Must-read China news by Danwei

For Xinhua to report the situation properly, the task would have to be given to the international department, which could make full use of its bureau in Manila. But handing the task over to the international department would be implying that this part of the islands was not under Chinese control. So nothing was written until the next day, when three of the fishermen were reported to have been found.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:55 PM | Permalink

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Despite the surgical hand of Southern Weekend's editorial committee, Zhai Minglei received hundreds of letters praising the paper's coverage of the issue. Soon after, CCTV's "Eastern Horizon", a news talk show, ran an interview with Xu Yongguang, the top official at Project Hope. Xu acknowledged there had been a few hiccups at the Project, but said the Communist Youth Development Foundation was looking at nationwide changes to the program. The news program had also interviewed Zhai Minglei, who spoke about endemic institutional problems at Project Hope. This part of the interview was removed before the segment aired, meeting the same fate as similar comments in Zhai's article. China's media minders were not interested in casting the story as anything more than an isolated case of corruption. The local official Tang Chunxu would remain the scapegoat.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:48 PM | Permalink

For the Chinese government, every visitor, even the casual tourist, represents an opportunity to make a positive impression—to let the world know of China's progress under the sage guidance of the Communist party. But American journalists fresh off the plane are potential troublemakers and have to be handled with special care. Predisposed to criticize government policy and to distrust official pronouncements, they have to be brought around gently to the desired image of a dynamic, prudently modernizing China. There are several ways to try to shape the experience of "media friends" so as to bring about this result: through flattery and bonhomie, with creature comforts and small luxuries, and, most of all, by regulating the sort of contacts they make during their short stay.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:08 AM | Permalink

"It's a new medium," says Director John Xiao Qi. A film with strong elements of a commercial isn't a compromise, he reasons, as "It's easier for the audience to accept the message because of the setting."

We've seen this "film" several times, and there's nothing subtle about it—most of the scenes take place in Starbucks, with the logo ever present. Furthermore, where do you get off saying that "the audience can accept it more because of the setting."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:49 AM | Permalink

The atmospherics of hard sleeper have not changed much in the past decade. Except what once was considered pure passé now seemed unintended kitsch, as it is when you return to Grandma's house after a long-time absence. Embroidery embedded in mayonaisse green. Rounded windows with lace curtains, showing silhoutted scenes of bare-bellied goddesses at river's edge. Aisle carpeting in a jazzy piano theme, all keys and notes. Over the loudspeaker, breathy Chinese pop played longer and louder than I had ever remembered.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:28 AM | Permalink

In case any readers are not familiar with Chao (1892-1982), he was the finest linguist ever to come out of China. He was also a supporter of romanization; he was even the lead creator of an ingenious if somewhat complicated romanization system for Mandarin: Gwoyeu Romatzyh. But there's no way a few short sentences could do justice to the depth and breadth of Chao's learning. To get a better idea of the man, read the introduction to the work - and then read the rest!

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:12 PM | Permalink

The Pentagon's formal protest was lodged by a senior Defense official, David Sedney, who called Beijing's defense attache in Washington to the Pentagon to accept the objection. The complaint focused on the Chinese refusal to allow the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and several accompanying vessels to make a scheduled stop in Hong Kong on Thanksgiving.

Two top Navy admirals on Tuesday sharply criticized the Chinese refusal to accommodate the Kitty Hawk as well as, earlier, two minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, which had sought refuge in Hong Kong on Nov. 20 to refuel and to escape an approaching storm. Navy officials said refusing any ship safe harbor in a storm is a breach of maritime traditions.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:40 PM | Permalink

On November 23, I was trying to confirm whether Zhou Zhenglong filed a police report. I was near mental collapse. At first, Zhou Zhenglong denied that he filed a police report. Then he admitted it. I went to the public security bureau and they swore in the name of the heavens that there was no police complaint. Then I obtained internal information from within the public security bureau that Zhou Zhenglong filed a police report. I went to the public security bureau and I sought out the police officer who received Zhou Zhenglong. He denied that Zhou Zhenglong filed a police report and he sounded so sincere that I almost believed that he was telling the truth. At this time, the Shaanxi province Forestry Department official Guan Ke learned that the public security bureau had issued a denial, and so he told the reporters that "he can help them to coordinate (that is, to verify that there was a police report)." I was going crazy. Guan Ke said that there was a police report but Zhou Zhenglong denied it. When Zhou Zhenglong admitted it, the public security bureau denied it. And they are all supposed to be on the same side. The attitude of Guan Ke clearly showed that he was using us and we were being manipulated. So we decided to return to Xi'an that day.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:07 PM | Permalink

Three of them produced identification, two did not, and they proceeded to search through every room and every corner of my house. Even the paper in my printer was confiscated, along with my last remaining copies of the forty-one issues of Minjian. At the same time, they demanded to search my home computer. They searched through files on the computer, and even removed the hard drive which they took with them. The reason they gave was my involvement in work on the illegal publication Minjian.

On 29 November, 2007, the an enforcement team from the Shanghai Ministry of Culture raided the home of Minjian editor Zhai Minglei on the pretext that "someone had reported illegal publications." They seized the 41 copies of Minjian that remained at his home and removed his computer hard drive.

Minjian magazine is attached to Sun Yatsen University's Center for Citizens and Development; in story-telling form it narrates the growth of civic society in China. Its simple, warm style gained domestic admirers both inside and outside of the system. The print edition of Minjian was halted on 6 July, 2007, and its web edition was closed on 20 August.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:54 PM | Permalink

We have been preparing for a relaunch since May, 2006. Last week, we signed a framework agreement with Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Corp. Ltd., with which we have jointly set up a company to sell ads in the paper. Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Corp. will distribute the newspaper in the subway.

The relaunch came about due to severe competition in Beijing's print media industry. Currently, Beijing has 10 large local comprehensive newspapers, and they don't differ much from each other. When readers buy one of the papers, they have no need to purchase another one.

Beijing Daily Messenger belongs to Beijing Daily Newspaper Group, which also owns Beijing Evening News, Beijing Morning Post, Beijing Daily and The First. Beijing Daily Newspaper Group has been trying to make the titles different from each other, with our newspaper set to focus on entertainment and sports news over the past few years. However, such specialization didn't make us competitive. After looking at the metro newspapers in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing, we decided to relaunch as a free subway newspaper in Beijing.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:52 PM | Permalink

...since 2006, most of the interesting and dissenting news is coming from chat rooms. 2004 and 2005, he tells us, were the "golden years" for the Chinese blogosphere....and they're over now.... the Chinese internet has gone "back to the old years", and chat rooms have returned to importance. Chatrooms have existed in China since 1998, and they're popular venues for spreading "sharp news".... "We're making social change using web 1.0, not using web 2.0."

Web 2.0 is associated with democratization and decentralization in the US and Europe. These tools make it possible for people to have a voice, and for online voices to become powerful in an offline space. "But this can only happen in democratic countries," he argues. In China, the problem with these tools is that they're centralized, living on a single server. Block wordpress.com and you block millions of voices; blog twitter.com and you block the entire service. They're easy to control via firewalls and government centralized control.

But email and chatrooms aren't as centralized. There are chatrooms on thousands of servers, and it's hard for the government to block every chatroom overseas. It's easy to blog webmail, but people who use POP mail are difficult to block and prevent from talking about sensitive topics. Oddly enough, GMail remains unblocked in China - Anti believes it's because so many government officials and businessmen use it, and it would be difficult to block it without negative implications for powerful people.

"We don't need new media theory to explain blogs in China: blogs are old media," Anti argues. "We had no media before 1996 - we had propoganda." In propoganda, the party speaks to you - it's exclusively one-way communication. The internet introduces the idea of bi-directional media, and creates media as we understand it for the first time in China in 1996.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:20 PM | Permalink

The September ordinations of Papally-approved bishops for Beijing and Guiyang was widely assumed to mark an improvement in the ongoing rapprochement between the Vatican and Beijing. And, to an extent, that interpretation was correct. Not only had the Pope approved the ordinations, but so had the government-run Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference. But all was not well, either. Faithful in both dioceses were upset by the attendance of Ma Yinglin, the illicitly ordained (in 2006, without Papal approval) bishop of Kunming. Though nobody was saying so publicly, many interpreted Ma's presence as a not-so-subtle signal that the Chinese religious authorities were not yet so willing to loosen their control over Chinese Catholic life and - at the same time - a direct signal that the new bishops would be loyal to Beijing before Rome.

Then, last week, came news that three additional bishops had received approval from the Chinese Bishops Conference to be ordained in Guangzhou, Yichang, and Ningxia, respectively.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:58 PM | Permalink

Chef Liu is a mild-natured migrant worker who is tortured by his broken marriage. The chef tries every means to safeguard his own interests. He is smart but powerless.

In his search for his lost bag of money, Liu Yuejin breaks promises, playing a deadly game with dangerous enemies, including a real estate tycoon, corrupted officials, the mafia, vendors, prostitutes, private eyes, and subcontractors.

"Life looks smooth and perfect. However, when looking underneath, one may find holes, cracks and misfit joints. I intend to do a justice to the incongruity of life in my stories," explains Liu who prefers to call all his novels "comedies" instead of "tragedies or tragic-comedies".

"For centuries, playwrights, writers, and scriptwriters are fond of writing about tragedies. But in my eyes, all tragedies are comedies," says Liu.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:33 PM | Permalink

China needs to look into its heart, and its soul, and forgive American debt. For too long the US has been held hostage to foreign debt collectors, and quite frankly, it's weighing the country down. At this point it seems petty for China even to ask for its money back. What's 900 billion dollars among strategic allies?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:44 AM | Permalink

A tentative agreement for China to buy Airbus jetliners valued at $15 billion topped about $30 billion of contract signings for French companies overseen by President Nicolas Sarkozy during his first state visit to the country, but the raft of deals barely papered over widening currency-policy differences between the powers.

Mr. Sarkozy yesterday urged Beijing to let the yuan rise against the euro as tension grows in Europe over the euro's strength against the Chinese currency. The European Union is China's top trading partner.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 6:09 PM | Permalink

For Sunday's race, the weather in Shanghai was, thankfully, clear (although blue skies aren't an indication that air in China is safe to breathe). But because of the route organizers chose, the race was more unbearable than it needed to be. We wound through industrial areas and alongside highways thick with mid-morning traffic. For a quarter mile, I trailed a slow-moving bus, breathing in exhaust as workers watched from the windows (check out a similar scene here). Runners of the full marathon had it even worse - for the final 13 miles, they snaked back and forth through dirty Minhang district.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Props to ESWN for this great translation of a Phoenix article on the dismal state of literary translation in China. Basically, the article describes a cycle of low pay and poor quality translation that rewards quantity over quality. Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist continues the discussion here with his personal accounts of working with translating companies in China. While he is right to some extent that many of the bargain basement tranlsation 'companies' are little more than poorly run offices that crank out low quality translations, I think that for business-oriented translating companies, the picture is much more complex.

I have had contact with a few different translating companies in Beijing, and each was different. One of them who I worked with invited me to their 'office' for an interview. From the office it was immediately evident what kind of place it was. The name on the door was different from their official name, the only staff in the office consisted of a manager and his assistant, and there was a line of eager college students waiting in the hallway to interview for jobs. I had done a translation test for them 6 months prior, but they had changed staff, and didn't know where it was anymore. Needless to say, I wasn't optimistic, but in the end I did a medium size job for them, and they actually paid decently and on-time.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:41 PM | Permalink

On 20 of November, the victim, Huang Xing-nan, was stabbed by two criminals on her back, waist and leg when she left the center to visit another injured colleague in the hospital. The cuts were up to 10cm in length. Her left leg suffered the most serious injury, bones and tendons, blood vessels, tendons and nerves all been cut off. She was sent to the intensive care unit and now transferred to the orthopedic ward. It is very unlikely that Huang can recover from the injury as she has once suffered from serious burnt from an industrial fire and such medical record makes the treatment more difficult.

After the incident, the labour center issued an appeal letter to Hong Kong groups asking for support. Organizations such as Labour force, China Labour Watch, Asia monitor, SACOMM, Globalization monitor reacted immediately with a press conference. In their joint statement, they pointed out that if the incident is not dealt with properly, the violence will spread to other civic organization and threaten the life of other NGOs organizers and activists.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:38 PM | Permalink

The leaders of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region tried to imbue their capital with Mongol characteristics. Key buildings, including the Inner Mongolia Museum and Theatre, incorporated Mongol motifs. From the late 1960s, however, the Cultural Revolution swept over Inner Mongolia. Apart from destroying old customs and ideas as elsewhere in China, the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia targeted what was portrayed as Mongol ethnic separatism. Emphasising Mongol characteristics was equated with separatist sentiment, and in the following two decades, the cityscape of Hohhot presented the same concrete block monotone. In the late 1990s, however, the pace of change in the urban landscape of Hohhot began to accelerate: green spaces were created, high-rise buildings went up, better lighting was installed. Most striking, ethnic identity became a prominent element in Hohhot's cityscape. The leaders of the city and of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region worked closely with commercial and tourism interests to highlight the multicultural character of Hohhot and especially Mongol historical and cultural aspects in order to distinguish it from other Chinese cities. By making Hohhot distinctive they aimed to restore the dynamic character of the city that had historically been a major trading town on the route to Russia and Central Asia and to give it a global context. In other words, the newly rediscovered ethnic characteristics of Hohhot became a means of locating and branding the city in a global culture.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:16 PM | Permalink

Vouchers from the supermarket chain Trust-Mart (好又多) have become a favored currency of petty corruption in Fujian, says a local entrepreneur who carries a stack on him. In the course of a recent interview about unrelated topics, by way of demonstrating how he greases the palms of tax, commerce, customs and other officials, he opened his glove compartment and whipped out the bills. Each was worth 100 yuan. "That right there is 3,000 kuai."

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Xinhua seemed to have deemed the case closed despite the vague warning coming in the last paragraph that the airspace controls would last for days resulting in continued disruption. An awareness of an audience other than its own "leaders" has never been the agency's strong point. In addition, the initial report only referred to delays in Guangzhou yet there were hundreds of flights affected all over eastern China. There was barely any coverage in the Chinese-language press and only a nib in Shanghai Daily.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:09 PM | Permalink

An important reason for the fall in translation quality is the tendency for mainland publishers to seek quick profits. Many mainland publishers will leverage the popular works and seek short-term profits. For example, on the occasion of the anniversary of the birth or death of a famous writer, they will publish the person's works. These newly translated works are packaged nicely and the printing is excellent quality, but the quality of the translation do not measure up to the previous translations.

Some of the newly translated works are so poor as to be unreadable -- they were translated by "brute force." One cannot speak of excellence or fluency. Sometimes one cannot even understand the translation.

The deterioration of translation quality is related to the dire situation of the industry for translated works.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:49 PM | Permalink

The concept of the show was fascinating: an exploration by former senior officials, academics, journalists and students of the implications for China of issues brought up in the Rise of the Great Nations, a history series shown on state television last year. But while the discussion during the recording session was wide-ranging and stimulating, the version broadcast offered an object lesson in how the Communist party's pervasive system of media censorship guides and limits public political discourse.

For me, it meant that those of my comments not cut completely were stitched together in ways that robbed them of any political sensitivity and, indeed, of most of whatever significance they might have had.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:13 PM | Permalink

To Ling, 43, who was well-connected in political and business circles in her home district, Qingyuan, was accused of supervising currency transactions worth 4.3 billion yuan ($578 million) going back to 2005.

The arrest, disclosed last week in a report on Chinese television, has thrown a spotlight on the extent of illegal currency flows out of China into Hong Kong. It has also highlighted the difficulty mainland authorities have in restraining investors who clearly want more options than Chinese equity and property markets or low-interest-bearing bank accounts.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:40 PM | Permalink

For two and half years veteran Chinese journalist and former CMP fellow Zhai Minglei (翟明磊) and others went quietly to work on Minjian (民间), China's first magazine telling the stories of grassroots activists working for the betterment of Chinese society. They had no political or financial ambitions, but were driven only, says Zhai, by their belief in the principles of civil society. After cooperating with authorities since July in an effort to save Minjian amidst a government crackdown on "illegal publications", including the China Development Brief, Zhai has decided to speak out in an open letter explaining the circumstances surrounding Minjian's "death."

"Had it not been for Minjian's closure, we would have worked forever in silence," writes Zhai.

"Up to now no formal decision has been rendered concerning how to deal with Minjian, but we have already given up all fantasies [about its future], and as a public intellectual I must raise my own voice."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:39 PM | Permalink

According to the police on the case, Zhou claimed that the healing effect depends on the faith, and giving money is one way of expressing that faith. Many of the victims gave away their last yuan to "Little Goddess" even though their homes were stripped barren. Most of the victims are uneducated peasant women. According to "Little Goddess," one must have total faith in order to be healed. However, it was alright if the family did not know about it. Therefore, many of the victims were secretly buying the medicine behind the backs of their family members.

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Guangzhou International is a private golf club, and in 1996 a membership there ran about $32,000, more money than a poor farm boy could fathom at the time. Being a private club, keeping up appearances was important. And one of the club's rules stated, in no uncertain terms, that employees below a particular level of authority were not allowed to play golf. Zhou, despite overseeing a large portion of the security force (he imported most of them from Guizhou himself), fell below that particular level.

This would prove to be torturous for Zhou. One of his duties was following playing groups around the course, and reporting their whereabouts back to the clubhouse. Zhou had always been athletic, and he loved sports. It was natural that he wanted to give this new activity a try. But he couldn't. For two years, he walked and watched.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:00 AM | Permalink

The story goes like this...about midnight on Sunday there was a sudden loss of power city wide followed by a huge, and yes I do mean it was a "HUGE FILL THE WHOLE SKY HEY WAIT A SEC ARE WE ABOUT TO BE VAPORIZED KINDA FLASH" coming from over the Lu Hui Tou hillside no more than 600 meters from where we were standing on our apartment balcony...a few seconds later we witnessed a giant ball of fire exploding upward, rising into the sky

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:39 PM | Permalink

China National Offshore Oil Corp Ltd (CNOOC) is considering buying stakes in offshore Nigeria blocks from Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The Anglo-Dutch energy firm may sell stakes in two assets as it restructures its Nigeria holdings, the newspaper reported.

Shell said earlier that it expects to sell about nine bln usd in assets this year.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:17 AM | Permalink

The headline reads: "Authoritarian Rule and Dictatorship Will Certainly Fail."

Reading the front page more carefully, the full length of the title actually reads "Authoritarian Rule and Dictatorship Will Certainly Fail: The Information Office of State Council Publishes White Paper, Introducing the Multi-Party System in China." But the editor made the first half of the title particularly large and bold. "Authoritarian Rule and Dictatorship Will Certainly Fail" also directly came from one of the sentences of the White Paper itself, even though this is obviously not what the White Paper really meant to discuss.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:45 AM | Permalink

Recently some foreign correspondents have been detained, harassed and physically roughed up -- two incidents Tuesday alone. The FCCC board thought you'd want to hear about what happened. One of the journalists who experienced problems had not been aware of previous problems in the area; information such as this therefore might help you plan your travels.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:42 AM | Permalink

The focus in the Chinese newspapers ahead of the awards is largely on China's chances, although the global obsession with Hollywood celebs is making increasing inroads into Chinese newspapers and on the tube. Indeed, the fortunes of Steven Spielberg are closely watched, since he is consulting with China's leading helmer Zhang Yimou (who has regularly been churning out Oscar-nominated martial arts costumers) on the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Online it's a different story, as well as on the entertainment TV channels popping up all over the country, such as Enlight Media. Here, the focus is on everything from what the stars will wear on Oscar night to anecdotes about competing films.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:29 AM | Permalink

Shanghai is all industrial wasteland and toxic lakes infested with carrion-eating vermin that somehow got rebranded as a delicacy, probably during one of the many famines. But in Beijing you only need an hour on clear roads and you're back in the dongbei in all its rural, dustbowl splendor. This is fine for me because, as it happens, I like rural dustbowl splendor. There is something about Northeast China that evokes loneliness, resilience and endurance honed in an endless arid wasteland. The ghost of hard times still lingers over these lands.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:34 PM | Permalink

Imprisoned Chinese journalist Li Changqing has been awarded the World Association of Newspapers' annual press freedom prize, the Paris-based organization said Tuesday.

The award marks the second straight year an imprisoned Chinese journalist has won the Golden Pen of Freedom - underscoring China's continuing harsh press restrictions despite the flourishing economy and rapid social change.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:30 PM | Permalink

Hill has had some success with science fiction in the United States, winning second place in the Writers of the Future contest in 1998 and publishing his short fiction in Talebones, Black Gate, Brutarian Quarterly, and Aboriginal SF. However, none of that compares to Hill's success in China. A number of his stories have been published in Science Fiction World, a Chinese magazine with the largest distribution of any SF/F periodical in the world. In addition, one of his stories, an ozone depletion tale called "The Curtain Falls," hit a deep nerve ten years ago with Chinese audiences.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:06 PM | Permalink

Sounds a lot more primitive than the more fully-realized ad exchanges in the U.S., where instant auctions are carried out. There's no indication of that here. And it sounds like there's quite a bit of work invovled on the part of advertisers, who - judging from the description in the release - have to sift through an awful lot of publisher and traffic data to find inventory they want to buy. Exchanges like AdECN or Right Media are quite different: Advertisers need only specify what types of individuals they're trying to reach, and how much they're willing to pay per mil/per click/per action.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:55 PM | Permalink

Shenyang was mobbed today with furious ex-ant farmers, former employees of Yilishen, a media darling and one of China's most well-known brands in the health supplement market, as the company has just closed, taking the huge amounts its peasant-class employees had invested with it. The city's ant farming industry is no stranger to controversy, and neither is the company. Blog posts on the subject were quickly deleted, including most of the ones below, but a larger mass action remains scheduled for November 21.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:03 AM | Permalink

The mandated 58 hours of training involve drilling students to perfect hard tasks such as driving on planks barely wider than the car's wheels. Students have little training on the roads themselves.

Mr. Hessler says the written test's emphasis on bizarre driving conundrums shows China fitting its road rules to its neophyte drivers and traffic, rather than the other way around. The questions in the study book - which cover topics such as what to do if a car breaks down on a train track and the appropriate behavior when passing an elderly person - "didn't teach people how to drive, it taught you how people drove."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:39 PM | Permalink

As of yesterday, Bullog had been closed for a full month (more than two weeks ago we submitted all the required materials to the relevant departments, but it appears that getting a formal ICP certificate may take a bit more time). For a website that has 600,000 daily page-views, and which has started to host commercial advertising, this was a catastrophic blow. Today, urgency has driven us to give an early launch to "Bullog International," which we had originally planned as branch geared toward overseas users (this site will become a multi-lingual version in the near future).

For the time being, the overseas-hosted Bullog International will close all comment functionality (any feedback will be visible to the author only when logged-in), and at the moment there is no new blog registration for new users. We apologize for this and ask for your understanding.

Backups of all articles posted by Bullog bloggers have been saved on our servers; you can be assured that once the ICP certificate is obtained for Bullog's domestic website, they will all be restored.

"Non-BBS" Bullog International URL: http://www.bullogger.com

2007.11.20

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:42 PM | Permalink

The raft of foreign media reports, mostly from correspondents who had travelled around the Three Gorges area, spurred Wang Xiaofeng, director of the office of the Three Gorges Project Committee of the State Council, into action to save his face from being lost in the murky depths of the Yangtze. He contacted Xinhua to supply them with "an exclusive interview". The story was written in English with no reference to the gloom and doom that surfaced at the September 25 forum, presumably in the hope a freak memory loss disease would cripple the globe and also tamper with the Xinhua database.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:53 PM | Permalink

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will be reviewing the domestic IPO plan of Liaoning Publishing and Media Co Ltd on November 20, as the draft prospectus submitted by the Chinese publishing firm did not specify whether its shares will be listed in the Shanghai or Shenzhen bourse.

According to the IPO plans, Liaoning Publishing will be offering up to 140 million A-shares, representing 25.41% of the company's enlarged capital. The funds raised from the offering will be directed towards improving its logistics, expanding its chain of stores, as well as to supplement its working capital.

During the first half of the year, Liaoning Publishing posted operating revenues and net profit amounting to RMB429.54 million and 40.94 million respectively.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:11 PM | Permalink

China's largest exchange may permit companies such as HSBC, Coca-Cola and Siemens - which have large business operations in the country - to trade.

Que Bo, assistant general manager of Shanghai's exchange said it was doing market research on the plan and expected to 'get some results soon'.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:04 PM | Permalink

Zhang's fortunes are not quite as good as Lin's. Every day he makes a little over 10RMB—in a month he might make about 300RMB. He accomplishes this by working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes going home as late as 8 p.m. Even though by national standards of income Zhang is deeply impoverished, he says that he does make enough to meet his daily needs for food and housing. Both Zhang and Lin. go to the same reclamation center at Erxian Bridge (near where Lin lives), and they receive the same amount of money for each item they turn in.

How could two people in roughly the same line of work and the same situation have such vast disparities in their income?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:14 PM | Permalink

After repeated reports of confiscations from travellers, China's ministry of foreign affairs confirmed that the guide was banned last year because of a map that depicts the People's Republic of China and Taiwan as separate countries.

A spokesman said the book has some errors concerning the Taiwan issue, such as marking the Chinese mainland and Chinese Taiwan in different colours (on the map). These practices breach Chinese law.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:27 PM | Permalink

On September 5, 2007, twelve mainland publishers issued a "joint declaration" in "News Publishing Daily" in which they question the validity of Crown Press (Taiwan)'s claim of owning the copyright to the Eileen Chang copyrights. The declaration stated: "Recently, we found out that Crown Press (Taiwan) is holding an unregistered copy of a will that Eileen Chang has personally stated is 'no longer valid.'"

...On September 27, Crown Press (Taiwan) made a public rebuttal on the charges from the twelve publishers. The core of the debate revolves around two points: First, did the will of Eileen Chang go through the proper legal procedures to become legally valid? Second, if valid, does Eileen Chang's possessions include the copyrights.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:02 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:59 PM | Permalink

Now their prison records invoke sympathy from voters, who in turn think the wronged ex-cons deserve a chance at the throne. To wit, President Chen Shui-bian, Vice-President Annette Lu, former party chiefs and a bunch of legislators served in prison in the 1970s.

So imagine when the Communist Party falls. Then today's incarcerated rabble-rousers, folks in prison for stoking protests at the state complaints office in Beijing or shooting video of illegal housing demolition in Shanghai, will form a fully legal political party. The likes of former New York Times researcher Zhao Yan, former demolition activist Ye Guozhu and any number of Tiananmen Square activists now in prison will have a clean shot at running China.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:21 AM | Permalink

While the farmers living on the outskirts of greater Beijing are given strictly controlled allocations of water, in central Beijing the people in charge are celebrating the construction of the ultimate "water follies" which will be ready in time for the Olympic year. These include the vast lake that will surround the titanium, egg-shaped National Grand Theater next to the Great Hall of the People, just off Tiananmen Square, as well as the largest fountain in the world at the Shunyi "Water Heaven"—one that can shoot 134 meters high. The Shunyi water park has been built on the dried-out remains of the Chaobai River—no irony intended. And then there are the hundred golf courses that have been laid out in greater Beijing. These infamous "water guzzlers" occupy over 20,000 acres of land and their imported turf has become a serious drain on the city's dwindling water resources.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:07 PM | Permalink

The big mac of book cities the Beijing Publishing Logistics Center, located in Tongzhou district and an hour and a half drive from central Beijing, opened on November 8th. The BPLC is Asia's largest – perhaps the world's – book city and book warehouse. It stretches over 300,000 square meters and houses over 500 state-owned publishers and an estimated 300 private and overseas publishers, including Random House and Penguin.

Designed by Architectural Design Studio and shaped like an eight, the book center is jaw-dropping. At its grand opening the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) stated that this, comrades, was a historical moment; and that publishing had the responsibility for cultural development - no kidding.

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Chinese-language publishers have printed more than 1.8 million copies of the final book about boy wizard Harry Potter and are considering issuing more, executives said Wednesday...

...Mainland China's The People's Literature Publishing House said it issued 1.1 million copies of the book, the seventh in the Harry Potter series, but declined to provide sales figures.

Taiwan's Crown Culture Corp. has shipped 700,000 copies to book stores in Taiwan and Hong Kong...

...In China, which has long been the world's leading source of illegally copied goods, including designer clothes, movies and music, The People's Literature Publishing House marketing executive Sun Shunlin said its new Potter books are printed with anti-piracy watermarks on the first page.

China's General Administration of Press and Publication has also ordered officials to get tough on book pirates, he said.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:52 AM | Permalink

...one more photo of Tianjin's airport, this time to give a sense of the pollution's density. That's the main terminal in the distance - roughly 200 meters, I'd say. Like many Chinese cities, Tianjin's population burns wood and coal for heat during the winter months - and it was plenty cold when I was there. Also, Tianjin has a significant manufacturing sector, lots of cars, and - most important - it is downwind from Shanxi Province, the beating heart of China's coal country, and home to yet another thriving manufacturing sector.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:50 AM | Permalink

On November 6, some departments organized class monitors and deputy class monitors together for a meeting, during which plans and instructions aimed at candidate Sun Wenguang were given, and they were made to passed on to other students: "do not listen to Sun Wenguang's speeches." On November 7, certain departments held an emergency meeting for Party members, the notice for which read, 'some independent candidates have received support from overseas powers, and want to campaign; stop your classmates from listening [to them]. Those who go listen, if seen, will be brought back. No votes are allowed for independent candidates; anyone who votes for them will be found out; students who are found out and those directly responsible for them will be investigated.'

I firmly object to the unfairness of Shandong University's public powers.

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[Hengda Real Estate Group and Star River,] two property developers based in southern China plan to list in Hong Kong next year, underscoring the continuing appetite for development capital to take advantage of the mainland’s surging real estate sector...

A number of privately owned Chinese property developers have listed in Hong Kong recently and dealmakers say that there are more in the pipeline...

...Also making its debut in Hong Kong last month was Soho China, a Beijing-focused commercial property developer, which raised $1.7bn.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Yahoo! has definitely evolved over the past two years since Shi Tao was sentenced. They started out on the defensive, with statements that sounded as if they believed that Shi Tao, dissident Wang Xiaoning and at least two other people were acceptable collateral damage in the noble effort to bring the Internet to China. After being featured as number one negative example on the cover of human rights reports, yelled at in congress twice, a victims' awsuit, and countless anti-Yahoo campaigns by free speech and human rights groups, they are finally doing what many have been advising them to do for some time: admit that their actions have helped to ruin human lives, and admit that they made mistakes.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:49 AM | Permalink

Dongtan sounded too good to be true. An entire eco-city three-quarters the size of Manhattan built from scratch? Who's building this? Who's paying for it? What Chinese companies are involved? What are the obstacles and challenges to this endeavor? Have there been setbacks? Is the technology behind it feasible? How will construction affect the surrounding wetlands? Will local Chinese people be able to afford living there? Why build a new city when so many of China's other cities need sustainable design? Has actual progress been made? (Apparently, by 2030 there will be more than 500,000 people living in Dongtan. Has anyone moved in, yet?)

Legitimate questions, I think, that demand thorough answers.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:36 AM | Permalink

The roof's owner is Zhao Chunjian, a professor at Shanghai University of Electric Power, who last winter climbed up and installed his self-designed "domestic power station". On December 15, 2006, Zhao's solar power plant produced its first watt, and to date it has produced 2,750 kilowatt-hours. In fact, the clean energy the panels produce is enough to power Zhao's entire apartment below.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:22 AM | Permalink

Researcher Wang then led things to a climax by saying that Lust, Caution's female character was based upon the patriotic martyr Zheng Pingyu but Eileen Chang wrote this story because she was a Chinese traitor who hated the people's heroine Zheng; furthermore, Eileen Chang was ugly and therefore jealous of the beautiful Zheng. Wang concluded emphatically: "The ugly female Chinese traitor Eileen Chang wrote a story filled with dark and vile imagination in order to express her hatred against the beautiful heoine Zheng." That was how Lust, Caution was created!

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:09 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Inc. today settled a lawsuit brought against it on behalf of imprisoned Chinese journalist Shi Tao, and pro-democracy writer Wang Xiaoning, according to court documents. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Yahoo could not be reached for comment.

The settlement comes after a contentious Congressional hearing last week in which members of the U.S. House of Representatives accused Yahoo of providing information to the Chinese government that led to the arrest and imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) also accused Yahoo officials of lying to Congress about how much Yahoo knew of the facts surrounding the case when it provided information to the Chinese authorities.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:05 PM | Permalink

'It seems that iPhone is hot in some markets. We are willing to discuss with Apple,' Li Zhengmao, executive director and vice president of China Unicom told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau...

...China Unicom's rival China Mobile Ltd. said Tuesday it was in talks with Apple to bring the iPhone to China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:43 AM | Permalink

When I met one of Baidu's program managers a few months ago, I told her I'd be interested in talking to folks from Baidu Baike, just to let them know how to conform to the GFDL. It was actually fine to copy Wikipedia's content, and also to censor stuff they don't like, as long as they complied with the GFDL.

She got back to me saying Baidu's folks on that side were "scared" of talking to folks involved with Wikipedia, after the strong comments by Wikimedia Foundation chairperson Florence Nibart-Devouard.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:42 AM | Permalink

"The major purpose is to provide better service to the media, it is not to monitor the press or threaten anyone," they said. "Some reporters like to cover sport and some others are very interested in politics. So we have some kind of data and information concerning that."

Well, no harm in that, I suppose. But it raises the age-old question of how efficient one's minders are. Will we be allowed to check the list? What if by some mistake we are left off, and judged to be fake reporters? Will we know this is the reason for all our interview requests being turned down?

Worse - what happens if the man from the Financial Times is accidentally confused with the man from Kazakh Wrestling Weekly? Just think of the chaos that might ensue.

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The written circular, which the paper said was delivered last week, warned reporters that they should take particular care with four sensitive topics: air quality, food safety, the Olympics torch relay and the Paralympics. "It also requires state media to put a spin on those topics in order to 'offset the bad publicity' created by those previous reports," the newspaper quoted an editor informed of the new policy as saying.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:00 PM | Permalink

The paper factory has previous experience in training Burmese technicians, so it could win the bid for this newly program. Burma is a mysterious country to me, the military government, religion and their customs, not until the day I saw them had the mystery been revealed. In this factory, I heard of that there was once a batch of training team which is led by a military leader. It was the basic impression of mine to the people from Burma and their country. A length of two months is not long in one's life, but when you get along with foreigners in such length of time, it seems that you can learn much from them and their country.

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China plans to relax rules that are currently barring HIV/AIDS carriers from entering the country, the health ministry said on Monday.

Ministry spokesman Mao Qun'an said the decision was based on current knowledge of the way the AIDS virus spreads.

He said the existing restrictions, strongly criticised by AIDS activists as discriminatory, were introduced when people were 'unfamiliar' with how the disease may spread.

Mao did not disclose when the new rules would take effect, or if the relaxation would mean a complete end to limits on HIV/AIDS carriers' entry into China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:53 AM | Permalink

Sites that "attempt" to be multi-lingual by offering you a cheezy array of "click this flag to translate into this language" buttons think that they've done their task at the end of the day. To be fair, they have - to some extent - if the only language they're fluent in is the Anglican tongue. When a guy proficient in up to ten languages comes along for the test drive, however...

Windows Live Translator Beta looks like a straightforward site. Give it a website or paragraphs on end to devour and translate, and it'll do its task. Except (and this is not just a "Microsoft problem"), it does the task very poorly.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:13 AM | Permalink

While we met a fabulous group of people, that group was weighted towards expats, folks from multinational companies with offices in China, Chinese who've been educated abroad, and Chinese bloggers like Isaac Mao who blog in English as well as Chinese. It was also weighted towards the internet industry and linux, while in the US Foo camps, we draw from these areas, but also hardware hacking, gaming, publishing, public policy, PC software, and the sciences. In a show of hands, about 1/3 of the attendees were programmers; 1/3 were entrepreneurs (with overlap between the two groups.) There was no one from any state owned enterprise -- still a huge economic sector in China. The university segment was also lightly represented.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:09 AM | Permalink

The parallels between Mao's China and Mugabe's Zimbabwe are undeniable. Mao was constantly worried the western powers, and after the Sino-Soviet split the Russians, were trying to usurp the CPC's power in China. It's that conspiratorial nature that eventually led Mao launch the Cultural Revolution. And things don't appear to be too much different in Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe, given Ms. Chimene's suggestions.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:10 PM | Permalink

The three men went into Li's room and started a conversation with him. They started off by saying that it's so difficult for a non-Beijinger to work in Beijing and that other lawyers from elsewhere had had difficult experiences. They also offered to befriend us, and to be "helpful" to us. Slowly, they cut to the chase, educating us with words of persuasion. Don't bother to be involved with "trivial matters" in the society, they said. The world is what it is, how can you lawyers change it? Then, they directly asked him not to attend the funeral for Bao, who was not his relative, they said.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:07 PM | Permalink

One booth featured a laser tag-like shooting range, except it looked more like a military recruiting event. Instead of toy-looking guns you might see elsewhere, these looked like something that might intimidate the Taliban. Old folks, children, and women alike all took turns firing what can only be described as a plastic bazooka at a water cooler fitted with sensors.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:19 PM | Permalink

China reported 218,107 AIDS cases by the end of August this year, with an increase of 3,807 cases in August, said Dai Zhicheng, director of the Chinese Association of STD (sexually transmitted disease) & AIDS Prevention and Control.

In central Henan and southwestern Yunnan provinces, the reported infected cases exceeded 30,000, Dai said at a recent seminar to raise people's awareness of AIDS in Liaoning Province.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:20 PM | Permalink

The new labor law is going to apply to all employers, no matter how few employees (even one!) they might have. It is going to require all labor contracts be in writing and it will impose significant penalties on employers for failing to comply with this. Employees can claim double salary for months worked without a contract for up to 12 months' salary. This rule is absolutely going to apply to "informal" employment relationships common to so many foreign businesses doing business in China. Expect a whole slew of lawsuits to be filed on January 1, 2008, by employees seeking double damages for the 12 months they just completed without a contract.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:32 AM | Permalink

"Wolf Totem," a Chinese novel that has attracted critical and popular acclaim for its thought-provoking reflections on Chinese culture and society by Jiang Rong, a publicity-shy first-time author who writes under a pen name, has won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Beijing authorities have scolded a local Communist revolution-themed restaurant for harming national sentiment by painting a sign "liberation zone" pointing the way to its toilets.

"Times Gone Past," a restaurant featuring waiting staff clad in People's Liberation Army uniforms and decorated with photos of revolutionary heroes and maps of military battles, had taken the "red" theme too far and had been ordered to remove the sign, Thursday's Beijing News said.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:39 PM | Permalink

In-house publications have evolved over the past decades from the stiff propoganda pamphlets of government danwei to the suave public relations tools of the Chinese private sector today. Now, companies are tapping socio-economic issues to build an image of corporate social responsibility. Lam Li traces the roots and incentives behind these in-house publications that are put out at significant cost-- for free.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:12 PM | Permalink

Warner Bros., Paramount and DreamWorks are teaming to battle piracy in China, the world's largest market for illegal DVDs.

Under the deal, unveiled Wednesday in Beijing, the trio will sell new international titles for $2.95 through the joint venture CAV Warner Home Entertainment, in some cases with a window of as little as two months after a movie's U.S. theatrical release...

...The first DVD rolled out was Transformers,' which is the biggest film in Chinese theaters this year and the second biggest of all time after 'Titanic.' Disc went out Nov. 1. 'Shrek the Third' is next up, set for release Nov. 28.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:08 AM | Permalink

The Forbidden City is in ruins. Weeds grow above the crumbling Great Wall of China. Ceramic tiles once meticulously put together by Chinese craftsmen lie scattered on the ground like pieces of a child's board game.

The owners are still deciding what to do with the 76-acre property and hundreds of acres next to it, but there are no plans to open a Chinese theme park. What's left of the attraction will be torn down -- in spring of 2008 at the earliest, said Chip Bryan of the Falcone Group, which bought Splendid China last year from the investors who purchased it in 2005.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Shang Dan of Orange Labs Beijing provided a fascinating report on car clubs in China, which bring together car owners to join in social activities. Since Chinese treat cars mainly as symbols of social rank and status, it is natural for them to research the car clubs before buying the model they want. This fits well into the city landscape well because it hard to find like-minded people in a literally new city, and the car club provides a welcome activity club for the new car-owner.

I wonder what kind of car club there is for owners of black Audi A6s? (If you have lived in China for a while, you'll get this joke.)

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Anyway, the Italian report ran on October 13. The Catholic News Agency report ran on November 2....I heard about it on the 2nd, and decided not to write about it. However, over the weekend I became aware that there was quite a bit of noise on the right-wing Catholic - and, later, evangelical - blogs....Finally, yesterday, the story began to show up in the mainstream media - and the reaction in Beijing was swift and angry.

To its utter discredit, Catholic News Agency has neither printed a correction or a retraction....instead of offering a correction and moving on, CNA blames its false report (which has become a minor international incident) on the Chinese Olympic Committee for issuing a "contradictory set of policies." In my experience, that's an utterly new approach to dodging a correction; in effect, CNA is saying: "I messed up because you confused me."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:29 PM | Permalink

Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:44 AM | Permalink

In China, the phrase "white collar" brings to mind a comfortable life and social status, while the country's rapid development and urbanization process has created many regional, social and economic inequalities. That's why the most recent hot news item in China was headlined "Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Published the Standard Salary Level of a White Collar Worker in Main Cities."

But CASS has now officially denied it ever published this "report."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:34 AM | Permalink

BEIJING — China said its lunar probe had entered its final orbit around the moon Wednesday, but an official backed away from reports of launching a space station by 2020...

...But officials denied state media reports Wednesday that China was planning a space station by 2020.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:32 AM | Permalink

There are not too many Irish literary links with China, but one of the high points was George Bernard Shaw's one-day visit to Shanghai on February 17th, 1933. Shanghai was then partially divided into concessions run by colonial powers, including Britain and France, and he was there to sympathise with the Chinese struggle for independence and early efforts to introduce democracy. He was received by Madam Song Qingling, widow of China's first president, Sun Yat-Sen, at 29 Rue Molière.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:10 AM | Permalink

While oil cans crowd the factory yard, a desolate eight-lane road betrays a more dire business climate. In the past, tank trucks queued to purchase oil at the gate.

Wang, a local taxi driver, says, "It's been hard to get gas in Weifang City and Changyi county (both in Shandong). A scattering of stations with gas have limited sales to no more than 100 yuan per customer. Larger vehicles can never fill up."

In the past two months, the mayor of Weifang has paid three visits to Zhang's company, urging it to guarantee sufficient supply of oil products to the market. "But the problem is, although the company is operating normally, gas stations are suffering losses - the more they sell, the more they suffer."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:04 PM | Permalink

Your acceptance of this executioner's decoration is just another mistake. You claim to be the reincarnation of the bodhisattva Guanyin, a Buddhist leader, yet you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this person both hands dripping with blood, and then you accept his award. You're a recipient of the Nobel peace prize, yet so intimate with the instigator of the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Iraq War, and the invader of many weak, small countries leading to coup, and accept their assistance. Even that 'little Japan', which to this day remains both hands covered the blood of the peoples of China and Southeast Asia and unaware of the insult it left, you side up with them too. You have no moral sense whatsoever. Don't you think this award is too hot to touch?

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China is well on track to launching its own space station by 2020, according to a top rocket expert.

Long Lehao, a renowned academic and a leading designer of Long March 3A, the launch vehicle for the country's first lunar probe Chang'e I, described China's planned space station as 'a small-scale 20-ton space workshop'.

It is the first time a timetable has been made public for the building of the first space station, the third and final step of the country's current manned space program, Long told China Daily.

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Isn't there an alternative? Between the Oz of the "China Fantasy" (that a rising Chinese middle class must usher in democracy as we know it), and the nationalistic notion of Chinese cultural subjectivity, the cop-out "parallel universe" of Chinese values in which "our white is their black and their black our white" and democracy could never take root?

...while it's basically true that politics and democracy are not readily discernible topics in China, it's more to the point to say that China is a one-party state that does not tolerate political debate.

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Even the backpack factories understand that children cannot cope with the weight on their shoulders. They now produce specialty backpacks with buckling belts and wheeled carting features, popular sellers. Sales promoters at Xidan Shangchang Bazaar advertise the new bags: "Go ahead and add more weight on, there's no way the straps on this backpack will snap."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:19 PM | Permalink

China's first lunar probe, Chang'e I, will reach the moon's orbit Monday morning and currently, it was traveling on the expected trajectory, scientists said Sunday.

Chang'e I, following the instructions of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), will carry out its first braking at perilune at about 11:00 am Monday to slow down, so that it can be captured by the lunar gravity and become a circumlunar satellite, said Wang Yejun, chief engineer of BACC.

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"We find the scenes [at Pizhou] jarring," said Ye, "because there's no need anymore to beat our gongs and our drums to herald anyone's return in victory. What does that mean? It means that the Communist Party of China has already completed its mission as the party of revolution, and that it must find a position for itself as a party of leadership."

The anger invoked by the Li Lianyu affair, in other words, sends the clear message that this is no longer an age of martyrs and heroes. Chinese owe their allegiance not to cadres and kings, but to a system of universal values.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:11 PM | Permalink

despite making big fat bags of cash, Hong Kong actors are not falling all over themselves to drop their trousers for Ang Lee. They are, after all, sensitive artists and not depraved puppets who will do whatever they're told in exchange for money. Andy Lau has already made his thoughts known on the matter but the press is having a field day asking actors if they'll show their tackle for Lee.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:30 PM | Permalink

"I can't trash a famous eighty-year-old journalist's book in his own newspaper."

"Maybe that's why they called you."

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The eight foreign residents who will each carry the torch for 200 meters on Chinese soil next year are, in order of winning votes: Jenny Bowen of the US, Marcos Torres of the Philippines, Werner Ebel of Germany, Meena Barot of India, Yoshitoshi Mizuya of Japan, Luis Hong-Sanchez of Colombia, Yury Ilyakhin of Russia and British-Venezuelan Deirdre Smyth.

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To all the other superlatives used to describe China we may now add the fact that it has the tastiest cigarettes. I don't pretend to be a connoisseur, having only begun smoking a couple weeks ago, but then again I've been inhaling the smoke of Chinese cigarettes for years...

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