While in the Shanghai Museum a month ago, I picked up a museum guide flier “Treasures in museum’s collection” which featured this instantly forgettable sentence: “Yuan Ji (Shi Tao), Zhu Da (Bada Shanren), Kun Can (Shi Xi), and Zhan Jiang (Hong Ren) were the four monk painters of the late Ming and early Qing period.” [...]
Archive for May, 2007
The Binge and Purge of Chinese Politics
Hi, my name is Zheng Xiaoyu, and the reason I look so happy is that I’ve just won a no-expense paid trip to visit my ancestors. That’s right folks, I have been awarded the coveted title of 2007 Chinese Scapegoat of the Year – an honour unlike any other. I mean, I had wished and [...]
Hao Hao Report: New Look – New Features
As many of you likely know, Lost Laowai runs a sister site, The Hao Hao Report. HHR is a social bookmarking site for all us sinophiles that just love reading blog posts and news about China. Essentially it works the same as other social bookmarking sites (digg, netscape, del.ico.us, etc.), whereby community members submit links [...]
Live in China: Watch Hockey Playoffs Online
Of all the countless things that us Canadian Laowai miss about being at home, missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs has to rank way up there — right along side real maple syrup and Anne Murray. Well, imagine my surprise when I saw that CBC was going to stream the playoffs live on their website. Wow! [...]
Our Harmonious Society
By now, just about all laowai should have heard of our “Harmonious Society“. The first time I saw those words was about three years ago, in Chinese, written in huge font on a billboard along the road just after the Lupu Bridge in Pudong, Shanghai. At the time the sign was an anomaly, but within [...]
Welcome to the “It’s not summer yet” purgatory
It’s been pretty hot today: a reported 30 degrees Celsius (that’s 86 Fahrenheit, if you prefer to count it that way), coupled with near 70% humidity that is tempered only slightly by a gentle, warm breeze. No complaints from me whatsoever. Being from the U.K., where the number of summer days can be counted on [...]
DisneyMainland: “Disney Is Too Far”
Knock-offs of Disney apparel, toys and, of course, DVDs are so common here in the Mainland that none but the strictest IPR pundits raise an eyebrow about it anymore. However, Beijing’s Shijingshan Amusement Park has got to take the cake for blatant infringement of an endless amount of trademarks. The park, until recently, waved proudly [...]
Journal-jism
There. I just coined a phrase. I’ve been doing some reading today (Note: that makes it a good day for me), and I’ve been seeing many articles and postings published by the China-focused academia or journalism community. Like the Nutty Yale Professor a while back, these articles leave me with a certain sour taste in [...]
Ben The Barber: Working Like A Local
When I started this site, and this blog, my intention was (and is) to give foreigners coming to or recently arrived in China an inside look at the country. Of course, usually this means “from an expat perspective”. Well, Ben Ross, of Ben’s Blog, has taken this a step further: “As an American living in [...]
Making the Reddest Square Green
Here’s a cool idea: Tear up the gray concrete of Tiananmen Square and turn it into a Chinese version of New York’s Central Park. One leading architect is suggesting something along those lines, the Guardian reports (via CDT): Ma Yansong, an award-winning urban planner, says the grey concrete symbol of China’s red politics should be [...]
