Court warned in frog compensation case
Fu Qiang sued a construction company for setting off explosions that killed 270,000 of his pig frogs. With the case undecided, local authorities warned a Chongqing court not to "go its own way."
« May 2010 | Main | July 2010 »
June 30, 2010
Centry Party School not a big party school
"Central Party School removes its veil of mystery" is the headline at the China Daily. Behind the veil is a school where party officials study hard, reflect, take "strolls," and absolutely do not live it up by eating and drinking while their secretaries do their homework for them.
Chengdu PSB rules keep foreigners out of 'net bars
GoChengdoo reports on new PSB rules that require next-generation ID cards for web cafe access, which effectively bars use by bars foreigners:
Li Tingqi has been studying in Chengdu for four years. Two days ago, Li Tingqi had made plans with Korean friends to go to the Internet cafe for an online gaming session. As usual, at the big Internet cafe near Sichuan University, they pulled out their 'net-cafe cards to sign in. But the employee at the counter told them that according to new Public Security Bureau regulations, the Internet bar has implemented a system for swiping the new-generation ID cards, and only those cards. Any other form of ID would not be accepted.
"We're all overseas students from South Korea, how can we have Chinese IDs?" Li Tingqi and his friends could not understand. He took out his passport and his student ID in order to verify his identity, but the employee maintained that he would not be able to surf the 'net without a second-generation ID card.
Predicting success at universities
The Wall Street Journal blog writes about top scorers in the gaokao.
Rescuers search for 107 in landslide
From the Associated Press:
Hope of finding survivors of a landslide that trapped at least 107 people was diminishing Tuesday as rescuers used heavy machinery including bulldozers to move debris in rain-hit southwestern China.
Villagers huddled in tents set up at the site as rescuers searched for their family members. The first body was pulled out late Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said, only identifying it as that of a child.
June 29, 2010
Italian police raid Chinese criminal gangs
Guy Dinmore in The Financial Times:
Italian police targeting Chinese criminal gangs launched dawn raids across the country on Monday and said they had broken up multibillion-euro money-laundering operations while seizing illegal factories and other assets.
Operation Great China, led by the Guardia di Finanza tax police in Florence and involving some 1,000 officers, was the biggest of its kind to date. Seventeen Chinese and seven Italians were arrested while police seized more than 150 companies and properties, and 166 luxury cars from across Italy.
Google to stop redirecting mainland users to HK site
The Official Google Blog offers an update on their situation in the China market:
We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.
...
Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP license renewal application based on this approach.
June 28, 2010
Whistle-blowers and martyrs
A translation of an opinion piece written by Shi Zhe for the Southern Weekly:
When educating the public, it should be said that anti-corruption efforts are not only a matter for government. It is also important for citizens to be involved. However, when regulations are drawn up and the wheels are put in motion, things must be done in a purely professional manner, which is the government’s responsibility. Regular citizens should not so easily become “martyrs” and employees at every level across the nation should not be coerced by power to become accessories to “martyrs”.
Murakami's translators on emulating style
Now that Shi Xiaowei's simplified Chinese translation of 1Q84 has been released for the mainland market, two other translators of Haruki Murakami discuss how they approach the author's work.
China's private healthcare racket
Why is the price of private healthcare in China rising at 3,000% a year? How long will the private clinics be able to get away with it?
The dancing beauty and other tales of carp
At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter continues his tale of fishing outside of Shanghai:
It’s the kind of anticipation that leads experienced fishermen to sit on a boat in the heat of the mid-day sun, lines in the water, knowing that – under such conditions – they’re about as likely to catch a blue whale as a walleye or a bass. And it’s just that kind of anticipation which – along with growing wealth, leisure time, automobile ownership, and restlessness – drives the quickening growth of recreational fishing in China.
Travel China’s cities and I guarantee that – if you come across an urban creek, river, or canal – you’ll eventually find somebody with a line in it, no matter how polluted, fishing for pleasure.
Artist Wu Guanzhong dies
Joyce Hor-Chung Lau writes for the International Herald Tribune about Wu Guanzhong, a modern Chinese painter who died last week at the age of 90:
The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong said in an obituary that Mr. Wu was “one of the most important figures of 20th-century Chinese art.” In his last years, he gave generously to public museums.
He donated dozens of paintings to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, adding to a collection of previous gifts. In a last gesture Friday, he added five more ink works, the state news agency Xinhua reported. The museum, which is now holding a solo show for Mr. Wu, called his works “a major contribution to the integration of Chinese and Western art.”
Preempting hooliganism: away fans barred from Tianjin
A Modern Lei Feng writes about a peculiar attempt to cool down an inter city rivalry:
Unfortunately this season, Tianjin wasn’t willing to take any of these measures. Just days before the match at Tianjin, representatives of the biggest group of Guoan fans were called to meet with the club and police and were told they wouldn’t be allowed to travel to Tianjin. Their deposits on the buses they rented and tickets they bought were returned and other bus companies were contacted and told not to allow buses to be chartered to Tanggu for the match.
The question is why? Was this being overly safe? Too afraid of trouble? Or was Tianjin too lazy to make a plan or take up the expense of more police? A few Beijing fans ignored the warning and made the trip anyway, only to be removed from the stadium before kickoff “for their own safety”.
June 27, 2010
Not simply a reaction to a few crimes
At the Granite Studio, Zhang Yajun writes about French attitudes toward Asians and the overseas Chinese protests in Paris:
Possessed of a mentality that seeks to avoid trouble whenever possible, Chinese communities usually prefer to keep problems to themselves rather than seek help from police. Being perceived as physically weak also makes Chinese seem easy targets for attacks and robbery. But after keeping quiet for many decades, the Chinese community in Paris finally decided to publicly demand greater security. This demonstration not only draws attention to the problem of violence and crime against Chinese in France, but signals an important step towards political action by the ethnic Chinese community.
June 25, 2010
Harbin man dies in detention
China Daily reports:
According to the release, at 9 pm on June 16, fellow detainees told officers that Wang was suffering from fever. He was given some pills, following which his condition deteriorated.
He was rushed to a hospital, where he died at 8 am on June 17, the police statement said.
But Wang's family is insisting he died unnaturally because his body was bruised.
"There were many visible bruises on his chest, head, left elbow and armpits," the Beijing News quoted Wang Guopeng, Wang's son, as saying.
High court publishes rule for torture confessions
From Xinhua:
The regulation on principles and detailed rules for scrutinizing evidence in death penalty cases states that all physical evidence for the prosecution and defense should be revealed, identified and open to question in court.
Every item of evidence should be verified through legal procedures.
The other regulation sets out detailed procedures for examining evidence and stipulates that confessions obtained through torture and other violent measures from a defendant are inadmissible.
The rules were released by five ministries and judicial organs at the end of May, following the case of a "killer" wrongfully jailed for a murder that never occurred.
June 24, 2010
Wary over shark fin soup
The New York Times reports:
When Christine and Constant Tang, both avid scuba divers, got married in 2003, they did something unusual: They did not serve shark’s fin soup at their wedding reception in Hong Kong.
“The waiter who took our banquet order gave us a pretty strange look, and my father-in-law had to explain in his welcoming speech that we felt strongly about being environmental, and that we were not just being cheap,” Mrs. Tang said.
Terrorist plot exposed in Xinjiang
Breaking news. From Reuters:
Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping told a brief news conference that more than 10 people had been arrested and explosives seized.
"The breaking up of this large terrorist group once again proves that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is the major terror threat facing China at present and henceforward," Wu said.
At least two of the arrested had fled China and were returned last December.
18 Chinese firms get approval for online mapping
From The China Daily:
Authorities have approved 18 domestic companies to provide Internet mapping services in the country, with a number of applications from foreign vendors still being considered.
The domestic companies were selected out of about 30 applicants and the list of approved providers is expected to be announced soon, the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) told China Daily.
The move is expected to pose challenges for the operation of foreign Internet companies such as Google in China.
"According to China's Surveying and Mapping Law, foreign firms are not allowed to provide surveying and mapping services. Their activities in China must be under joint ventures or in partnership with domestic firms," the SBSM said.
Illegal dog slaughterhouse - photos
CinaOggi has assembled a gallery of photos from 163.com of an illegal dog slaughterhouse, just closed by the authorities in Changchun city, Jilin Province.
The slaughterhouse worked for about two years. Every day were brought two or three vans containing living dogs. The operational capability of this illegal activity reached up to 300 dogs per day. The butchers used only a stick and a knife to kill the animals. After the slaughter process, a dog is sold for just 6, 8 RMB (less than 1 euro) mainly to small hotels and privates.
June 23, 2010
Explanation of China's new online payment regulations
A round-up and explanation of the new regulations issued by the People’s Bank of China that target online payment service providers, by Stan Abrams on Forbes' China Tracker blog.
Real name requirement for online games?
From The China Daily:
The country's Ministry of Culture (MOC) has meted out a tentative regulation on the administration of online games, stipulating that online game players should register their real names before participating in virtual competitions in cyberspace.
Dollar - yuan currency tensions from the 1930s
Benn Steil in The Financial Times:
[Currency valuation] is an issue that has bedevilled US-China relations for longer than most people think. In fact, the peg to the dollar was a major source of friction in the 1930s, although at the time the two sides’ positions were reversed.
The 1934 Silver Purchase Act, passed under relentless political pressure from an alliance of silver producers, banker-bashers and inflation proponents, obliged the US Treasury to buy up the metal and boost its price. The practice wreaked havoc on the Chinese currency, which was tied to silver...
June 22, 2010
Soy beanz meanz Heinz
From The Wall Street Journal:
H.J. Heinz Co. agreed to acquire Chinese soy-sauce maker Foodstar [福达] from private-equity firm Transpac Industrial Holding Ltd., providing the food company entry into China's fast-growing soy-sauce market.
Heinz will pay $165 million cash when the deal closes, with a potential performance-based payout in 2014. The size of that potential payout wasn't disclosed.
Jiangsu TV's Mary-Jess Leaverland
The Guardian reports on the China X-Factor winner.
Chinese community protest in Paris
China Daily reports:
"French-Asian associations are marching for the first time against the lack of security," said the president of the organizers, Chan Sing Mo. "If the problem continues, we'll come out again in larger numbers."
In the last few months, Chinese in the French capital have been subjected to attacks and violent robberies by youths in Belleville and other parts of eastern Paris, and many feel at a disadvantage as immigrants.
"Those who can't speak French or don't have proper papers are not able to complain," a florist in Belleville said.
Problems in the offing for Charles River and Wuxi Pharmatech?
David Wolf at the Silicon Hutong:
I am starting to follow with interest the current effort by Charles River Laboratories International to buy Chinese pharmaceutical research outsourcing company WuXi PharmaTech for US$1.6 billion.
The deal, which was announced on April 26th, has not been covered extensively, but is starting to get some attention because an activist hedge fund holding 7% of Charles River’s stock, Jana Partners, is opposing the deal, suggesting WuXi PharmaTech is overpriced.
What fascinates me, though, is the silence (thus far) of the Chinese government.
Flood death toll at 175
1.7 million people evacuated
From The China Daily:
Torrential rains battering south and central China have left 175 people dead and forced the evacuation of 1.7 million, as washed out roads and railways hampered rescue work Monday.
Chongqing Hilton hotel closed by police for prostitution charges
Malcolm Moore in The Daily Telegraph
Hilton has been severely embarrassed in China after one of its flagship hotels was closed down by the police over an alleged brothel operating in the basement...
...The vice squad raided the Diamond Dynasty karaoke club in the basement of the hotel on Saturday, arresting 102 people, of whom 22 were formally charged with offences, according to a spokesman...
...However, a spokesman for Hilton Worldwide said the hotel company was not responsible for the running of the karaoke club, which the police believe was used for prostitution.
June 21, 2010
Asian stocks lift on vague announcment of RMB "flexibility"
From The New York Times:
China’s weekend announcement of more flexibility for the renminbi triggered an across-the-board rally in Asian stock markets Monday as investors welcomed the political and economic implications of the announcement...
...The Chinese authorities’ weekend move was merely a decision to allow the currency to fluctuate in a narrow trading range against the U.S. dollar, and in fact the central bank set the renminbi’s value in early trading Monday at the same level as it traded Friday. But the announcement was widely seen as a precursor to a gradual appreciation of the renminbi...
Pingdingshan mine blast kills at least 46
Xinhua reports:
At least 46 people died after an explosion struck a coal mine early Monday in Henan Province, the local government said.
A total of 72 miners were trapped after explosives went off at the powder magazine of the Xingdong No.2 Mine in Weidong District of Pingdingshan City at about 1:40 a.m..
The municipal government of Pingdingshan confirmed that 26 miners have escaped but the rest 46 were killed.
Internationalism saves the day
On Youku Buzz, a clip of a World Cup recap show:
On “No Interference,” a World Cup program made by Youku for Chinese netizens, French comedy performer Julian Gaudfroy — better known to his Chinese fans as 朱利安 Zhu Li’an — came to poor Green’s defense after well-known host Dong Lu asked what the fan reaction to Green’s gaffe would be. Skip ahead to 33:50 to hear Julian express his admiration for Green’s sportsmanship and remind us all that win or lose, it’s all about how you play the game. For those keeping score: that’s a Frenchman defending a British goalie’s flub against an American team in Mandarin. International enough for you?
June 20, 2010
Publication of Li Peng memoirs halted
New Century Press has stopped publication of The Tiananmen Diary of Li Peng over copyright concerns, Reuters reports:
A source with ties to the leadership in Beijing who requested anonymity said Li had never consented to Bao publishing his memoirs, written in 2004 but suppressed by current Chinese leaders who seek to erase from public memory images of troops and tanks crushing the student-led movement.
"Relevant institutions provided information related to copyright (ownership) before publication. According to Hong Kong copyright laws, we have no choice but to scrap our original publication plans," Bao told Reuters by telephone from the former British colony on Saturday.
The North American Chinese-language newspaper World Journal has an interview with the publisher regarding the decision.
June 19, 2010
A private history museum in Sichuan
Frog in the Well, a history blog always worth a read, has a new post with plenty of photos by Alan Baumler on a private history museum in Sichuan:
Recently I went to the Jianchuan museums, which are in Anren, just outside Chengdu. It is an interesting place first because it is huge, financed by mogul Fan Jianchuan, and second because it is a private museum, something not very common in China.
The place is covers a lot of ground, and there are, or soon will be buildings showcasing West Sichuan folk customs, footbinding, traditional houses, and the response to the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. They are already working on the building for the last of these, and some of the artifacts are sitting outside.
June 18, 2010
90% of South African vuvuzelas made in China
ChinaHush has a post on South African's favorite noise-making tool for football fans, the vuvuzela:
Although the Chinese team did not make it to the World Cup, perhaps Chinese people can feel satisfied to know that 90% of the globally resounding horns are made in China.
Zhang Wuben and the traditional Chinese medicine racket
Zhang Wuben (张悟本), a nutritionist with dubious credentials, advocates a mung bean centered diet. How did he become so popular?
Chinese poetry has come alive again
Robert Hass writes for The Believer on Yu Jian and Xi Chuan:
Listening to their poems on that day two years ago, listening to them talk about the projects of their poetry, I was moved by their intensity and seriousness and playfulness and quick wit, and I found I couldn’t estimate what political and aesthetic valences their writing must have in China at this moment, any more than I could tell what role state censorship continued to play in what I was hearing.
But I could see that questions of this nature were part of what they found frustrating in their situation, and I began to understand why.
Workers at Toyota supplier on strike
From BusinessWeek:
Workers at a Toyota Motor Corp. affiliate in China went on strike, adding to a series of assembly-line walkouts that underscore pressure for higher wages in the world’s fastest-growing major economy...
...The stoppage comes as a Honda Motor Co. unit seeks to prevent workers at a parts factory in the region from resuming a strike after setting a 3 p.m. deadline to reach a pay settlement.
Chinese science fiction
A Sinica podcast on Chinese SF, plus a meaty reading list of English-language resources on the subject.
Southern Daily Group's failed bid for Newsweek
Sincoism looks at the recent failure of a bid by "an investor group led by China’s Southern Daily Group" to buy the failing Newsweek magazine.
June 17, 2010
"I'm not a tolerant guy"
Lonely China Day's frontman is interviewed by Wang Ge of the Beijinger.
Beijing bibliophile
Eric Setzekorn rounds up some of Beijing's bookstores for The China Beat:
The book landscape of Beijing is comprehensive but geographically dispersed, making shopping — particularly for those in town for a short period of time and reliant on public transportation — very difficult. This brief review is designed to highlight noteworthy bookstores and will, in Part II, briefly explore the changing market dynamics for readers in Beijing.
A photographer's eviction from a Shanghai house
Shanghai Street Stories presents photographs taken in a dilapidated building on Yulin Road.
Severe flood warnings following wet weather
More raining yesterday kills more people, with more injured. China Daily reports:
The National Meteorological Center issued a yellow alert on Wednesday morning for heavy rain across parts of China.
A statement on the center's website urges officials in several provinces, including Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong, to prepare for "possible floods and geological hazards".
Guangxi flood control and drought relief headquarters said on Wednesday that, as of Tuesday, the death toll from the recent spell of bad weather had climbed to 10 in the province, with 15 missing, and direct economic losses of nearly 400 million yuan ($58.8 million). The rain had also damaged 61 roads, ruined 66 dams and destroyed 1,170 houses.
Rescue workers recovered another three bodies from a landslide in Shuangshang village in Guangxi on Wednesday. Three others remain unaccounted for, Xinhua News Agency reported.
June 16, 2010
CIA shows film about spies captured in China in 1952
In The Wall Street Journal:
The Central Intelligence Agency went to new lengths Tuesday to clarify its role in a botched 1952 spying mission in China by allowing at least one reporter, from the Associated Press, access to the screening of the internal “documentary,” which agency leaders hope will be used as a teaching tool for its next generation of operatives...
...In November 1952, the operatives were on board a cargo plane with covert plans to help pick up an ethnic-Chinese spy, whom the CIA smuggled into the country months before. Downey and Fecteau, along with pilots Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz, weren’t aware the Chinese had uncovered the American’s mission. The Chinese shot down the plane: Both pilots were killed while Downey and Fecteau were captured and interrogated before being imprisoned for roughly the next twenty years.
10-star, and civilized
The autonomous region blog presents a rating system for families:
The “10-star, civilized household” (on yultuzluq medeniyetlik a’ile or shixingji wenminghu) is a rating system used mostly on the local level to monitor the life of individual families. Its origin isn’t immediately clear to me (probably a pre-1980s creation). You rarely find it in big cities today, yet the system is still popular among local governments in remote areas and smaller towns. Each family is given a plate with 10 aspects of family life deemed desirable, and a red star will be awarded (and fixed on the plate) if you get a pass on that aspect of family life.
Local languages
bezdomny ex patria muses on how Shanghainese and other local languages are or are not being transmitted to younger generations.
June 15, 2010
What do China's workers want?
Commentary by Leslie T. Chang, Cindy Fan, Huang Yasheng, Zhang Lijia and Mary Gallagher in The New York Times, reflecting on worker unrest, strikes and suicides in China.
Baby-kissing American politicians
Jamil Anderlini in The Financial Times:
US lawmakers are “baby kissing” incompetents who risk “poisoning the atmosphere” with China with their proposals to force Beijing to increase the value of its currency, according to Chinese official state media.
In this latest evolution of Chinese official insults one can clearly see the signs of a rising superpower. Gone are the accusations of imperialism and plaintive cries that US actions have “hurt the feelings” of 1.3bn Chinese people.
Inner Mongolian cop goes postal
From The Global Times:
A policeman was detained after alledgedly shooting dead three civilians and seriously injuring a police chief in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Saturday, the latest in a series of police shooting incidents in recent years.
June 14, 2010
The stabbing of director Yan Po
On ESWN, a summary of the confusing tale of the stabbing on film director Yan Po in Beijing.
RAF soldiers learning Chinese, 1951-1962
A review by Michael Rank of a new book Mandarin Blue, RAF Chinese Linguists in the Cold War, 1951-1962, a record of the experiences of several hundred British Royal Airforce soldiers who were drafted and sent to learn Chinese to listen in on radio signals from mainland China.
June 13, 2010
Some Honda employees go back to work
The New York Times reports:
Three workers said in separate telephone interviews that the strike continued and had not been settled. But one of the three, an activist in the strike, said that “four or five workers” had gone back into the factory and restarted the equipment for one small assembly line.
One of the strike’s leaders was so intimidated during a meeting on Saturday morning with management, local authorities and representatives of the national, government-controlled union that he immediately stopped participating in the leadership of the strike and has gone into hiding, the activist added.
The 1,700-employee factory manufactures locks, rear and side mirrors and many other low-value auto parts for Honda assembly plants all over the world. The sprawling, two-story white building houses many different short assembly lines.
Flooding kills 155
The Associated Press reports:
Virtually all of the country's major rivers were swollen, while water levels in lakes along the mighty Yangtze River were higher than in 1998, when catastrophic flooding killed about 4,000 people.
The office said 140,000 houses had collapsed and more than 1.3 million people had been moved to temporary shelter. Overall losses were about four times what they were last year, it said. Heavy rain has been falling since April, with 13 torrential storms on record already this season.
Flooding strikes along the Yangtze almost every summer, although authorities had claimed that construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam along the river's upper reaches would help modulate water levels and prevent major losses.
Student ambassadors at the USA Expo pavilion
At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter interviews two of the student ambassadors who get crowds warmed up after waiting in line at the Shanghai Expo's USA Pavilion:
My first visit to the USA pavilion happened a few days after it officially opened. It was a quiet evening, and the large crowds of recent weeks hadn’t yet materialized. I didn’t have to wait long in line, and after only a few minutes I was ushered into the lobby where I watched two young Americans make announcements – and joke – to a Chinese audience transfixed by their linguistic and cultural fluency. A few minutes later we were ushered into a movie theater where – just as in the lobby – a young American warmed up and joked with the crowd. The last theater was home to the true star of the show (if you ask the Chinese audience), a stocky young American, no more than twenty-three, I think, who worked the five-hundred audience members like a stand-up comedian. After the film, they rushed up to him with cameras, questions, and curiosity.
Yang Jisheng: Starvation in the Great Leap Forward
In The Financial Times, an excerpt from Richard McGregror's new book The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers:
Tombstone took its author, Yang Jisheng, nearly two decades of painstaking research to compile. In two volumes, it gives a minutely chronicled and irrefutable account of the death by starvation of 35-40 million Chinese between 1958 and 1961. It details a tragedy the ruling Communist party has long sought to cover over.
June 11, 2010
Goodbye Joan Hinton
Black and White Cat posts in remembrance of Joan Hinton (寒春), who died earlier this week at the age of 88.
The nuclear physicist had lived in China since 1949.
The Utopia online forum has some articles remembering Hinton (in Chinese).
Inflation rises to 19-month high
BusinessWeek reports:
China’s inflation accelerated in May to the quickest pace in 19 months, highlighting overheating risks in the fastest-growing major economy.
Today’s data, combined with surging exports and near- record property-price gains, underscore U.S. arguments for a more flexible yuan ahead of a Group of 20 nations meeting in Toronto in two weeks’ time. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday that a move could redress global economic “distortions” and help China cool prices.
Online jihad against Korea
China Elections and Governance reports on stampedes at the Shanghai Expo and Chinese cyber activists who crashed Korean band fan forums.
See also:
Ongoing online ‘jihad' against Korean pop fans at Global Voices Online.
ESWN has an overview and a battlefield report of successful hacks against Korean websites and Baidu (which intervened to halt discussion of the campaign on its BBS service).
June 10, 2010
Crowd-sourced cheating on the 2010 gaokao
A student in Sichuan posts a cry for translation help to a BBS -- while he's supposedly sequestered at the test center tackling the gaokao.
On the dissemination of misguided or erroneous speech
China Geeks translates an op-ed by He Weifang on the place of free expression in education:
It is even more baffling and ridiculous that these “regulations” actually confine the law itself to the forbidden area [of discourse] by prohibiting teachers to “disseminate misguided or erroneous speech that is directed against the law and the regulations”. As someone who teaches law I am simply terrified by this. In my classroom I have in the past explicitly told students that our State Compensation Law should actually be called a “State Non-Compensation Law” and that article 306 of the Criminal Law poses a serious threat to lawyers exercising their profession. In 2003 I and some fellow scholars publicly criticized the “Measures for Custody and Repatriation of Vagrants and Beggars” as an abhorrent practice. If you follow the reasoning of the provincial Work Group for Education and the Department of Education I fear my behavior could all be interpreted as the “dissemination of misguided or erroneous speech” and even cost me my job. Just imagine how much a regulation like this can hinder and imperil the spirit of critical thinking!
Are we mad or is this society mad?
NeochaEDGE talks to Zhang Neixian, director of No Country for Young Man (aka "Jobless Youth"):
I’ll come clean with you. This script was written purely so I could meet some hot chicks. I just wanted to find some girls to shoot S&M scenes. I said to Yu Ran to find a beautiful girl, but then he brought his own girlfriend here! Well, she wasn’t really his girlfriend, just some random girl who he played games with on the Internet and that was also their first time meeting each other. The male character, Ji Shuo, was my high school classmate. We chose Fang Zhou’s spare room as the shooting location, which is a a very dirty staff dormitory down in Da Zhongshi. Gradually, all these parts contributed to what is now an odd film.
The dreaded Discipline and Inspection teams
At the Asia Times, Wu Zhong writes about how the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection's efforts against graft has given it a fearsome reputation:
Cooperative from the start, the director made a "full confession", even divulging the pin (personal identification) number of a bank account which had 140,000 yuan (US$20,500) in it. The three men quickly withdrew the funds.
The official then told his captors about another bank account with 700,000 yuan in it and the men took him back to his office to retrieve the card. But by now, the official was beginning to suspect something.
Since real jiwei would never withdraw money from a suspect's account that could be used as evidence, the official shouted for help in his office. The men were quickly apprehended. It turned out that the fearsome jiwei were three unemployed, uneducated imposters.
During their police interrogation, the suspects confessed that they had taken inspiration for the crime and learned to act like real jiwei from anti-graft movies. The crime happened amid Xi's "Strike Hard" crackdown, so the three were quickly prosecuted with the mastermind receiving nine years in jail and the other two seven years each.
Xinjiang economic aid map
The New Dominion presents a color-coded map of the economic-aid pairing scheme between China's eastern provinces and areas within Xinjiang.
June 9, 2010
Another group sex trial - 17 year old girl
From The China Daily:
A 17-year-old girl who is suspected of participating in group sex parties has been put on trial in Dongguan No 2 People's Court in Guangzhou.
Li Jie (alias), a sophomore at Houjie vocational school, is being charged with group licentiousness in Dongguan.
In the public indictment, the prosecution said Li, who repeatedly had sex with several male students on one occasion, committed group licentiousness.
This comes on the heels of the recent sentencing of Professor Ma Yaohai to three years in jail for the same crime (see earlier Danwei translation).
Foxconn to change its 'factory town' model
CNN reports that the suicides has had too big an impact and the company will be giving its social welfare system back to the State.
Murong Xuecun on being undercover
Bruce Humes highlights Chinese writer Murong Xuecun's undercover pyramid scheme story.
Using a home-made canon to fight developers
Veggie Discourse has a translation of a nailhouse report in Wuhan.
June 8, 2010
2010 exam essay questions
The essay prompts from this year's National Matriculation Exam.
Substitutes for a real subway ticket
Micah Sittig volunteers at the Shanghai subway.
Tiananmen turns twenty-one
Alec Ash ponders 6.4. in its reincarnation in today's Peking University.
Dating show contestant banned?
Ma Nuo (马诺), a model who made herself famous by scorning poor guys on a Jiangsu TV dating show, could have upset SARFT for her sexy posing.
June 7, 2010
Jin Dynasty burial site discovered in Beijing
From The China Daily:
A burial site likely dating to the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) was discovered Thursday in the Lize Financial Business District of Fengtai district.
Three large structures, each about 80 m long and 10 m wide, were discovered during the excavation. Their history could date back to the Jin Dynasty, which in 1115 established its capital, Zhongdu, in the area of Beijing, an official told Beijing Times.
The official, from the Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage (BACH), said he believes the find provides rich evidence to prompt further research into the development of the city.
The article does not mention anything about the new proposed development around the Bell and Drum Tower area of central Beijing, which is intended to destroy one of Beijing's most charming traditional neighborhoods and replace it with a sterile shopping district.
China Youth Daily: Goldman Sachs is a gold slurping black hand
In The Financial Times by Jamil Anderlini:
Public criticism of Goldman Sachs has come to China, where the investment bank has been lambasted in articles in state-controlled media...
...“Many people believe Goldman Sachs, which goes around the Chinese market slurping gold and sucking silver, may have, using all kinds of deals, created even bigger losses for Chinese companies and investors than it did with its fraudulent actions in the US,” read the opening lines of an article in the China Youth Daily, a state-owned daily newspaper, last week.
High security for college entrance exams
AFP reports:
Nearly 10 million high school students began sitting for China's make-or-break college entrance exams Monday under tight security following a spate of school attacks and concerns over cheating.
Police, security guards and volunteers were seen in Beijing, patrolling and setting up road blocks outside exam venues, while state media said some schools have installed metal detectors for the two-day test.
Schools have been on edge since a wave of bloody attacks around the country this year left 17 people dead, including 15 young students, and scores injured.
An update on Liu Xiaobo
From ChinaGeeks:
Of course, Jilin and Liaoning are neighboring provinces, but Changchun and Jinzhou are not particularly close. And if Mr. Liu was born in Jilin, why would he have been moved to a Liaoning prison at all? As always, the machinations of the system are so easily obfuscated by the wall of bureaucrats between, say, Mr. Liu’s wife and himself, that it’s very difficult to tell what’s going on.
What does China imagine?
China Beat posts on science fiction in China, with a focus on A Strange Patient.
June 6, 2010
Honda "reaches pact" with workers
Not all media reports are as certain as this one, but according to Reuters the Honda strike is over:
Honda Motor said on Friday it settled a labor dispute at a Chinese car parts plant after almost three weeks of disruption, allowing it to build cars again in the world's fastest-growing market.
June 4, 2010
An open letter to Honda employees from the trade union
The China Study Group translates a letter from the local trade unions mediating the Honda strike to the striking workers they represent, following a scuffle between workers and representatives on May 31:
Yesterday the trade union participated in mediation talks between the workers and management of Honda. Because a portion of Honda employees have refused to return to work, factory production has been severely curtailed. In the process of discussions with forty or so employees, at one point there occurred some misunderstandings and verbal imprudence from both sides. Due to the impulsive emotional state of some of the employees, a physical conflict ensued between some employees and representatives from the union. This incident has left a negative impression on employees. A portion of these employees, after receiving word of the incident, seem to have misinterpreted the actions of the union as siding with management. Yesterday’s incident came entirely as a shock to us. If people feel that some of the methods used in yesterday’s incident were a bit difficult to accept, we apologize.
In regard to the above incident, the union would like to again state its position. Yesterday, the vast majority of employees returned to their positions. However, the behavior of the above mentioned group of forty or so workers has already damaged the interests of the majority of employees. In addition, such behavior harms factory production. The fact that the union has stood up and admonished these workers is entirely in the interests of the majority of employees. This is the responsibility of the union! All workers please carefully consider this.
The website also translates a letter from representatives of the strikers:
On 1 June, the Nanhai District Federation of Trade Union and the Shishan Town Federation of Trade Union issued the “Letter of Apology” which is based on irresponsible distortion of the facts.
A peek into Passion
The Global Times has published a story about the recent police raid on Passion, a Beijing nightclub famous for its beautiful, expensive prostitutes amongst other things:
Passion Club (Tianshang Renjian, meaning paradise on earth) in Beijing is known for many things. Powerful bosses, gorgeous "escort girls", mysterious guests, luxurious decor and the recent clampdown are a few of those.
Unions and the Honda strike
The Economist looks at the recent strike at a Honda plant in Foshan and the role of unions in industrial action, which is often to side with management rather than the workers.
June 3, 2010
Foxconn workers get a 30% increase in wages
From China Daily:
The basic salary for assembly line workers was raised from 900 yuan ($132) to 1,200 yuan per month, it said. The salaries of workers and foremen higher than 900 yuan were also boosted by at least 30 percent.
The world's largest electronics contract manufacturer said in a statement that the pay rise was attributed to rising consumer prices and living costs and its corporate performance.
Speech writer Expo guide
DeluxZilla presents a ready-made template for talking about the Expo:
When Talking About One’s Pavilion:
“We hope that Chinese visitors will gain a better understanding of our [or country name] culture, education, economy, history, art and music when touring the pavilion.”
“We have been both surprised and pleased with the amount of visitors coming to our pavilion every day.”
“If you want to see who is interested in our pavilion, just look at our line.”
“It is a chance for visitors to feel what it is like to live in our [or country name] country, experience our [or country name] way of life and better understand our [or country name] people.”
“We hope visitors will sample some of food and look in the gift shop.”
US Secretary of Defense misses China on Asia itinerary
The Washington Post reports:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates departed for Asia on Wednesday but had to drop a big country from his itinerary after China, still smarting over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, gave him the cold shoulder.
Shenzhener identity, reconsidered
At the Shenzhen Noted blog, Maryann O'Donnell writes about the relationship of old Shenzheners to their changing city:
In other words, these post 80s women, whether they still live in Shenzhen or elsewhere, speak of a growing alienation from the city.
Ironically, their’s is precisely the generation that many once predicted as who would be true “Shenzheners” – people who identified with the city, rather than with their hometowns. People who would have an unproblematic relationship to Shenzhen as their “hometown”. This was in fact the generation for whom the city was built.
Han Han on CNN on Tudou
An interview with Han Han by Anjeli Rao was aired on CNN's Talk Asia program last night. The video is not yet on CNN's website, but someone has uploaded it to Tudou.
Unfortunately, the Anglophone world's lowest common denominator style of presenting foreign languages on TV means that his original language is dubbed into English.
A compact microstructure that ages well
USAToday summarizes the results of a study by Zhejiang University chemists that unlocks the secret of 1,500-year-old sticky rice mortar:
Zhang calls the sticky rice mortar one of the greatest technological innovations of the time. It was stronger and more resistant to water than pure lime mortar. It was used to build tombs, pagodas and city walls, some of which still exist today and some of which have survived multiple, powerful earthquakes.
June 2, 2010
Chinese Indies shown around the globe
Shelley Kraicer writes about the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema and China Independent Documentary Festival. Via dGenerate Films.
Forced labor in Shilin county
GoKunming has a story on a slave labor brickyard:
Three years after the exposure and breaking up of slave rings at illegal brickyards in Shanxi province, a similar operation has been uncovered in Shilin county, 120 kilometers east of Kunming.
Last Friday night Shilin police raided a local illegal brickyard after receiving a tip in the morning from police in neighboring Wenshan county.
According to the tip from Wenshan, a young man named Ma Jiacai had been taken from a nearby village and forced to work at the brickyard in Shilin one month earlier. Wenshan police asked their Shilin counterparts to look for Ma.
Security guard shoots three judges
The New York Times reports:
Xinhua said that Mr. Zhu had told co-workers he was taking three weapons, including a shotgun, for a requisite inspection but instead headed to the Lingling People’s District Courthouse in Yongzhou, in Hunan Province. There, he burst into a fourth-floor office and opened fire, “spraying bullets at anyone coming his way,” Xinhua reported.
China's new military-cultural complex
Elliot Wilson in The Financial Times:
America might have its vaunted military-industrial complex but China, fast becoming the world’s other great power, has its own version: a state-funded military-cultural complex charged with repatriating antiquities lost to foreign looters and returning them to mainland China.
At the heart of this vast and shadowy operation is Beijing-based Poly Culture and Arts, a pleasant-sounding body ultimately controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, the world’s largest military force by numbers and China’s leading arms dealer.
Poly Culture is a curious beast. Its stated aim – beating swords into ploughshares – is laudable and straightforward.
A brief history of Chinese BBS websites
China media Project has published a piece by Hu Yong about Chinese BBS or forum websites and their history and significance on the Chinese Internet.