From the Web

Danwei Picks: another sort of PX protest

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).

Pro-PX workers protest, no one notices: At China Digital Times, Jonathan Ansfield reports on a small demonstration outside the Xiamen government by workers fear they will lose their jobs if the PX project moves to Zhangzhou:

Uniformed workers fanned out and blocked the front gates of city hall, said a woman who watched the protest unfold while manning a door at the People’s Hall across the street. Then the group sat on the ground. They did not shout any slogans or carry any banners, she said, so she had no inkling of what they were on about. "Who were they?" she asked blankly. Public security and military police vehicles soon showed up and officers secured the scene.

Company officials were not aware of the sit-in until it was in-progress, the contact recounted. The Dragon Aromatics general manager, Lin Yingzong, got to the scene from the plant in Haicang district in the late morning. He and other company supervisors met with city officials to discuss the matter and helped persuade the employees to move along. "They still abide by what our company says." The firm sent buses to transport the demonstrators back to the Xianglu campus. They were dispersed within a short period of time without any incident or detentions, a military police official told one local journalist.


America's pastime to come to China: The Hollywood Reporter says that Major League Baseball is coming to China:

Major League Baseball will play its first games in China in March and hopes to broadcast them on local television in a push to internationalize America's pastime, league executives said here Thursday.

MLB, which earned $6 billion in revenue in 2007, is huge in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but so far China has contributed little due to minimal TV coverage. Moreover, the game is due to make its last appearance as an Olympic sport for the foreseeable future in August in Beijing.

"We are here to show that baseball is truly a world game and worthy of being in the Olympics," said Paul Archey, MLB senior vp international business operations. "The potential to grow the sport in China is tremendous."


The unheard director: Variety's Kaiju Shakedown blog brings together information about Gan Xiao'er and his films about Christianity in China:

The most interesting thing to me about Gan's films are that they're coming from a point of view that's less concerned with dogma and theology and more with the role of spirituality in everyday life, something that's almost totally absent from most modern Chinese films. And he can sound downright dangerous at times.

"The most important thing is whether a person has something to hope for inside. I think a religion, whether it is Christianity, Islam or others, has a major role because it tells us that in the eye of God, we are very precious."

There are currently 1 Comments for Danwei Picks: another sort of PX protest.

Comments on Danwei Picks: another sort of PX protest

Shanghaiist has covered the upcoming MLB games in a couple posts. I heard that Joe Torre was coming to Beijing soon to make the official announcement, but I figured Shanghaiist readers may not be up for yet *another* baseball post. They complain enough about sandwiches...

link, link

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30