Anyone that reads this blog often enough knows that I’ve no love for censorship. I down-right loath it. Freedom of speech is the apex of 
.
There is not a situation I can think of whereby I feel a person should have their ability to speak on any topic they desire taken away from them.
I don’t care if you are regurgitating the most vile and racist profanities that your ignorant mind can think of - there’s not a person on this planet that should have the power or privilege to tell you what you can and cannot say.
Unfortunately, the robots that govern the country I call home often see things differently. And so it is I am happy to announce my …
I looked at the calendar today and realized that the end of July was fast approaching, and bringing with it a close to the 2007 China Blog Awards.
So, if you’ve not gone already and cast your vote for us (or anyone else), be sure to do so!
Also, there’s still time to submit what you feel are the best blog posts you’ve read in the English-language China blogosphere. Just go over to the Zui Hao Report and post them for all to vote on. If you’re post’s been nominated, be sure to let your readers know to vote for it as well.
About 10 days ago it was reported that steamed buns in China’s capital were being made with cardboard and pork flavouring. It was then announced earlier this week that the ‘cardboard baozi‘ story was a hoax created by a ‘journalist’ to up his ratings.
While the many who touted it being a fake from the get-go are boastfully shouting their ‘I-told-you-so’s, the rest of the world’s media are sitting a bit red-faced wishing they knew what stories out of China they could trust as being factual and which were bunk.
The whole thing reminded me of a riddle from when I was a kid:
A man reaches a fork in the road. He knows one path leads to his destination and …
Wait, should there be two free’s in that title? In a follow-up to the post from the other day, it seems the gears are in motion to get Oiwan the public support she so rightly deserves.
Along with the Free Oiwan Lam Facebook group I made mention of yesterday, a new blog has been created to follow developments in the case.
For my part, I was asked to create some badges that could be used for people that wish to help show their support and spread the word about this issue. Oiwan is facing a stiff fine, and mounting legal fees, so exposure and donations are a big bonus. Please help spread the word by using the following badges on …
Who the hell is Oiwan Lam and why does she need freeing?
That was the question I was asking myself as when I got the invite to join the Free Oiwan Lam Facebook Group. It was that question that led me to Imagethief’s post of the same title.
Turns out Oiwan, an editor for Global Voice’s North East Asian desk, doesn’t actually need to be freed from anything, at least not like Hao did, and Celil still does. She is, however, facing a serious slap on the wrist (not the kind your mom gives you, but the kind oppressively-sensitive …
Here’s a variation on the common “I spy” game, which might already be familiar to anyone who grew up in Britain and knows the ‘I-SPY’ children’s book series, such as ‘I-SPY in the Street’, ‘I-SPY Cars’, and the more curiously named ‘I-SPY People in Uniform’.
These heart-warmingly innocent books encouraged children to keep their eyes wide open to spot various sights. Best played in conjunction with others, the books could be used to form an informal competition as to who could spot the greatest number of sights mentioned in a particular book.
Thus a book such as ‘I-SPY on the Road’ could turn a boring car journey into hours of healthy banter and competition, attempting to spot as many of …
Seattle-based coffee hawker Starbucks has announced that they have closed their Forbidden City location in Beijing’s former Imperial Palace after operating there for the last seven years.
The decision comes after a long line of criticism regarding the appropriateness of having such a symbol of the modern world in the middle of one of China’s primary cultural heritage sites.
“There were several choices, one of which was to continue, but it would not carry the Starbucks name any more. We decided at the end that it is not our custom worldwide to have stores that have any other name, so therefore we decided the choice would …
I can’t deny that I’ve been using Facebook far more any normal person should. It’s like, if hotmail and crack were to somehow have sex and reproduce, the result would surely be something like Facebook.
That said, it is most certainly a great way to stay in touch with people who would otherwise have fallen clean off your radar.
But Facebook has also become a breeding ground for 3rd party developers to create their own applications that can be run in Facebook. Case in point: Chinesepod.com, a website for learning Chinese through mp3 lessons, has just developed an application that will allow you to listen to those lessons through an embedded …
It somewhat amazes me that I’m still surprised when I hear of blatant copyright infringement by Chinese companies. I mean, am I naive to think this crap is ever going to improve? Is there something culturally missing in China that causes its people to be completely ignorant to the idea of “ownership” and OPS?
I mean, tell me we’re not still letting one of the most capitalist countries in the world off by them playing the “we were communists, everything was state-run. We don’t understand your Western ways” card.
The thing that’s got my knock-off Fruit of the Looms in a bunch is this post from China Expat’s blog. In the post Josh explains that he discovered …
I am always a bit behind in writing and posting ideas. This post would optimally have hit the blogsphere, sometime, say, in the months before an estimated 22 million Chinese women conceived in order to give birth to babies before the end of the year.
But alas, it’s too late to stop them. However, my inability to think of other stories journalistic integrity requires that I bring forth the information I know regardless of the consequences (not like I expect any Chinese mothers to be reading this blog, for foreigners, in English).
Dear readers, the most vocal elements of the Chinese press would have you …
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