| | |
|
31 Oct 09
|
|
Happy Halloween! |
|
04 Mar 09
|
|
Who is my carpet? I picked up this carpet (rug?) at a second-hand shop in Beijing yesterday. Can you tell that I'm an impulse buyer?
I have no idea who this is supposed to be. My only guess from browsing through Wikipedia is Mikhail Kasyanov, the former Russian Prime... |
|
28 Jan 09
|
|
I found Osama bin Laden. And in Beijing, no less...
I shot this at the Ditan Park Temple Fair yesterday, where I found Osama selling rubber masks and Ox-themed headgear to the masses. The fair was a total zoo, but as this is my first Lunar New Year in Beijing, I had to check... |
|
26 Jan 09
|
|
I'm Alive. Happy Niu Year. Another year, another animal crossed-off the Chinese zodiac, as I slowly but surely move towards completing the whole twelve-year cycle.
I shot the above video last night in the square between the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower here in Beijing. It's more... |
|
17 Dec 08
|
|
More LIFE |
|
12 Dec 08
|
|
Luvchina's One-Man Nationalist Fatwa Somebody really, really cares about me! And he's been nice enough to write a rambling, semi-psychotic diatribe all about me. Think I'm joking?
Well, he cares thiiiiiiiis much:
I'll let you check out the post for yourselves. Needless to say it's not a... |
|
09 Dec 08
|
|
Pakistan Nukes China. Et la France? A stumper for your next quiz night: Name all of the countries that have exploded atomic weapons in Xinjiang.
The answer: China and... Pakistan?
Crazy stuff in today's New York Times nuclear book review smorgasbord. The book in question is "The Nuclear... |
|
05 Dec 08
|
|
Al-Qaeda in China The Jamestown Foundation has added a new chapter in its never-ending quest to figure out anything solid on organized Uyghur terrorism:
On November 16, a self-proclaimed al-Qaeda spokesman named Muhammad Uighuri claimed that Osama bin Laden has appointed a... |
|
03 Dec 08
|
|
LIFE with Sheng Shicai One of the great things about the LIFE photo archive on Google is that it's now possible to pair-up old TIME Magazine articles with their long-lost photos. It takes a bit of detective work, but you can dig up a lot of images that illuminate the plain text... |
|
02 Dec 08
|
|
Beijing Muppets You know you read too many Beijing blogs when...
... you see a photo of muppets in the New York Times and notice a striking resemblance to a number of prominent bloggers.
From left to right, starting on top, I see:
Nels Frye of Stylites; Jonathan... |
|
25 Nov 08
|
|
The Monkey King's House of Horrors I've been meaning to post these video clips since I shot them last summer. This Journey to the West (西遊記/Xīyóujì) themed house of horrors is the centerpiece of a rather large and unattended amusement park/zoo right in the center of Korla.
It... |
|
21 Nov 08
|
|
LIFE in Xinjiang Like many of you, I've been spending endless hours browsing through Google's newly debuted LIFE photo archive. There are some real Xinjiang gems in there, which I hope to feature here from time to time.
Click on the image above for the complete photo.... |
|
19 Nov 08
|
|
Mysterious Mummies? Maybe 10 Years Ago. What is news?
Just from the way it's spelled, there's fairly clearly a connection to new-ness, timeliness, etc. But if you've never heard the story — although it's been floating around for 10, 20... or even 100 years in some circles — does ... |
|
19 Nov 08
|
|
Xinjiang Wallpaper A little taste of Xinjiang for your desktop background. I've included each image in two resolutions: one for people with laptops and regular-sized screens like me (1280 x 800), and one for people with super-big cinema displays (2560 x 1600) and the like.... |
|
09 Nov 08
|
|
Financial Shit Rolls Down Global Hill I've just returned from the land of sand and mutton... to read reports that the effects of the global financial crisis have finally made it all the way down to those who can least afford it. There are disturbing reports via Xinhua that as much as half of... |
|
05 Nov 08
|
|
Obama! Well, it's official: Barack Obama is the next President of the United States, and things are suddenly looking a lot better for Americans, especially those of us living overseas.
Why? I think it's safe to say that we've been exposed more frequently to... |
|
03 Nov 08
|
|
Taklamakan Dune Buggy WARNING May cause motion sickness.
I'm back in Korla for the week. I went out into the Taklamakan Desert yesterday at Luoburen Cunzhai (罗不人村寨)... a place I've visited once every year that I've been in China so far. (You can look at some picture... |
|
28 Oct 08
|
|
Mmm, Brains. |
|
27 Oct 08
|
|
The Kebab Stand |
|
07 Oct 08
|
|
Gitmo Uyghurs Ordered Released Breaking news just coming across the wires, from AP:
A federal judge has ordered the release of a small group of Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States.In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina (ur-BEE'-nuh) said... |
|
02 Oct 08
|
|
Time, Segregation, Opression... ...and other Xinjiang stereotypes. This Christian Science Monitor article has got them all.
Let me count the ways:
1: Xinjiang time is so freaky. I can't believe it!
The screen flashes 5:05 p.m., and for a moment, I fear I’ve missed the ballgame – ... |
|
29 Sep 08
|
|
Kashgar Attack Not What It Seemed? Last month's attack in Kashgar just a few days before the start of the Beijing Olympics was confusing from the start. It was grenades; no, a bomb; no, a truck and machetes. The attackers were finally identified as a 28 year-old taxi driver and a 33... |
|
25 Sep 08
|
|
AIR in Beijing Well, my monthly stipend from the CIA for authoring this blog has come in, and I've decided to treat myself to something nice. I've been a fan of AIR for almost ten years now, but have never had a chance to see them live... until now.
How cool is it that... |
|
22 Sep 08
|
|
Xinjiang 2021 Watch: Pipeline Edition Two recent news items have reminded me once again of my Xinjiang 2021 scenario from back in 2006. For those of you who need to get up to date, I'll list all the 2021 updates down below.
If you'll recall, the scenario involved something to do with... |
|
10 Sep 08
|
|
Xinjiang PLA Shakeup? Or maybe not.
I'm just trying to figure out why the BBC's Worldwide Monitoring division would translate this otherwise mundane military personnel press release. The only real clue lies in the translator's emphasis on informing readers that nanjiang (南... |
|
08 Sep 08
|
|
The Anti-Ramadan Campaign Three weeks ago the World Uyghur Congress claimed that a "Strike Hard" campaign was being planned for Xinjiang after the Olympics, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. We saw last week that operations are at least in the planning stages.
Now comes... |
|
02 Sep 08
|
|
Collective Punishment Most of you probably know that the violence has continued out in Xinjiang even after the Olympics — but let's start off with Wikipedia's description of collective punishment:
Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of t... |
|
30 Aug 08
|
|
Free Smoothies in Sanlitun A hot tip for those of you living in Beijing! I only wish I had told you earlier. The Village in Sanlitun is Beijing's newest top-brand shopping area, with an Apple store, the world's largest Adidas store, and a bunch of other expensive crap.
I had... |
|
27 Aug 08
|
|
Joe Biden, Xinjiang, and the CIA With Joe Biden tapped to serve as Barack Obama's running mate and the Democratic National Convention underway, I've been thinking back to a simpler time... all the way back to 1979. It was an era when the Cold War was still hot, the Shah had just been... |
|
19 Aug 08
|
|
An Olympic Evening More photos to come from last night's front-row evening at the Bird's Nest later this evening... |
|
17 Aug 08
|
|
Crackdown on Fake Minority Female Terrorists Or, let's just call it Xinjiang News — Olympic Edition.
First off, as some of you may have read, it's been revealed that many of the 56 "minority" representatives who ran across the pitch during the opening ceremony were actually Han Chinese childr... |
|
11 Aug 08
|
|
Swimming from Xinjiang to Taiwan Your daily dose of Taiwan-related Xinjiang news from the Kyodo News Agency:
A Chinese man claiming to be a political refugee from China's restive Xinjiang region on Monday swam ashore at an outlying island of Taiwan and sought asylum, according to local... |
|
10 Aug 08
|
|
Kuqa's Olympic Spirit The latest from Xinhua on the battle early this morning between police and local militants in Kuqa:
Several Bombings that occurred in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early Sunday morning injured two police officers and a security guard,... |
|
08 Aug 08
|
|
Ditan Park, 0808080808! Word among expats in Beijing is that Ditan Park is the place to be tonight... if you don't have tickets to the opening ceremony, that is. Of course, you could spend your evening in one of the numerous sports bars or generic clubs around the city, but the... |
|
06 Aug 08
|
|
WTF Beijing? Perhaps after living in China for a few years, one becomes numb to the occasional random strangeness of life under a totalitarian regime. Rules change suddenly, and you learn to adapt.
But still, this story totally freaks me out:
Tens of thousands of... |
|
04 Aug 08
|
|
16 Dead in Kashgar Attack The details are still fairly sketchy. Something involving two Uyghurs, a truck, some grenades, and a border patrol station full of armed police. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the effects will be felt here in Beijing with the Olympics starting on... |
|
01 Aug 08
|
|
Great Xinjiang Eclipse: T-minus 2h UPDATE Video of the total eclipse from Yiwu, Xinjiang including a few minutes before the corona appears. It was a nail-biter with the moving cloud cover:
••••
Don't forget to watch the eclipse this evening, which should last from about 6p... |
|
30 Jul 08
|
|
Rebiya's Right Shoulder Exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer gets a bit of the Angela Merkel treatment during a meeting between President George W. Bush and a group of Chinese dissidents on July 29, 2008. You may remember that Bush and Kadeer posed for a friendly photo during a... |
|
28 Jul 08
|
|
The Phantom Menace? A topic that deserves its own thread: is the threat of terrorism in China real or imagined? Does the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) pose a real threat to the country? Does the group even exist?
A few South China Morning Post articles stoked the fires of... |
|
26 Jul 08
|
|
Hot Chinese Pole Dancing Video! Sure, I may be trawling for traffic, but could you say any less about the New York Times, who published this article/video yesterday? Of course, you can read the article over at their site (or below)... but isn't pole dancing an issue more conducive to... |
|
21 Jul 08
|
|
The Tibetan, the Uyghur & ... the Hui? I was reading an entry on racial profiling during the Olympics over at Shanghaiist, and was surprised at the list of three suspicious minority groups devised by Tomorrow Square's security department:
Which means,
Whenever anyone that can be identified... |
|
15 Jul 08
|
|
Maiden of the Mist Greetings from Niagara Falls! |
|
15 Jul 08
|
|
Great Xinjiang Eclipse: T-minus 20 days An announcement for those of you living in arctic Canada, northern Greenland, the North Pole, or Siberia ... the Great Xinjiang Eclipse (that's what I'm calling it) of August 1, 2008 is only 20 days away! This notice also applies to people living along... |
|
02 Jul 08
|
|
My Own Personal Visa Hell Ah, the pleasures of obtaining a new China visa just a month before the Olympics!
I went into New York yesterday to drop off my application and paperwork for a Z (working) visa and was completely and utterly rejected. Seems that my working permit... |
|
01 Jul 08
|
|
The Other Ethnic Tension Not much time to write, as I'm off to the U.S. tomorrow for a visa run. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll finally be getting a working (Z) visa after three years of scrounging around for business (F) visas. I might have been able to get the new... |
|
01 Jul 08
|
|
Setting Them Free. Maybe. This will undoubtedly not be the end of the long legal journey for Uyghurs being held without reason in Guantanamo Bay, but it's a step in the right direction. From the NY Times:
After the first court review of the basis for holding a Guantánamo... |
|
17 Jun 08
|
|
Image of the Day |
|
15 Jun 08
|
|
Olympic Fever in Xinjiang Two vaguely related news items today, both of which tie into the whole pre-Olympic security craziness we've been living through in China lately...
First, the Olympic torch is heading to Xinjiang on Wednesday... probably. Surprised? So is everybody else,... |
|
13 Jun 08
|
|
Tianjin TV, tonight! It's official... in less than 24 hours the entire country will know that I'm an ass. If you're in the Middle Kingdom and own a television, make an effort to watch China Right Here on Tianjin TV tonight (Saturday) at 6pm.
Hear me talk about never leaving... |
|
11 Jun 08
|
|
Softening 'Em Up II The U.S House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights held a hearing on extraordinary rendition and other delights of the War on Terror on Tuesday, June 10th. After making their way through the finer points of extralegal prisoner transfers and the... |
twitter
blogs
china
thailand
japan
technology