China visa - facts and fiction
At tbjblog, Nadine Ulrich presents the latest info on the increasingly difficult problem of getting a visa to China.
« May 11, 2008 - May 17, 2008 | Main | May 25, 2008 - May 31, 2008 »
May 23, 2008
Xinhua: 550 foreign journalists in quake zone
Xinhua lists some statistics about foreign journalists in Sichuan and quotes from a New York Times article comparing the 2008 quake to Tangshan 1976.
What kind of relationship should China have with the West?
The Carter Center's ChinaElections.net has published a translation of an article originally published in the Global Times by Liu Yawei, director of the Carter Center's China Program:
If China's reform and opening up was a result of the 1968 restructuring of interstate relations, what implications might the clashes between Chinese and Western values, as seen in recent events, have for China's future? Does it signal a new reconstruction of the world order?
3 minutes of Google silence
From The China Vortex:
Google China's blog (in Chinese) mentions a Google search query log which graphically shows the moment of silence and mourning on 2:28PM on May 19, which displays the moment of silence throughout China for the victims of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan.
Death toll rises to 55,239 in Sichuan alone
Xinhua reports:
The quake death toll has risen to 55,239 in Sichuan alone as of 7 pm, Thursday, said Li Chengyun, vice governor of Sichuan on Friday in Beijing.
About 83,988 people were rescued. The quake also injured 281,066, while 24,949 are still missing, said Li.
May 22, 2008
The hand of Rockefeller
Eric Abrahamsen investigates the Peking Union Hospital and the Rockefeller Foundation's contribution to Beijing geography.
Letters from Sichuan
At The China Beat blog, Peter Hessler follows up his New Yorker web report with more letters from former students in Sichuan.
News magazines cover the earthquake
May 21, 2008
Post-quake challenge: 5 million homeless
From The China Daily:
The Chinese government is grappling with the next urgent task in the aftermath of last week's 8.0-magnitude deadly earthquake -- how to shelter up to 5 million residents in Sichuan Province who are now homeless.
Tudou's off the black list
Kaiser Kuo reports:
China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) has issued two new 'black lists' -- one of eight Internet audio-video companies ordered to shut down, and another listing 20 companies given warnings over objectionable content.
Tudou.com was on an earlier black list from SARFT but is not on either of the new lists.China soft power and media freedom
Li Datong, in translation on Open Democracy on the events of 2008 so far and the weaknesses in China's government that they have exposed:
The Chinese government needs to understand that in response to the western media, an independent and free Chinese press would be much more credible than a government spokesperson. The truth lies not in one voice, but slowly becomes apparent amidst a diverse range of voices. An understanding of this underlies the effective deployment of soft power.
Accursed 2008
Shenzhen Fieldnotes has translated a short SMS poem about 'dog-fucked 2008'.
Ningbo candlight vigil
Photos by Wong Can of a candlelight vigil in Ningbo on Monday night to mourn the victims of the earthquake.
Ethnically diverse forum shut down
At Global Voices Online, John Kennedy reports on the shut-down of Uighur Online, "the main online forum serving to bridge the huge communication gap between China's Muslim population, other minority ethnic groups, and Han Chinese":
What surprises many Uighur Online users is that the website was even properly licensed, the excuse most often used by authorities to shut blogs and BBS websites down. Indeed, the 'Crowd of Spectators Out of Control' blogger, who writes about Xinjiang culture, mentions in a post late last month a conversation s/he had with the Uighur Online webmasters, retelling the absurdities the staff there went through recently in trying to report one UO user for inflaming racial hatred within the forums, and being kicked around like a football from police department to police department in Beijing and then back to the local internet supervision office, with none of them willing to address the situation.
May 20, 2008
We are with you, and will always be
For the China Daily, Raymond Zhou writes about solidarity in the wake of the Wenchuan Earthquake:
We have all been drenched in tears over the loss of so many brothers and sisters. The wailing of mothers and fathers, the sight of dust-covered bodies of teenagers, cold and pale, pulled from the debris, haunt us day and night. The chilly rain, which exacerbated the misery, serves as a manifestation of our collective mourning.
This week, we are all Sichuanese, living in the fear of aftershocks, and in fading hopes of finding more survivors. Whenever one more survivor was extracted from a flattened building, it was an occasion for joy.
A day in quake-hit Beichuan
Tim Johnson at China Rises blogs about his experiences in Beichuan, one of the areas hardest-hit by the quake:
Earlier in the day, police had handed a group of us surgical masks and ordered us to wear them as we looked through the town. In fact, they asked us to wear two, one over the other. I didn't quite get the meaning of the masks. Certainly, the smell of death lingers over cities like Beichuan. But I don't think the smell is toxic.
I walked up a slope of rubble trying to get a better view. But first I had to wait as relief workers came down, bringing body after body in bags slung from metal poles.
Many hands aid in quake
The New York Times reports on non-governmental charity work in the aftermath of the Wenchuan Earthquake.
May 19, 2008
A nation mourns in black and white
Chinese intellectuals: what we're learning from the earthquake
Last week China Digital Times published translated excerpts from a Southern Metropolis Daily article containing messages from several dozen Chinese columnists, scholars, and social workers contemplating the devastating Sichuan earthquake.
Foreign companies and Chinese Nationalism
China Law Blog summarizes the dangers of Chinese nationalism for foreign companies operating here.
Ironing out the kinks at the new airport
Han Song shows how Terminal 3 is like a county train station.
New tourist visa rules for Chinese visiting USA
From The People's Daily:
Chinese citizens are to be allowed to apply for U.S.-destined travel in groups starting from June 17, announced China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce here on Thursday.
Within six months from then, the travel agencies in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong provincial areas would be able to organize local residents for group travel to the United States.
Burma cyclone eye witness accounts
In this post, we publish two eye witness accounts of the cyclone disaster sent to Danwei by a Burmese citizen and by an American in Rangoon / Yangon. Both must remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
I was a teenage Gourd Brother
From Travellers' Tales:
When the Shanghai Animation Film Studio came to East China Normal University in the summer of 1987 looking for laowai 'talent,' we answered the call of show business ... The result was an English-language version of 'Gourd Brothers', a classic of the animation genre. TT voiced the pangolin, as well as a few other minor characters.
China youth Internet stats
Kaiser Kuo has picked out some of the more interesting information from a recent report by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) about Chinese youth culture and youth behavior on the Internet.
3 days of mourning, 3 minutes of silence today
The government has declared three days of mourning for the dead of the Sichuan earthquake and asked citizens to be silent for three minutes at 2:28 pm today.