Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the "From the Web" links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).

The earthen homes of Yongding County: Barbara Koh writes for the New York Times about Hakka rammed-earth homes in Fujian:

Most Hakka view the buildings merely as shelter and their location and functions as outdated, noted Ping Yip, a recent master’s degree graduate in Hong Kong who researched and lived in the tulou. Yet, she said, "if all the residents move out, the tulou loses its cultural significance as a human settlement."

Pilgrims progress: Khotan's new game: At Newsweek's Countdown Beijing blog, Jonathan Ansfield investigates the connection between the Haj and Uighur identity:

Though Beijing lacks evidence of organized extremism, there is "increased religious conservatism" in pockets of Uighur society, notes Dru Gladney, an authority on China’s Muslims at Pomona College in California. The religious revival has coincided with growing numbers of well-off Uighurs going on the Haj – considered a rite every Muslim should perform at least once in life. Nationwide, a total of 10,700 Muslims belonging to the Hui and Uighur Muslim minorities made the trip in 2007, 900 more than in 2006 -- though Party authorities have maintained strict caps on the numbers since opening passage to Mecca in the 1980’s....

Officials are careful not to implicate the Hajji in their crackdown on the "three evil forces". But as the ranks of Hajji and their "wannabe's" have mushroomed, Uighurs widely contend, authorities are quietly taking steps to limit movements to Mecca. Passport controls have tightened. In some villages in Khotan, Uighurs from the prefecture say, only one or two passports are being issued a year now, often to the highest bidder.

Guangdong factory makes Tibet flags: ESWN translates a Ming Pao article about a Guangdong factory that has been making snow lion free Tibet Tibet flags for an overseas Tibetan organization.

Sexy second right brother: Thomas Crampton writes about one member of the Chinese Olympic Torch security team who is becoming a heartthrob in China:

Second Right Brother (右二哥哥) is a member of the torch security detail who for many Chinese (women) has come to embody a new handsome hero standing up to protect China’s pride. Second right refers to his position in the security detail.

Why Bai Yansong opposes the Carrefour boycott: ESWN has translated a Southern Weekly interview With Bai Yansong, a journalist who wrote an essay opposing the Carrefour boycott.

Swedish broadcaster loses Nobel coverage deal: The AP reports that Sweden's TV4 has lost its contract to broadcast the Nobel Prize ceremonies after it permitted China's CCTV to censor parts of a speech:

The [Nobel] foundation claims TV4 violated its contract by letting China Central Television and Shanghai Media Group cut out parts of a speech by foundation Chairman Marcus Storch.

Foundation spokesman Michael Sohlman said the incident was "very, very serious. Especially if you take the contents of the censored speech into account."

via Absurdity, Allegory and China.

574 million mobile phone users: From The China Daily:

The mobile phone subscribers in China has risen to more than 574 million by March, as more fixed-line users switched to mobile services on lower rates, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information...

The nation's fixed-line operators lost 4.4 million subscribers in the first quarter, reducing the total fixed-line users to 361 million by the end of last month...

...The telecom industry reported revenue of 194.1 billion yuan (27.7 billion U.S. dollars), 10.8 percent higher than a year ago.

Hello, Dalai: talking again: Melinda Liu blogs at Newsweek's Countdown Beijing in response to the news that China may start up talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

But institutionalized talks between the two sides broke down in 2006. When my colleague Sudip Mazumdar and I interviewed the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala on March 20, he said he'd received private messages of sympathy from ordinary citizens, and even some officials, in China. And he expressed his extreme willingness to talk with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, for whom he professed "great respect".