It was a paper tiger after all
Xinhua reports on how Zhou Zhenglong faked his tiger photos with a wooden claw and a paper tiger mockup. Thirteen local officials in Shaanxi have been disciplined.
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June 29, 2008
June 27, 2008
迎奥运、讲文明、树新风
From an article on the official Beijing Olympic website with the slightly plaintive title 'China attempts to clean up the Internet':
The internet-based activity promoted under the slogan 'Welcome the Olympics, Improve Manners and Foster New Attitudes' officially began on Wednesday in Beijing. Aimed at promoting appropriate internet usage for a pleasant internet environment during the Olympic Games, the activity was met with much approval.
Foreign guests at the Olympics will certainly appreciate the new, cleaned-up Internet.June 26, 2008
Korean citizen journalist conference
Oh My News, the groundbreaking South Korean citizen journalism website is holding its annual citizen journalism conference in Seoul, starting Friday June 27. Might be a while before there is a similar event in Beijing.
Warning from closed hepatitis website
Robin Kwong in the Financial Times:
The Chinese government's recent crackdown on civil rights groups may backfire and incite protests during the Beijing Olympics, warned Lu Jun, who ran a popular website for hepatitis B carriers shut down last month.
Funeral dirge for 56.com?
From Kaiser Kuo's blog:
...Anyone who quotes this blog should do so under the full knowledge that this is all still rumor, and as such all of this must be taken with a grain of salt.
That said, here's what I'm hearing: One or more partners with Sequoia 56.com's board ... paid a visit to SARFT regulators to plead the case for 56 in an episode reminiscent of a visit IDG's Hugo Xiong paid to same to prevent disaster from befalling his portfolio company, Tudou. Unlike Xiong's SARFT audience, this source tells me, this one didn't go well: when the Sequoia partner or partners asked for a dispensation, SARFT's response was a chilly 'Why should we?'
Olympic Games rules for Beijing citizens
From Sexy Beijing blog:
Our local neighborhood grannies came knocking on my door this week to make sure I have a copy of the Olympic Legal Handbook. So forget about getting around the city on your skateboard this summer--according to the handbook, skateboarding on the street is now illegal, along with a host of other activities like hanging clothes outside your window and dumping garbage in the gutter.
Post quake solar schools design competition
From Xinhua:
An international architectural design competition for the so-called 'Sun-lit Schools' was launched here Wednesday, to seek solutions for solar-fueled school buildings in the countryside.
Contestants are required to design 'Sun-lit' school buildings with reference to climatic conditions in earthquake-hit areas such as Maerkang and Mianyang, both in Sichuan Province...
...For more information, visit www.isbdc.cn.
Sourceforge blocked in China
From the Moonlight Blog:
SourceForge, the world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications, appears to blocked in Mainland China on the eve of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Solar energy LED wall in Beijing
From a New York Times blog post by Carolina A. Miranda:
This evening, rush hour commuters on Xicui Road in the western part of Beijing will be treated to the sight of a 20,000 square foot LED screen displaying videos that are twelve stories high. It will be the official debut of the Greenpix Zero Energy Media wall, a building-sized video installation powered entirely by solar energy.
What to do about Internet censorship?
Rebecca MacKinnon has rounded up much of the Net censorship discussion at the recent China Internet Research Conference, including links to presenters slide shows and reports about the Net Nanny and the current video website problems in China.
June 25, 2008
Years of being obscure
David Bordwell compares two versions of Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild in an attempt to determine just what the heck Tony Leung was doing in the movie.
Patriot Zong and his green card
Hu Jintao's speech about the media
David Bandurski at China media Project has explained and translated parts of President Hu Jintao's 'first speech since taking office in 2002 to deal comprehensively with the news media and its role in a changing China. It was a big deal.'
Sex and politics in the Orient
Andrew Field of the Shanghai Journal blog has posted an interview with James Farrer, author of the book Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai.
Tibet open to foreign tourists today
The Shanghai Daily reports:
Tibet will be re-opened to foreign tourists today after a stoppage of more than three months due to the March 14 riot in the regional capital of Lhasa, a local official said yesterday.
The first foreign tourists, two Swedes, would arrive in Lhasa today and another four from Singapore would be there on Sunday, said Tanor, deputy director of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Bureau of Tourism.
June 24, 2008
Death knell for 56.com?
The Venture Beat blog looks at China's three market leading video websites and concludes that 56.com, currently out of service, is a looking rather sickly:
So, 56.com has half the cash of Youku, a third the cash of Tudou, with fewer high-placed friends in China, a smaller market share, and category-wide headwinds from newly skeptical investors.
An earlier Danwei report looks at SARFT's latest list of approved video websites that has left the three sites mentioned above out in the cold.Foreign press learn about 'hong bao'
From a Reuters report by Nick Mulvenney:
The hotel hosting the official non-accredited media center for August's Beijing Olympics is offering cash to reporters in return for positive media coverage.
The Gehua New Century Hotel, which describes itself as 'China's first five-star hotel with a media-cultural theme,' has promised journalists up to 1,000 yuan ($145) for articles about it.
Tîbetan - Huî tensions rise
The Los Angeles Times has published an article by Barbara Demick subtitled 'Long-standing enmity is a factor in recent clashes in Lhaasa and other areas.'
43 punished for quake relief frauds
The China Daily website's top story today:
Twelve officials have been sacked and 31 punished for misappropriating earthquake relief funds and materials, the country's top discipline watchdog said on Monday.
Most of the sacked officials were serious offenders at the grassroots level and directly responsible for distribution of relief, Ma Wen, Minister of Supervision, said.
June 23, 2008
Online chat with Hu Jintao
President Hu Jintao speaks to the Internet masses in a Strong Country Forum chat room. But he does not say a lot.
1978 students visit the capitalist West
A Beijing News story about a group of students sent to the West to study in 1978.
Tudou, Youku and 56.com in the cold palace
Working class hero
Son of Shenzhen Zen puts out a fire and becomes the subject of water-cooler gossip.
Don't indulge our 'racial complex'
Blogging for China has translated an online essay by a regular Uygur poster at a Chinese forum dedicated to Minkaohan (民考汉论坛), ethnic minorities raised in Han-language schools alongside Han classmates. The blogger explains:
The term Minkaohan literally means 'minority testing using Han'. With their perfect grasp of putonghua and numerous Han Chinese friends, Minkaohan are often the best economic achievers in their community, and a successful model of the Chinese government's policies towards minorities. But with their non-Han faces, and with their inability to read/write their own language, they often find themselves uncomfortable in both communities.
Citizen takes local govt. to court for access to information
Donald C. Clarke's Law Professor's blog (blocked in China) reports on the first case to be heard in court in Beijing in which a citizen is suing the state for access to information under the Regulations on Open Government Information (政府信息公开条例), which came into effect on May 1.
Americans want govt. to control the internet
Fons Tuinstra:
I remember that many outside China reacted shocked when research found out that most of the Chinese internet users applaud government control. Well, those Chinese internet users seem to be in good company, as 49 percent of the US citizens follow the same line, according to the Rasmussen Reports.
Oh my God
Sinosplice has a thoughtful post on teaching Chinese learners of English about different attitudes towards the exclamation 'Oh my God!'
No porn, drugs or gambling for Mainland tourists in Taiwan
From Xinhua:
Mainland-based Cross-Strait Tourism Association (CSTA) has published three regulatory documents on mainland tourists' travel to Taiwan...
...Agencies should not engage in economic, cultural or any other cross-Straits exchanges in the name of traveling in Taiwan, and tourist activities on the island should not involve gambling, pornography, drugs, or any other activities that may hamper mainland-Taiwan ties on the island...
...The regulations also demanded an emergency mechanism to be set up by the accredited travel agencies, in case of natural disasters or other incidents threatening the safety of life and property of mainland tourists in Taiwan.
June 20, 2008
Cool retro Chinese sneakers
Old Chinese sneaker brands have been getting a lot of attention these days. Chinese media has been talking recently about the reinvention in the west of the old Chinese brand Feiyue (Flying Forward). Also, Ye Shumeng, a Chinese born graphic designer now living in Helsinki, has produced a book of photographs of Chinese people wearing the old Chinese brand 'Warrior' sneakers.
Why block Chinese investment in the USA?
The surge of investment developing countries are pouring into more developed economies is a phenomenon that is receiving increasing attention. Outbound investment from the People's Republic of China is part of this trend.
June 19, 2008
Xinhua ♥ The Guardian
Xinhua's English website has just made the following its top story:
The Guardian newspaper published an article on Wednesday entitled 'Down with the Dalai Lama.'...
Why do western commentators idolise a celebrity monk who hangs out with Sharon Stone and once guest-edited French Vogue?
The Guardian article (online here) was published at the end of May but has been circulating by email amongst Chinese journalists in Beijing over the last few days.National Geographic Goes Chinese
The Crystal Palace and the Chinese junk
From the website of the BBC:
If the 21st Century belongs to China, as many believe, what will it mean for Britain's relationship with this emerging superpower?
In a series of four essays, cultural writer Patrick Wright looks at China's historical relationship with the UK. He starts by looking at Britain's patronising view in the 19th Century.
China Daily♥USA and Xinhua♥Japan
This morning's top headline on the China Daily's website was:
China, US to talk for investment accord
Meanwhile Xinhua's English website's top headline was:
China, Japan reach principled consensus on East China Sea issue
Shenzhen's 19 reform initiatives
Shenzhen has recently announced a program outlining 19 points of future reform initiatives. [China Elections & Governance Website offers] a detailed translation of the first 8 points that focus on political, governmental and administrative reforms, and a brief translation of the remaining 11 points which mainly deal with economy, society, education, health, and culture.
New media art exhibit at the National Museum
Shanghai Eye reviews a new media exhibit at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) called 'Synthetic Times':
A large group of artists landed in Beijing in June with a collection of robots, light installations, interactive mobile plant pots, and various other pieces squeezed into a show under the broad banner of promoting the new media genre to the Chinese public...A bemused local media explored the meandering exhibition through the austere Namoc building, only slightly intimidated by being chased by plant pots on wheels and sensory disorientating installations.
June 18, 2008
Fight against floods continues
From Xinhua:
Days of heavy rain have driven up the water level of last week's major flood, threatening thousands in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region...
...As of Tuesday, about 7,000 people had been evacuated without casualties in Longtou Village, Yizhou City and Guangxi...
...In neighboring Guangdong Province, the water levels in the swollen rivers of Xijiang and Beijiang were reducing slowly, while experts predicted the water levels would not reduce to below danger lines until Thursday.
The Guangdong headquarters of flood control on Tuesday said 5.67 million people had been affected since June 11 with economic losses totaling 4.01 billion yuan (581 million U.S. dollars).
Rainstorms and floods had ravaged the provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Yunnan and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region since June 6.
June 17, 2008
An earthquake primer
Zhongnanhai blog has posted notes from meeting of the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China at which earthquake experts sorted myth from fact.
How to detect decadent music
Floods: 1.27 million people relocated
from Xinhua:
Rainstorms kill at least 57, force relocation of 1.27 mln in S China
At least 57 people have been killed and 1.27 million people relocated as rainstorms and floods ravaged nine provinces and region in south China, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Guangdong Province on Sunday.
June 16, 2008
Hip-hop Olympics
At Blogging Beijing from the the Seattle Times, Daniel Beekman profiles Beijing-based hip-hop group In Three (阴三儿).
Middle name? No tickets for you
The WSJ's China Journal blog tells of foreigners unable to claim Olympic tickets they reserved:
The online application forms requested only first and last names. But when foreigners showed up to claim their tickets, using passports for identification, bank staff refused to hand over tickets to people whose passports also included a middle name. (It's a non-issue for most Chinese, who use family names and given names but not separate "middle" names.)
'Chocolate city': African traders in Guangzhou
Blogging for China translates a Southern Metropolis Daily article about African traders in Guangzhou and elsewhere in China.
Chinese in Tanzania
Tudou.com co-founder Marc van der Chijs has just returned from a trip to the east African nation of Tanzania and has written a blog post about Chinese entrepreneurs he met there.
Make Polo
A group of journalism students from the University of Texas at Austin traveled around China in May and are publishing photos, articles and blog posts about their visit at ChinaOnThe Brink.com.
One of them, Patrick Michels, wrote about Internet startup MakePolo.com:
Makepolo is a search engine designed to help small businesses quickly find specific supplies and stock items from online retailers. By focusing on the online needs of a narrow group of users, Su is counting on the fact that just a sliver of the Chinese market can mean serious business--30 million small businesses in China alone, he says.
97 new airports planned
From The China Daily:
China sets aside $64b for airport shuffle
China drafted a long-term plan for development of air cargo, which will require the building of 97 new airports, consolidation of smaller airports and upgrading of certain key airports by the year 2020. The entire project will cost the government a massive investment of $64 billion.
June 15, 2008
Could China stop Taiwan from coming to the Olympic Games?
Susan Brownell answers that trick question at The China Beat:
Global politics usually don't change as quickly as we would like, but they do change. One year ago I was one of many people who thought that the biggest political threat to the Beijing Olympic Games was the movement toward independence in Taiwan. Now it appears that the Taiwan situation is comparatively stable. But the symbols associated with Taiwan - including words - remain one of the most politically sensitive areas of the Olympic Games.
June 13, 2008
A dull yarn about a disgruntled threesome
Writing for the Hollywood Reporter, Maggie Lee dismisses poet Yin Lichuan's new film, Knitting:
Reeling off traits recognizable in umpteen fest-bound independent films from China -- such as a snail's pace, minimalist plot and dialogue, and deliberate muffling of emotions -- Yin is several stitches short of creating a work of originality.
Can these guys fix Chinese basketball?
China Sports Today reports on a basketball boot camp for Chinese players conducted by top NBA and college basketball coaches.
Shutting journalists out?
From the blog of BBC correspondent James
Recently, I asked whether or not the openness the Chinese authorities displayed in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake would continue. Now, after a day spent in the city of Dujiangyan trying to cover a story about bereaved parents, I can try to answer that question more fully.
All-seeing eyes
Mary Ann O'Donnell discusses Naomi Klein's Rolling Stone article and the accompanying photographs:
rolling stone published lee's photos to illustrate klein's report. the photographs' formal composition and klein's article become a reader's primary tools for interpreting shenzhen. however, here's the rub: in an interview, klein states that her goal is to "show how u.s. and china more and more alike, creation of a middle ground". however, the photographer, thomas lee invoked the aesthetic conventions of creative photography to organize photographic composition. in these pictures, people in the foreground are blurred, while the background is in focus. consequently, the images show a shenzhen that is depersonalized and off-kilter. for an american viewer, these pictures do not provide common ground, rather its opposite--a looming gulf that threatens to swallow anyone who would dare cross over.
Cuban athlete breaks Liu Xiang's world record
From Beijing Olympics Blog:
Cuba's Dayron Robles has toppled Liu Xiang's 110m hurdles world record. The 21-year-old clocked 12.87 seconds, beating Liu's time by just 0.01 seconds and smashing is own personal best. Liu was not racing...
...Olympic favourite in more ways than one, Liu Xiang is not only expected to successfully defend his Olympic title, but is one of the most popular athletes in the host country.
June 12, 2008
Laowai visa complaints: I mean, come on
Fromer Yunnan resident Rachel, blogging from Israel after a trip to China:
Ouch, probably these have been the perfect two years to take a break from China. I couldn`t go five minutes into a conversation with any of the Laowais I`ve met in Bj without them starting to moan about the [visa clampdown], and about how much of a hassle it`s become, being a Laowai in Beijing . I was thoroughly amused then, when dinner with two well travelled Chinese friends had turned into another session of moans about how hard it is to get visas to the U.S., the U.K., Holland, and (of course) Israel.
Seriously, I doubt if the citizens of any western country (Israel least of all) can say anything about visa issuance policies, I mean, come on.
Generally, the change in visa regulation seems like a good sign of China growing up, being more selective and more ruled by law, and the procedure is bound to become clearer and more consistent. Too bad for those of you caught in the middle of this process though.
SARFT issues video sharing website licence to minor players
From Caijing's English website:
Three small Web sites have won government licenses for video-sharing services in China, a move seen as a signal that Beijing authorities may be widening the door to popular content.
But China's three leading video-sharing sites--Tudou.com, Youku.com and 56.com--were not included on the latest list of license awardees.
Instead, Caijing learned the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) granted licenses to the minor private sites Ku6.com, Uusee.com and 6.cn.
Talking to Taiwan
From CNN.com:
Negotiators from Taiwan and China launched their first formal talks in almost a decade Thursday, aiming to forge agreements on charter flights and tourism to build confidence between the long-estranged rivals.
June 11, 2008
Last of the Mongolians
David Treuer reviews Wolf Totem for the Washington Post and doesn't like it very much:
Pedantic or not, in the final analysis, "Wolf Totem" becomes more about race-baiting than wolf-baiting. Summaries of racial characteristics float from these characters' mouths with the greatest of ease (Chinese bad, Mongolian good). Perhaps "Wolf Totem" has been successful in China for precisely the same reason that James Fenimore Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales," not known for elegance or subtlety, were popular in the first half of the 19th century: It's safe and pleasing to look back on a landscape and a life that the nation-state has largely destroyed. One might even locate this cycle of destruction and romantic celebration as an early step in the literature of emerging capitalist nations. So while "Wolf Totem" seems to praise Mongolian life and the wild animals that inform that life, the wolf must die and be replaced with a novel that comes nowhere near the creature in terms of beauty and importance, and instead reads like a 500-page-long metaphor.
Quake reporting raises concerns of media ethics
An interesting Xinhua article that examines how a lack of training in media ethics has led to insensitive reporting on the Sichuan earthquake:
Jiang Min, a policewoman in Pengzhou city near the epicenter of Wenchuan, lost 10 relatives, including her two-year-old daughter and her parents, at first became a symbol of fortitude in the face of overwhelming tragedy -- then later became the face of media exploitation....
But in one television report, the reporter pressed her to answer the question, "Why are you still here?" A drawn-looking Jiang was pounded with further questions, such as, "Do you think of your own parents and daughter when you see the rescued old people and the kids?"
...Later, Jiang was interviewed several more times on television.
Is the 'Running Teacher' morally corrupt?
Shanghaiist summarizes what many online commenters are calling "this year's must-see video" - a Phoenix TV discussion of the ethical and moral depravity of "Runner Fan":
Various individuals in the audience, including some in the teaching profession, also stood up to denounce Fan for his actions, and made the claim for themselves that if there was ever an earthquake, they would definitely save their students first, winning great applause from the rest of the audience. It seemed few voices were sympathetic to Fan, but some did stand up to raise the point that if one could not be sure that he would be able to save his students in an earthquake, he should not have the right to point fingers at Fan. Another member of the audience questions, "Suppose Fan had saved his students. Do we make a hero and another modern Lei Feng out of him? In this day and age, have we actually forgotten the fact that a man may have many different sides to him?"
Foreign influence on China's revolution
Inspired by a photograph from 1912, Alan Baumler at Frog in a Well reflects on post-revolution mutinies:
The Europeans "were in the best of humor and joked about what was happening" and much appreciated the view of the burning city from the walls. Although Chinese troops were looting, extraterritoriality still held and no foreigner was molested.3 I can thing of few things that would reinforce the foreign sense of privilage more than touring a battlezone like it was a play put on for one's amusement.
Yuan seems to have played the whole affair like a violin. While he claimed not be be behind the mutiny, and the looting probably went further than he would have liked it worked to cement his political position. He could portray himself to the foreigners as the one man who could keep order and to the Chinese factions as the one leader who could hold off foreign intervention.
Exploding Olympic outhouses
The Tiger Temple blogger reports on fires in portable toilets near the Bird's Nest; John Kennedy translates for Global Voices Online:
Firefighters arrived twenty minutes after it was reported because traffic was heavy at the time and getting stuck in traffic couldn't be avoided, but with the Olympics soon to be here, I'm afraid it's going to be hard for people to forgive this kind of emergency response speed. The fire squad had to struggle, just seeing them jumping back and forth over that newly-locked steel fence, feeding the hose through (see photos), you honestly wouldn't have known whether to laugh or to cry!
Cashing in on China's thirst for university training
At the Globe and Mail blogs, Marcus Gee writes about foriegn educational institutions who see a gold mine in China:
Vancouver-based CIBT has 3,500 students in China learning everything from business management to auto mechanics to how to work in a casino. Mr. Chu said enrolment is growing at 30 to 40 per cent a year. He is opening new sites at a rate of one every three weeks. And that, he believes, is just scratching the surface of the market. By 2020, he said 600 million Chinese will be middle class, with the money and the ambition to get an education with foreign-label cachet.
Universities and colleges around the world are starting to recognize that potential, stepping up their efforts to lure Chinese students to study abroad while offering degrees in China in association with Chinese institutions.
Gas prices may rise after the Olympics
The LA Times speculates that the price of gasoline in China may jump following the Olympics:
While consumers in much of the world have been reeling from spiraling fuel costs, China has kept the retail price of gasoline at about $2.60 a gallon, up just 9 percent from January 2007.
During that same period, average U.S. gas prices surged nearly 80 percent, to about $4 a gallon.
But Chinese consumers are bracing for a big jump in pump prices after the Summer Olympics in Beijing end in late August.
Chinese bank reserve ratios up: stocks nosedive
From The China Daily:
China's equities suffered their biggest fall in a year on Tuesday, after the central bank raised the commercial banks' reserve ratio for the 15th time since January 2007.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 7.73 percent to close at 3,072.33 points, the biggest loss in percentage points since June 4, 2007 when the gauge lost 8.26 percent.
The meltdown came after the People's Bank of China (PBOC) ordered banks during the weekend to set aside 17.5 percent of their deposits as reserves, up from the initial record 16.5 percent. The hike was unusual as the PBOC usually increased the ratio by 0.5 percentage points each time.
Yao Ming targeted by crooked NBA refs?
From ESPN:
Jeff Van Gundy ultimately backed off comments that a referee told him officials had targeted Yao Ming in the Houston Rockets' 2005 first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks.
June 10, 2008
Tragic result in Tianjin
A Modern Lei Feng recaps China's 1-0 loss to Qatar:
Qatar, simply needing a draw from this result, played their part perfectly after getting the goal. They sat back, put their men in the box so that even when a Chinese player beat his man on the wing, the cross could be innocently parried away, and then played the counter attack perfectly, coming up with a few quality chances. They also used the Chinese players urgency and frustration against them. The Chinese team tallied up yellow cards with sometime stupid, sometimes iffy fouls, but this forced them to play more reserved. Li Weifeng, a veteran playing in what is perhaps his last World Cup qualifying campaign, led the way for juvenile play, often arguing with the refs and resorting to a number of questionable actions (including an outright push) that probably should have earned him a second yellow card.
Is it against Chinese law to be callous and pigheaded?
David Bandurski at China Media Project:
China's latest case of the 'human flesh search engine' (人肉引掣) at work has landed a 17-year-old girl in police detention, and that has some Chinese asking: is this really a matter of broad social concern, and is there any legal basis for police intervention?
A history of the Asian riff
Review of 'Last Days of Old Beijing'
Jeffrey Wasserstrom writing in Newsweek:
Michael Meyer's impressive new book, 'The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed' goes a long way toward illuminating some of the scenes that have come to symbolize early-21st-century China, at least before the unrest in Tibet and the Sichuan earthquake. They include wrecking balls knocking down beloved small businesses; schoolchildren dragging their migrant-worker parents, who have never been in a restaurant, into a KFC; human-powered vehicles in a land of high-rises, evoked by the canopied pedicab set against construction cranes...
Christian Evangelism and the Olympics
At The Huffington Post, Monroe Price writes about American evangelical Christians, and what they have been saying about missionary activities in China, of which the government takes a rather dim view.
Rules for post quake construction
From The China Daily:
China on Monday promulgated the regulation on reconstruction after the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake. It was the first of its kind in the country, specially for a single massive quake, which led the reconstruction work into a legal orbit.
Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday signed a State Council order to make it effective. Xinhua was authorized to publish the regulation that became effective on Monday.
June 8, 2008
The agent in economy
Adam at Shanghai Scrap reports a helpful hint he received from the flight attendant as his plane was approaching Beijing Airport:
"It is illegal to take photos over China, or in Chinese airports."
Blogger suggests temperance, accused of brown-nosing
Yu Qiuyu blogs that the western media is showing its anti-China stance by reporting on complaints about the earthquake while the rescue effort is ongoing (translated by ESWN). At Global Voices Online, John Kennedy translates some online reactions:
I've seen shameless, but I've never seen this shameless. People kiss butt, but that's to stay on the boss' good side. Yu Qiuyu this super butt-kisser extraordinaire, like your average race traitor from back in the day, has squeezed out a few alligator tears and shouted to the people: knock it off, the imperial army still means well for you.
June 7, 2008
Unity and natural disasters
Chris at the bezdomny ex patria blog looks at an article in the latest issue of Chinese National Geographic that discusses the impact of disasters on national unity.
Every kind of natural disaster can be found in the oracle bones of the Yin ruins, such as: droughts, floods, earthquakes, windstorms, thunder storms, locust plagues, also solar eclipses and lunar eclipses, because the Shang people also saw these astronomical phenomena as natural disasters. If we say that the oracle bone inscriptions are the source of the Chinese people's characters, then we can say that anxiety about natural disasters is one of the motive forces behind the coming into being of Chinese characters.
A conversation with Xujun Eberlein
The Other Lisa interviews Xujun Eberlein about her new story collection, Apologies Forthcoming:
It also occurs to me that few westerners know the subtleties and nuance surrounding the participating parties in the CR. I once did an informal poll among writers I workshop with on what they thought of the Red Guards, and the answers were pretty much uniform with the representative one being "pretty much the same as the Hitler Youth." This is quite baffling and at the same time very interesting. As we know (I'm aware of the pitfall of generalization) Americans hate the communist government of China; but did they know the biggest thing the Red Guards did was to break China's state apparatus? Should a communist hater applaud or condemn that? There is just no simple black-and-white answer.
June 6, 2008
Profiting from patriotism
A Modern Lei Feng comments on Kappa's Love China t-shirts.
Liaoning law will require children to visit their parents
Have you spoken to your parents recently? If you live in Liaoning Province, you'd better get in the habit of calling them and visiting them once in a while, or could be facing stiff punishment. Xinhua reports:
The province's standing committee of the people's congress recently released the draft - Regulation on Protection of Rights and Interests of the Aged - to seek public opinion. It is expected to become law by the end of the year.
An article says if children do not live with their parents, they should "often send greetings or go home to visit them." Government employees, who fail to do so, will face sanctions by their respective agencies.
For reference: Liaoning's Draft Regulations on Protecting the Rights and Interests of the Elderly and the existing Law of the People's Republic of China on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the ElderlyLotte to expand chocolate sales in China
Lotte, the South Korean confectioner, will expand chocolate sales southward from its current markets in Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, in response to consumer demand, Reuters reports:
"Chocolate consumption has been growing rapidly in China in recent years," Lee said. "China's chocolate market may exceed its candy market in size in the next three to four years."
China's 6.46 billion yuan (922 million) chocolate market is growing more than 10 percent each year, fuelled by rising wealth and increasing Western influence on consumer tastes, according to market intelligence company Euromonitor International.
Related: The Beijinger teaches you what to do at a chocolate tasting and gives names of Beijing vendors of gourmet chocolates.Quake lake still a threat
From Xinhua:
The possibility of flooding from the Tangjiashan 'quake lake,' caused by China's May 12 earthquake, increased Thursday even as water levels rose steadily to the point where engineers believe they may be able to open a drainage sluice.
June 5, 2008
Universal Studios forces Beijing gallery to change name
Universal Studios, a major Beijing gallery established by Pi Li and Waling Boers in 2005 is changing its name to the Boers-Li Gallery, following a complaint from the Hollywood film studio of the same name.
Safety inspections and rules for post quake reconstruction
From Xinhua:
The State Council, China's Cabinet, passed a draft regulation on post-quake restoration and reconstruction at an executive meeting here on Wednesday.
The regulation put forward special requirements on earthquake-resistance levels of infrastructure construction in the quake-hit regions, including schools and hospitals...
...Local governments must organize personnel to conduct safety appraisals of all school buildings as soon as possible to ensure the safety of students as they return to school, according to the statement.
China on track to democratize?
Bruce Gilley, author of China's Democratic Future in The Wall Street Journal:
The beginning of the end
... In recent years there has emerged a consensus that the CCP is here to stay. Talk of democratization in China is dismissed as a 'fantasy' by journalist James Mann ... Fellow writer Ian Buruma ... says the Chinese model represents 'the most serious challenge that liberal democracy has faced since fascism in the 1930s.'...
...These writers have espied a central truth about contemporary China. It is a relatively legitimate state that is not under immediate pressure to introduce democratic reforms. But does this imply democracy is not in the offing? Absolutely not, and for two related reasons.
First, the CCP today is a 'responsive' or 'legitimacy-driven' regime...
Six types of foreigners not welcome
Xinhua issues regulations in Chinese that ban foreign terrorists, sex workers, mental patients, drug addicts, and carriers of dangerous animals from the Olympics, which raises the question: are they welcome in China now?