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).

John Thompson on the guqin in Laoshan

Music that Marco Polo listened to: John Thompson, an internationally-acclaimed performer of the seven-stringed zither (guqin), and the Estonian early music group Fa Schola were in China last month.

Thompson is well known for his historically-informed performances. The music performed reconstruct melodies 'that Marco Polo might have heard during his travels.'
This links to Thompson's account of the musical tour.

Beijing reins in quake coverage: Tom Mitchell writing from Dujiangyan in The Financial Times:

The Chinese government has instructed domestic media outlets to rein in coverage of the schools that collapsed during last month's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, journalists familiar with the directive have told the Financial Times.

A notice was sent to media outlets across the country late last week, following a spate of reports about the collapses that killed thousands of students.

No doping, just gold medals: The New York Times has published a story about China's Olympic rowing team and their Russian coach whose mission is clear: get gold.

The boycotts of '08 revisited: Writing on FEER's website, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom compares the runup to the Olympics in 2008 and 1908.

The Mianzhu highway robbery: On ESWN:

A case of apparent looting of disaster relief materials on the highway was solved by Internet users, a policeman and a newspaper reporter.

Ban on free plastic bags takes effect: From The China Daily:

From Sunday on, all Chinese retailers, including supermarkets, department stores and grocery stores, would no longer provide free plastic shopping bags. China will try to reduce the use of plastic bags in a bid to reduce energy consumption and polluting emissions.

The Chinese language and me: At Managing the Dragon, Jack Perkowski explains why he decided not to learn Chinese while doing business in China:

I do this for two reasons. First, it happens to be true, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Secondly, I want to demystify China and make it more approachable for everyone. For too long, individuals who have studied China and have devoted the considerable amount of time it takes to learn the language have tended to make the country seem so mysterious, so complicated and so difficult, that it becomes an impediment for any person or company that wants to do business here.