Blow up the Wanzhou bodhisattva!
An oddly-shaped hillside in Chongqing's Wanzhou District has drawn thousands of pilgrims. The local government proposes blasting the rock formation to clear away the crowds.
« November 2, 2008 - November 8, 2008 | Main | November 16, 2008 - November 22, 2008 »
November 14, 2008
A tour of the stimulus package and beyond
Victor Shih explains the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package:
If a local government wants to build a port somewhere, even if it is doing so entirely with its own money, it has to receive National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) permission to do so. If it is a state sponsored project, which means it is part of the five-year plan (yes, those still exist), a project can lobby the NDRC for central funding. However, even if that were the case, the majority of the financing typically comes from local government (or SOE) self-raised capital and bank loans. Thus, the 4 trillion is not all central government money; the majority will come from local budget and bank loans.
Winning streak for cash-strapped China women's ice hockey team
From China Sports Review:
Chinese Women's Hockey Team continued their winning streak by beating Japanese Team 2-0 in Shanghai, securing themselves a shot of playing in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics after three straight wins over Norway, Czech Republic and Japan...
...Only six of Wang's teammates get their paychecks every month. Others can only receive an allowance of RMB 900 (roughly $ 130 USD) per person in a best month, while most of the time playing for nothing. 'Isn't it unimaginable we're supported by our families? People ask why we still play. We play only because we love this sport'
Yang Jia: Stranger than fiction
From Time's China Blog, strange new developments in the case of cop killer Yang Jia:
Looks like the stranger-than-fiction tale of Yang Jia just took another bizarre turn. Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing lawyer who has been closely following the case, reported on Monday that the cop killer's mother, Wang Jingmei, has finally emerged in public after disappearing for four months. According to Liu's blog, Wang was secretly kept in a psychiatric hospital run by the Beijing Police Bureau throughout the prosecution of her son. A female officer who answered the phone at Beijing's Office of Compulsory Treatment --which is responsible for cases like Wang's--refused to comment or give her name when contacted Wednesday.
More from the AP.Financial news freed from Xinhua's restrictions
The Financial Times reports that a dispute between foreign financial information providers and the Xinhua news agency dating back to 2006 has been resolved:
Under a deal signed by the four parties in Geneva on Thursday, China agreed to transfer Xinhua's role in overseeing foreign financial information suppliers to an independent regulator and to allow such suppliers to set up commercial operations.
The agreement, reached after seven months of World Trade Organisation consultations, removes a big operational risk for financial information providers such as Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. It also represents a victory for advocates of market reforms over the interests of Xinhua, which sparked the dispute by issuing tough new rules on the foreign agencies in September 2006.November 13, 2008
Taxi strikes show a changing Chinese media
China Media Project discusses the role of the press in the recent taxi strikes in Chongqing and elsewhere:
The series of Xinhua reports on the Chongqing taxi strike is important evidence of the changing nature of media control in China, of the emergence of Control 2.0. But we can also glimpse important changes in the Xinhua coverage itself.
One of the most noticeable changes is the use by Xinhua of the term "transport strike," or bayun (罢运), which points clearly to a rights struggle and is far less neutral in tone than the "mass incident" designation generally used for such news by state media.
A visit to Linfen
Linfen has a national reputation as a polluted, corrupt hell-hole. Chris Waugh at bezdomny ex patria passes through on his way to a temple in Haizhou.
November 12, 2008
You'll never sell fruit in this town again
Gangs of Beijing
Youth crime is on the rise. The Legal Daily examines two gangs made up of marginalized vocational school students that have been causing trouble in Haidian District this year.
The Guiyu e-scrap industry
Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap discusses "The Electronic Wasteland," a 60 Minutes investigation into the e-scrap processing industry in Guiyu, Guangdong:
The answer to this question is embedded in the one important question that Sixty Minutes didn't bother to ask. Namely: does all of the waste in Guiyu come from the US and the developed world? Or, is it just possible, that China, too, is contributing to the problem?
...Why should this matter? I'll offer two reasons.
The body in the lake
An excerpt from Lonely Planet alum Chris Taylor's unpublished novel Harvest Season, set in southwest China.
November 11, 2008
Empires of the Deep, or Waterworld in Chinese
Philip at China Film Journal peeks behind the press release of a $100-million movie to be produced by Irving Kershner:
What's really going on? Even with the weak dollar, 100 million is still nothing to sneeze at. The Variety fluff piece goes on to say the film is being put together by "China's Fontelysee Pictures in collaboration with the Emagine Studio of Hollywood." Though that line depicts a grand US-Chinese partnership, I believe these two entitles are in fact run by the same people, and that "Emagine" is a Chinese company with offices in the US....Even the name "Emagine" seems designed to conflate it with Imagine Studios, a real Hollywood entity, much in the manner of those Asian knockoff "Adidos" and "Pummas". Same with Irv Kershner - the very mention of his name is supposed to evoke sci-fi spectacular, though his involvement in high-profile movies is two-decades old. Chinese entrepreneurs will soon learn Western audiences and mass-media are more sophisticated than that.
Chen Shui-bian arrested
Chen Shui-bian, former president of Taiwan, has been arrested for corruption, the AP reports:
Former President Chen Shui-bian on Tuesday was led from a prosecutor's office in handcuffs after being questioned for five hours on money-laundering allegations.
Taiwan television stations, which broadcast images of Chen being taken away, said that Chen arrived at Taipei district court, where a judge could order his detention.
Chen could be heard shouting, "This is a political persecution" and "Cheers for Taiwan," as he was being led away.
Chinese people's secrets
ChinaSMACK translates confessions and secrets posted by anonymous users on the Tianya forum website:
I always pretend to be a cultured person to trick girls into bed...
America's 911 incident was orchestrated by me, do not tell anyone...
One nation, divided by cleavage
From ESWN:
One Nation On Each Side, With Cleavage Between
Li Yanjin wore this low-cut bright-red dress with the People's Republic of China flag on the right side and the Republic of China flag on the left side. She was asked about whether she was concerned about being criticized in Taiwan and banned in China.
She said that the co-existence of both flags on her body represents cross-strait peace. She said: 'I don't understand politics, but the economy is right now more important.'
Click through for pictures.
Is a press law the right answer to media chaos?
China Media Project looks at the debate over a potential press law in China:
Is it possible, in other words, that a terrible press law in China is preferable to vast and secretive propaganda system? Perhaps China's media can absorb the hits from a press law and work actively and openly for fairness while effectively neutralizing (over time) its nastiest enemy, the Central Propaganda Department, whose purpose might be diminished.
Is a bad law better than no law?
Taxi drivers on strike in Hainan, Gansu and Chongqing
Xinhua:
Cab drivers went on strike in another two Chinese towns on Monday, demanding government intervention on issues including high monthly cab rental fees and unlicensed taxis.
Just a week ago, cab drivers in China's fourth largest city, Chongqing, launched a two-day strike to protest insufficient supplies of compressed natural gas (CNG), which fuels most cabs in the city, competition from unlicensed cabs, high fines for traffic violations and the unfair division of fares between drivers and companies.
No cabs were seen running in Sanya, a major tourist city in south China's island province of Hainan, on Monday...
...Also Monday, cab drivers in the Yongdeng County of northwest China's Gansu Province staged a strike near the county's transport bureau office building.
November 10, 2008
DIY Olympic fireworks
Fireworks like those in the Olympic opening ceremonies will be on the market this Spring Festival, says The Beijinger's blog.
Sex Culture Festival opens in Guangzhou
From The Shanghai Daily:
Hordes descended on the Sixth Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival yesterday, paying 30 yuan (US$4.50) to get in -- triple the fee of 2006.
The annual event, which began in 2003, was free for its first three years. Organizers began charging 10 yuan in 2006, mainly to keep visitor numbers down and children out, according to Zhu Jiaming, deputy chief of the Guangdong Provincial Society of Sexology.
This year's festival features activities from talks on birth control to sex toys, a photo show on sexual health and eugenics, forums on sexology, quizzes and lingerie shows.
Overseas Chinese biggest fears
Phoenix TV weighs in on California's Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. Jocelyn at The Wu Way comments.
I am an Internetholic
Uln at Chinayouren comments on the newly-released diagnostic standard for Internet addiction:
One of the main problems with the approach of the Chinese authorities is that it doesn't seem to differentiate between addiction to the internet and addiction to online games. It is clear to anyone that has ever stepped into a chinese internet cafe that the real addiction problem here is to games, and not to the internet itself.
4 trillion yuan stimulus package for China
By Alan Wheatley of Reuters:
China has approved a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) government spending package to boost domestic demand and help the world's fourth-largest economy ride out the global credit crisis.
November 9, 2008
A rant about state-managed entertainment
Imagethief points to a Silicon Hutong article that predicts an upcoming showdown between digital video and traditional broadcasters, and then adds his own thoughts on the subject:
As for government guidance, if I have to watch one more mainland film where guys in ponytails stand around brooding at each other in between awesome-yet-tedious battle scenes and tepid, sexless interludes with winsome looking girls I might have to commit suicide by stir-frying my own head in peanut oil.
Chinese reactions to Obama victory
ChinaSMACK has translated a range of comments from Chinese forum websites about Obama's victory:
Such high character. So good. When can China be like this?
...I love America. I am so fond of America.
....Now there is hope for a Chinese to become president next time.
...I do not know why there are this many Chinese who support Obama. After he takes office, it will only be even more disadvantageous for China.
Taiwanese separatist mob attacks CCTV reporter
By Lydia Chen in The Shanghai Daily:
A CCTV presenter was attacked by separatists while in Taiwan covering the visit by the mainland's chief envoy to the island.
Chai Lu, the presenter of CCTV's 'Cross the Taiwan Strait' program, was recognized and attacked by a mob as she was leaving the Royal Hotel in Taipei on Wednesday night, where Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party, was holding a banquet to welcome Chen Yunlin, the visiting chief of the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.