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February 2, 2011

The "Oriental Chaplin"

The Chinese Mirror takes a look at Zhou Kongkong, a slapstick star in China's early film industry:

For some reason, however, Zhou Kongkong made his motion picture debut in 1925 not with Mingxing, but with the smaller Xinhua studio, which folded a year later. Perhaps Zhang Shichuan owed someone a favor, but whatever the reason Zhou moved to the Mingxing studio later in 1925. From that point until 1930 he logged nearly 40 movie credits, and earned the rubric the "Oriental Chaplin." Although none of his films have survived, it appears this was not due to his duplicating Chaplin's "little tramp" character, but rather because he was funny, the first outstanding Chinese screen comic.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:07 AM |

February 1, 2011

Comparing Egypt and China - wrong questions, meaningless answers

Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap examines reactions to the Egypt demonstrations among China observers:

It’s an interesting point that I think is relevant, and overlooked, in any discussion about Egypt and China: uprisings are what happens when people don’t have any other means of venting their dissatisfaction and anger. Now, I’m quite aware that uprisings sometimes happen in countries where there are elections, and I’m also aware that non-democratic societies have their own, sometimes effective, venting mechanisms. But I’m not going to argue that point. Instead, I’m going to suggest that instead of journalists/columnists/bloggers opining on whether the “average Chinese citizen” has an appetite for chaos and revolution, it might be better – if not more empirical – to step back and ask whether China has sufficient, robust institutions whereby average Chinese citizens can vent their frustrations, anger, and grievances

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:42 PM |

January 31, 2011

Diary of an alien in Beijing

E2MAN, a Grey, snaps photos of its travels throughout Beijing, applies vintage filters, and posts them with short, untranslated comments.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:08 PM |

Beijing's hidden ads in Taiwan media

Taiwan journalism professors gathered to charge that China had deployed hidden ads in the local media since 2008, when two sides began to talk to each other in earnest after 60 years of official silence.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:05 PM |

CNOOC to buy 33% of Chesapeake energy project

ABC News:

China's state-owned offshore oil and gas company is intensifying its search for oil in the western United States.

CNOOC Ltd. announced Sunday it will pay $570 million for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s drilling project in an emerging oil field in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming.

Chesapeake, an oil and natural gas company based in Oklahoma City, will operate the 800,000-acre project in a pair of basins in a region called the Niobrara shale. CNOOC will pay two-thirds of the project's drilling costs, up to an additional $697 million.

In October, CNOOC paid $1.08 billion for a one-third stake in a Chesapeake drilling project in South Texas.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:12 PM |

January 30, 2011

Recycle rare earths at home, with a screwdriver

Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap explains why the push to stop the export of scrap electronics may be indirectly damaging the environment by destroying recoverable rare earth magnets.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:46 PM |