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June 16, 2007

Taiwan in the Chinese Imagination, 17th–19th Centuries

In an excerpt from her book, Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing 1683-1895, Emma Jinhua Teng writes about Qing expansionism, maps and illustrations, and changing attitutes toward Taiwan:

In Taiwan's gradual transformation from a "savage island" into a "Chinese province" we see the profound changes in the imagined geography of the Chinese domain wrought by Qing expansionism. In the contemporary construction of Taiwan as a "renegade province" that must be "reunified" in order to restore China's territorial integrity we see the lasting impact of Qing expansionism on the imagined geography of the modern Chinese nation-state.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:22 AM |

June 15, 2007

The grey economy and handjobs

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A recent survey estimates that 'grey' income of China's urban residents amounts to more than 4.4 trillion yuan annually. But how can a review of China's informal economy be complete if it doesn't count the millions of handjobs paid for every year?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 4:30 PM |

Magic the Gathering Chinese Art Changes

RedKemp discovers that anything goes on Magic the Gathering cards in China - except skeletons.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:17 PM |

Nanny gets her meds: Wikipedia unblocked

China's schizophrenic Net Nanny has unblocked Wikipedia: at least the sections that are not in Chinese. But how long can it last?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:19 PM |

Wang Shuo vs. the TV censors

Wang Shuo's accusation that film censors at national TV stations require enormous bribes for show approval finds a skeptical reception in the media.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:37 AM |

Lost in search of normality in Shanghai

The 88s writes about a family friend afflicted with cancer:

My wife saw Xiao Li recently in Shanghai. She was frantically searching for a hospital that would admit her husband, since he had recently been forced out of the last two hospitals he was in. They told him that there was nothing they could do for him now....And the reason no hospital will take him? It looks bad if patients die in your hospital. It affects your "statistics." And, anyhow, he's a terminal case: there is no more money to be made off of tests or treatments. Go home and die.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:31 AM |

Zuola goes to Google

Bingfeng comments on a video that "citizen-journalist" Zuola shot of his confrontation with a receptionist at Google China. Zuola believes that Google canceled his Adsense account without any justification.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:27 AM |

June 14, 2007

Official media, popular opinion and Xiamen PX

China Newsweek recently featured in-depth reports on recent citizens' complaints and government transparency, including a feature looking at the role of mobile and online media in the 1 June demonstration against Xiamen's PX chemical plant.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:17 PM |

Wahaha workers protest

The China Daily reports on the latest round in the ongoing dispute between charismatic entrepreneur Zong Qinghong of Wahaha and his French joint venture partners Danone, in the wake of his resignation as chairman of the JV:

'Dozens of Wahaha employees took to the street yesterday to protest the alleged takeover bid by Groupe Danone SA of its Chinese partner.

Wearing yellow shirts and holding the banners, the protesters, who work for one of the companies' joint ventures, stood in front of a hotel where a Danone-organized news conference was scheduled, shouting Oppose Danone...'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:39 AM |

68,000 Sino-foreign marriages in 2006

An article by Wang Zhuoqiong in The China Daily has some numbers for Sino-foreign couples who registered to marry in China in 2006:

'Last year, 68,000 mixed couples registered for marriage, 4,000 more than in 2005.

Official figures from Shanghai show that in the city alone, 372 Chinese men were in interracial marriages in 2005, up from 91 men 20 years earlier.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:35 AM |

Giant bird dinosaur from Inner Mongolia

Xinhua reports:

Chinese archaeologists have discovered a the remains of gigantic bird-like dinosaur in the Gobi Desert in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which could overturn theories that dinosaurs became generally smaller as the evolved into birds.

The animal, named gigantoraptor erlianensis, is believed to have been about eight meters in length, weighed 1,400 kg, and stood up to five meters high.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:32 AM |

June 13, 2007

Hong Kong editor to go in Wall Street Journal shakeup

The New York Times reports that The Wall Street Journal is reorganizing its newsrooms in 'a bid by the managing editor, Marcus E. Brauchli ... to put his stamp on the upper echelons of' the paper.

According to the Times article, 'John Bussey, a deputy managing editor who has been based in Hong Kong, will lose that title ... He has been offered a position as a columnist'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:07 PM |

Pressure on the foreign media

Tim Johnson reports that the Foreign Ministry has reprimanded foreign journalists over an interview with Zeng Jinyan and a story about maltreatment of animals at Chinese zoos.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:48 PM |

Yi the X-Factor in jackpot draft

From Positive Solutions, "a story on the 2007 NBA draft and Chinese power forward Yi Jianlian, a staunchly pro-government version of which will appear in China Daily on Thursday."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:14 PM |

Bad blood

Jason Leow in The Wall Street Journal reports:

China's food-safety agency said a government probe uncovered the sale of fake blood protein to hospitals and pharmacies in at least eight provinces and autonomous regions across China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:01 AM |

93 million Wangs in China

An article by Jane Macartney in The Times looks at a draft law to allow parents to give their kids double barreled surnames. The law is intended to reduce the number of people with exactly the same name.

The article includes numbers of people with different surnames.

Wang: 93 million
Li: 92 million
Zhang: 88 million
Chen, Zhou and Lin: more than 20 million

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:27 AM |

Sweaty cadres experience 'energy shortage'

The central government yesterday ordered all government departments to switch off their air conditioners for a day. This is the top news item on Xinhua's website today.

Xinhua calls the the campaign, 'experiencing energy shortage', and quoted an official: 'After we feel for ourselves how we are going to suffer without electricity, the value and importance of energy become more real to us.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:17 AM |

Jia Zhangke And His Denouncer

ESWN translates Jia Zhangke's account of the banning of Pickpocket, Wang Xiaoshan's identification of the culprit as Wang Bin, and Wang's self-defense.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:12 AM |

June 12, 2007

Local news beats CCTV news

Provincial TV stations are eating into CCTV's market as regional news programming attracts viewers interested in local color.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:25 PM |

Google partners with Sina

China Web 2.0 Review reports that Google China and Sina today announced that they will cooperate on search, news and advertising service, with Google search service already integrated into Sina's home page.

The two Internet giants will share advertising revenue from Google searches on Sina.com, and Google text ads may later be displayed on Sina's pages. Future cooperation may include news services.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:58 PM |

Hong Kong journalists and Congo park rangers

Rebecca MacKinnon on blogs and journalists:

The prospect of sharing parts of our “job” with non-professionals may be frightening to many journalists who are used to doing things a certain way. But if we are being true to the ideals of our profession, then we should welcome the fact that global information flows - and thus the global conversation - are being democratized.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:09 AM |

SimCity2008

Cute game about Beijing's Olympic makeover.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:13 AM |

Capsule reviews of new books on China

From Charles Hayford in the Library Journal:

Does the world - and do libraries - really need new books on China, the largest, fastest-changing, and perhaps most contradictory country in the world? Yes...here are the latest works on this challenging global phenomenon - now poised to take the world stage with the summer 2008 Beijing Olympics (motto, "One World One Dream") while reckoning with intense challenges regarding pollution, product contamination, corruption, and the establishment of political legitimacy.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:32 AM |

June 11, 2007

Too many casinos in Macao

From The Financial Times:

Wynn Resorts has delayed a planned expansion of its Macao casino, citing new restrictions on visitors from neighbouring Guangdong province and an unprecedented increase in capacity

Since 2002, when the monopoly on gambling in Macao previously held by Stanley Ho's Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, the enclave's economy has been booming as Las Vegas gaming operators moved in with mega-projects intended to profit from China's national fixation with gambling, that happens top be illegal elsewhere in the country.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:31 PM |