I was really responsible last night, I told myself that I have to be home at 3.30 am at latest. That is why I’m not tired today at all! Going to Zhongshan Park soon!

• Shanghai has decided to stop on-board aircraft passenger temperature checks, to the dismay of budding photographers hoping to document the bizarre hazard suit teams. [Shanghai Daily]
• Mudwrestling at Martini Bar? Those are two things we thought never would really mix, but it somehow happened. [SmartShanghai]
• What a load of bull. Shanghai's planning on building a bigger version of Wall St.'s charging bull statue to be placed on the waterfront. It'll mark the tail end of China's Year of the Ox and... we guess, be auspicious somehow. [The Age]
• Sweeeeet. Skateboarding's totes catching on in our city or something and that's rad, man. [Global Post]
• You know what's the best way to commemorate the 300 day countdown to the Shanghai World Expo? By opening up an Expo dedicated to Expos, like they did in Beijing. [CRI]
• We were JUST snarking on Linkin Park last night, and guess what we read this morning? They're set to perform at Shanghai Stadium on August 15. They're totally gonna kick our asses. [Shanghai Daily]

Is there anything more fun than a shop that sells useless trinkets? They’re not all winners, of course – bad likenesses of Hello Kitty and Pokemon are your signal to head for the door. Luckily, that’s not the case for Yavin 4.

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We just received word from an American foreign teacher in Jiangxi province who reports having successfully converted a business (F-) visa to a Z-visa in Hong Kong.He used an agent by the name of Tommy Hu with an office inside the Alison Guest House at Hoi Toi Court 3 on ...

Adorable! Spotted at 5 am outside Cantina Agave...

The above photo taken from an alleyway behind Ba BAi Ban, shows two towers: The MoreSky360 and the Hongduo Group Building.

The second photo shows worshippers leaving a Sunday morning church service.

Well, it has finally stopped raining. For now.The river reached a peak of 89.54 metres (7.04 metres above the danger level) at 10 pm last night.

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Related Entries:

• Rising Damp
• They're Flagging
• Blast!
• Stubborn Buns - Updated
• Filthy Scum
• Random Photograph No. 14
• Living in the Past
• Watersports Festival
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Choosing a portable computer can be a dilemma. Conventional notebooks with medium-sized screens are fine to work with, but carrying them around involves some planning. The practically palm-sized UMPCs (“ultra-mobile PCs”) are ultraportable, but reading on their tiny screens can be hard on the eyes after a while.

Gadgeteers wondered: Would any notebook ever be able to strike the perfect balance between portability and ease of use? In late May, Sony launched its VAIO P Lifestyle PC series – and the geeks trembled.

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A car accident made her an orphan at the age of ten.A pile of family debt forced her to leave school when she was fifteen.Five years later, a competition that brought her story to light.This is her story, as told by Harbin TV News.Meet Wang Zhixin, the Little Match Girl of super girlsWalking in the [...]

Michael Jackson’s rehearsal with his dancers on 23rd June, just two days before he died. It would had been a great performance. Tribute to the King of Pop.

• Foreign firms encouraged to list in China http://bit.ly/nxrUg #
• Traditional Chinese medicine cures Swine Flu H1N1 http://bit.ly/lvTlD #
• tickets go on sale for Shanghai expo 2010 http://bit.ly/ILQ4r - chinaonecall can help with your interpretation and translation needs. #
• Get your Shanghai Expo 2010 tickets http://en.expo2010.cn/ #

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Next weekend will be spent in BEIJING!!! I. can't. wait!!! I have not been there for 11 years, it is going to be very exciting to see how much it has changed! I just got home from a night out. Was at bulldog, later on to Velvet Lounge, and at last Zapatas.

Adevarul despre 7 aprilie @ Yahoo! VideoRelated:Reflecţii asupra alegerilor şi cum scăpăm de bestia comunistă în MoldovaVictoria Moldovei (…la fotbal!)BabelFish now redirects to Yahoo! .adHeadline {font: bold 10pt Arial; text-decoration: underline; color: #78B749;} .adText {font: normal 10pt Arial; text-decoration: none; color: #999999;} try{var AdBrite_Iframe=window.top!=window.self?2:1;var AdBrite_Referrer=document.referrer==''?document.location:document.referrer;AdBrite_Referrer=encodeURIComponent(AdBrite_Referrer);}catch(e){var [...]Related:

1. Reflecţii asupra alegerilor şi cum scăpăm de bestia comunistă în Moldova
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Bob starts his month-long bike trip across America today – what an interesting thing to do on July 4^th! I wish I could go with him but I was never much of an athlete.

He is using the same Trek bike he traveled with in China almost exactly 22 years ago. In July 1987, Bob had ridden it across China – from Harbin to Chongqing – to fulfill a date with me. It took him three weeks in the wind, rain and sun, during the night sleeping on the roadside in his tiny tent and green sleeping bag. He was probably the first foreigner to do such a bike trip alone in China. He had taken tons of interesting slides along the way; too bad I have no way to digitize them.

Bob told me later he often wondered if the Chinese roads were built as a punishment to bicyclists, but at least a bike had the advantage of easily negotiating its way through the unbelievable mass of human powered traffic; a car would not have been much faster than his bike. No cars: an unusual thing about China.

His goal had been to take an ambitious bicycle trip to Tibet. Instead, he found himself on the way to Chongqing, to meet a Chinese woman he fell in love with.

He sent me a letter whenever he ran into a post office. At some point he gave me an estimated arrival date, July 21. He was amazingly on schedule until the second last day, when he was arrested in a rural town a few hundred kilometers outside of Chongqing.

About noon on July 21^nd, he was stopped by a policeman in a green uniform, whose motorcycle was parked by the roadside and who said to the bearded foreigner in Chinese, “You are under arrest,” or something to that effect.

It was out of the blue. Bob, the “American bicyclist at large” – as he referred to himself then – immediately recalled a sign he had seen somewhere outside Beijing, “Foreigners Not Allowed Beyond This Point,” in both Chinese and English. But this was the Sichuan Province, about two thousand kilometers from Beijing, and he hadn’t seen any such sign around. Nor had he seen any sensitive construction like a military camp or prison. The only curious thing was that he heard people speaking in Shanghai dialect, which he recognized from having lived and taught in Shanghai for nearly a year. He was not aware of the migration of many defense factories from Shanghai to Sichuan in the 1960s, preparing for the Third World War that Chairman Mao predicted would soon be started by the American imperialists.

In China, unlike other parts of the world Bob had ridden through, he was almost always part of an entourage. With so many people riding bikes there were always a few who would keep pace with him, curious about him and his foreign bicycle. Sometimes they would talk, but as often as not they would just stare. Still, they were not unfriendly and at times he felt like he was simply part of the landscape. With a helmet on his head and bushy beard covering his lower face, however, it was not a challenge for the policeman to pick him out of the crowd. Still, Bob was calm; after a year, no longer could anything be thought too strange, for this was China.

Getting back on his bike Bob followed the police motorcycle to a dusty branch of road leading to a town building. In a second floor room two officers talked to Bob in Chinese, their manner a strange mix of friendliness and official business, leaking curiosity at times. They asked for his passport, and they asked why he was in this area where foreigners were not allowed (which he had no idea). After about an hour, when Bob’s crude Chinese could not address their questions satisfactorily, they fetched a local English teacher. The teacher, who it turned out had never seen a foreigner in his thirty-odd years of life, apparently was delighted to see a real English speaker in town. He tried to help both sides with his basic English. The interrogation went on for a prolonged time, whether because the teacher caused more linguistic confusion, or the confusion led the officers into better humor, Bob did not know. In the end, the officers required merely a fine and a confession.

“One hundred yuan for trespassing in a prohibited area. Two hundred yuan for unauthorized use of a vehicle,” the police told Bob. Whether this was truly a prohibited area, they did not say. The total was more than several months of the local English teacher’s salary. Bob paid the fine, then scribbled on a lined piece of paper, inserting as many words as he could to fill the page, to show that he took the confession as seriously as the Chinese. The following is his "confession," which he reconstructed for me afterward:

The local English teacher orally translated Bob’s confession to the officers, stammering here and there. The officers looked satisfied. They told Bob that he must wait in the town’s hotel until the next morning to catch a train to Chongqing, as he was not allowed to travel by bike in this area. Could he walk around town by foot? Bob asked. Yes, that would be okay, said one of the policeman, with unexpected friendliness.

The English teacher volunteered to escort the American to the hotel. Then he disappeared. An hour or so later he reappeared. A bit timidly, he asked if Bob would like to teach an English class in his school. The surprised Bob said yes.

In a two-story clay building, a typical low-key town school, about twenty students sat behind their desks in a well-disciplined manner. Boys stared at the big-bearded foreigner and girls giggled softly. “Good afternoon,” Bob said.

The kids imitated him in neat unison; their teacher smiled proudly. The curiosity and seriousness of the children made Bob temporarily forget his arrest. He taught the class some simple English vocabulary for half an hour with much enjoyment.

Before Bob left, with a nod from the teacher, a boy presented a triangular red scarf to him with both hands. Such a red scarf was the mark of Young Pioneers, Bob knew, the official children’s organization in Communist China. Despite any political connotation of the scarf, this gesture of honor from the innocent elementary school kids was in such ironic contrast to Bob’s unexplained “criminal” arrest, he was both touched and frustrated.

He had no way to warn me about his delay. There was no such a thing as cell phone at the time. There was not even a land line in my house.

~

I worried all day when Bob did not show up as scheduled. Then I stayed awake through most of the night, finally drifting into dreamland near morning. I slept in, only to awake to loud shouts from downstairs: “A foreigner is looking for Xujun! An old foreigner!”

Old foreigner? Bob was only twenty-eight. It must be his beard!

I put on my jeans and shirt in a fluster, grabbed a hairbrush and ran downstairs while combing my waist-length hair. Outside my apartment building, on the sidewalk, under the hot Chongqing sun I saw six-foot-tall Bob, in his red McGill University T-shirt, standing in a circle of onlookers five-feet or shorter. Those townsmen of mine were silent; their gazes unmistakably fixed on the foreigner’s face. Bob, his wide forehead blackened by sweat and dust, appeared quite baffled by this silent spotlight of so many human eyes. His one hand held the loaded Trek bike with a helmet hanging on its handlebar, and the other held a small notebook, in which I had written down my address in Chinese for him a month and a half before in Shanghai. He looked at this person and that in amusement, making inquiries in both English and crude Chinese: “What? Shenmo?” He tried to move in one direction then another; the crowd retreated and advanced with him like an unbreakable giant rubber band.

It was not a novel scene to me. Although the largest industrial city in southwest China, and in the 1940s China’s wartime capital bustling with American and British diplomats, since 1949 Chongqing had rarely seen foreign tourists. When I was an undergraduate student in Chongqing University in early 1980s, one day on the street I ran into an American professor who worked for the Sichuan Foreign Language College. It was the first time I had seen a white man with my own eyes instead of on a screen. At that time I was extremely tired of the mandatory politics class in school, and I had the sudden impulse to know if American universities had similar classes. The American man was buying a roll of high-quality toilet paper, the kind we ordinary Chinese regarded as a luxury, from a small grocery store on the side of a main street near the Liberation Monument. I heard him speaking fluent Chinese to the store clerk. I approached him and asked my question. “Yes,” he said. “Of course American universities have politics classes.” We were both speaking Chinese, but he looked baffled. His answer and expression confused me and I wanted to probe further. Just then, I noticed that the two of us were surrounded by a large crowd of onlookers, so large that they blocked traffic on the street. Embarrassed by the hundreds of eyes staring at me, I ran out without saying good-bye to the professor. Not until many years later, when I became a graduate student at MIT, did I realize how ignorant my question was. It’s not that American universities did not offer classes on politics. The difference was that to take the class or not was your own choice, not a mandatory imposition on daily life.

Now, once again I faced a band of staring humans, and my steps halted. I hesitated to step into a trap, to identify myself with the tall foreigner. But Bob had already seen me. He waved, smiling warmly and irresistibly. I squeezed into the ring.

“How should I greet your townsfolk?” he asked me in English.

Seeing the foreign man talking to a Chinese woman, the crowd became lively. A young man taunted, “Yang guizi!” and laughter ensued. Some touched Bob’s bike – few rode bikes in hilly Chongqing. I said nothing and led him out of the encirclement. The crowd reluctantly opened a breach to let us go.

I still remember that morning vividly after 22 years.

The only useful thing I got out of doing phone surveys for several months during college was that people hate doing phone surveys. I also learned to ask, “What else?” instead of, “Anything else?” since the latter gives people an easy escape with a simple yes or no. “What else?” forces them to think about what else they could say. When I adopt this strategy into my teaching, however, it mostly annoys the students who just want me to stop asking them to elaborate on everything. But isn’t that the point?

When I challenge my students with a new word, they immediately type it into their translators. Then they say, “Oh, okay, I know,” smiling and looking at me with hopeful eyes that plead to move on to the next subject. “Now explain what it means in English,” I’ll say, sending their eyes rolling. “But I know what it means,” they insist. And so do I, “I know, but tell me, anyway.” They think I’m being petty, but the key to becoming fluent is not translating words to words. It’s being able to describe those words.

My other favorite question to ask is, “Why?” Why is autumn better than spring? Why is basketball your favorite sport? Why do you like watching horror movies? Sometimes, the students will try to fall back on, “Because it is exciting!” Then I throw off their balance with, “Why is it exciting?” The lesson books ask simple favorite questions all the time, and I feel like the students get into the habit of repeat answers. They don’t really stop to think about and use additional English to explain why.

I’ve known this training school and many of its students for a year. Some of them graduated from the program already. Others dropped out. And others keep on trucking but can’t shake the discouragement surrounding their minimal English skills. They all feel discouraged, even the graduates. Before I started working here again, one student asked me what he could do to get better. He was desperate for advice, and yet I had nothing for him. But now I’ve got a pretty good idea. Start asking each other why.

• @SkyMuseum Thanks again for everything, great exhibition! in reply to SkyMuseum #

As America celebrates its 233rd birthday, I raise it a glass and give it a big 干杯(ganbei) of 白酒(Baijiu)！

Explanation?

From The Financial Times

Image from 21food.cn

Beijingers call the hot and sticky months of July and August the "sauna" season. On muggy summer evenings, sensible locals sweat it out in the capital's old lanes with sticks of fatty lamb kebab and cold bottles of Yanjing beer.

But real men roll up their T-shirts under their armpits, ditch the pansy lager, and instead glug down the local firewater known as baijiu - a potent mash of sorghum, rice, unhusked barley and other grains.

For foreign businessmen forced to drink the stuff at countless banquets, baijiu provides an infamous challenge for the unconditioned palate. But this white spirit - generally 40 to 60 per cent alcohol by volume - is a mainstay of Chinese culture, first popularised during the Xia dynasty 4,000 years ago.

Baijiu, the world's largest spirits category by volume, traditionally dominated the domestic booze market. But in recent years, sales volumes of China's national liquor declined as beer, a foreign upstart, gulped up market share.

Now baijiu-makers are fighting back with a proliferation of new, luxury varieties designed to appeal to the country's growing band of big spenders. Revenues are shooting up at major distilleries and the spirit is giving beer a run for its money.

Read On

Anyone who's been to a Chinese banquet knows the culture of baijiu. The Chinese are serious about this liquor.

My first experience with baijiu in China was a bad one. The people I was drinking with told me, "Have some Chinese wine!" Thinking that I'd be drinking something in the same vain as "wine," I was all for it. After my first glass was poured and the glasses around the table were raised, I didn't even bother smelling the fluid inside the small shot glass. As the "firewater" hit my mouth and throat, I nearly gagged.

"This is wine?!" I remember yelling as I was short of breath after my drink.

The Chinese around the table all laughed and immediately poured me another glass.

I don't need to get into the details of what ensued. You can easily guess. Let's just say the next day I had one of the worst hangovers of my life.

For the next couple years I was staunchly opposed to baijiu. Whenever I was at a wedding or event where people were drinking the stuff, I'd take a drink or two out of politeness but rarely ever imbibed any more than that.

My attitude changed towards baijiu changed last fall when my friend from America, Andy, came to visit me in Xi'an though. On our way out to travel out in Gansu, Andy and I bought a bottle to drink on the train. We then ended up having an absolutely excellent drunken time. A week or two later, we drank some more baijiu at the north peak of Hua Shan when we stayed at a guesthouse there. Another truly great experience.

So since those positive instances last fall, I'm totally fine with drinking baijiu. I can't say I do it that often, but when the occasion arises, whether it be a wedding or a house party, I'm happy to participate.

To America on its best holiday of the year, 干杯 and have a great day!

Out Of The Pan
B1, Raffles City
Singapore

Decided to check out Out Of The Pan at Raffles City, because someone (can't remember who it was!) recommended it. I've actually walked past the place heaps of times, but never thought about eating there. It just seemed so..... open! It's in the middle of the shopping centre, with escalators going up and down along each side of the bistro. You feel a bit exposed, like someone standing on the floor above overlooking the bistro could lob something at you ;)

Glad we tried it out though, because we were pretty impressed with the place. You don't often find crepes in Singapore, and I loved how these were soft yet had enough substance, and with a pleasant flavour. The Seafood Jungle was awesome - Tangy spicy yoghurt with citrus fruits, crabmeat, prawns and scallops. The seafood was fresh and crisp and the sauce was delicious! I'd have that again any day.

We ordered 2 waffles to share and the Chocolate Waffles (not pictured below) were awesome. Like a cross between a chocolate biscuit and brownie. Niiiiice! I think this place does one of the better crepes in Singapore, we were pleasantly surprised!

Out Of The Pan

Cool tall-glassed drinks. Can't remember what we had now!

Beetroot chips and regular chips with fresh salsa dip

Corn chips with (very strange, fake) 'guacamole'

Elliot performs his "WTF do you think you're doing" look, which he's perfected on Chris :P

Minted Roma tomato with caramelised nuts, green salad and orange vinagrette

Cream of Mushroom soup

Chicken noodle soup with chicken dumplings, yellow noodles and chilli oil

Tangy spicy yoghurt with citrus fruits, crabmeat, prawns and scallops

Waffles!

It's like el fresco dining.. inside the shopping centre ;)

Looking down at the bistro

The Three Represents

Free The Grampus 8!

Pistol Pete's Karisma Klub

Touch The Monolith

The President's Brain Is Missing

12 Square Monkeys

The Nattily Attired Gentlemen Of Colour
[Yes, there is a story behind this one too - but I don't think I dare tell it in a public forum. Well, maybe later - in the comments... ]

The Rain Dogs

Norfolk & Clew
[A provincial estate agents' firm? Or a self-disparaging pun?]

The Crafty Homosexual Gangsters

Has it ever occurred to you that at practically every conference you attend almost all of the speakers are terribly boring?

When you yourself made your last presentation did people come up to you afterwards to talk to you? Are you sure you made an impression?

The irony is that almost all speakers have probably been advised or trained to present well. They don’t want to bore you. They want to entertain you – but they fail miserably. Why?

John Miers, a former nuclear submarine commander and frequent media spokesman for Britain’s Royal Navy, has developed a radically different approach to speaking. It involves teaching people how to use emotional intelligence to engage a crowd, ensuring the message gets across and their words actually have an impact.

In his new book Hit Me Again!… I Can Still Hear Him!, John explains his singular approach to business speaking – helping speakers discover how to be less conscious and more natural while communicating.

To win one of three free copies, just answer this question: Who did John act as media spokesman for? Answers to pete at blacksmithbooks dot com, Asian postal addresses only.

John Miers will be launching his book at Bookazine in Prince’s Building, Central, on July 16th… stay tuned for more details.

Yes, I have to admit I did kiss the Great Wall of China ! Not once but twice. It was in my wish list to visit the Great Wall of China for many years. And I am glad that I finally made it. I did promise my self that if I do reach or step onto this particular wonder of the world, I will give the wall a kiss. And I did !
And I would like to thank Mr. Daniel Li the manager from beijing-tour.com for providing me the entire free tour for package A and B. So that solve some of the questions I receive by email why I am promoting beijing-tour.com . But that is not the 'cabled' I mean to the Great Wall.
I bought a hiking stick during my previous trip in Hangzhou last February for this purpose. I brought the hiking stick along to the Great Wall but didn't actually has the opportunity to use it due to some reasons. Instead, we took the 'cable car' to reach the 8Th tower. Well, at least I walked 2 towers down and 2 towers up. That is exhausting enough. That's the 'cable' I mean.
OK, lets start from the beginning. After the Ming Tombs visit, we proceed to The Badaling Great Wall. We had lunch at the base of the mountains. There were 7 of us. One elderly couple (very strong and energetic to climb the Great Wall) from the US, a younger couple also from the US where the husband is a soldier who just came back from the Somalia and another business couple from the Philippines. Lunch is provided in the tour package which comprises of 8 to 9 Chinese dishes and free flow of drinks.
After lunch, we proceed to the cable car station and off we go to the top. As easy as that. Even though the place is crowded, we needn't need to Que for the cable car as they came very fast. We have the option to choose to walk up or to take the cable car. But seeing the lengthy climb with so many people, I think we make the right decision to take the cable car up and down. Anyway tickets for the cable car is not included in the tour package. So we have to buy our own tickets. However, we have a good lady tour guide, Ms Jennifer Tuan who speaks fluent English and doesn't mind handling all these ticketing for us.
The view of the Badaling Great Wall is magnificent and beautiful. You just can't stop clicking your camera the moment you are at the base until you reach the 8Th tower. I am so sorry I can't express them in words except by posting more photos. The weather was perfectly fine at that time and there are so many people walking with you. Believe me, every angle of photos you take have it's own beauty. It's wonderful ! No wonder it's declare by the UNESCO as the Seven Wonders of The World.
The Great Wall is one place in Beijing that I will re-visit if were to be back there visiting. Perhaps the next time will be on a winter season and we'll walk up. Well, I post more photos down and no more words for your viewing. I'm not good in words but the picture it selves says a thousand and one words.. Have a pleasant evening..

Hello Children,in case that the sabotaging news about North Korea doing something that the Chinese people don’t want them to do has managed to upset you, let me tell you that all the talk about our dear friend Kim Jung-il testing more missiles is an ugly rumor spread by hostile media such as CNN. In [...]

Coming to us off a European tour, Australian band Grace Before Meals is set to play at Yu Yin Tang tonight at the Indie China Showcase, along with six other bands from around China.

We had a chance to talk to frontman Vic McEwan in between his band's crazy rehearsal schedule:

How did the band come about?

The band started as a solo recording project by me. As the recording was completed I realized that I wanted to play these songs live but didn't want to plat under a solo name such as Vic McEwan, so The name Grace Before Meals was born.

I started practicing these songs with my girlfriend at the time Sarah Moor. She is a drummer and also plays piano. We organized to play a show together and realized that it would be nice to have some strings and of course needed some bass guitar to round out the sounds we had recorded. I had played in a band called Box Freezer Romance with Amelia Reid for some time so asked to come and play at our first show. Another friend Fiona Berry, was a viola player and so we asked her to join us and play. After a few rehearsals and a gig we realized we really liked playing together, and somehow it just felt very easy.

Another friend from Box Freezer Romance, Penny McBride also had some rehearsals with us. She was busy for our first couple of shows but continues to play with us and is on tour with us here in China. Fiona Berry, the viola player, wasn't able to travel at this time so our line up for these shows is piano, percussion, xylophone, bass and trumpet.

Mostly the people in this band came together because they are all so lovely to spend time with. And Sarah Moor and I got married the day before we left on this 3 months European and China tour. So this is really our Honeymoon Tour.

Why the name Grace Before Meals?

Grace Before Meals was simply a name that I had had in my head for maybe ten years and thought a band would be good with that name. To me the name isn't about anything religious but about a moment of quite contemplation and thanks for the good things around you. Maybe these songs are the sound track to that moment of quiet contemplation before people engage with the FRENZY of life.

Your first show was in 2008- what's it like to be playing a worldish tour already a year later?

We have all played in other bands all our lives, and still do play in other bands. Organizing a world tour so quickly is a great way to utilize the fresh energy that we have together. We all have a lot of energy for this band, not just for the playing music side of it but for the organizing part and for creating different experiences, whether they are musical, cultural or whatever. This band is full of people who have all had interesting life experiences and love to explore and to look into the cracks to find the undiscovered beauties.

How do you factor instruments like a viola and clarinet into a band?

The viola is such a beautiful instrument and under utilized in what is loosely termed "rock music". To me it is like adding a lace collar or a beautiful antique necklace to an outfit; it has such a haunting, beautiful, sad and uplifting tone, all at the same time. How could we have anything other that a viola?

The clarinet is an instrument I have been playing for only a few years. It doesn't feature in our live show much because I am playing piano, but there are plans to have some songs that are based on the clarinet in our live set. These songs are being explored in rehearsals at the moment.

Now the question every band hates: How would you describe your music?

I would describe our music as beautiful and creepy creepy music, that sounds a bit like a haunted house. I think at the same time our sound manages to feel beautiful, like the first stages of love, and sometimes fearful, like you're a tiny child lost in a crowded market place and all you can see is the legs of tall adults and the deafening drill of human chitter chatter and endeavor. Complete loss with no plan of action for escape.

What do you know/think about the Chinese bands you'll be playing with at Yu Yin Tang?

We don't know much about the line up for the show at YYT. The person who has organized this show for us seems to be involved in some interested music from China so we are excited to play with some current underground players in this country. We are looking forward to seeing and hearing what is happening here.

What next after China?

We have many plans! When we get home to Australia on the 22nd of July, myself and Sarah will be traveling to Townsville in Northern Australia where we will be installing a sound installation along the foreshore of Townsville. This will be exhibited for a month as part of an outdoor sculpture festival.

Before that we have our double EP launch in Sydney, then in October we travel to Melbourne for a launch and also play a show in the middle of the country in a dried out river. This will be part of a theatre show about water and the current drought in Australia that turns water into a precious commodity like gold. The show is called Gold.

Four days after we get home to Sydney, we have our first show there as part of a ten month program of shows/exhibitions that are being funded by the Arts Council of The Australian Governement. It is a very exciting opportunity for us to be given some support to showcase some underground music and art from Australia. Ideally we would love to bring out a Chinese band or two to showcase as part of this series of shows.

Next year we plan on touring Europe and China again and hopefully to spend one month together in Frankfurt, Germany making a theatre performance together.

What are you expecting from your show on Saturday?

On Saturday we hope to experience a real part of Chinese underground culture. Hopefully we will get to give and receive at this gig. I think there are some interesting angles being explored in this band that aren't very common in typical rock music, so we are looking forward to sharing that and to sharing in a real experience of Chinese underground music. We hope to learn from every little part of it.

It's a bit damp round these parts.

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Related Entries:

• They're Flagging
• Blast!
• Stubborn Buns - Updated
• Filthy Scum
• Random Photograph No. 14
• Living in the Past
• Watersports Festival
• Urgent Warning
• Updated Chaos
• Three Way Road

Tucked away behind Pacific Century Place just off Sanlitun, in what used to be the research facility for the Beijing Machinery and Electric Institute, is now 1949, a neo-industrial factory-chic dining and entertainment compound. Behind the brick walls lays a quaint courtyard-like commune, which features indoor and outdoor restaurants, cafés, bars, gardens, terraces, a private members' club, and a contemporary art gallery. The restaurants each serve a distinct style of cuisine.

read more

It’s always nice to see that people have arrived at my blog via a Google search and, though they may not agree with what they read here, the content is at least relevant to their queries. It’s not so encouraging to see so many people coming here on a fruitless quest for “black on white sex,” “girls with cocks” or some combination of the two. Less encouraging still is the frequently bizarre spelling of these words. And it’s downright disturbing to see how many people want “sex with cats.”

Check out and enjoy this nice-shiny 16-page supplement on mobile marketing here. It’s been produced by Raconteur Media, and Mobile Marketing Mag Editor David Murphy who has been closely involved as an editorial consultant on the project, writing a couple of pieces, advising on content, and generally trying to make the thing as useful as possible to anyone picking it up who can’t quite get their head around what mobile marketing is.

I’ve succumbed to a temporary physical meltdown, beginning with one issue (in the spirit of TMI, an ulcer) which landed me in two different New York City hospitals. The symptoms of the ulcer have since been compounded by a virus resembling the flu, which I likely picked up in the emergency ward at the first hospital, [...]

Recently we have banned some trolls from our blog.The reason why we banned them, was because they were so boring.    Our standard is to ban any and all trolls who are not as interesting as Cthulhu.   Because Catherine and I will never settle for a lesser evil!Posted in Ned Kelly's Pub Tagged: Cthulhu [...]

Deer Consumer Products, a Chinese manufacturer of kitchen appliances, may not yet be a household name. But Deer has big ambitions, prestigious contracts with the likes of Wal-Mart and Tesco and plans for a Nasdaq listing...

Location: Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai ChinaHow to Get There: Bus 945 Shanghai Tan Mall (the trims market)

Whether it is the entrepreneurs of Wenzhou who have developed the informal lending circles, those returning from Silicon Valley, your local delivery man who represents 6 delivery companies or the freshly minted grads who are receiving government aid, China breadth of entrepreneurial ventures is wide.

Some of China’s biggest celebrities (Jack Ma) are in fact entrepreneurs, so big in fact that they warranted their own reality  TV compeition (CCTV’s Win In China) and their own documentary Win In China.

Recently released, the documentary is an interesting behind the scenes look on the show, and the wider entrepreneur phenomenon, to capture the fascination behind entrepreneurs by looking through its judges (Jack Ma) as they have attained a hero status in China…. and what some will take to make it there.  The core competition is structured my like that of Trump’s Apprentice in so far as contestants are tested on their ability to work in teams, think on their feet, and succeed at a task, however, unlike Trumps version where it is a pool of elite MBAs, this show runs the gamete of single mothers/ grandmothers, successful manufacturer, recent MBA, returning Chinese, and so on. Additionally, the show adds a final 1-on-1  self criticism/ debate that becomes the climax of each show, a segment that leads into the final judging by Jack Ma and his team to decide the fate of one member over the other.

On a wider level, what I find interesting about this show is not so much the competition, or who won (the good guy won), but the range of character that was displayed by the contestants, and the flexibility that the game offered contestants as they proceeded. You had some members who were really trying hard to proceed with a moral compas in hand.  Their goal was to develop a product/ service that was truly the best, without cutting corners.  While others clearly were happy to trade their moral compass, and push the lines of sexual harrasement, to gain the edge.

Equally interesting, perhaps more so, was the fact that when one member (The Wolf) was called out for repeatedly working outside the confines of the rules, he trumped with “I was not educated in school.  I had to work doubly hard for my success”..and received a standing ovation. A very interesting insight.

As I mentioned, in the end the “good” guy won the battle that was Win In China, but the update from the producer showed that in reality that had little bearing on who the war:

The winner of the competition, Song Wenming, started his business; it is going slower than he expected. The second place winner - Zhou Yu – “The Wolf” - has rapidly expanded his plants and is growing his business quickly

PepsiCo has opened China's first "green" beverage plant in Chongqing and reiterated plans to invest $1 billion in the country. The drinks giant says this is the first plant in the industrial centre of Chongqing to comply with LEED, a US standard for green buildings...

China has a number of potential sustainable development paths, but none of them will be easy to achieve. This is the conclusion of a recent report by Wang Tao and Jim Watson, which develops a set of low-carbon scenarios to 2100.

China's continuous economic growth over the past 30 years has significantly improved the living standards of many of its citizens. The Chinese government claims that 400 million people were lifted out of poverty between 1980 and 2000, and GDP per capita has increased five times since 1981. Alongside economic expansion, China has also experienced a large increase in energy demand, especially after its economy moved into a stage of heavy industrialisation and urbanisation early this century.

This dramatic increase in energy demand, most of which is met by the use of coal, meant that China became the world’s largest carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitter in 2006. China’s recent energy demand growth has also led to concerns about energy supply, local and regional environmental pollution and social stability. China’s participation is a key to the success of a post-2012 international climate framework. However, such a framework must incorporate the development needs of China and other developing countries. This raises a fundamental question: can China develop within the tight global carbon emissions constraints that climate science now says are necessary?

The Tyndall Centre’s recent research on China’s low carbon development paths has explored this question, and the results are summarised in a new report: China’s Energy Transition. The report investigates the potential trajectories of carbon emissions that China could follow to achieve a given global climate change target. The report investigates in detail how these emission trajectories could be achieved, through changes in China’s economy and society, and the policies and technologies that shape the country’s energy system.

The target for China used in the report is a cumulative emissions budget over the twenty-first century. This is derived from a global target of stabilising the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ at 450 parts per million (ppm). According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) latest assessment, achieving this target would mean that the world has a significant chance of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change. The total global budget is 490 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC) over the twenty-first century. The report analyses four scenarios that are based on two different apportionment approaches for global emissions: namely equal emissions per capita and equal emissions intensity of GDP. Within this, China is given a cumulative emission budget ranging from 70 GtC under the former approach, to 111 GtC under the latter. These approaches were just used to provide an illustrative range for China’s potential cumulative emissions under a given global target rather than argue for legitimate carbon emission share for China. Combined with different medium-term carbon emissions pathways, these budgets imply that China would reach a peak in its emissions between 2020 and 2030, followed by a decline. The four scenarios for China with their different emissions trajectories are shown in Figure 1 (labelled S1, S2, S3 and S4).

Figure 1: Carbon emissions in China: historic data, projections and Tyndall scenarios

The four scenarios analysed in the report are distinctive from each other, but in general are divided by their relative positions on two critical issues: promoting innovation, and the approach to social inequality. This report is not intended to be prescriptive about which of these budgets – or the many alternative pathways – China should follow. The scenarios are designed to illustrate some of the possibilities, and what the consequences of these might be for investment, economic structure and policy if they were followed. The research does not reach a firm conclusion on which scenario is the most desirable.

Within the scenarios, the Chinese economy in 2050 grows to between 8 and 13 times larger than that of today (see Figure 2). The economy in every scenario is dominated by the service sector, as is the case in most of today’s industrialised countries. The structure of other industries varies between the scenarios. In scenarios S1 and S2, high technology and high value-added industries will become the largest subsector in industry, while the other two scenarios will see more contributions from conventional and heavy industries. The total primary energy demand for 2050 also varies among scenarios, ranging from only 15% higher than 2005, to twice the 2005 level.

As a result, the energy intensity of Chinese economy is reduced by 76% to 87% between now and 2050, while carbon intensity is cut further to just 4% to 7% of the 2005 level. China’s carbon emissions rise to between 24% and 72% higher than 2005 by 2020 and subsequently decline to between 15% and 70% less than the 2005 level by 2050. Among all the sectors of the Chinese economy, transportation has the highest growth within the scenarios. Changes in households and industry also hold the key to a successful transition to low-carbon development in the next few decades.
Figure 2: Growth of total gross value-added of Chinese economy in each scenario

Within the Tyndall Centre scenarios, renewable energy plays a much bigger role in China’s energy system in 2050, adding to a more diverse energy structure. Coal reduces from more than 60% in 2005 to around 30% in total primary energy demand, while oil and gas continue their steady growth in the energy mix. Nuclear has the most diverse picture, from negligible in S2 to more than 12% in S3. This reflects different priorities between advanced renewables, such as wind and solar photovoltaics (PV), and nuclear for low-carbon energy supply. Even with a similar level of renewable energy in the scenarios, there is still large variance in technology choice within the renewable options, as well as in the way they are deployed (for example, in centralised facilities or in small-scale micro-generation).

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Renewables contribute 37% to 61% of electricity generation in 2050 and differences exist in specific renewable sources in each scenario. For example, the power generating capacity in S2 in 2050 is more than 3,000 gigawatts, four times today’s size. Within this, more than a quarter is from solar and another 22% from wind (Figure 3). This implies an increase at about 10% every year for wind power and 16% every year for solar power between 2010 and 2050. A large portfolio of renewable energy could significantly improve some aspects of China’s energy security, for instance by reducing the exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility. Stability of the energy system with large contributions from renewables will be a serious issue, but could be managed with smarter grid technologies.

Figure 3: Power generation capacity and percentage of each source in 2050 (S2)

Even with the huge expansion of renewables, coal- and gas-fired power generation still account for 34% in this scenario. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) therefore becomes a crucial technology in helping China to develop within a carbon budget. CCS is not assumed to be implemented on a large scale in China until 2030, and will have to be diffused quickly so that decarbonisation of the power system could be achieved in these scenarios. By 2050, CCS will have to be installed on 80% to 90% of fossil-fuelled power plants in scenarios S3 and S4, in which coal will account for higher percentage of power generation than in S2. This means that action is required now, on an international basis, to assist China with the demonstration of CCS technologies. It is also important for China to bear in mind the need to retrofit CCS at a later date when new coal-fired power plants are built.

Energy demand from households and transport will continue their growth in all scenarios as living standards increase in China. Energy-efficiency improvements in appliances and buildings, and contributions from micro-renewables will help to reduce emissions growth from household sectors. High-carbon energy sources, such as coal, will be completely phased out from household use by 2050. The transport system becomes a major carbon emissions source in all scenarios due to high demand growth as well as the difficulty of decarbonisation. Private road transport accounts for most of this growth. But in some scenarios climate-change impacts are reduced with demand-side changes – in mobility patterns, for instance; large scale-ups in of alternative fuel use – such as electricity and sustainable biofuels; and significant developments in public transport.

Renewables contribute 37% to 61% of electricity generation in 2050 and differences exist in specific renewable sources in each scenario. For example, the power generating capacity in S2 in 2050 is more than 3,000 gigawatts, four times today’s size. Within this, more than a quarter is from solar and another 22% from wind (Figure 3). This implies an increase at about 10% every year for wind power and 16% every year for solar power between 2010 and 2050. A large portfolio of renewable energy could significantly improve some aspects of China’s energy security, for instance by reducing the exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility. Stability of the energy system with large contributions from renewables will be a serious issue, but could be managed with smarter grid technologies.

 
The scenario analysis is intended to inform policy-making both in China and in international climate-change negotiations. Some of the key policy implications of the report’s analysis follow:

• Decoupling carbon emissions growth from economic development in China is challenging, but is in principle achievable – and there is more than one way to realise it. The four scenarios demonstrate different ways to square China’s continuing development within a carbon emissions constraint, with different priorities in governmental decision making, infrastructure investments and social preferences.

• It is vital to start slowing emissions growth as early as possible. This will maximise China’s room for manoeuvre in deciding when it is appropriate for emissions to peak. The later the slowdown in emissions growth and the peak, the more difficult it will be for China in the future. Furthermore, later peaks are often associated with steeper subsequent reductions in emissions, which are likely to be more challenging for policy and social stability. Our analysis clearly demonstrates that 2040 is too late: a peak in Chinese emissions between 2020 and 2030 is therefore a plausible contribution that China could make to global action to stabilise the climate.

• The success and speed of economic and industrial structural change towards a more balanced economy – with a greater role for services and high tech industries – is likely to be crucial to China’s low-carbon development. This fits well with recent policy pronouncements of the Chinese government, which is keen that China moves away from its recent energy-intensive development path. The storylines associated with the scenarios suggest that economic growth could be much faster, more sustainable and resilient to external shocks in scenarios where this shift is implemented more quickly.

• Energy efficiency is vital, but the challenges vary across different scenarios. Currently the largest potential for energy efficiency improvement lies in China’s industries. But the fast growing demand for energy in the household and transport sectors points to the need for early action on efficiency in these sectors too if China’s overall efficiency targets are to be met.

• The transition to a low-carbon development pathway does not only depend on technology choices. Social choices and the potential carbon lock-in associated with life styles and behaviour patterns will have significant impacts on future emissions. Encouraging low-carbon lifestyles and consumption within China’s growing middle class could have a strong exemplary effect on the wider population regarding the development pathways that are desirable. This is an essential aspect of China’s future story that should be addressed alongside measures for low-carbon investment, institutional change and policy incentives.

• While a focus on China’s potential future carbon emission trajectories is very important in terms of climate change, these scenarios have wider implications: they include potentially important impacts on the availability of fossil and non-fossil energy resources as well as other natural resources, such as water and land use. It is also important to consider the energy-security threats that China faces.

The pathways for low carbon development illustrated by the Tyndall Centre scenarios have a particular resonance in the context of the current economic crisis. As in many other countries, there is an active debate within China about the extent to which economic stimulus packages to tackle the crisis can encourage more sustainable forms of development. Low-carbon development not only means the deployment of low-carbon technologies in China, but also presents an opportunity for China to build low-carbon industries and new institutions to foster low-carbon innovation. There are increasing signs that Chinese firms could soon develop world-leading capabilities in key low-carbon technologies, such as wind power. But even if such potential is realised, developed countries still have an obligation to make good on their repeated promises to assist developing countries like China with technology and finance. Without such assistance, there is a greater risk that China will not move fast enough towards the low-carbon development pathway that is necessary to enable the world to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change. 

For more details, please download the full report here: China’s Energy Transition: Pathways for Low Carbon Development.

Dr Tao Wang is research fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Sussex Energy Group at SPRU, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Contact him: tao [dot] wang [at] sussex.ac.uk

Dr Jim Watson is Director of the Sussex Energy Group at SPRU and deputy leader of the Tyndall Centre's Climate Change and Energy Programme. Contact him: w [dot] j [dot] watson [at] sussex.ac.uk 

Homepage photo by Madiko83

The Internet: A room of our own? - Evgeny Morozov in Dissent [pdf](tags: internet internet-politics evgenymorozov)Video from The 7th Chinese Internet Research Conference, May 27 – 29, 2009I didn't make it to Philly, but caught some of the panels on webcast. Now video is up!(tags: circ09 circ china-internet research conference video)

[Full story...]

• State of emergency: There are now only 3 gigabyte space left on my notebook. Hasta la vista, mp3’s. #
• I didn’t get knocked down, but I got up again. #
• Why do they even bother to put up traffic lights in NYC? Everybody ignores them anyway. #

Academic Criticism (学术批评网) is a useful website founded in 2001 by Yang Yusheng (杨玉圣), a historian and critic.

The website aggregates commentary by and about academics: newspaper op-eds, book reviews, forewords to anthologies, and other similar material. It's a way to find a wide variety of opinion in one convenient place.

Yang is also known as an "academic janitor" who takes out the trash of scholarly dishonesty and academic malpractice, including the plagiarism cases that crop up so frequently nowadays.

Did he make some enemies? Academic Criticism used to be located at acriticism.com, but late last month, it was the target of a DDOS attack that left the website paralyzed, forcing it to move to criticism.cn.

Sayre's Law says that academic politics are so vicious because the states are so low, but in many of these cases, the stakes are quite high indeed. A recent letter posted to the site demanded the resignation of Lu Jierong, a professor at Liaoning University who was listed as coauthor of a student's paper that later turned out to be plagiarized. And although faculty and administration frequently resist taking action against plagiarizing professors, occasionally one will be dismissed in disgrace.

Earlier this year a blogger in China was stabbed by someone who took offense at the charges one post leveled against a friend of his. Who's to say an aggrieved academic wouldn't hire a botnet to take down an unfriendly website?

Related only by the topic of website inaccessibility, Danwei's server in Texas has been generally unreachable from mainland China since around 4pm Friday afternoon. A targeted block? An unfortunate side effect of recent upgrades made to improve the efficiency of filtering unwholesome material? A giant mass hallucination?

It's impossible to tell at this point. So spend the weekend outside and we'll see if we can't get things turned around by Monday.

Tags: Academic Criticism, blockages, opinion, Yang Yusheng

This article is from Danwei.org

China's telecoms equipment industry gets more innovative each day. But there are still areas where western technology triumphs. How else do we explain Ericsson getting three contracts for fixed broadband access?

A number of contemporary New Confucian scholars are to some extent aware of the Second Axial Age, writes Wang Zhicheng (王志成), professor at Zhejiang University’s Humanities College, in an article on his blog. The axial age was a term coined by Karl Jaspers, a philosopher and psychiatrist who taught during the 20th century. A second [...]

Date: Jul 3rd 2009 10:55p.m.
Contributed by: davidfeng

We might get harmonized if we used the word "crap" with "Olympics" and "skies during this time & period", but we sure could have some better skies last Olympic August. However, here's news: apparently, our skies have been better post-Games than pre-Games. Either that, or the Wanbao wants us to be indoctrinated that the foreign media are blowing Beijing's pollution — well, out of proportions. Better skies or blacker skies? We leave that to the readership to make the final call. Wanbao headliner done.

No road or Subway news today in the Wanbao (we know, what a tragedy). Just a warning of 10 more new SARS H1N1 patients, and the fact that North Korea went nuclear — four times again — yesterday. It's only the Yalu River that separates us from those people, folks. Not sure when we'll start >beep<ing in our pantalons if Kim decides to throw The Big One tomorrow (again, "the foreign media" has it that Kim might decide to "do a big one" on Independence Day in the US of A). All that are a little bit more on the front cover of tonight's Evening News.

A nearly unrecognizably small news article on Page 11 is our Article of the Day. There's something else to do with that strings-attached microphone at the local KTV store than to threaten someone physically with it (we won't go into the details)... in fact, the fourth KTV fest is underway for folks coming into Beijing who work at state-owned enterprises. You're also free to yodel down Peking Opera into the mic if you're so inclined. Note that you need a fairly good command of the Lingo of 1.3 Billion And Counting to have any chance of clinching pole position...

Weekends and thus a ...

There’s a been a lot of television trailers coming out. First up is the one that people are more interested in, even though it’s the lowest budgeted of them all.  I really like Zhang Han’s expressions here, and loved the “mian ren” scene. Hopefully the acting doesn’t disappoint. It’s cute how everyone has their own [...]

Change of place, and pace,
Refreshing a weary mind.
Needful vacation.

Chongqing Times
July 3, 2009

Police have completed their investigation into the June 5 bus fire in Chengdu that killed 27.

They concluded that cause of the fire was arson, committed by a 62-year-old man named Zhang Yunliang who carried gasoline onto the bus and then ignited it.

According to the report, Zhang was a compulsive gambler who had been unemployed since 2006. Earlier this year, his daughter, on whom he was financially dependent, cut back his allowance. He protested by threatening suicide several times. On June 4, the day prior to the fire, Zhang called his daughter and told her that he would "be gone tomorrow," and "in a very different way."

Zhang's dead body was found on the center of the fire and there was no sign that he tried to escape. His family in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province received a note from him in the mail on June 9.

Netizens have questioned the truth of the police explanation, with the sudden appearance of a weeks-old suicide note and the fact no explanation was given for the jammed doors major points of doubt.

In other news, a police officer in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province who took his dog for a walk by strapping it to a moving police patrol car was removed from his position as vice captain after someone uploaded the photo to the Internet.

And a primary school teacher in Chongqing decided to get plastic surgery for the benefit of her students. According to the paper's report, after the teacher overheard some students commenting on their teachers' looks, she decided a prettier look would make her more popular among the students, thus benefiting her teaching.

Tags: arson, Chongqing Times, plastic surgery, police, power abuse

This article is from Danwei.org

Whole country parties!
Countless barbecues sizzle,
Countless beers are chilled.

Liu Shihua, Pu Enfu, and a police officer

The case of a Kunming man accused of helping his daughter become a prostitute, and protecting her by letting police carry off his two foster daughters, may be an example of coerced confessions and overzealous law enforcement after all.

The initial story, which came to national attention through a Southern Weekly report at the beginning of June, painted a picture of police brutality. In March, police picked up two elementary school-aged girls on suspicion of prostitution, and beat up their parents who were brought to the station for questioning. The two girls were tested at a hospital and found to be virgins. The police apologized, but the father, Liu Shihua, demanded 200,000 yuan in compensation for the abuse his family had suffered.

A few days later, that story was contradicted by reports that claimed that Liu had misled police into carrying off his two younger daughters (actually foster daughters) to protect his biological daughter who was the real prostitute. And the two girls' mother, Zhang Anfen, was accused of misleading the hospital into issuing fake test results, as well.

The police detained Liu and Zhang for their role in aiding prostitution, and the local publicity department accused the media of mishandling its reporting of the affair.

Now Wu Hongfei, a Southern People Weekly journalist and the lead singer of Happy Avenue, has posted a teaser of an upcoming report containing new allegations of police misconduct.

From a series of Fanfou updates (1, 2, 3, 4):

The Kunming girl prostitute case is basically forced confessions on the part of the police. Her father is being held at the detention center and will probably be arrested and the case buried. I'm in the Puji police station in Kunming and am unable to see the eldest daughter who was taken away. She's a minor, and without a guardian present she was taken away. A lawyer is drafting a letter to state that the sixteen-year-old daughter did not engage in prostitution, and the facts of the forced confessions will appear in The Beijing News tomorrow. Tencent etc. will republish. The goal is to get the support of additiona media outlets. I am a Southern People Weekly journalist who has always been in Kunming, and apart from me, all local reporters have been muzzled. I hope that there are people who can follow up so that this doesn't become a case of injustice. The judicial implications in this case are for the protection of minors, the gamesmanship between the disadvantaged and the apparatus of the state, and even a reflection on the media itself. I invite you to pay attention.

Wu wrote up a short summary of her findings in a blog post that is probably a bit less dispassionate and rigorous than tomorrow's story in The Beijing News will be:

After speaking to the lawyer a number of times, the following is what we believe to be the facts:

Liu Shihua and his family were taken in by the police on March 16, and under duress, he was forced to confess that his two foster daughters had been acting as prostitutes. One was thirteen and one was fourteen.

Zhang Anfen did not believe that her daughters, in elementary school, had engaged in prostitution and took them to the hospital to check whether they were still virgins.

Entry continues on Danwei.

Tags: blogs, Fanfou, law, minors, prostitution, Wu Hongfei, Yunnan

This article is from Danwei.org

The moment I have been waiting for have finally arrived, after waiting for years. Yes, I always wanted to go to the Great Wall of China. It's today, but not right now, because I have an appointment with tour-beijing.com . Mr Laoli the manager with tour-beijing.com have arranged for me Tour A. Details as below:

Tour Itinerary: Pick up at your hotel between 7:30am and 8:30. Then drive to Changling--- one of the Tombs of thirteen Emperors of Ming Dynasty with 500 year history are about 50 kilometres to the north of Beijing. After lunch. the drive to Badaling Great Wall takes about 40 minutes. Badaling section is the most famous and best-preserved wall. It lies 100 KM away at the northwest of Beijing. If you want to get to the highest point and have a bird eye¡¯s view of this section of the great wall, cable car is a good choice ( optional ). After the tour, transferred back to your hotel. After picking us from our respective hotels, it took us another hour by coach to reach the Ming Dynasty Tombs at Changling. Photo: Silk Burning Stove, Changling tombAccording to Wikepedia: The Ming Dynasty Tombs (Chinese: 明朝十三陵; pinyin: Míng cháo shí sān líng; lit. Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty) are located some 50 kilometers due north of urban Beijing at a specially selected site. The site was chosen by the third Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle (1402–1424), who moved the capital of China from Nanjing to the present location of Beijing. The Ming tombs of the 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty were located on the southern slope of Mount Taishou (originally Mount Huangtu). He is credited with envisioning the layout of the ancient city of Beijing as well as a number of landmarks and monuments located therein. After the construction of the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and created his own mausoleum.

From the Yongle Emperor onwards, 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in this area. The tombs of the first two Ming Emperors are located near Nanjing (the capital city during their reigns). Emperor Jingtai was also not buried here, as the Emperor Tianshun had denied Jingtai an imperial burial, but was instead buried west of Beijing. The last Chongzhen Emperor, who hanged himself in April 1644, named Si Ling by the Qing emperor, was the last to be buried here, but on a much smaller scale than his predecessors. During the Ming dynasty the tombs were off limits to commoners, but in 1644 Li Zicheng's army ransacked and set many of the tombs on fire before advancing and capturing Beijing in April of that year.Photo: The book of facts explaining the past Emperor. kindly click the picture to enlarge.

Frankly speaking, I was more interested in visiting the Great Wall. As such I didn't pay much attention to the tour guide this time. The Ming Dynasty Tombs offer more historical stories rather than just scenery.
And here is the gate where you don't walk through to visit the tombs, but you have to walk through to get out. The belief is that you don't walk to the tombs, but when you walk out, you have to walk together with the rest of the entourage saying aloud 'wo hui lai le' meaning 'I am back'. literally it means you are back to the real world now. The ladies will step with the right leg first and the guys with the left leg first. Well, at least you know some ancient Chinese custom. Belief it or not, it's up to you..My next posting is the Badaling Great Wall of China ! Do drop by to join me on my Great Wall tour coming soon..
Good Night (11.50 PM)

Today’s The Australian published Liu Xiaobo’s last interview with foreign press shortly before his arrest:China’s most famous dissident, the courtly, professorial Liu Xiaobo, 53, was taken by security officers from his home in Beijing last December and held incommunicado for six months, mostly in a room without windows at a secret location.Last week he was [...]

I've been promising / threatening this for a while.

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Michael Jackson: 1958 - 2009
Originally uploaded by Tobyotter

Vale Michael Jackson... a belated tribute!

With mega-robot destruction sweeping the world cinemas and the countless critics tooting horns of lofty opinions, I'd like to share my take on the second-most prominent celebrity named Michael currently carpet-bombing the news.

In every sense of the word, Michael Bay is the People's Director. He knows what the average moviegoer wants (bouncing boobs, bombs, bright lights, fast cars, thundering soundtrack). My grandfather once referred to Bay and his posse as "a wrecking crew." That's what Michael Bay does- he wrecks things in ever-so-beautiful and poetic hues of glorious devastation, because this is what people generally want when they go to the movies. Movies are the world's waking dreams, and we want to watch on screen what we generally can't have in real life.

Now it's easy to just blow things up and have busty babes running around in slow motion, but I will contend that Michael Bay delivers such normally low-class entertainment elements with flair and bravado that no other Hollywood director can match. Bay's films are masterpieces of color and light. Many directors have their own particular tones and hues that they favor, and Bay opts to go with the disco club palette. If it's dark, it's really dark, but if it's light, it's really bright, but never glaring. Every camera angle is dramatic, every frame is excellently composed. I wouldn't call his action sequences gritty but they don't seem like watery CGI cotton candy either (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine). I guess the best word would be "visceral." It's as close to 3-D as you can get without being 3-D.

Of course it's well known that Bay favors effects over story and characterization, but most of the time (though not always), his story and characters are enjoyable, if implausible. Bay's dialogue is always peppered with up-to-date slang and contemporary humor (though the racist depiction of black people in Revenge of the Fallen's Twins was a bit heavy-handed). His films have an MTV hipness infused in them that irks critics but resonates with young people and with which I identify. But he never feels like he's reaching either. The jabs and jokes flow like wine but never feel like they're forcing the social relevance with pop-culture references, as many children's cartoons do.

Perhaps what I admire most about Bay's style is the tightness of his ship. Every detail is meticulous but never pretentious. The editing, the sound effects, the sets, everything is well-executed and solid without being overly flashy. Bay knows he's delivering a fluffy cream pie rather than a hearty meal, but damn if he doesn't make that cream pie as beautiful and sugary as possible. He makes the best-tasting cinematic junk food out there and if I'm not mistaken, he's the most profitable director active today in proportion to the number of movies that he's made.

Michael Bay is McDonald's. I've been going to McDonald's since I was a wee tot, and while I only go every so often, when I do, it's a treat, and I enjoy a cheeseburger now just as much as I did when I was five years old. The critics can say what they want, but when you have a winning recipe, it doesn't matter whether it's healthy or not.

After false starts last Saturday and this Wednesday, Cosmos Hot Dogsis slated to open tonight in Tongli Studio, while the second branch of Vietnamese restaurant Muse is apparently to follow later this weekend. This is part of swift changes in the building that have included Juliette’s replacing Le Bistrot Parisien and Cheers announcing it will close this weekend. [...]

This post is about how Hong Kong has commemorated the 12th anniversary of its return to PRC rule.  I promise you this is going to be a “fair and balanced” blog post.  I’ll let the images and eye witness reports speak for themselves.As usual, CCTV has the most “comprehensive” coverage:This is a typical report from [...]

Cheers, best known for featuring live Xinjiang music on the weekends, will call it quits in Tongli Studio this weekend. This bar ranks among my ten favorites in Beijing. In addition to excellent music, it draws patrons of all ages, nationalities, and professions, offers an ecentric combination of pool table and nude oil paintings courtesy of own Leo, and leaves me [...]

Qian and I arrived back in Xi'an today after an incredible week in Beijing. Despite my crotchetiness with the young backpackers at our hostel, the four days we spent in Beijing were delightful.

The highlight of the trip for me was renting an electric-powered motor boat and taking that out on Houhai with our friends Richard and Ling. We got into the boat at sunset and cruised out on the water as Houhai and the bars surrounding the lake went abuzz with the darkness. A surreal experience.

Other highlights included watching Qian see Tiananmen Square for the first time (I'll post some goofy pictures of her there in the coming days), the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall at Jinshanling and Simatai, hanging out with a number of different friends we know in Beijing, and having a cup of coffee with probably one of, if not the best, China blogger on the internet.

As great as our few days in Beijing were, the biggest news for me at the moment is the news Qian and I received this morning.

When Qian and I got back to Xi'an a few hours ago, we checked her email. Yesterday we'd sent an email to Guangzhou asking about the status of her visa to America.

Well, today the consulate in Guangzhou responded that they'd received all of the documents they needed, had reviewed our case, and have given approval to Qian for a visa to the States! Wooooohooooo!!!!!!!!!! The Land of the Free (and adjustable rate mortgages), here we come!!!

The final step will be going back to Guangzhou again in the coming weeks (Ramesh, Qian and I would love to buy you dinner) to get the visa in Qian's passport. We then will have a party for us here in Xi'an (an event with bells and whistles celebrating our upcoming marriage, but without an actual marriage certificate or anything official... we need to still be unmarried upon entry to the States) and then going to America.

Today, July 3rd, 2009, is a good day. We sent in our first application for Qian's visa to the States on May 26, 2008. So only 403 days after initially sending in information to the United States Customs and Immigration Services, we've received confirmation that Qian can come to America on a fiancee visa.

Someday in the future, I'm going to give a detailed plan for how to get through this process. We made a few mistakes and it cost us a significant amount of time. I'll try to type up something clear and simple explaining how one should go about this K1 visa process.

Until I do that, I'm going to enjoy life as much as possible here in Xi'an, wrap up all of the loose ends that I'll need to after being in China for more than three and a half years, and Qian and I are going to do our best to prepare for the insanity that will be getting married and going to the US in the next couple of months.