Front Page of the Day

Linus takes the gaokao

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San Jin City News
June 6, 2008

San Jin City News is a commercial daily run out of Taiyuan by the Shanxi Daily Group. "San Jin" refers to the three states of Han, Zhao, and Wei, which were formed out of the old state of Jin when it was split up at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period in 403 BC.

Like many other papers today, San Jin City News leads with the college entrance exams, the gaokao (for a quick overview of the exams, see this Slate article). But instead of using an actual news photo on the front page, the paper features a Photoshopped image of a beloved Peanuts character in a mortarboard. The caption urges students to stay calm and the rest of the city to keep quiet.

Below the photo, the paper announces that it is collaborating with Sohu.com to release a set of educational cartoons designed to teach the public how to save themselves when disaster strikes. Sohu calls its cartoon gallery Love Yourself.

See below for a translation of a cartoon that explains why you should always know where your towel is:

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Cartoon by YUZI

Panel 1: Earthquake!
Panel 2: (cough, cough)
Panel 3: Quick, use this wet towel to cover your mouth and nose. —Thanks.
Panel 4: An earthquake will fill the air with large quantities of dust. So you should cover your mouth and nose with a wet towel to to keep out dust and smoke.

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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.
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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.
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