![A tour bus enveloped in flames after rear-ending a container truck on an expressway near Beijing on Oct 1, 2012. [Photo from weibo.com/lifecuc]](http://www.lostlaowai.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/german-tour-bus-fire-01-200x200.jpg)
Tragic news out of Beijing today. A bus carrying a German tour group was engulfed in flames after rear-ending a truck on a highway near Beijing. Current reports indicate that six people have died, and a further 14 are injured.
While the identities of the victims have not yet been released, five of the dead are reportedly Germans, and one Chinese.
The joint Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday/Golden…
Things are certainly escalating in regards to anti-Japanese protests due to China's ongoing dispute with Japan over the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. I've heard mention from a few people that more protests are likely planned for this weekend, and no doubt continuing after that. The following is a warning from the US Embassy for its citizens to avoid such events, as they can quickly turn violent.
In light …
While most laowai are probably familiar with the phenomenon of the “ant tribe,” a recent article in The Economist introduced a number of other “tribes” of stressed-out young Chinese struggling to survive in the urban jungle.
Perhaps the most unusual is the “crush-crush tribe” (捏捏族), who release their frustrations by hiding in supermarket aisles and crushing packages of instant noodles.
The crush-crush tribe…
A recent submission over at the Hao Hao Report has stirred up a bit of conversation about China's One-Child Policy (OCP) and specifically an American organization that strongly opposes it.
For most of my life the OCP debate was completely absent in my daily dialog. I don't know that I ever gave it a moment's thought before coming to China. Living here though, and watching as China-centric headlines increasingly fi…
It's tough being a Chinese press agency. It's even tougher being the Chinese press agency. Everyone's just waiting for you to stumble, people label you as a "mouthpiece", call you "unethical" and "biased", and dub you "pseudo-journalists"; but through it all you staunchly hold your head high and publish this:
Xinhua editors must have felt the much-truncated rewrite of a Daily Mail article was lacking a bit of …
Chinese authorities have stopped the issuance of permits for foreign travel to Tibet due to chilly weather and over-crowding. Probably has nothing to do with this.
People's Daily: The temporary measures on restricting foreign tourists to Tibet were mainly due to the current cold winter weather, limited accommodation capacity and safety concerns, a high-ranking official said on Monday.
The plateau region is stil…
There are no shortage of ways to trip yourself up in the emotionally saturated mire where animal cruelty meets cultural relativism. I'm usually happy to leave such mine fields alone, but rare is the opportunity for me to talk about my homeland, my nowland, and clubbing baby seals all in one breath.
This past week Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea was in Beijing to announce a long-fought for deal to open up the…
If you're wondering why Japanese business in your neighbourhood have broken windows, or why that mob just marched by shouting anti-Japan slogans and you've not got the foggiest idea what the hell the "Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands" dispute is all about, Kyle, aka The Manchurian Candidate, does a damn fine job of laying it all out here.
Kyle goes into a lot more detail, but the gist is:
In 1894, during the first Sino-…
No matter where we end up in China, or out, the first port of call any laowai makes in this country surely stays near and dear. Such is Dalian for me. I lived in Dalian for my first 18 months in China and return at least once a year to visit inlaws and friends.
The city is constantly touted as a clean and beautiful city, so, to see it suffering through one of the country's worst oil spill disasters sucks. To catch…
With the first of this year's two G20 summits set to kick off tomorrow (half hour later in Newfoundland), big black shiny busloads of politicians from around the globe are descending on Toronto for a few days of intense protester dodging (it really is an under-rated sport). And just a day before Hu Jintao's 5.0-magnitude landing in Ottawa, CSIS announces that China's infiltrating Canadian politics at all levels.
…
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