« August 17, 2008 - August 23, 2008 | Main | August 31, 2008 - September 6, 2008 »

August 30, 2008

The expatriate

In The National, Micheal Donohue profiles Sidney Shapiro, who came to China in the late 40s:

Almost six decades later, Shapiro is still here - a robust 92-year-old Chinese citizen with white hair, a strong handshake, and an exceptionally well-preserved Brooklyn accent. Part of a wave of westerners who settled in Beijing in the early Mao years to sign up for the "socialist experiment," Shapiro is one of a tiny few who lasted long enough to experience the entire, ongoing era of Communist rule - and to see China stage an Olympic opening ceremony last Friday night that gave almost no acknowledgement to Mao's legacy.

The article also devotes considerable space to an examination of the bad blood that exists between Shapiro and Sidney Rittenberg. (via Arts and Letters Daily)

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:33 AM |

August 29, 2008

Rock attitude

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So Rock is two-thirds music, one-third Internet humor, quirky news, opinion, snark, and film and book reviews. This issue features a look at Yuan Jian's audacious book Twilight of the Miracle, available only online.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:21 PM |

Testing the Olympic volunteers

YWeekend devotes an entire issue to "testing" the Olympic volunteers' language abilities, enthusiasm, and selflessness by posing English questions, speaking in heavy local accents, and asking for money. ESWN translates a few of the pranks.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:37 PM |

What will fill the Olympic-sized void?

Pallavi Aiyar on Yale Global Online:

What will fill the Olympic-sized void once the Games end? Neither the World Expo in Shanghai nor the Guangzhou Asian Games, both scheduled for 2010, have the same rallying power to mobilize a nation. For the Chinese leadership, this is an issue that presents the need for some tightrope walking that even the skilled policy acrobatics of Beijing's top apparatchiks will find testing.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:12 PM |

CCTV News: Live without it? Never!

CCTV held a symposium to gauge audience reactions to its programming, and found that people love the evening news broadcast, comparing it to a strong, authoritative man (the weather forecast is a woman).

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:07 AM |

Russia could push China closer to West

Geoff Dyer in The Financial Times:

August 8 has already been pencilled in by some as a turning point in modern history, the day that authoritarianism stood up as a credible force for the first time since the end of the cold war. Television producers did not know where to look. On one screen Chinese drummers were launching the hi-tech opening extravaganza of the Olympics, while on another Russian tanks were filing into Georgian territory.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:04 AM |

China and SCO frown at Russia

From The China Daily:

SCO: Solve problems by dialogue

DUSHANBE: Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leaders Thursday agreed that attempts to solve a problem through use of force would never work, and instead it would hinder a comprehensive settlement.

...The SCO members expressed deep concern over the South Ossetia issue, and urged all the parties involved to resolve it peacefully through dialogue.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:59 AM |

Beijing welcomed you....so did you remember its song?

At Fool's Mountain, Nimrod presents an English translation of the Official Earworm of the Beijing Olympic Games:

The Olympics are over (except for the Paralympics, that is) and people have trickled out of Beijing, but still in their heads and mine is probably this catchy (some say annoying) song that was sung by an ensemble of veritable who's-who in today's Chinese popular music world. Chinese people seem to really like this kind of qunxing (群星) or star-ensemble singing, where phrases are sung by their favorite stars.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:57 AM |

Gun battle near Kashgar

From The New Dominion:

BBC's got a story about a gun battle that occured Thursday between seven 'militants' and police in Jiashi County (伽师县), or in Uyghur, Peyziwat County, near Kashgar.

BBC's stories are based on 'reports from the scene' rather than the usual release Xinhua News Network, which is interesting as I believe it represents the first time a description of the attack went directly to a Western media outlet without first going through Xinhua. And as usual, mum's the word at Xinhua's Xinjiang Channel...

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:55 AM |

Lies, damn lies, and Chinese "lies that bind"

At Frog in a Well, C. W. Hayford explores the role of falsehoods in Chinese and American society in light of the recent media fury over doctored realities at the Olympics.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:36 AM |

Benetton's Sichuan earthquake ads

From The Inspiration Room:

Benetton, the Italian fashion company, has launched a campaign focused on prayer, featured prominently in two-page print advertisement showing a Tibetan monk and a Chinese soldier at prayer for the victims of the May earthquake in China's Sichuan province.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:23 AM |

August 28, 2008

Out goes the torch

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Blogger He Dong mouths off to a journalist about the boring Olympic closing ceremony. SF critic Wu Yan wields cultural theory to uncover deep levels of meaning hidden in the scaffold that formed the centerpiece of the performance.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:49 PM |

How the New York Times (should have) covered the Olympics

Black and White Cat examines the changes made when the Beijing Evening News republished an edited version of a New York Times article.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:24 PM |

Chinese manga for the QQ generation

From the Sinosplice blog:

Recently at a Family Mart convenience store I encountered 黑背 ("Black Back") comics, the creations of Zhang Yuanying (张元英). I've been a fan of independent comics for a while, but I've had trouble finding much I like in China. The main thing that has turned me off of mainland Chinese comics is their highly derivative nature. They all seem like copies of Japanese manga! Not 黑背, though.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:23 PM |

Democracy, ethics, and China's post-Olympic challenge

Jeremiah at the Granite Studio comments on the Daniel Bell - Michael Walzer debate over China's future:

Looking at this question as a historian, I am struck by a few things not specifically touched upon in the original piece. First of all, the issue of what is and what is not a "truly awful" regime? Bell defines it here as one that violates "basic rights," of which Bell lists one: 'right to food and basic means of subsistence.' This of course cuts to the heart of a larger debate: Is there a set of basic (inalienable, if you will) human rights to which all human beings are entitled and that cannot be sacrificed to satisfy other ends?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:26 PM |

Govt. officials embezzle $660 million

From The China Daily:

Central government departments and their subordinate units misused or embezzled about 4.52 billion yuan ($661.09 million) last year, for which 14 officials have been detained, the country's top auditor said Wednesday.

A total of 88 people have been arrested, prosecuted or sentenced, and 104 people handed administrative punishments for the violations in 2007, Auditor-General Liu Jiayi said in his annual report to the national legislature.

More than 41.7 billion yuan ($6.09 billion) of central funds were mismanaged, too, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:06 AM |

August 27, 2008

Tony Blair: We can help China embrace the future

Former British Prime Minister writing on The Wall Street Journal

The Beijing Olympic Games were a powerful spectacle, stunning in sight and sound. But the moment that made the biggest impression on me came during an informal visit just before the Games to one of the new Chinese Internet companies, and in conversation with some of the younger Chinese entrepreneurs.

These people, men and women, were smart, sharp, forthright, unafraid to express their views about China and its future. Above all, there was a confidence, an optimism, a lack of the cynical, and a presence of the spirit of get up and go, that reminded me greatly of the U.S. at its best and any country on its way forward.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:14 PM |

Which portal won the Olympics traffic race?

ESWN translates a comparison of Sina, Sohu, and QQ, who all claim to have had more viewers during the Olympics

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:46 PM |

Knife-wielding cop killer on trial

From The China Daily:

Beijing man Yang Jia, who allegedly murdered six policemen and injured another four in a knife attack in Shanghai last month, stood trial on Tuesday charged with premeditated murder, according to the Shanghai No 2 People's Intermediate Court.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:47 AM |

Beijing car restrictions fade

From The China Daily:

The odd-even license plate rule brought in to keep cars off the streets of Beijing during the Olympics will be lifted in some areas beginning on Thursday, the city's traffic management bureau said yesterday.

The rule will no longer apply on roads outside the Fifth Ring, with the exceptions of the airport highway and certain sections of the Badaling and Beijing-Chengde expressways, it said.

The regulation was introduced on July 20 to ease congestion and reduce pollution during the Olympics and Paralympics, the bureau said, adding that it was always designed to have two phases.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:41 AM |

West's difficulty in Africa is China's opportunity

Mary Fitzgerald writes about the Chinese presence in Angola for the Irish Times:

"The donor community was not ready to come to our rescue so we had to look for alternatives," [Aguinaldo Jaime, Angola's deputy prime minister] says crisply, sitting in his office at the presidential palace high above Luanda's Atlantic coastline. And so the government turned to Beijing. "We had just come out of a long war, our economy had been devastated and the country had massive social needs," explains Jaime. "China was willing to understand this reality and put a huge financial package on the table. This is the main reason Angola decided to enter into a relationship with China."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:39 AM |

August 26, 2008

Lovers of corrupt officials also liable for graft charges

The China Daily reports:

Family members and/or secret lovers of corrupt officials too could face trial if the draft of the Criminal Law's seventh amendment is passed.

Spouses and children of and/or people who have 'intimate relations' with corrupt officials could be jailed for more than seven years if they are found guilty of taking advantage of such officials' positions to get bribes or make money illegally.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:46 AM |

GoDaddy blocked

William Long at the Moonlight blog reports, "GoDaddy, the largest ICANN-accredited domain registrar in the world, appears to blocked in Mainland China." He speculates that it might have something to do with CNNIC and the General Administration of Sport's plan to give all Chinese Olympic medalists their own personalized domain names.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:01 AM |

Lone Chinese climber missing on Kilimanjaro

From Tanzania's The Citizen:

Mystery still surrounds the whereabouts of a Chinese national who disappeared after scaling Mt Kilimanjaro last month.

Tanzania National Parks officials and Kilimanjaro regional authorities told The Citizen at the weekend that they were still searching for the tourist who was accompanied by several other Chinese climbers on an expedition to climb Africa's highest mountain.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:32 AM |

6.8 earthquake in Tibet

From Xinhua:

A strong earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale rocked Zhongba County, Xigaze prefecture in Tibet at 9:22 p.m. on Monday, but no casualties have been reported.

The epicenter was about 10 km underground at 31 degrees north and 83.6 degrees east, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:10 AM |

August 25, 2008

Who are the hottest Olympians?

New Express announces says the sexiest male athlete of the Olympic Games is Rafael Nadal Parera; his female counterpart is Leryn Franco.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:43 PM |

Who killed would-be citizen journalist Wei Wenhua?

Wei Wenhua was beaten to death on Juanary 7 this year after he used his mobile phone to film officials in Tianmen, Hubei while they were beating a group of peaceful protesters. He himself was beaten to death.

Forgotten Archipelagoes reports:

Four officials indicted for Wei Wenhua's murder were tried on August 22 in Qiangjiang, Hubei province. All of them retracted their confessions alleging they had been extracted under torture.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:16 PM |

Not everyone can be a winner

Southern Metropolis Weekly profiles a dozen Olympic athletes who were not the fastest, highest, or strongest.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:31 AM |

If Phelps were a Chinese athlete

The Foreign Expert blog translates a forum post that casts US swimmer Michael Phelps as a typical Chinese champion.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:45 AM |

Old ladies' reeducation through labor documents

Channel 4's Lindsey Hilsum interviewed the two old ladies who were given a suspended sentence of a year of re-education through labor for their protest activities before the Games and application to protest during the games. The article includes a translation of sections of the sentencing document the old ladies were given.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:45 AM |

August 24, 2008

The Olympics end with a bang

The closing ceremony was not quite as spectacular as the opening ceremony, but it did feature Jimmy Page playing Whole Lotta Love.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:08 PM |

How one bum heel set up China for a fall

Newsweek's Jonathan Ansfield talks to SI China executive editor Wei Hanfeng about Liu Xiang's injury and China's reaction:

Q: Do you feel everyone's making too much of this?

No. It's a huge story. To tell you the truth, when I watched it, my tears were uncontrollable. But I also felt very conflicted about it. On the one hand, here you have just an injured athlete. But on the other, he's a symbol of the country. His image was completely one of health, vigor, and omnipotence. We put him on such a high pedestal. He basically became a spokesman for the new generation of Chinese people. So the feeling is, "how could this happen to him? This is always our nation's bad fate."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:02 AM |