today's Beijing News' top story and large graphic is about the arrest of at least four men suspected by police on suspicion of football (soccer) match fixing and arranging illegal gambling. From Xinhua:
Links and Sources
Featured Video
Online video and PR in ChinaPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 26, 2009 7:20 AM
Blogger and PR executive Will Moss on social media, online video and PR in China. Editorial
The highly educated chengguan might be no better than the neighborhood committee auntiePosted by Alice Xin Liu, November 25, 2009 6:20 PM
The Beijing Youth Daily recently reported that the chengguan (the para-police force who are responsible for "cleaning" the streets in cities) in Hefei, Anhui province, are recruiting university-degree level employees. Commentaries about this appeared in The Beijing News and Beijing Youth Daily: both writers were from ordinary non-media backgrounds, describing themselves as "Employees" (职员) rather than "Editor" (编辑) or "Media worker" (媒体人). The writer of the editorial from the Beijing Youth Daily, like in the The Beijing News remains skeptical that a change in the education requirements will signal a change in the improvement of chengguan activities. The Beijing Youth Daily comment is translated below. “Highly-educated chengguan" seems to be for engineering an imageby Wu Longgui (吴龙贵) / Anhui provinceAt the end of February this year, on every big portal website in the city of Hefei appeared an examination application notice: the Hefei chengguan department had released their recruitment notice. After the initial selection process, over 3,000 people were awarded with a chance at a written examination. The rejected applicants, rejected because they did not have a college degree, left in a huff. In the end, 100 people with a degree were lucky enough to enter the gate of the Hefei chengguan department. There were 11 postgraduates. Their academic professions were mainly from the fields of Law, Computer Science, Advertising, Municipal Engineering etc. (November 23, China Youth Daily) The highly educated members of the chengguan have become a focal point in the city, they've caused a wide spread debate. There are two types of questioning, one is based on the depreciation of learning, they think that "getting postgraduates to be chengguan on duty on the street is akin to using a 'bull knife to slaughter a chicken, it's a typical waste of talent'; the other is a debate about their realistic ability, "the highly educated chengguan's work ability at the lower levels might be no better than the ability of the neighborhood committee auntie." We can't say that these queries don't have their own reasoning, from an objective point of view, there is definitely the suspicion that they are only taking a part to make the whole. Front Page of the Day
Barbecue with Yu Hua in a Hangzhou parkPosted by Joel Martinsen, November 25, 2009 4:08 PM
Amid the wall-of-text on the front page of today's Metropolis Express was this curious headline: "Zhu Deyong invites Yu Hua over for barbecue." Zhu, a best-selling comic strip artist from Taiwan, and Yu, a novelist from the mainland, are involved in a "creative industries garden" that occupies a square kilometer carved out of Hangzhou's Xixi National Wetland Park:
Most of the three-page puff piece was devoted to describing the studios the creative types will occupy in the garden:
Links and Sources
Humor
Reserve a ticket on the 2012 ark through Taobao!Posted by Joel Martinsen, November 25, 2009 11:50 AM
Taobao user Lee Hawk is offering reserved tickets on one of the 2012 arks. One billion euro gets you safe passage through the global cataclysm:
Prospective buyers have posed some questions to the seller:
The sale started on 22 November and lasts until the 29th. Additionally, the same seller is offering a Microsoft Sidewinder FFB2 joystick for 1,200 yuan:
Links and Sources
Front Page of the Day
Light shines on the Qixia Mountain BuddhaPosted by Joel Martinsen, November 24, 2009 6:38 PM
For twenty-seven minutes yesterday, the afternoon sun tracked a path across the head of a Buddha statue in a temple on Qixia Mountain. The Yangtse Evening Post, acting on a tip from a local Nanjinger, arrived at the Hall of the Three Sages, where over one hundred onlookers had assembled by 3 pm. At 3:17, a ray of light hit the statue in the right eye and gradually moved upward to the middle of the forehead before disappearing. Amazing! ![]() Despite the promise of supernatural speculation extended by the front-page photo and headline ("Marvelous, mysterious light!"), the full-page report goes on to reveal that the light strikes the face of the Buddha statue every year; last year it was observed from November 24 to 27. The paper was unable to determine whether the phenomenon was intentional. The statues inside the hall were installed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589), but the outer wall was only constructed later. It was renovated into its present form during the reign of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Architecture experts told the paper that although the light could possibly be intentional, it may very well be merely a coincidence. Links and Sources
People
Yang Xianyi, translator of classics, dies at 94Posted by Joel Martinsen, November 23, 2009 7:10 PM
![]() A recent photo of Yang Xianyi (People's Daily) Sina, citing a microblogger and a publishing industry editor, reports that well-known translator Yang Xianyi (杨宪益) has passed away at the age of 94.
Yang was born in Tianjin in 1915. He went abroad to study at Oxford, where he met his wife Gladys, with whom he later translated classic works of Chinese literature for the Foreign Languages Press. Their translations included Selected Works of Lu Xun and a complete English version of A Dream of Red Mansions, which the two began in the early sixties and finished in the following decade after a spell in prison during the Cultural Revolution. Yang published his autobiography in English as White Tiger. Southern People Weekly spoke to Yang this year and published a lengthy profile and short interview in the August 3 issue. An excerpt concerning his philosophy of translation:
The profile explained his encounter with Mao over Qu Yuan's famous poem:
Yang believed the poem was a fake and approached it in that spirit. David Hawkes, a friend of Yang's who did his own translation of the Li Sao (as well as another complete edition of Red Mansions, as The Story of The Stone, with John Minford), made the comment that the resulting translation "bears as much resemblance to the original as a chocolate Easter egg to an omelette," an observation that amused Yang. Update (2009.11.25): Read John Gitting's obituary at The Guardian. Additionally, a number of bloggers have noted a passage that was deleted from Yang's autobiography for the mainland Chinese edition:
Links and Sources
China Books
The Inmost Shrine: A Photographic Odyssey of China, 1873Posted by Alice Xin Liu, November 23, 2009 5:15 PM
One of the first photojournalists in the world, John Thomson, traveled to China and took photographs of Chinese people in the late 19th century. His photographs have been widely circulated, collected by the Wellcome Gallery in England and by National Library of Scotland. A recent coffee table book presents digitally remastered photographs that Thomson took in China - which includes Manchu noblewomen, and ordinary boatspeople. Examples and extracts can be found at the Levenger Press website. Thomson's photos have been cataloged before in digital format, for example at the BBC website, and Flickr. Michael Meyer, author of Last Days of Old Beijing gives permission for an extract from the introduction, which he wrote. The Inmost Shrine: A Photographic Odyssey of China, 1873 can be bought on the Levenger Press website. Introduction to The Inmost Shrine: A Photographic Odyssey of China, 1873; excerptby Michael MeyerFor his art, John Thomson was born at precisely the right time. The Edinburgh photographer’s 1837 birth coincided with a year of events which would shape his life’s work: Victoria ascended to the British throne, Oliver Twist became a serial success, and the continued perfection of the daguerreotype process captured images on silver plates. With Britain’s colonial empire stretching to the Far East, a public accustomed to reading about society’s underbelly, and the invention of photography, Thomson’s travels and documentary portraits of commoners, their homes, and possessions help lay the foundations of photojournalism, which makes this volume of Chinese portraits both historically and artistically unprecedented. The prints that follow also show us how much China has transformed itself, and also how in many ways it remains the “Great Middle Kingdom” of Thomson’s visits during imperial times. As his contemporary Matthew Brady captured the horrors of American Civil War battlefields, Thomson sailed in 1862 to Singapore to see his older brother, also a photographer. The sojourn in Asia extended to a decade. Thomson journeyed throughout Malaya, Sumatra and India, taking pictures of village life. In Siam and Cambodia, kings sat for portraits before the lanky Scotsman, whose bushy sideburns stretched to his chin. In 1866, Thomson made the first photographic expedition to Angkor Wat. After that, he was hooked. A brief return – to public and court acclaim – to England ended with a short stay in Saigon, then a home and studio in Britain’s newest Asian colony, Hong Kong. The island (“Fragrant Harbor” in Chinese) was wrested by the United Kingdom after the first Opium War (1839-42), which forcibly opened China’s markets – drug trade included - and the establishment of “treaty ports,” cities where Western merchants and missionaries were free to operate. This cataclysmic humiliation to the Chinese throne was followed by the Second Opium War (1856-1860), when Anglo-French forces sacked numerous cities, including the imperial capital of Beijing, where the two ornate Summer Palaces were ordered looted and burned. Continue reading The Inmost Shrine: A Photographic Odyssey of China, 1873 »
Front Page of the Day
Hebei Youth Daily editor beatenPosted by Joel Martinsen, November 23, 2009 2:56 PM
Le Qian, vice editor-in-chief of the Hebei Youth Daily, was beaten on Saturday night while waiting for an elevator in her apartment building in Shijiazhuang. The assailant fled after a neighbor opened a door, and Le was rushed to the hospital. From the newspaper's own report, which was reprinted in today's Beijing Youth Daily, where Le worked until moving to the Hebei paper in 2006:
Le Qian speculated on the attacker's motive:
Links and Sources
Featured Video
Saturday Night Live on Obama visitPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 23, 2009 10:44 AM
American comedy show Saturday Night Live's take on Obama's visit to China. Breaking News
Panyu waste dump demonstrationsPosted by Alice Xin Liu, November 23, 2009 10:28 AM
A demonstration against a waste dump in Panyu district (番禺区), Guangzhou, is happening right now. For updates please view hashtag #pylj on Twitter. Photos by @lemoned of the protest are here. A Google document has been set up collating tweets, a Southern Metropolis Daily article has been taken down and Tianya has been following the events. Update (2009.11.25): The Daily Telegraph has a good summary of the affair by Malcolm Moore. Links and Sources
Front Page of the Day
A new look for the Beijing Morning PostPosted by Joel Martinsen, November 20, 2009 5:27 PM
The Beijing Morning Post, a daily published by the Beijing Daily Group, underwent a major redesign this week, switching from broadsheet to tabloid format and thoroughly overhauling its content. Established on July 20, 1998, the Beijing Morning Post was the capital's first commercial morning paper and became the first to print in full color. But in today's newspaper landscape, it has to contend with the much more visible and influential Beijing Youth Daily and The Beijing News without the security of an exclusive distribution deal like the one the Beijing Daily Messenger has with the subway system. The switch to a smaller format is reportedly intended to make the paper easier for commuters to read. On today's front page is a photo of Zhang Hui greeting the public after winning his lawsuit against a traffic law enforcement squad in Shanghai's Minhang District Court. On September 8, Zhang thought he was doing a good deed by giving a ride to a man complaining of stomach pains who flagged him down at the side of the road, but he ended up being slapped with a 10,000 yuan fine for operating an unregistered taxi. Zhang's ordeal turned the attention of the online and offline media onto the local squads' practice of offering rewards to civilians who turned in illegal cabs. Many critics found that the techniques used constituted entrapment. Although the authorities retracted the fine on October 26, Zhang pressed on with his lawsuit to help other victims gain justice. Zhang's victory means that the Minhang district traffic enforcement squad will pay his 50-yuan filing fee. Links and Sources
Front Page of the Day
The case of the missing Obama front pagePosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 19, 2009 3:39 PM
The Southern Weekly, one of China's more aggressively investigative newspapers, was the only print media outlet to get an interview with Obama. Central government controlled Xinhua and CCTV did not get one-on-one interviews with the American president. The interview was published in this week's issue which came out today. You can read a translation into English of the interview on Daily Telegraph Shanghai correspondent Malcolm's Moore's blog. This afternoon, several journalists and news assistants at foreign media organizations reported on Twitter that their copies of the paper arrived today without the front page, on the back of which was the Obama interview. As Malcolm Moore points out, the interview "appears to have been carefully checked by the Propaganda ministry. Nothing controversial was published." So who removed the front pages from the news bureaux' subscription copies, and why? Who knows, but well-known Chinese journalist and blogger Michael Anti noted "Media, if you wanna understand complexity of Southern Weekend's Obama interview, pls translate this tweet" Rendered into English (with some help from Anti), the tweet in question by shifeike is:
The front page is also notable for the large in-house advertisement at the bottom that reads: "It's not every issue we have an exclusive interview, but you can come here every week to understand China". Update: The Wall Street Journal's Jason Dean has more about the missing front page. Update (2009.11.20): Obama wrote a short note to the newspaper:
Was it intended to be printed alongside the interview, in one of the spots occupied by a bottom-page ad? (JM) Links and Sources
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Books on China
The Inmost Shrine: A Photographic Odyssey of China, 1873: One of the first photojournalists in the world, John Thomson, traveled to China and took photographs of Chinese people in the late 19th century. His photographs have been widely circulated, collected by the Wellcome Gallery in England and by National Library of Scotland.
Xujun Eberlein's Apologies Forthcoming: Hong Kong's Blacksmith Books has published a short story collection by Xujun Eberlein.
Princess Der Ling: Two Years in the Forbidden City: Two years in the Forbidden City is largely a reminiscence of the minutiae of life for one of history's most powerful women, by one of her court attendants, a Manchu noble's daughter by the name of Der Ling.
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+ Lost in Beijing finally gets killed (2008.01): SARFT (广电总局) brings down the hammer on Lost in Beijing (苹果), one year after its offense. + Three decades of public life in rural Jiangxi (2008.11): Xiong Peiyun writes about television, gambling, and religion in the small village where he grew up. + Yu Qiuyu on cross-cultural communication (2006.10): A piece by Yu Qiuyu (余秋雨) adapted from a presentation given at August's 2006 Cross-Cultural Communication Forum.
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