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06 Sep 08
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Report: Chinese troops deployed to Hunan Protests in two Chinese cities
The Chinese government is reported to have sent thousands of soldiers and police to quell unrest in the central province of Hunan. Up to 10,000 people took to the streets in Jishou to demand money back from an allegedly... |
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06 Sep 08
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Open thread? Or a half-open thread? Meaning, I am on vacation (though it hardly seems that way at the moment) and would prefer we keep this blog Palin-free for the next 24 hours so I can think about cheerier things, like the CCP. Can we try to do that? I know it’s Saturday and threads... |
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04 Sep 08
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Traveling Time to detox from nearly two years of pressure. I should be back online in a day or two. In the meantime, here is the quote of the day from Joe Klein, not usually my favorite pundit:
[McCain adviser] Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to... |
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03 Sep 08
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CSM: “An experiment in democracy leads to fierce resistance” There are situations where the venality of local officials transcends the usual debate over political systems and makes me despair not for any particular locality or government, but for human nature in general. This is just such a case.
From The Chris... |
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02 Sep 08
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On Sarah Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy Who cares? I really don’t. All families have their issues. This news does not reflect badly on Palin as a mother or as a person, and the dems would be wise to listen to Obama, who has told them this topic is “off limits.”
No, it... |
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31 Aug 08
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Philip Pan’s Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China Perhaps the most unforgettable scene in the movie Alien, hands-down the greatest science fiction movie ever made, is the attempt by the fast-disappearing crew to resurrect the decapitated robot, Ash, whom they beg for an answer to their simple... |
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29 Aug 08
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China Idiocy Alert This may well take the cake. I mean, a skyscraper cake with a whole jar of maraschino cherries on top and enough Cool Whip to swim in. What can one say?
History has dealt China a dirty hand. It had famine, it had Mongol invasions, it had British... |
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29 Aug 08
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Chinese cop killer becomes folk hero? I’ve said before that Internet buzz is not always an accurate way to measure the pulse of the Chinese people. With that in mind, I still found this article about Yang Jia, who killed six police officers last month, to be intriguing.
However,... |
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28 Aug 08
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Xinhua’s creative editors Absolutely, totally priceless. BWC should post more often. Thank god for people who have the patience and fortitude to do work like this. |
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27 Aug 08
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Friedman reports from the Closing Ceremony Actually a less tedious read than I would have expected. While reflecting on changes in the world since 911, he underscores a point I’ve believed in for a long time: no matter how atrocious the CCP is - and I find them more atrocious now than ever,... |
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27 Aug 08
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The Sydney Olympics faked it, too A commenter in the thread below points to an article in the Syndey Morning Herald about how the Sydney Symphony mimed its way through the Opening Ceremony performance for the 2000 Games in their home city. And it’s more than just... |
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22 Aug 08
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Winding down: The Games trickle to a halt Note: This is a blog post I wrote for another site, cross-posted here. I’ll share the link where it’s cross-posted once I know it myself. I wrote it yesterday afternoon as the rain was clearing up.
The crowds in the Main Press Center have... |
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19 Aug 08
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Foreign Policy Magazine List: Top Ten Worst Chinese Laws FP has put together their list of the top-10 worst laws on the books in the PRC. Making the cut were Article 105 of the Criminal Law Code (subversion) and the Law on the Supervision by Standing Committees of the People’s Congress at All Levels, Arti... |
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18 Aug 08
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Liu Xiang pulls out of Olympics with injury Breaking: A right achilles injury has prematurely ended Liu Xiang’s Beijing Olympic dreams.
Update by Richard: It’s being broadcast live right now on CCTV - his coach Sun Haiping is crying his eyes out explaining his injury. Everyone in my... |
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17 Aug 08
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The gymnast controversy - China’s censors at work Raj
The following article from the Globe and Mail gives an interesting point-of-view on the controversy over the age of some of China’s gold-medal winning women’s gymnastics team.
What is really creepy about what’s emerged from the... |
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17 Aug 08
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On Medal Counts… Andy R.
Well, it had to be brought up eventually and after reading this post, I felt obliged to write my thoughts on one of the stupidest aspects of the Olympics: the medal count. If you’ve been watching over here in China you are reminded of ... |
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16 Aug 08
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Chinese stoicism It’s news to David Brooks. It’s okay for people to express their awe over things they experience for the first time, like Bush I and the bar code reader (a story that was much less newsworthy than made out to be). But Brooks seems to have... |
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15 Aug 08
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“Crooked teeth” - Chinese bloggers criticise the foreign media Raj
Some interesting comments over the “crooked teeth” incident are available from or through ESWN. Roland himself seems to somewhat annoyed at the foreign media for some of their comments, claiming that they invented the term “crooked... |
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13 Aug 08
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Report: British journalist detained by police in Beijing As reported by Jon Watts and Tania Branigan in The Guardian:
Police in Beijing have detained a British journalist after he covered a Free Tibet protest close to the city’s main Olympic zone. John Ray of ITV News was pushed into a police van by... |
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12 Aug 08
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David Brooks’ China Wisdom One of my favorite writers reveals just how shallow Brooks’ “analysis” of China is. Go there now. |
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12 Aug 08
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Uneven teeth Unbelievable. But alas, all too believable. |
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12 Aug 08
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Empty Seats I was on the Olympic Green all day today and was amazed at what I saw, or rather at what I didn’t see, namely crowds of people. There were none. The Green was a relative ghost town (compared to past Games). It took no time at all to get there, and... |
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10 Aug 08
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Olympic round-up Raj
The Olympics have only recently kicked off, but there is already a lot to talk about. For example, Michael Phelps is bidding to win an unprecedented eight gold medals in the swimming, something that he could quite possibly do - one down, seven to go.... |
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08 Aug 08
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Live-blogging the Opening Ceremony Go here and keep scrolling.
I’ve only been able to watch bits and pieces. It’s way cheesier than I had hoped. |
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08 Aug 08
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08/08/08: Watch your step… This has been making the rounds these past few weeks, but with the day finally here, it’s too hysterical not to post.
“We can be sure it is a trap. They’ve been preparing for this for thousands of years. According to the satellite images... |
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06 Aug 08
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Beijing Taxi Talk Careful what you say. The cabs have ears.
Tens of thousands of taxi drivers in Beijing have a tool that could become part of China’s all-out security campaign for the Olympic Games. Their vehicles have microphones installed ostensibly for driver... |
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06 Aug 08
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The first protesters arrive… As everybody knows, it was always a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ stunt protesters would descend on the Beijing Olympics. Sure enough, today somebody climbed a 100-foot electrical pole near the Olympic Green to fly a “One World... |
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05 Aug 08
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Is there anyone in Beijing… …who doesn’t think the mood in the city is now totally, breathtakingly surreal - a hundred times more so than usual? It’s really here, that moment so many have been waiting for, whether with trepidation or joy, and it’s starting to... |
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02 Aug 08
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Trolls This is one of the oddest, most disturbing stories I’ve read about Internet depravity. Parts of it are simply unbelievable.
“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disr... |
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30 Jul 08
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Things to love about Beijing… It’s hardly an exhaustive list and is mostly based on observations and experiences from the past week or so, but I thought I’d jot down a few of my favorite things about the ‘Jing.
Beijing parks in the early morning. Jingshan, Beihai... |
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28 Jul 08
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Christian Science Monitor Olympic Blog Sure there are a ton of journalist Olympic blogs out there, but in my (semi-biased) opinion, one of the better correspondents in Beijing is the CSM’s Peter Ford. He’s a journalist who has covered stories in Latin America, the Middle East,... |
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27 Jul 08
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Sichuan Earthquake reports recommend buying parents’ silence Raj
This is the likely conclusion of reports produced by at least local Chinese administrations in regards to the May earthquake - if indeed any of the promised investigations were ever held.
China buys the silence of grieving parents
“We were rounded ... |
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26 Jul 08
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Waiting at the Gate to Greatness The next great superpower? Pomfret has always said “no.” He backs it up, at least to his satisfaction, in a new article offering plenty of statistical evidence and several examples of the monumental challenges China faces.
Personally, I think... |
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25 Jul 08
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My Olympic ticket story The following is a guest post from my friend Bill, an old-time China hand who’s been here nearly 17 years. He is an affable fellow who many of you know. No China basher he. His story appears to be verified over here. This post does not necessarily... |
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24 Jul 08
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Pre-Games update Another morning quickie. Observations from the front:
Street Traffic. It usually takes me a full hour to 90 minutes to get from the CBD to Shangdi up in Haidian. Lately I’ve been getting there in 30-40 minutes. It’s like a dream. The air seems... |
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23 Jul 08
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Are we in Beijing or Boston? Andy R
Protest Zones?
It seems Beijing is taking a cue from Boston’s strategy of using “Free Speech Zones” to “quarantine” protestors during the Republican National Convention in 2004.
Well, this is better than nothing at... |
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23 Jul 08
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The 8 “Don’t Asks” When Dealing with Foreigners During the Games A morning quickie - this is probably all over the China blogs right now but is too interesting to pass up - a post that translates Olympic propaganda posters teaching the Chinese people how to interact with outsiders flocking into the city in the weeks... |
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21 Jul 08
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It Lengthens, It Strengthens, It’s Olympic! Collector’s Edition Fuwa Condoms:
Fuwas ‘Beibei,’ ‘Jingjing,’ ‘Huanhuan,’ ‘Yingying,’ and ‘Nini’ are the new darlings of the Olympics! The Fuwas represent the hopes and dreams of the... |
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20 Jul 08
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The big “O”: What are you looking forward to? Andy R [A new guest blogger - entries from others are welcome as I go into 6 weeks of hibernation]
With the Olympics (finally) just around the corner I thought it might be interesting (and perhaps a welcome break) to hear what everybody is looking... |
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18 Jul 08
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Rumors and Racism I seriously hope this is just a hysterical rumor run amok…but then again I have seen people of color refused service at Beijing bars before while Chinese and caucasians continued to be served, so I guess anything is possible. That said, I agre... |
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17 Jul 08
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Bound feet So, so sad. |
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16 Jul 08
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The Weeks Ahead They say you can tell a blog is about to die when its owner keeps putting up posts about the blog itself - why they can’t post, how busy they are, etc. I’ve put up a lot of those this year, and here (obviously) is yet another.
I don’t... |
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16 Jul 08
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Qingdao algae cleared - remaining Olympic doubts Raj
The BBC reports that the algae that was causing considerable worry in regards to the Olympic sailing events.
The Chinese government has successfully cleared tonnes of algae that was blocking the Olympic sailing course in the eastern city of Qingdao. A... |
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15 Jul 08
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Chinabounder’s Book The “Shanghai Sex Blogger” is back in the news thanks to a press release pimpingtouting his new book. (No, it’s not about his sexploits in Shanghai; it’s about why China “will never be great.”) In that same link,... |
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12 Jul 08
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China’s shame - backing Mugabe Raj
Despite my hope that China might just do something principled for a change on the international stage, it vetoed sanctions against Zimbabwe. If China has a policy of “non-intervention”, it should never use its vote on the United Nations... |
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11 Jul 08
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Reform A heart wrencher.
[Update: This one, too, is well worth a read.]
I originally wrote a long post with long excerpts and then just deleted it all. The story speaks for itself and I can’t add anything of value. If you make it to the end, you’ll... |
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11 Jul 08
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The Peking Duck Tragedy + Open Thread A friend of mine told me he went to three separate duck restaurants on Sunday and all three had run out of duck. Now we know why. A sad day here at TPD.
Open thread, if you’d like. |
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08 Jul 08
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The Last Hero of Tiananmen Philip Pan, for years my favorite correspondent in Beijing (he left a few months ago), has written a devastating article about a letter written by a doctor who saw with his own eyes the victims of the massacre on the streets of Beijing n June 4, 1989 and... |
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08 Jul 08
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Fox News’ Public Relations Department Amazing. I mean, totally amazing. I knew they were evil, but I didn’t realize they were Joseph Goebbels evil. |
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08 Jul 08
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Local CCP Bad, Central CCP Good It’s a familiar argument and one I’ve made myself - not quite calling the CCP “good,” but looking at horror stories around China and concluding that the main fault lies with the local authorities, not with the central party, which... |
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