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Donuts and guidebooks full of holes

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The taste of a fine donut (DVDTimes)

Mmm. . .doughnuts: China Economic Review brings good news for doughnut lovers on the mainland:

While Dunkin' and Mr Donut duke it out in Shanghai, the last member of the global doughnut trifecta, Krispy Kreme, is looking to take its heavily-glazed, deep-fried rings to Shenzhen.

"We are negotiating with the franchisor but nothing has materialized yet," said Jim (Krispy Kreme’s Hong Kong CEO). "Shenzhen is a migrant city, many are from the north, and the people are more receptive to fried products."

See also: Donut Factory doesn't fill Shanghai's big donut hole at Shanghaiist


All his own work: Peter Neville-Hadley reflects on travel guide writing in the wake of Thomas Kohnstamm's admission that his work for the Lonely Planet guidebook wasn't as professional as it could have been:

Time after time LP books make only the vaguest gestures at useful directions or transport information. Time after time they say there's no public transport when there is. Time after time it's plain from the text that hearsay is being used. I once used to know one of the LP China authors who told me quite frankly that if he found he'd forgotten a phone number he'd just make it up. There wasn't time to go back and they weren't paying him enough to bother. And in effect, since he had not a word of Mandarin, he couldn't have used the telephone or printed references to find out even if he could have been bothered.


Mutual respect? It must be some kind of trap…: The Mutant Palm digs behind the Tibet protests, the mistaken manhunt launched by an online forum, cultural blinders, and anti-Chinese paranoia:

I prefer the term "Red Guard 2.0" for the sort of netizens who have been hounding the guy who isn’t Lobsang Gendun, since they have Google Maps and websites and newfangled technology. And I especially reserve that title those who have been targeting Wang Qianyuan of Duke University and even more terrifyingly her poor parents in Qingdao, all because she, a Han Chinese girl, crossed the picket line and ended up in a photograph standing on the Pro-Tibet side of one protest. Some people are publishing photos of the building and front door of her parents apartment as part of the campaign to catch the "race traitor". It doesn’t seem much of an exaggeration to compare them to the Red Guard - issue them an armband tomorrow and they’re off to the races.


China to CNN: say sorry: Xinhua English and Chinese websites, The China Daily and most daily newspapers in Beijing are running a version of this as a top story today:

China is shocked by and strongly condemns CNN host Jack Cafferty's remarks, which maliciously attacked the Chinese people, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

Cafferty said in a TV show on April 9 that the Chinese products are 'junk' and the Chinese people 'basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years'.

There are currently 2 Comments for Donuts and guidebooks full of holes.

Comments on Donuts and guidebooks full of holes

Jim would be Jim McAleer. I went to school with his kids.

Lonely Planet guidebooks :

The question is if we need travel guides in 2008, when we have fellow travelers on-line that are more up to date than a book who was edited 2 years ago. In the case of backpacker places, not once I have found myself following the recommendation of "Lonely Planet" just to find out that the place has lost its reputation longtime ago. With TripAdvisor, WAYN and http://www.triptouch.com , one can find very easily up to date recommendations, travel mates and all the travel info one's need to get oriented while traveling .

Travel guides need to adjust to the new era, minimize their books size and be more up to date if they want to survive the travel 2.0 era.

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