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).

Journalist speaks out about the "death" of Minjian: At CMP, David Bandurski presents a letter by Zhai Minglei that documents the circumstances surrounding the shutdown of Minjian, a non-profit magazine about grassroots activism supported by Sun Yat-sen University:

For two and half years veteran Chinese journalist and former CMP fellow Zhai Minglei (翟明磊) and others went quietly to work on Minjian (民间), China's first magazine telling the stories of grassroots activists working for the betterment of Chinese society. They had no political or financial ambitions, but were driven only, says Zhai, by their belief in the principles of civil society. After cooperating with authorities since July in an effort to save Minjian amidst a government crackdown on "illegal publications", including the China Development Brief, Zhai has decided to speak out in an open letter explaining the circumstances surrounding Minjian's "death."

"Had it not been for Minjian's closure, we would have worked forever in silence," writes Zhai.

"Up to now no formal decision has been rendered concerning how to deal with Minjian, but we have already given up all fantasies [about its future], and as a public intellectual I must raise my own voice."

Chinese police arrest Jesus' sister: ESWN translates the SMW story of the "Little Goddes", a Guangdong holy-water hawker:

According to the police on the case, Zhou claimed that the healing effect depends on the faith, and giving money is one way of expressing that faith. Many of the victims gave away their last yuan to "Little Goddess" even though their homes were stripped barren. Most of the victims are uneducated peasant women. According to "Little Goddess," one must have total faith in order to be healed. However, it was alright if the family did not know about it. Therefore, many of the victims were secretly buying the medicine behind the backs of their family members.

China cracks down on currency conversion: From Donald Greenlees in the New York Times, the story of attempts to stem the flow of money from Shenzhen into Hong Kong:

To Ling, 43, who was well-connected in political and business circles in her home district, Qingyuan, was accused of supervising currency transactions worth 4.3 billion yuan ($578 million) going back to 2005.

The arrest, disclosed last week in a report on Chinese television, has thrown a spotlight on the extent of illegal currency flows out of China into Hong Kong. It has also highlighted the difficulty mainland authorities have in restraining investors who clearly want more options than Chinese equity and property markets or low-interest-bearing bank accounts.

A bus story: At the Shanghai Public Transportation blog, Micah Sittig translates the story of a novel method of packing passengers on a bus.

Zhou Xunshu's remarkable leap into pro golf: At ESPN, Dan Washburn relates the story of how Zhou Xunshu got started playing golf:

Guangzhou International is a private golf club, and in 1996 a membership there ran about $32,000, more money than a poor farm boy could fathom at the time. Being a private club, keeping up appearances was important. And one of the club's rules stated, in no uncertain terms, that employees below a particular level of authority were not allowed to play golf. Zhou, despite overseeing a large portion of the security force (he imported most of them from Guizhou himself), fell below that particular level.

This would prove to be torturous for Zhou. One of his duties was following playing groups around the course, and reporting their whereabouts back to the clubhouse. Zhou had always been athletic, and he loved sports. It was natural that he wanted to give this new activity a try. But he couldn't. For two years, he walked and watched.

Washburn also has an interesting article on the China Tour.