Must-read China news by Danwei

In the New York Times, Joyce Hor-Chung Lau reports on Chan Yan-tak, a chef in Hong Kong whose restaurant has been awarded a three-star ranking by Michelin:

it was only through an odd stroke of luck that Mr. Chan, a stout, plain-spoken man his late 50s, was in contention at all: He had already quit the industry to be a stay-at-home dad when in 2002 the Four Seasons began looking for a master Cantonese chef for its new hotel here and coaxed him out of retirement. He began his career as an under-age kitchen hand but won his stars -- not without a dollop of local controversy in this city that takes its food very seriously -- on the strength of his delicately flavored Cantonese seafood creations, with a touch of French fusion, truffles and foie gras.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:35 PM | Permalink

From Inside-Out China, which notes the anniversary of Today magazine:

American readers probably know nothing about Today, the once extremely influential 'underground' literary magazine in China. Nobel nominee Bei Dao was one of the founding editors of the magazine

China Digital Times also linked to the Inside-Out China post.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:31 PM | Permalink

China Daily rounds up the faces that captures 2008. The list includes Zhou Zhenglong, who 'faked' photos of the South china tiger, the mainland's richest man Huang Guangyu, and Wen Jiabao.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:20 PM | Permalink

From People's Daily online (with pictures):

An old-fashioned trolley car is seen at Qianmen Street on Thursday. Two old-fashioned trolley cars began operating again on the 600-year-old Qianmen Street on Thursday after a nearly 50 year hiatus.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:18 PM | Permalink

The San Francisco Chronicle reviews Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet, the story of Gendun Choephel, "a liquor-imbibing, sex-talking Tibetan rebel who seems the antithesis of the calm and rational Dalai Lama."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:09 AM | Permalink

The Yangtse Evening Post picks the top ten stories that suckered the domestic press last year.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:47 AM | Permalink

What does 不折腾 mean? State Council Information Office Minister Wang Chen explains. Our commenters offer their own thoughts.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:45 AM | Permalink

China Daily has an account of four former Sanlu executives' day-long session before a three-judge panel. Tian Wenhua, former company chairman, explained how she learned of the melamine contamination and why the company continued to sell contaminated milk for months after problems were first reported.

Elsewhere, journalist Teng Yun quotes Tian as saying, "The Sanlu milk powder affair involved thinking about its influence on the Olympics."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:13 AM | Permalink

At Paper Republic, Bruce Humes interviews Martin Merz and Jane Weizhen Pan, translators of Wang Gang's novel English (英格力士):

As translators, we did our best in the translation to preserve the local colour wherever it appears.

As a reader, I think "remoteness" rather than "exoticness" is the important part of the story. The story could have taken place in other remote locations. Because it was very common in those days for educated people to be sent, or lured to backwaters. Xinjiang was just one of these places. There might be thousands of "Love Lius" in other parts of China.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:43 AM | Permalink

From the aforementioned paper:

5. The Sichuan earthquake in May caused heartache, and sent professional writers into the disaster zone. They wanted to be part of this collective consciousness, contributing to it with depth and unconventional angles. Investigative reports and poetry are two of the main genres they take an interest in.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:06 PM | Permalink

A weekly general-interest newspaper, a scholarly review, a monthly journal of opinion, and a women's magazine are challenging fate by launching amid an economic slowdown.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:08 PM | Permalink

From the China Rhyming blog:

...in mid-1938 as the Japanese were driving up the Yangtze to Hankou Time Magazine reported that in Shanghai the Japanese Army were ordered to seize pro-Chinese books by US authors including Carl Crow, Agnes Smedley, Edgar Snow, two issues of the New York Times, one issue of Time. They were all deemed too pro-Chinese...

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:31 AM | Permalink

The biggest ice Santa, and now China finds the 'largest dinosaur fossil site' in the world; Reuters reports:

Scientists in China say they have discovered the world's largest dinosaur fossil site in the eastern province of Shandong, state media reported on Tuesday.

Scientists had recovered some 7,600 fossils from a 300 metre (980 ft) long pit near Zhucheng city over the past seven months, Xinhua news agency said.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:47 AM | Permalink

A Nanjing district government hands out the "correct answers" that citizens are supposed to use when a provincial government agency asks them how well-off they are.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:51 PM | Permalink

Window of the South names its 'people of the year.' Also, a review of Yang Jisheng's Tombstone.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:48 PM | Permalink

A woman named Ma Cheng tells of the trouble her rare given name has gotten her into.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:44 PM | Permalink

Again at the WSJ China Journal, Bao Tong, an ex-high official in house arrest, recaps his memories of the reforms instigator, Deng Xiaoping:

One minute he wanted reforms, the next he was resolutely upholding the four basic principles of socialism: One minute he wanted to escape from a political dead end, the next he had returned to it.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 2:34 PM | Permalink

WSJ's China Journal rounds up and translates Xinhua's very own top ten stories of 2008 (in Xinhua's own unique language):

-Lhasa is struck by the '3.14' (March 14) violent criminal incident of beating, smashing, looting and burning.
-An especially severe 8.0-magnitude earthquake hits Wenzhou, Sichuan.
-Beijing successfully holds the Olympics and Paralympics.
-The Sanlu melamine milk powder incident turns society's attention to increasing the level of food safety.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 2:25 PM | Permalink

Is the title of James Fallows' book about his time in China, since 2006, as a reporter for The Atlantic, which is on release today. The China Beat does an e-mail interview with the author and reporter:

Ahah! You have cruelly revealed the trademarked secret of everything I've ever written for the magazine!

James Fallows has a blog at The Atlantic website.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:28 AM | Permalink

From China Daily:

China Eastern Airlines, a key air carrier in China, announced on Monday it will get a total capital injection of 7 billion yuan through issuing more A and H shares to its holding company China Eastern Air Holding Company.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:15 AM | Permalink

For The Guardian, science correspondent James Randerson writes:

The new find, from the Linxia basin in China's Gansu province, suggests that Asia was the evolutionary cradle for the fleet felines. The nearly complete skull is among the oldest cheetah fossils yet found. It is around the same age as a 2.5m year-old related species discovered in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1997.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 10:19 AM | Permalink

For The National, Michael Donohue writes about professional baseball in China, and why no one's looking for 'the baseball Yao Ming' anymore:

Technically, they're wrong. But there are only 20 baseball fields in the entire country, according to Shen Wei, the secretary general of the China Baseball Association, a tiny department within the state sports ministry. About 400 Chinese make a living playing baseball, affiliated with the state sports system. Another several thousand play on loosely organised school and university clubs, usually setting up their bases on soccer fields. Exact figures are a state secret, but it's possible that the number of people executed annually in China only recently dropped below the number of people who play organised baseball.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:02 AM | Permalink

The bezdomny ex patria blog translates an article from The Beijing News which reports that the city's use of recycled water is set to surpass what it takes from the Miyun Reservoir.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:35 AM | Permalink

Xinhua via People's Daily Online:

Auditors across the country initiated investigation in more than 104,000 enterprises and agencies in the period, Liu said at a national year-end auditing conference here.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:26 PM | Permalink

Adam Minter, of Shanghai Scrap, and David Kang, professor at the University of Southern California, talk on Minnesota Public Radio about the 'ghost towns' in the south of China, amongst other things.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 2:23 PM | Permalink

From China Daily:

The China Dairy Industry Association, a coalition of about 600 dairy manufacturers nationwide, said on Saturday that 22 Chinese producers will provide one-time compensation payments to victims' families,

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:01 PM | Permalink

From Reuters:

Fears of a prolonged recession in China have triggered a sharp increase in divorce inquiries addressed to lawyers and financial advisers, state media reported on Monday, with timing a key issue.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:48 AM | Permalink

At Global Voices Online, Portnoy translates some reactions by Taiwan-based bloggers to the death of AV actress Ai Iijima (饭岛爱).

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:46 AM | Permalink

ESWN translates a Southern Weekend article on the cases of journalist arrests this year:

Our investigation showed that the many cases of journalists being arrested all involved other cases behind them, and the informants were arrested as well.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:36 AM | Permalink

Over at the Washington Post, Maureen Fan interviews Du Daozheng, an 85-year-old party loyalist and director of the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, which got into trouble recently with the authorities. The article also touches on the other issues to do with Chinese media today.

And yet Du was able to challenge the propaganda officials by reminding them that a group of retired senior leaders had elected him to run the magazine.

For more on Yanhuang Chunqiu and the propaganda officials, China Media Project has a summary.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 9:52 PM | Permalink