Adventures in teen angst book covers
« March 2, 2008 - March 8, 2008 | Main | March 16, 2008 - March 22, 2008 »
March 15, 2008
SchizOlympics
From Mutant Palm: news about Tibet on microblogging services like Twitter and its Chinese clones, and the SchizOlympics.
Sexy Photogate: banking version
From ESWN:
Early yesterday morning, a two-minute-long video clip began to be circulated on the Internet. The clip is divided into three segments. The first clip was taken inside a Heng Seng bank branch office with female workers dressed in uniforms. This served to identify the principal female character as a worker there. The second clip was taken in a hourly-rate motel room, in which the principal female character appeared in a nurse's uniform. The third clip was an act of sexual intercourse in a bedroom.
Air cheap bastards
Chris Waugh at the bezdomny ex patria blog examines one flight attendant's complaint against Air New Zealand:
So far their response is, "Well, our contract is with Fasco who hires the staff according to Chinese terms." That is pathetic.
And at least one of the attendants was a New Zealand resident hired from New Zealand under the impression she would be working for Air New Zealand but suddenly found herself signing a contract with this Fasco outfit earning a mere fraction of what her Kiwi colleagues got.
Models, delegates, and the latest spin on PX
Jonathan Ansfield reports on some interesting treats for the press at this year's legislative sessions:
Fujian officials have been caught in a bind: between, on the one hand, continued external pressures to allay public fears and, on the other, sources contend, internal criticism for bungling the blowback there and helping spur a rash of protests over other projects elsewhere. As such they hedged conservatively. They sounded shifty and abrasive. They made it seem only natural and self-evident that while the project was sound, its present location in Xiamen no longer was. They soft-pedaled on the media and popular dissent that forced them to adopt that posture and skipped entirely over the misguided planning in the area that played into the controversy to start. And most ominously, they defended the Gulei site in practically the same passive-aggressive manner they once had Xiamen.
See also: PX protests in DongshanAIDS kebabs
The Liuzhou Laowai receives a strange warning about kebabs that give you AIDS, from China Mobile.
China Daily: Dalai-backed violence scars Lhasa
The China Daily reports:
The outbreak of violence died down in Lhasa Friday night, after a tumultuous day that saw windows smashed, shops robbed, mosque burnt down and reportedly many casualties.
Witnesses said the unrest started around 1:10 pm on Friday, several people clashed with and stoned the local police around the Ramogia Monastery in downtown Lhasa.
You might want to check some other sources for more information.Parliament hears corporate pain
At Newsweek's Why It Matters blog, Mary Hennock reviews how the heads of major companies are expressing their dissatisfaction with the new labor law at this year's CPPCC and NPC sessions:
What's more, added protection means "workers are no longer acting as obedient as they were before", says the chairman of Jiangsu Huarui, a garment-maker with 8,000 staff. One reason is better protection from dismissal; another is that companies can no longer ask new hires to pay a fee that's forfeited if they leave.
March 14, 2008
China rules the Internet OK
An article in The Wall Street Journal quotes research firm BDA: China has surpassed the United States in numbers of Internet users — 228.5 million, compared with 217 million in the U.S.
Has SARFT gone crazy?
The broadcast and film regulator SARFT is on the war path. Or maybe just plain crazy.
Lhasa in flames
From Lindsay Beck and Benjamin Kang Lim of Reuters:
Shops were set on fire in violence in Tibet's capital of Lhasa on Friday, China's Xinhua news agency reported after days of rare street protests in the contested region.
Witnesses said a number of shops were burnt, the report said.
Tudou out for the day
The message on Tudou's main page this morning reads:
Potatoes:
To provide you all with better service, we are migrating and expanding Tudou's central servers.
Our service will be suspended from 0:00 to 24:00 on 14 March.
At 0:00 on 15 March, our migration will be complete and Tudou will promptly return home.
There's no mention of the rumored SARFT inquiry, but you wouldn't really expect that, would you?March 13, 2008
Avoid tall buildings
From Adam Minter:
So I must say I was more than a little surprised when my beloved Shanghai Daily ran a story - this morning - containing this jaw-dropping revelation:
HALF the steel material sold at wholesale markets and now being used in construction has failed quality tests.
Beijing construction ban: July to September
Details of the pre-Olympic construction ban from The People's Daily:
Four government departments... announc[ed] that they will suspend construction in bad weather such as strong gales and sandstorms between March 20 and July 20 to prevent dust pollution, and a complete construction ban between July 21 and September 20.
The municipal meteorological observatory forecast earlier this month that the capital city is likely to see about 10 days of sandy weather this spring, close to the annual average but six more than last spring, citing the reason of warm and dry weather in sandy areas in the north China region.
March 12, 2008
Liberation, mystery in Henan and irony-loving foreign ministers
Beijing Newspeak addresses a few recent stories, including the AFP claim (later retracted) of a staged Wen Jiabao interview that was rebutted by a 3-month-old Xinhua story:
However, every story involving Wen Jiabao has to be approved directly by the Premier’s office and the journalist was told by the secretary that he couldn’t write his new story, even if it did reflect favourably on the government. Much better to stick to the November visit he was told. Safer. There was much annoyance in Xinhua of course as no news agency, albeit a highly dodgy one, likes to report three-month-old news, particularly if there is new information. Clearly another case of govermental stubbornness making everyone look stupid.
Talk about anything...except the South China Tiger!
ESWN translates a Southern Metropolis Daily report that reveals how BBS commenters at major online forums are being barred from talking about the South China Tiger case.
School memos and a responsible press
Jim Gourley, at the Absurdity, Allegory and China blog, looks at the "Uighur-in-the-plane" incident in light of a number of previous episodes where the whole story got overshadowed by spin and fabrication:
It’s not easy to develop a responsible press, but it’s better to make the attempt to have one than not. It all eventually comes down to this: if you’re going to be stuck in a small room, better that it’d be with few frenzied Chihuahuas covering their turf than a hungry bear sitting in the corner. You can bat a few dogs away, but that bear’s in a whole different league, and, like it or not, he gets to make all the rules. And, like it or not, you’re probably going to let him. When the bear’s in charge, equality in any form is never part of the relationship. You either dance the dance or you get eaten. It’s pretty simple. Simpler than it ought to be. So much simpler than it ought to be that it can only be considered, at best, as low-browed.
Melinda Liu on foreign correspondence in China
On TheBeijinger.com from an interview with Newsweek China Bureau Chief Melinda Liu by Alice Xin Liu
tbjblog: Is being a journalist in China as frightening and dangerous as it is made out to be?
ML: Being a foreign correspondent in China isn't that dangerous. My experience witnessing the 'shock and awe' bombing of Baghdad, from the inside, was dangerous. Getting shot in the leg in Manila was dangerous. Guns and other weapons aren't prevalent at the grassroots in China, so some of the 'normal' things that make a story dangerous aren't here. What's dangerous here is driving...
Is 'super-ministry reform' really worth all the fuss?
from David Bandurski at the China Media Project:
Military spending, inflation and terrorist conspiracies may be dominating the China headlines in the West, but the big news on the home court this week is China’s push for reform of its numerous government ministries to create more streamlined super-ministries — a process known in Chinese as da bu zhi gaige (大部制改革). And as the National People’s Congress proposal for widespread ministry reform tops the official agenda, one of the most pleasant surprises is the way a number of mainland commentators are either downplaying or analyzing seriously what others are simply ballyhooing as a grand vision for change.
Beijing and the baby milk of human kindness
By Mure Dickie in The Financial Times:
This week I tried to visit Zeng Jinyan, Chinese blogger, wife of the detained dissident Hu Jia and mother of an infant daughter. I did not get far.
Near the door of Ms Zeng’s apartment block in the paradoxically named Bobo Freedom City compound near Beijing, I was stopped by a police officer and half a dozen plain-clothes security agents. The officer politely explained that I could not meet Ms Zeng without her prior permission. He was unmoved by my objection that authorities had made such permission difficult to obtain by cutting off Ms Zeng’s home telephone line and her access to the internet.
No super ministry for media
From the China Daily:
China will set up five new 'super ministries'... the ministry of industry and information, the ministry of human resources and social security, the ministry of environmental protection, the ministry of housing and urban-rural construction, and the ministry of transport.
It seems this will have little or no effect on the way media and culture are regulated: the Internet will still fall under the souped up ministry of industry and information, but GAPP, SARFT, the State Council Information Office and other organs of State meddling in media have held on to their fiefdoms.March 11, 2008
Tudou: shut down but not really
Someone at SARFT apparently ordered video website Tudou.com to shut down, but the site remains up and running as the chattering classes try to work out what happened.
Taxes: the enemy of literature
NPC delegate Ling Jiefang, who wrote a series of historical epics under the pen name Er Yue He, thinks he has the solution to the bad state of Chinese literature: don't make writers pay taxes.
Is China the key to Africa's development?
Western media coverage of China's relationship with Africa continues to grow, as the title of this Slate.com article shows. The piece has some information about 'Africa Town' in Guangzhou, and trade in timber between China and Tanzania.
Louise Blouin against Spielberg
From The Huffington Post, by wealthy philanthropist and former media mogul Louise Blouin MacBain:
We have to stop pointing fingers at other nations, making symbolic and hurtful gestures, while not looking first at our own governments, our own policies and our own national ethos. We cannot continue to judge without the expectation of being judged back, or in this case, to further alienate China from engagement in meaningful multilateral peace talks for the region.
Ang Lee protests Tang Wei ban
By Richard Spencer in The Daily Telegraph:
The Oscar-winning film director Ang Lee has written a letter of protest after a young protégé, whose sexually explicit scenes in his last movie turned her into a star, was deemed a 'non-person' by China's state censor.
Hu Jintao in olive
Wearing an olive green Mao suit (中山装) instead of his usual suit and tie, Hu Jintao spoke yesterday at the NPC about the need to further develop China's military. From Xinhua:
'We must aim at improving the capability to win high-tech regional wars and keep enhancing the ability of the military to respond to security threats and accomplish a diverse array of military tasks,' the president said.
The strange case of the disappearing news story
Richard Spencer blogs about the difficulties he faced in reporting on the Chinese government's changing story about the "incident" on a flight from Urumqi to Beijing:
There is little way of garnering independent evidence, so you put in a balance.
But my story today was more difficult. I thought it was pretty weird that the claims about the Olympics terror attack just disappeared overnight. The China Daily version had the terror claims but nothing about the Olympics; the story that carried them originally - a Xinhua English-language report - was taken down from the website; and there was no mention in Beijing Chinese-language state media at all. (There was some in provincial newspapers).
Related article in The Telegraph.March 10, 2008
NPC special: transparency, obfuscation and the Dianchi Lake
ME OLD CHINA visits the legislative sessions and ends up getting an audience with Yunnan officials eager to present their spin on the water issue:
COVERING the latest session of the National People's Congress this week, your correspondent has been assailed and buttonholed and generally inconvenienced by countless Chinese journalists anxious to hear us confirm how "open and transparent" the "media environment" had become in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games, thereby bolstering the uplifting narrative of progress, enrichment and enlightenment that the central government has sought to foist on the local press.
...After a while, of course, cordoned off from the delegates by the organizers and surrounded by sweating deadline-wary hacks anxious to be let loose, I began to tire of all the attention, and told at least one local journalist that things were much better when the proceedings were held behind closed doors, because at least in that case we wouldn't be expected to report on them. But then I received an unexpected phone call.
Tang Wei's too hot for TV
Yunnan still hopes to dam Nu River
From GoKunming.com:
Little more than two months after the announcement that Tiger Leaping Gorge will not be dammed, plans for damming the Nu River (怒江) in western Yunnan near the border with Myanmar may become the focus of the next battle between Yunnan officials and environmentalists and scientists.
A plan to dam the upper reaches of the Nu, known as the Salween River after flowing out of Yunnan into Myanmar, was originally suspended in 2004 by Premier Wen Jiabao.
The heroic Englishman China will never forget
James MacManus profiles George Aylwin Hogg in Ocean Devil: The Life and Legend of George Hogg; an excerpt appears in The Sunday Times:
[I]n 1942 he became headmaster of a CIC school in the remote mountain town of Shuang-shipu.
Here, at the crossroads of the Tsin-gling mountains in Shanxi province, he found his destiny.
At 27, Hogg was the head of a school that, even by the chaotic standards of China at that time, presented huge problems. Three brick classrooms stood on a steep and bleak hillside. There had been seven headmasters in 18 months. There were no books or writing materials. The kitchen was bare. There were no beds. The boys were covered in scabies, malnourished and lice-infested.
"A film inspired by the story, The Children of Huang Shi, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Chow Yun Fat,...and Michelle Yeoh...will be released in the UK later following a US opening in May."Solar energy firms leave waste behind in China
Is additional pollution the price China pays for green technology? Ariana Eunjung Cha reports for the Washington Post:
Because of the environmental hazard, polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for the recycling, have discouraged many factories in China from doing the same. Like Luoyang Zhonggui, other solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.
Wahaha rejects Danone proposal
Wahaha, the Chinese beverage company that has been engaged in an unpleasantly public dispute with French joint-venture partner Danone, has rejected that company's latest proposal for mending the rift. The People's Daily reports:
Chinese beverage giant Wahaha Group has rejected a new cooperation plan put forward by French food group Danone, saying the ongoing peace negotiation is hard to continue, Wahaha said on Sunday.
Danone proposed the two companies merge all their businesses toform a new company that will eventually be listed on the A-share market. Danone and Wahaha will each hold 40 percent of shares in the new company, leaving the remaining 20 percent as public shares.
Danone wants to ensure at least 50 billion yuan (6.9 billion U.S. dollars) in market value if its shares in the new company are lower than 40 percent, said Zong Qinghou, board chairman of the Hangzhou-based Wahaha Group.
'But those proposals and conditions are groundless, and we cannot possibly accept them,' he said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament.
March 9, 2008
The Olympics stole my game
Flash game theft is nothing new. I’m actually quite used to having my games taken without my permission, and without receiving compensation. The difference here is that this is not some crappy no-name portal. This is The Olympics.
...they downloaded the swf file from my site, decompiled it, swapped out the little guy for the Fuwa characters, took my name off of it and republished it as their own. I can tell this is what happened because they are still using some of my original art from Snow Day (the clouds and the ice cube are exactly the same). I also took the liberty of decompiling their game and actually found it still contains the sound files from Snow Day, even though they aren’t being used in the Olympic version. It even still has the splash sound effect from The Lake (I used the engine from The Lake to make Snow Day and must have forgot to delete this file).
via trevelyan at adsotrans.Thoughts on bankruptcy of the last ‘Animal Farm’
At Global Voices Online, George Sun translates an Oriental Morning Post column by Xiong Peiyun on the fate of Nanjiecun, a famed communist model village:
Nanjie Village, the last “Animal Farm” in China, has been known by the Chinese as the ‘red billionaire village’ and ‘communism village’ until the recent revealment by newspapers that it has arrears around 1 billion yuan although it gradually changed its economic system years ago in light of some ‘capitalistic elements’. In a relevant review, Blogger Xiong Peiyun thought it indicates the failure of ‘communism myth’.
Five things that didn't happen (but might have)
At Frog in a Well, C. W. Hayford looks at possible alternate histories:
[W]hat if the Manchu unification had been successfully challenged? In the 1770s and 1780s, the Tay Son brothers led a great rebellion which destroyed the old regimes in the north and south of what is now Vietnam by mobilizing the populace into mass armies. The Qian Long Emperor dispatched troops to support the old regime, which had been loyal to Beijing, but in the "First Tet offensive of 1789" the Vietnamese sent them packing. Tay Son dynamic rule replaced Chinese model government with a more indigenous style. Vietnamese brag that the Quang Trung Emperor thought seriously of incorporating the south of present day China, which had been ruled by Vietnamese towards the end of the Han Dynasty. There were to be two capitals, one Hanoi, the other Guangzhou.