The ebb and flow of Chinese Nationalistic fervor mixed with undying “historic” hatred of the Japanese should really replace ping pong as China’s national sport.
Japanese & Chinese Students Fight In Shanghai: A group of drunk Japanese foreign students making noise get into a fight with Chinese students at a university in Shanghai. Two Chinese hurt, hundreds protest - singing national anthem and marching on the foreign dorm.
The Japanese Train Controversy: Train makes a one-minute unscheduled stop to let some Japanese passengers off to assist them in catching their plane home. Chinese netizens respond.
In my four years in China I’ve yet to see a legitimate version of any software here. Generally when purchasing apps and games in the Middle Kingdom you have two choices - pirated software that looks pirated, and pirated software that looks real.
Like pretty much every other media, most notably DVDs, the software industry suffers greatly from the blatant distribution of pirated products in China - and most Chinese don’t give a damn.
Scratch that, most Chinese likely don’t have any real concept of what the difference is between paying for legitimate …
Not sure if you’ve heard the news, but China has banned Western religious music. Well, technically, it was banned all along, but only now are the powers that be getting their red and yellow panties in a bunch.
The banning news hit the wire after The Messiah, as to be performed by Britian’s Academy of Ancient Music at the Beijing International Music Festival, was changed from a public performance to invite only.
Also shutout was Mozart’s Requiem, set to be performed in Dujiangyan, a city heavily hit by the tragic Sichuan earthquake this past spring.
According to an opinion piece in the Guardian by Catherine Sampson, the new ban signifies a step backwards by the Party in an attempt to regain control of the Christianity …
A report released on Wednesday exposed the fact that the Chinese version of Skype has been snooping and storing the full text chat messages of TOM-Skype users (along with regular Skype users who have communicated with TOM-Skype users) on publicly-accessible servers.
The report, BREACHING TRUST: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China’s TOM-Skype platform, was authored by Canadian Nart Villeneuve, of the Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary research and development lab that performs research at the intersection of technology, civic networks, and human rights (and whose site is seemingly blocked in China).
The key findings of the report:
Every few months the media seems to dig up a new quality control issue with Chinese products. Many of these are largely just typical media fear factoring, but the recent “melamine in milk” debacle is very real and very wide-spanning.
If you’re like me, you probably gasped in horror when it was reported that all the major milk distributors in China had milk tainted with melamine. You heard about the babies dying and started looking ominously at your fridge.
Then, again assuming you’re like me, you stopped and said, “wait, WTF is melamine?”
Not boring anyone with the chemical details, essentially it is an organic compound that in one form or another is likely all over your house. …
If ever an argument needed to be made for watching less TV, the groups of Western “Free Tibet” protesters that have snuck in to China are it.
There’s a four-page article running on the Washington Post’s site which explains in detail the mission of a group funded by Students for a Free Tibet (cue Mission Impossible music - or that 24 countdown tone).
I mean, I respect that these folks want to stand up for a cause they feel is very important. I admire that they travelled to an unknown land and risked unknown punishments to try and get their voice heard - but it’s hard to read about their …
It was announced recently that three Beijing parks, miles away from the Olympic events, will be reserved as areas where people can “protest” during the Olympics.
Of course, to protest, you’ll have to apply five days in advance and hope your cause isn’t considered, the rather ubiquitous, “against national interests” (anyone wishing to raise a sign against the domestic policies of Azerbaijan are welcome).
The decision to allow the Disney-flavoured protests comes from the on going pressure the global community has put on China because the Games aren’t as open as they were promised to be.
Liu Shaowu, security chief for the BOC, explained, “Assembling to march and protest is …
Well, everyone and their grandma is calling the 2008 Beijing Olympics China’s coming out party, and they’ve just been given the biggest reason yet, as it doesn’t get any gayer than this.
Sorry, I don’t mean to offend or misrepresent the gay community, <em>Queer Eye</em> teaches us you all have far more fashion sense than this.
This fashion faux pas of the century (and we’re still early into it) is China’s official Olympic opening ceremony uniform.
When I read about the bus explosions in Kunming on this past Monday I was a little surprised that the local police weren’t calling it terrorism. I don’t believe that it was done by anyone with a political agenda. This was probably done, as the police are saying, by someone with a local grievance. But isn’t that terrorism?
According to Dictionary.com the first definition for terrorism is “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.”
Even if the person had a local grievance didn’t he terrorize people? He used violence to intimidate people — two people died. But since the local Kunming and most likely the central governments disagree with me, that makes me wonder …
There’s little doubt that the 2008 Beijing Olympics have become more a political affair galvanizing views of China between “Western bias” and “blind Chinese nationalism” than anything even remotely resembling a global, peace-celebrating sporting event.
Because of this, there’s been an endless barrage of reporting and blogging that has gone a long way to inciting these two opposing ends. So, it was with a bit of surprise and refreshment that I read Kai Pan’s well-said “Utter Idiots and Why the United States Will Not Boycott the Beijing Olympics” at CNReviews.
Those on the polarized ends will never see eye-to-eye, nor do they care to. The battle has always been and will always be for those in the middle. I’d …
Subscribe to our feed