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).

In an era of laws, who has a rightful claim to Mao's millions?: At the China Media Project, David Bandurski summarizes the conversation - past and present - over the royalties Mao accumulated from his writings:

Even as Mao's legacy remains an important ideological bargaining chip in leadership circles, it seems — on a preliminary analysis of this recent news wave — that his legacy is now more open to scrutiny.

Have the clouds parted over this erstwhile taboo?

An article in the December issue of China's Literary Circles of Party History (党史文苑), called "The Controversy over Mao's Royalty Millions" (毛泽东亿万稿酬的争议), reported that Mao's royalties, including interest, totaled a staggering 131 million yuan, or roughly 17.6 million U.S. dollars as of May 2001

The "red SMS" culture in China: Virtual China looks at an attempt to combat "unhealthy" text messages - those related to sex, satire, and decadance - with healthy, "red" text messages:

Over the last three years, three and a half million mobile users have created over 14 million "red" SMS messages ("红段子"), which have been downloaded and passed on over 100 million times, according to this Xinhua article about Guangdong's "red SMS culture" (色短信文化), found via Zhejiang Online. "Healthy" red SMS have been solicited by China Mobile Guangdong for the last three years in an effort to counteract "yellow" SMS (of a sexual nature), "black" SMS (characterized in the article as "malicious satire"), and "gray" SMS (doesn't say what this means). A Xinhua reporter recently went to investigate some of the people who have been creating and circulating the red SMS, to hear their stories and understand what lies behind this "healthy" movement.

Ant kingpin arrested for inciting unrest: From Reuters:

Yilishen, which began making ant tonic in 2001, had filed for bankruptcy and was undergoing liquidation, the English-language report on www.china.org.cn said....The chairman of Yilishen, Wang Fengyou, has been arrested on charges of instigating social unrest, the Web site said. He is suspected of paying employees and company executives to organise counter-protests outside government offices....

Underlining the sensitivity of the issue, almost all online discussions about the case have been censored and the Beijing city government has asked lawyers in the capital not to represent any breeders to ensure "political stability", according to a notice on the Web site of the Beijing Municipal Laywers Association (www.bmla.org.cn).

New Oriental launches online Chinese language learning service: from billsdue:

New Oriental (新东方. NYSE:EDU), China's private education behemoth, has rolled out an online Chinese language learning service -- TargetChinese. It is a little rough around the edges, but with New Oriental's resources and expertise it should become a major player in the growing Chinese language learning market. We need all the help we can get, as learning Chinese is not without its challenges.

Adele Mao, analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group (SIG) who covers New Oriental, summarizes the new service