Danwei Noon Report is a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China from Chinese and English sources, with contributions from several Danwei writers and readers.

More and more and more

Beijing loves cars
Yesterday's Beijing Youth Daily reported that licence plates marked 京K are being issued. The current plate numbering system started with the issue of 京A plates. In 1996, the first 京C plates were issued. The Youth Daily article said that Beijing has 3 million cars on its roads, but today's Beijing News has the slightly lower figure of 2.75 milllion cars (link - in Chinese).

Chinese bloggers dis on SARFT online video regulation
John Kennedy at Global Voices has translated a handful of Chinese bloggers' criticisms of the SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and TV) regulations announced last week that are intended to control online video. Well worth a read: link. Kennedy mentions the blog portal Bullog, on which many of the blog posts he translates can be found. Bullog was out of action yesterday, but is back online now (link).

Summer to end as usual
Yesterday was the first day of this year's second lunar July. To keep China's lunar calendar roughly in sync with the standard solar year, intercalary months are added every so often. The fact that this year's intercalary month is July poses a worrying problem: will this extra July bring an extra month of hot, muggy summer weather? Fortunately for Beijing residents, the answer is no. This has been confirmed by yesterday's Mirror as well as today's The Beijing News, which both sought answers from the Beijing Meteorology Bureau.

Actually, it was back in mid-June that the Mirror first turned its attention to this pressing problem, and its reports were snapped up by other papers. Yangcheng Evening News ran a story the following day that included the line, "According to a Mirror report, yesterday
morning at 9:00, the Beijing Meteorology Station said that the second July would not directly influence the heat of the summer." Investigative journalism at work (Mirror, link).

It is wonderful that the most popular blog in China (and in the world) is written by a young Chinese woman who is just trying to figure things out, engage on pleasures and problems of daily life, and communicate with people in a personal, truthful and positive way. (Link)

Xu Jinglei's blog is here, the webcam interview is here, although it doesn't seem to work.

Chinese-born Americans come home
The San Francisco Chronicle has an article whose contents are perfectly summed up in the headline: Emigrés feel China's pull — Affordable housing, food, recreation drive a trend of reverse migration (link).