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).

Image from FLB on Neocha

'Dia' a new English word?: From FEER's blog:

We’re not sure whether to treat this as credible, but Sina.com and Xinhuanet are reporting that the Oxford English Dictionary has added one of our favorite Chinese words, 嗲 or dia, as an import to the English language.

Maybe The First (the Xinhuanet link) got hoaxed: see this blog post from April, 2007.

Cult Rev vocabulary and Tîbet: Channel 4's Lydsey Hilsum looks at the government's use of hoary old words with Cultural Revolution associations to talk about Tîbet.

See also: Private argot in the public sphere, a previous Danwei post on the currency of CR language.

The heavier hammer: Jim Gourley addresses recent stories out of Tibet and bordering regions:

One story that is not being reported, though it is one with a great deal of tooth, is that Tibetan boarding schools – from middle schools to universities – have been under lockdown for the last two weeks....Tibetan students are not allowed outside the gates of their schools, and their families are not allowed in to see them. Parents who visit the school must stay outside the iron-barred gate, and their interactions are monitored. In at least one school students are not allowed to be alone in a classroom without a teacher present from 6 AM to 9:30 PM, and the campus dorms are patrolled by teachers throughout the night. That there are plainclothes police around the perimeter is understood.

Bush and Hu have late night chat: Xinhua reports:

Chinese President Hu Jintao expressed his views on the Taiwan and Tibet issues to his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush during talks over the telephone held Wednesday...

"National moral model" passes away: Xinhua reports on the death of Fang Yonggang, a professor of politics from Dalian who was named a "national moral model" last year:

Fang, who had been treated in hospital for colon cancer since 2006, had been visited by a number of senior leaders, including Hu Jintao...who praised him for his "significant contribution to the Party, the Army and the People."

Hu urged all people in China to learn from Fang, who kept studying and publicizing his innovative political theories and displayed the firm faith, staunch will and lofty spirit of a Communist.

Those unfamiliar with Fang's exploits can read a Washington Post profile from May, 2007.

Religious buildings in Taiwan: At Global Voices Online, I-fan Lin presents a photo essay on religious structures in Taiwan.

Six new Chinese ambassadors: Xinhua reports that Hu Jintao appointed new ambassadors India, Italy, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, and the Bahamas, as well as a new United Nations envoy.