"Footprints" in Chinese popular culture
Can Chinese references to "footprints in the sand," attributed to the Bible, be traced back to the American inspirational poem "Footprints"?
« August 23, 2009 - August 29, 2009 | Main | September 6, 2009 - September 12, 2009 »
September 5, 2009
September 4, 2009
Cui Jian's concert on the square
Cui Jian and his band play four songs for hunger strikers in 1989.
Internet addiction: searching for a definition
Internet addicts are no longer to receive shock therapy. But what is Internet addiction? Hu Yong urges against a rush to define a mental health condition.
Will PLA troops train with the Americans and Australians?
The China Daily reports on a request made by foreign military chiefs for China's troops to participate in joint naval and land exercises:
Meanwhile, military cooperation between the US and Australia "has been strengthened" in recent years, and Washington has expected Canberra to play a more important role in the Asia Pacific region, he said.
Senior Colonel Li Jie, a researcher with the Chinese Navy's Military Acadamy, while admitting the invitation was a "sign of goodwill", said the US may want to use the event to better understand China's military and its intentions.
"Shanghai is not the moon"
The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore does a mini Twitter-survey about how Shanghai should be improved, and writes about the 45 billion dollar city beautification plan for the 2010 Expo, as well as its mascot Haibao:
The goal is to wow visitors to the 2010 World Expo, a biennial boondoggle which the rest of the world tends to ignore, but which Shanghai is treating like it is the equivalent of Beijing’s Olympics.
(Anyone remember the 2008 Expo in Zaragoza? Or the 2000 shindig in Hanover?)
Besides the non-stop building works, Shanghai is also ironing out some of its quirks. Residents are being encouraged not to hang laundry on the streets, to wear pajamas in public, or to spit. The employees on the metro are being told to wear uniforms. Bad English, or Chinglish, signs are being corrected.
Like Beijing, Shanghai is also going on an environmental drive, and the corporate pavilion at the Expo is made from used CD cases.
My favourite bit of Expo madness is that Haibao, the blue mascot of the event, has both a Twitter profile and Facebook page despite both website currently being censored by the Chinese government.
Yet another online plagiarist nabbed
China Hush reports that Vivibear, a Swedish-Chinese author of fantasy romances published predominantly on the Internet, has been caught out for plagiarizing, of all things, other net-lit:
For example Vivibear’s “Search for the Dragon” (寻龙记) had 13 places were plagiarized from famous internet novel “Those Things in Ming Dynasty” (明朝那些事). After this more and more netizens volunteered joining the comparison effort, to search for evidence of Vivibear’s plagiarizing. In less than a month netizens found Vivibear plagiarized 173 authors’ 203 literatures. Even though there were many plagiarizing incidents in China in recent years, plagiarizing in such large scale was the first.
See also: Swedish-Chinese author accused of plagiarism, by Peter Vinthagen Simpson in The Local.
Kai-Fu Lee leaves Google China
Bloomberg reports:
Google Inc. said Kai-Fu Lee will step down as president of the company’s operations in China to form a venture in Beijing.
Boon-Lock Yeo, director of Google’s Shanghai engineering office, and John Liu, who heads Google’s sales team in Greater China, will take on Lee’s responsibilities, Mountain View, California-based Google said in an e-mail today.
A little bit like the Mass Games
At the New Yorker blog, Evan Osnos embeds a Youtube video showing students practicing for the 60th anniversary celebrations.
September 3, 2009
More Xinjiang arrests
UPDATE: from the BBC:
A witness told the BBC that as many as 2,000 ethnic Han Chinese had been demonstrating in the capital Urumqi.
A trigger for the protests appears to have been a spate of unexplained stabbings using hypodermic syringes.
Local media said nearly 500 people, almost all Han, had sought treatment for stabbing in the past few weeks.
There has also been an alarming report about HIV-infected needles from the New York Times.
--
Fifteen people have been seized in Xinjiang for stabbing people with syringes, state media reports. From China Daily:
Police have seized 15 people for stabbing members of the public with hypodermic syringe needles in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a senior local official said Wednesday.
Of the 15, four were officially arrested and prosecuted, said Zhu Hailun, head of the political and legal affairs commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committee in Xinjiang.
China first to purchase IMF bonds: 50 billion dollars worth of them
Xinhua reports:
The International Monetary Fund(IMF) said on Wednesday that China has agreed to buy the first bonds issued by the agency for about 50 billion dollars.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, have signed the agreement, the IMF said.
According to the agreement, China would purchase up to 32 billion (around 50 billion dollars) SDR, or Special Drawing Rights, in IMF notes.
"The note purchase agreement is the first in the history of the fund, and follows the endorsement by the Executive Board on July 1,2009 of the framework for issuing notes to the official sector," said the 186-nation institution.
Melting ice children help countdown to Copenhagen
In Ditan Park Greenpeace China demonstrated how 100 ice children could have an effect on people's consciousness about global warming.
There's also a video of this from Greenpeace.
A comeback for the hurdler?
Liu Xiang, the hurdler, could return for the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix in his home city later this month, reports China Daily.
Drowned in the world's saliva
China Hush translates a story from Oriental Outlook magazine about a group of college students from the United States who looked into China's "angry youth" phenomenon and how it is interpreted outside the country.
Understanding the CurrentTV / North Korea fiasco
Adam Cathcart has another fascinating post about North Korean issues: an examination of the unreliability of information about the real situation along China's border with North Korea:
Does no one care, or find consequential, what China’s attitude would be in such a highly-publicized incident in the event that it were true that KPA troops hunting for foreigners walked into Jilin? In analyzing things should we not be aware of Chinese sensitivities about “territorial integrity” in a chuck of territory (one no less where Koreans in the early 1930s were overwhelmingly seen by Chinese as the spearhead of Japanese imperialism, not guerrilla fighters) which go way deeper than Tibet ever could? What is the functional linkage between KPA border guards and those on the Chinese side? Neglect of the basic issue — China’s response to the idea of KPA on Chinese soil — has, regrettably, been a completely unexamined facet of the whole CurrentTV affair.
...
In fact, Chinese media, which would be on this story like, well, flies on s*** if they thought it would serve their purpose, is studiously ignoring the Ling/Lee divulgence. Instead, China is mending its fences with the DPRK, since North Korea’s foreign minister is landing in Beijing (funny how the timing worked out here) and the two countries need to figure out how, among other things, to play the Japan card. A cute story about North Korean liberalization of the advertising/food service sector is included, and overall things are pretty sweet right now.
September 2, 2009
Laura Ling and Euna Lee speak out
The two Current TV journalists who were captured in March on the North Korean-China border talk about their mission and the stories they were trying to tell. From the LA Times:
We didn't spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but it is a minute we deeply regret. To this day, we still don't know if we were lured into a trap. In retrospect, the guide behaved oddly, changing our starting point on the river at the last moment and donning a Chinese police overcoat for the crossing, measures we assumed were security precautions. But it was ultimately our decision to follow him, and we continue to pay for that decision today with dark memories of our captivity.
After we were detained, the two of us made every effort to limit the repercussions of our arrest. In the early days of our confinement, before we were taken to Pyongyang, we were left for a very brief time with our belongings. With guards right outside the room, we furtively destroyed evidence in our possession by swallowing notes and damaging videotapes. During rigorous, daily interrogation sessions, we took care to protect our sources and interview subjects. We were also extremely careful not to reveal the names of our Chinese and Korean contacts, including Chun. People had put their lives at risk by sharing their stories, and we were determined to do everything in our power to safeguard them.
A hot trash collector
GoChengdoo.com, a partner of GoKunming.com, has started translating news articles about Chengdu and Sichuan. For example, this one about a hot trash collector:
Recently, the area around Moziqiao at Shenxianshu has been haunted by a young trash-picker, attracting a lot of double-takes from passersby. After his photo appeared on online discussion forums, netizens bestowed upon him an unparalleled nickname: "The Most Handsome Scavenger of All Time."
After some minor setbacks, this reporter finally tracked down this handsome "post-80s" master of the bin. By this time, he had already traveled to more than 10 cities all over the country, just by scavenging recyclables out of the trash. He deftly collects bottles and scraps and when he amasses some money he'll go off to another city for more travels.
China's manufacturing on road to recovery
Terence Poon at the Wall Street Journal writes about China's steady manufacturing industry:
The statistics bureau-backed China Information News reported Tuesday that industrial output of small companies in the southern province of Guangdong, a key manufacturing base, rose 3.1% in the first half from a year earlier, up 1.2 percentage point from the first quarter's growth rate.
Still, that rate of growth was lower than large companies' output growth nationwide, according to monthly figures issued by the bureau. Nationwide industrial output by bigger companies rose 7.0% in the first half from a year earlier.
Previously unknown missiles to be shown on Oct 1
AFP expands on State media reports about the October 1 National Day and 60th anniversary celebrations:
China will unveil a range of previously unknown missiles during its October 1 National Day parade, including intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, state media said Wednesday.
The new hardware on display also will include conventional cruise missiles and both short- and medium-range missiles, the Global Times newspaper reported, citing an unnamed People's Liberation Army source...
The weapons have already been distributed to the military and are ready for operation, the source said.
See also: The Global Times reports that it's all for the sake of awareness:
Li Daguang, a senior military expert at the PLA University of National Defense, emphasized that the military parade is not for saber rattling but aims to promote national pride, confidence and awareness of national defense.
"Some countries, observing China's parade with colored glasses, show off their weapons around the world on the battlefield instead," Li said.
Blogging about a husband in jail
An American woman whose husband was arrested for patronizing prostitutes in a police raid on a massage parlor has started a blog about her experiences trying to get him out and look after him in jail, found via Aimee Barnes.
Earthquake documentary filmmakers refused entry
The New York Times reports that American filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill, whose documentary, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, looks into schools that collapsed in last year's Sichuan earthquake, have been denied visas to accompany their film to the Beijing International Film Festival:
“We are extremely disappointed that the Chinese government denied our request for visas and that we will not be permitted to discuss this film with a Chinese audience in Beijing,” Mr. Alpert and Mr. O’Neill said in a joint e-mail message. “The denial of our visas fits in with a pattern of what seems to be a complete commitment on the part of this Chinese government to crush any inquiry into the possibility of wrongful deaths during the earthquake in Sichuan.”
Chen Cong, a vice consul in the press office of the Chinese Consulate in New York, declined to explain the rejection, saying that diplomatic organizations had “the right not to give a reason for why the visa was denied.”
September 1, 2009
Oil prices drop almost 4%
From agencies via the China Daily:
Oil prices fell nearly 4 percent to below $70 a barrel on Monday as fear of a curb in Chinese bank lending dented optimism about the pace of economic recovery and a potential rebound in global energy demand.
US crude for October delivery settled down $2.78, or 3.8 percent, at $69.96 a barrel, having fallen as low as $69.13 in intraday trade. In London, Brent crude settled down $3.14 at $69.65 a barrel...
Jitters about the Chinese economy, the world's second largest oil consumer, also weighed on other Asian stock markets.
CCTV should report on state leaders
In a column for China Newsweek, journalist Chang Ping argues that paradoxically, CCTV Network News without ten minutes of leaders' daily activities is even further from quality journalism than its old formula was.
"There is no open information here"
At China Elections, Paulina Hartono translates a China Youth Daily report on one Nanjing citizen's attempts to obtain public information from the government:
However, Wang Qing says that he won't think about those issues for the time being. He still hasn't received the answers he was looking for, and has begun to worry about his and his family's safety. Now when he receives calls from government departments, the voices are always menacing. These departments would find him later and say, "Have other units been using our name? Our office's conduct is always disciplined".
Danwei previously translated an interview with Wang Qing.
Can Chinese companies renege on commodity derivative contracts?
The New York Times reports on a Caijing story that suggests that China's Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has informed foreign banks that it will given Chinese companies permission to break money-losing derivatives contracts:
A Hong Kong spokeswoman for the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Donna Chan, said the group was aware of the report, but had not seen any such letter and could not comment further.
While Sasac is a powerful agency whose broad mandate puts it in charge of Chinese government assets and the state-owned enterprises, or S.O.E.s, that manage them, the contracts signed by S.O.E.s to hedge against changes in commodities prices fall under jurisdictions outside of mainland China — notably Hong Kong and Singapore.
August 31, 2009
The third case of the lead poisoning affair
AP reports on the two hundred children with lead poisoning in Kunming:
Two hundred children are suffering from lead poisoning in southwest China, the country's third such case of mass sickening in the past month, an official newspaper said Monday.
Parents in Tongdu, a township in Yunnan province's capital of Kunming, blamed the poisoning on a nearby industrial park, the China Daily reported.
Earlier this month, more than 1,300 children in central Hunan province and at least 615 children in northern Shaanxi province tested positive for lead poisoning, which can damage the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and memory loss.
China's space pioneer under the microscope
Peter Brown writes for the Asia Times about Tsien Hsue-shen (钱学森, Qian Xuesen), the Chinese rocket scientist who was the subject of Iris Chang's biography Thread of the Silkworm and a new paper on the development of China's space program:
Although not everything that Qian endorsed was a winner, Qian possessed the ability to successfully delegate and this, among other things, enabled the Chinese program to move forward. And while Kulacki and Lewis are right to label Qian as an excellent cheerleader - "After the successful launch of East is Red 1 and an enthusiastic speech by Qian Xuesen, the assembled experts boldly proposed a plan to put a Chinese astronaut in space by the end of 1973." (pg 20) - and while his ability to inspire and motivate his trusted associates and fans deserves attention, this was not his primary role.
China may buy over 3 million iPhones in 2010
Following the official announcement of Apple's collaboration with China Unicom on Friday, Bloomberg reports on the expected sales:
“China was the last missing piece to the iPhone international story,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis. He recommends buying Cupertino, California-based Apple’s shares, which he doesn’t own.
The agreement allows Apple, which has sold more than 26 million iPhones in over 80 markets, to enter a country with more wireless subscribers than the combined populations of the U.S., Japan and Germany. China has room to grow because almost half of Chinese people have no mobile phones and companies are beginning to roll out third-generation services...
Some analysts aren’t as optimist as Piper Jaffray’s Munster about iPhone sales in China. Apple may sell 2 million iPhones in China next year, with each million translating into 18 cents to 20 cents a share of profit, said Jeffrey Fidacaro, a New York- based analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group.
Here's to you Chris Lee
cfensi writes an appreciation of Li Yuchun (aka Chris Lee), the Super Girl winner who has shown a remarkable amount of staying power despite the mockery and criticism she has received:
Throughout the changes that have occurred over the years in China’s music industry, and China’s entertainment scene, there exists one constant, and that constant is the reigning queen of mainland Cpop no matter whose talk show Jane Zhang goes on. She is Chris Lee, or Li Yuchun, a bizarre inexplicable pop culture figure to anyone who didn’t fall into her “fensi” category. This fact has perplexed us here too at Cfensi, and frustrated us from the beginning. Not only does Li Yuchun not have the Miss Universe looks that one hopes to represent a country, but she also sadly lacked in the amount of singing talent that would explain away those looks. All she had was her unbelievable solid presence, an assurance that most people could only covet from afar, an assurance that distanced her from the majority.
August 30, 2009
Lu Xun in textbooks and on the net
ChinaGeeks translates an essay by Chang Ping on Lu Xun's place in the secondary school curriculum.
At the same time, because the textbooks provide prescribed responses for Lu Xun’s essays, students feel Lu Xun is dull, dry, and even begin to oppose him. Because these standardized responses have been politicized for some time now, [students] see Lu Xun as a spokesperson for [CCP] ideology and negate the time in which he lived.
Also on the same site, a survey about Lu Xun from Anti-CNN.
Yunnan media bans boilerplate about social disturbances
ESWN translates a Southern Metropolis Daily article on a decision by the Yunnan propaganda authorities banning terms like "a small handful", "evil elements," and "troublemakers" from being used in reports about social disturbances.