Results tagged “china”

Hint: Tiger Woods is not one of them. Check out the whole list here.

This is probably one of our favorite Chinese traditions so far: apparently lottery winners, in order to conceal their identities from the populous, dress up in costumes when receiving their fake oversized media checks. This has been going on for a while, and netizens have begun to give awards for the best costumes on Chinese forum sites. It's kind of like a taste of Halloween year round!

• China's internet 'spin doctors' [BBC] China is using an increasing number of paid "internet commentators" in a sophisticated attempt to control public opinion. These commentators are used by government departments to scour the internet for bad news - and then negate it. They post comments on websites and forums that spin bad news into good in an attempt to shape public opinion.
• Why Western Media Mistakes Matter [ChinaGeeks] Every time we post something critical of a story in the Western media — which, for the record, isn’t that often, about 20 posts of our total 197 — this question gets asked. Yesterday it was commenter Hemulen, who phrased it thusly: "I don’t understand why you spend so much time criticizing Western media for not getting everything exactly right and being 100 per cent accurate." It’s a valid question, or at least, one to which the answer might not be readily apparent. After all, the Chinese media routinely commits graver ethical sins as a matter of policy. Shouldn’t we be going after them, instead?
• HIV prostitute' blog hoax zooms on cyber-privacy [China Daily] "A blog that falsely proclaimed that a Hebei province woman is HIV positive was a hoax by an ex-boyfriend intent upon revenge - and a case study into the debate about people's right of privacy in cyberspace. The woman, Yan Deli, a native in Hebei province, tested negative for HIV/AIDS Monday by the local disease control center. Police of Rongcheng county in Hebei province said the blog with indecent photos and words was written by Yan's ex-lover surnamed Yang, in a bid to get revenge on Yan. Yan met Yang in Beijing."

Thinking about the Brooklyn Beer we had at Vargas' Bistro Burger last week has got us thinking about the alcohol market in China. With fancy bars and designer restaurants offering all sorts of international beers, it's getting easier and easier to find your favorite in the ever-increasing wine list. But who doesn't remember the days when Budweiser was considered exotic, and the Qingdao Beer Festival a real representation of international beer? So we took a look into the expansion of the alcohol market in china and found some interesting things.

A picture says a thousand diplomatic niceties. Apparently, so did Wen Jiabao when he met with Henry Kissinger yesterday for the inaugural China-US Track Two High Level Dialogue in Beijing. We're not sure what that means either, but here's a sound bite for you:

Wow, what a National Day, right? We here at Shanghaiist were so enthused by the revolutionary vigor it inspired in us that we decided to say "screw it" to Friday and took an impromptu day off. But over the weekend, it seemed like everyone had an opinion on the October 1 festivities... and since we were hanging around mostly Chinese people, the opinions were overwhelmingly positive.

For those of you that missed yesterday's big party, here's an awesome 3.5 minute timelapse version by Dan Chung of The Guardian which is just absolutely sublime and splendiferous. Some have said this is the "only version of China's National Day Parade you need to watch". We agree (and take that, CCTV!).

Wouldn't Sting be proud: China's new expo outreach plan is to put bottles with invitations to the expo into the sea, and let them float to neighboring countries where someone might pick them up, and decide to come. We guess this is China's SOS to the world: please, please come to the Expo! But since the message was in English, French and Chinese, and they sent them off towards Japan and South Korea, we have our doubts that it'll work.

People all over the country have been doing wacky things for the 60th anniversary: hair statues, wild safaris, you name it. But this one takes the (urinal) cake: a public garden in Panyu has just opened a massive tourist park with over twenty scenic spots, and "six star bathroom facilities". What makes a bathroom worthy of six stars, you may ask? The bathroom is made of gold, of course! Apparently the luxurious bathroom in the new NanYue park complex cost eight million yuan to make, and will host a grand opening party on National Day. Happy birthday, China!

Dinosaurs are cool. We always get excited when a new discovery is made, especially when fossils help elucidate the evolutionary process. And we get even more excited when scientists make an exceptionally intriguing discovery, like a dinosaur with four wings(!) Found in Liaoning province, the Anchiornis huxleyi provides an interesting link in the evolutionary chain between birds and dinosaurs. And it's from China, too!

One year on and suddenly, Lu Yiying, the Shanghai-born, Australia-based creator of Twitter's fail whale, is suddenly getting a sudden media reemergence. Besides an audio interview with the BBC, she was also featured in a more in-depth piece by digital design site vectortuts+.

German national Christoph Rehage shaved his head in the fall of 2007, walked from Beijing to Urumqi on foot (yes, all 4,500 km of it!), taking pictures of himself wherever he went, and this awesome video is what he ended up with. Especially appropriate is his use of the Chinese song, Olive Tree 《橄榄树》with its haunting lyrics, "不要问我从哪里来" (Don't ask me where I'm from). We're already looking forward to the next video of his walk from Urumqi back to Germany -- if he ever gets down to it, that is. Check out the rest of his website The Longest Way.

This is an advertisement. JLM Pacific Epoch, a China-focused research firm, is seeking an English-language Editor for its Shanghai offices to edit research reports, check sources and write copy. Candidates should be native English speakers with Chinese reading and writing ability. Candidates should be comfortable working under tight deadlines, possess general business and financial knowledge, and should have at least one year of experience in the editorial field. Interested and qualified candidates should send their resumes and cover letters to hr@jlmpacificepoch.com. More job ads. Place a job ad.

Renowned sexologist and sociologist Li Yinhe (李银河) writes in a recent blogpost on China's laws against gay blood donors. A group of lesbians in Beijing are now fighting for the right to donate blood:

On your marks! Get set! Whoooa.. So close yet so far. The eager beavers at Reuters got us all excited earlier today reporting that China Unicom had finally inked the deal to bring the iPhone to China. They went so far as to report that the device would cost Unicom RMB3,000 per phone, a price they will hopefully pass on to the consumer which would make it RMB1,000 cheaper than the smuggled US models sold at Metro City.

The words "unconfirmed", "anonymous" and "sketchy" all come to mind whenever we talk about the arrival of the iPhone to China, but this latest story actually originates from Foxconn, the contract manufacturer for Apple's game-changing phone. JLM Pacific Epoch reports that an unnamed source within the company has leaked that they have already commenced mass production of wifi-less versions of the iPhone for release in this country.

The latest movie in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened today all over China (even in "riot-bruised" Xinjiang). According to China Daily, it's expected to be this year's leading box office revenue raiser.

Here's our translation of an article we found on Global Times 《环球时报》dated July 11 entitled "Turkey in open support of Xinjiang independence terrorist elements, and stoking the flames of anger among Chinese netizens". It gives you a good idea of the standard fare in Chinese papers today on the recent Xinjiang developments:

• Lottery hacker wins detention [SINA English] "A hacker has been arrested after breaking into a lottery database in an attempt to win millions, an official at Shenzhen Public Security Bureau said. The man surnamed Cheng, a software engineer of a high-tech company which contracted with the lottery management center to work on a system upgrade, was arrested by police on June 12. He is accused of hacking into the system and falsifying entries for five winning tickets. Those tickets were among nine that won the top prize in the "Dual-colored Ball" lottery on June 9. Each ticket was worth roughly 6.6 million yuan ($966,000)."
• Obama science adviser insists talks with China will not bypass UN process [Guardian UK] "Bilateral talks between the US and China will not replace the need for a global climate deal at Copenhagen, according Barack Obama's most senior science adviser. John Holdren also said that, though there was much legislative work still to do in Congress, he was confident the US would be in a position to sign up to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of the year and would do it within the United Nations framework."
• More than 240 Chinese detained in Russian clampdown [China Daily] "China Thursday called upon Russia to guarantee the rights of Chinese businesspeople and workers after reports said more than 240 Chinese had been detained in recent days. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Beijing had not yet received official notification from Russia about the reported detentions."

An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale hit Yunnan Province's Guantun township, Yao'an County (姚安) in the mountainous Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture at 7:19 p.m. Thursday. The epicenter was about 200 kilometers from the provincial capital Kunming. Various news agencies are reporting more than 300 injuries and 10,000 collapsed homes. No deaths have been reported yet. News from this remote area is coming in slowly — CNN is just now calling the 12-hour-old earthquake "Breaking News" — so it is difficult to gauge the severity of the earthquake at this moment. Stay tuned.

Yesterday night, after enjoying a drink at one of our favorite pubs, we were strolling home along Fuxing Lu in the Luwan district. At one o' clock the streets were empty except for the odd beggar or 串-seller. It was then we noticed a middle aged man in a white shirt who seemed to be fiddling with something like a cage. As we came closer we saw that it was indeed a cage, about 30cm high and around 50cm long. Inside the cage, two small, live sparrows (or some similar kind of bird) were hung upside down from the wire ceiling.

Thanks to the somewhat softened relationship between Taiwan and China, a new film festival opened up last week and will continue into late July. The Cross-Strait Exhibition - a very formal title indeed - marks the first time in history that mainland China and Taiwan are collaborating on a film promotion event. At the same time, new rules for subsidy within the Taiwanese movie industry have just been made official.

Floating around on the Chinese interwebs right now is the very creative Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens 2009. It is an apt description of our mood right now following the mysterious disappearance of all Google apps in China [h/t Rick Martin, @mranti @fumi]

Looks like public opinion against the Green Dam Youth Escort software, including the non-stop foreign media coverage and the numerous internet petitions, has finally convinced the government that maybe it shouldn't make the install mandatory. And good thing too:

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• KFC adds shaobing to set menu [China Daily] From next Monday, all KFC stores will start serving shaobing, but only during breakfast period. Other details, like pricing, shape, taste, and what KFC is going to call it, are being kept under wraps till June 15.
• Ma calls for agreement on use of traditional Chinese [Taipei Times] President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday he hoped that Taiwan could reach an agreement with Beijing on the teaching of traditional and simplified Chinese characters at schools for overseas Taiwanese and Chinese, whereby students would be taught to read traditional characters and write simplified characters.
• Naked Escorts in Wuhan Bar [Danwei] In recent months, our newspaper has been receiving letters from readers reporting that the May Flower nightclub in Wuchang offers "naked escort" services.

This is an advertisement. From July 6 to 19 Shenzhen High School, south China's best public school, will organize an American culture summer camp for gifted sixth-graders. We are looking to hire 10 bright and motivated Americans to teach four hours a day for 12 days. Our compensation is 8,000 yuan, free food and hotel room, and 1,000 yuan travel allowance. Go to specialcurriculum.com for more info. Interested applicants should e-mail a cover letter and resume to shenzhongabroad@gmail.com. More job ads. Place a job ad.

Yesterday, an MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) directive was leaked to Rebecca MacKinnon of Rconversations that stated that as of 1 July, all computers for distribution in China must have the net nanny software "Green Dam - Youth Escort" pre-installed. The Shanghai Daily reported today that schools in China had already received this directive last month. This news comes after the social media crackdown last week and reports that Twitter and Flickr have been unblocked in Shanghai.

Don't take our word for it, bust out your favorite Twitter client or, if you're old school, try their website. And it seems that Flickr has returned from maintenance purgatory as well. Some people are reporting less than full normalcy and functionality, but at least it's coming through.

Amidst all the hubbub of an unmentionable anniversary, the LGBT community has been planning it’s own great leap forward. Shanghai has been chosen for Mainland China's first Gay Pride event - Shanghai Pride!