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Blockages

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:52:00 +0700

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 stakes 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.

Update (2009.07.04): Well, a new IP address has made the server reachable again, but the connection invariably gets reset. Not the best possible situation to be in, I'm afraid.

Links and Sources

Academic Criticism (Chinese): Website to use URL criticism.cn starting June 25
iFeng (Chinese): Zeng Zimo interviews "academic janitor Yang Yusheng"
ESWN: A Sequence Of Events In Blogger Stabbing Case

Tags: Academic Criticism, blockages, opinion, Yang Yusheng

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Chengdu bus fire blamed on 62-year-old suicidal gambler

suggest@danwei.org (Eric) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:36:36 +0700

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.

Links and Sources

Xinhua via Netease (Chinese): Investigation into Chengdu fire concluded
Oriental Morning Post via Netease: Police officer who walks his dog with a patrol car stripped of his position
ESWN: The Chengdu Bus Fire Case Is 'Solved'

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

This article is from Danwei.org.

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New developments in the Kunming prostitution case

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:04:30 +0700

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:

An Appeal for Legal Assistance and Media Attention

by Wu Hongfei

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.

When an Yunnan Information Times journalist reported this, it attracted media attention, and loud public opinion slanted toward the Liu family. The police apologized and admitted that their enforcement of the law had been rough, and that they had arrested the wrong persons.

Afterward, Liu Shihua sought 200,000 yuan in compensation, infuriating the police. At the same time they were pretending to discuss compensation with a lawyer, they secretly uncovered a record of Liu's prior sentencing for stealing a horse. They were even happier to discover that Liu had an older daughter of his own whom the police had once fined 1,300 yuan.

The police forcibly searched their home and carried off all evidence that the confession had been forcibly extracted, such as jeans that had been beaten to shreds.

At the beginning of June, he was detained by police for a second time, and another confession was extracted. After seven days or so, he was induced to confess that his older daughter (16 years old) had engaged in prostitution. After that, Li Shihua was said to have kept his daughter for the purpose of prostitution. His eldest daughter was detained by police. The police issued a notice, which was used by all media in Yunnan, that said that Liu Shihua had hosted prostitution, had swapped daughters for each other, and had tricked the media.

Reporters had no opportunity to contact the eldest daughter. When Zhang Anfen was released, because her husband was still being detained and she suspected that reporters had been sent by the police, she told them what she had been forced to tell the police, that her eldest daughter had engaged in prostitution.

A few days ago the eldest daughter spoke to a reporter for the first time: she had not engaged in prostitution, but she did have friends, and there had been sexual activity. Ever since she was young she did not know here parents, and she had grown up with her grandmother and grandfather. The first time she laid eyes on her father was after the two of them died, when she was a little older than ten. She hit puberty early.

The 1,300 yuan fine had been coerced. And because of the first fine, the second was naturally easier.

The claim that Liu Shihua aided his biological daughter in prostitution is logically unsound. Why would he earn money to send his two foster daughters to school but have his biological daughter become a prostitute?

Liu's health is not good, so in his working in the earth and stone sector, he acted as a low-level foreman, hiring other workers to do the actual work. Before he was arrested, he had 30,000 yuan deposited in an account, so it is difficult to believe that he would press his daughter into prostitution out of economic necessity.

His daughter was lonely and unaccustomed to Kunming. When she made a few friends, Liu strenuously objected and hit her. In light of how he disciplined his daughter, why would he then permit her to become a prostitute?

The claim by the plice that his daughter engaged in prostitution is unsupported by the evidence. First, no client of hers was arrested. In addition, they clearly picked the wrong person and forced a confession.

At present, Liu Shihua is still under detention and will soon be formally arrested, and this case will be a lock. If that happens, the chance that he will be released for medical treatment is very low. He'll be in prison. An innocent in prison. If his TB recurs in while in prison, it's very likely he'll die. Purely because he resisted out of regard for his daughter's dignity. Because the police detest this type of "troublemaker."

I know that this type of case is not rare, and there are many that are far worse, and many that are far bleaker. But this case came to the surface because of two stubborn, illiterate farmers who refused to abandon their personal dignity and the dignity of their daughters.

Police are seeking an arrest and are looking to hijack public opinion so that it is no longer on the side of Liu Shihua and his family (locals are prejudiced against people from Huajie, Guizhou Province, and Zhaotong, Yunnan Province), coerce the media, and are attempting to seduce the lawyers to switch to the side of the police. And they are trying to silence the voice of the outside media, in order to bury this case! We don't know how many buried cases there are in this world, but this case had the good fortune to be discovered by the media! To draw the attention of lawyers! This is an excellent turning point: if we are successful, it means that police will no longer be able to bully sex workers minors whenever they feel like it. There will be even more people, women, and children, who will be protected and will face fewer threats and harm.

Therefore, I appeal for legal aid to join in and I strongly hope that other media outlets like Phoenix, CCTV, and major online portals will continue to follow up. Using the power of the media to pressure the police to not be so aggressive. This case involves the protection of minors, the protection of a woman's reputation. If it can be overturned, then like the Sun Zhigang case, it will be a step forward for justice in China!

Links and Sources

Wu Hongfei's blog (Chinese): An Appeal for Legal Assistance and Media Attention
ESWN: The virgin prostitutes of Kunming
Image from Yunnan Information Times

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

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Peking University rejects applicant who faked his ethnicity

suggest@danwei.org (Eric) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:00:40 +0700

The Beijing News
July 2, 2009

In the latest development of a case that has received quite a bit of attention over the past week, the admissions office of Peking University announced yesterday that it would not accept the application of He Chuanyang to study at the university's Guanghua School of Management.

He had the highest score on the college entrance exam, the gaokao, in Chongqing this year. However, along with thirty other Chongqing students, He was found to have faked his ethnic minority status, which awards 20 bonus points on the gaokao.

He himself claimed ignorance of his altered records. An investigation revealed that in 2006, his father He Yeda, an education official in Wushan County who lost his job after the scandal was exposed, conspired with Wan Minqiang, then director of the bureau of religion and minority affairs, to change his son's ethnic registration.

The Beijing News also report another PKU-related news item: a senior math major left the university on June 29 and has been out of contact ever since.

The student, identified as Li, was found to have plagiarized a paper, which makes his graduation prospects uncertain.

After he went missing, his parents and grandmother rushed to the university, first begging for leniency and then getting physical with two university staff members. A party secretary told the newspaper that he suffered scratches, and another university official was bitten on the arm. Police were called to take away Li's mother and grandmother.

And in other fight-related news, a man settled a dispute with someone who owed him money by pouring inflammable liquid onto the two of them and lighting it. The debtor was rushed into the hospital with burns over 100 percent of his body, while the creditor fared better with only 10 percent of his body burned.

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): PKU will not take the controversial top scorer He Chuanyang, A PKU student was reported missing after found guilty of plagiarism, Man who wants to get his money set ablaze himself and his debtor

Tags: He Chuanyang, Peking University, plagiarism, The Beijing News

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Has China Telecom been green damned?

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:03:08 +0700

Danwei commenter eric left a comment today to alert us to the fact that he was encountering the above message rather the usual "Connection Timeout" notice for certain sites. Is this China Telecom taking inspiration from Green Dam but replacing that software's rabbit mascot with a gopher?

eric wrote that access in Shenzhen to CNN and Digg was blocked by this notice.

The notice asks you to enter a password if you want to see the "unhealthy" content, and says that it's a notice from "mommy and daddy."

Do any Danwei readers have more information on this barrier?

Tags: China Telecom, Green Dam

This article is from Danwei.org.

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A grand day at the park, enhanced by the People's Daily

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:05:21 +0700

In the following image of a park in Nanning, Guangxi Autonomous Region, that ran in the People's Daily on June 26, how many pairs of identical birds can you identify?

A park full of clones

Click on the image for an enlarged version of "people and nature coexisting in harmony," as the photo is captioned.

Zhang Bin, a photojournalist, found six cloned areas, which she pointed out in a blog post:

Zhang writes:

A photographer friend pointed me to the June 26, 2009 (Friday) edition of the People's Daily, page 14, which had a photo that turned out to have been seriously PS'd. Inspecting it, I noticed six places that had been copied and pasted. I don't know how the editor cleared it — if it was a momentary lapsed, or...

We've spoken I don't know how many times about truth in news photos, and we've emphasized it repeatedly, but there are still photographers who make these mistakes over and over. It's really disappointing.

For the People's Daily, the organ of the Party Central Committee, to commit such a basic error really harms the glorious image of party newspapers.

I hope to see fewer and fewer of these kinds of errors!

Links and Sources

Zhang Bin's blog (Chinese): People's Daily does major PS work too!!!
People's Daily (Chinese): 2009.06.26, p14
Via Hou Zhenhai's blog

Tags: birds, fakes, Guangxi, People's Daily, photography, Zhang Bin

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Building a new Old City in Kashgar

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:01:33 +0700

Phoenix Weekly, June (II) 2009

Old Kashgar is not long for this world. Quake fear, anxiety over ethnic unrest, and pursuit of development have spurred the authorities to launch a large-scale plan to demolish and redevelop 85% of the Old City.

There has been considerable criticism of the project among Kashgar residents and in the world world media, but it has done little to stop the project. This month's Phoenix Weekly contains an interesting cover feature on life in the Old City and how it may change in the future. The story is a little oversold based on the coverline: "The Shadow of 'Eаst Turkestаn' on China's Strategic Anti-Terrorism City," as most of the feature is about everyday life as opposed to terrorism.

Translated below is an excerpt that looks at how the area has already changed in the days since the founding of the People's Republic.

First though, a look at what's coming next. The "This is Xinjiang" blog put up a post that detailed the changes that are in store for Kashgar's old city and included photos of a promotional sign trying to sell the project to a skeptical public:

Basically, in this plan, the city will straighten the major pathways within the block. The first story, comprised of neatly squared stores, will attempt to replace the current commercial district in the area. Now, people must pass through a labyrinth of homes in order to reach the inner core, but in the future, anyone will be able to access these shops easily from the street. The project aims to cover the entire first floor with a roof, which will eliminate the traditional sunlit courtyards of Uyghur houses. Instead, I guess that street lamps will light these alleyways, which is so very environmentally friendly. A grassy surface will top the first floor. Four outdoor staircases, one from each major road, will lead to this second level, which opens to four lawns and possibly a central fountain, all enclosed by five-story apartment buildings. Finally, the project offers eight different types of apartment layouts. This plan organizes social life vertically, instead of horizontally, which dramatically cuts down on daily interactions.

The blog post has more descriptions of the reconstruction project, photos of the old city, and additional views of the plans for the new buildings.

Here's a translation of an excerpt of a much longer piece on Kashgar's Old City that ran in Phoenix Weekly:

From The End of Kashgar

by Zhou Yu / PW

Crossing the bazaar street that has already been entirely demolished, Alimjan (阿里木江) approaches his old house in the depths of the lane.

In the course of a month, the dust covering everything has made it impossible to see what sort of homes used to be here. Workers blackened in the sun sit on the ground pounding brick fragments. The earthen bricks of the oldest homes are to be discarded, ground into fine powder.

A billboard stands here describing the impressive outcome of the old city's reconstruction: trim and tidy six floor matchbox buildings, with toy-like cars running single-file between them. Behind the billboard comes the noise of real-life cars.

More than 100 meters down the lane, you reach an entirely different world.

A building standing astride the street casts a long shadow. A pair of foreign tourists amble in the shadow, unsure of whether to continue deeper into the lane. The twists and turns of the old city alleyways are like a labyrinth to tourists, who call it "a place where time stands still," and who need four-way or six-way directional indicators to help them identify through streets and dead ends. Alimjan knows all of the lanes and all of the owners of the earthen buildings on either side.

At home, Alimjan shuts the wooden door, and protected back behind his thick mud brick walls, the sweltering heat gradually recedes from his body. In the mornings, the windows of the old home are opened to let in the cool breezes, and when the sun climbs into the sky, Alimjan shuts the doors and windows tight to enjoy the coolness all day.

Alimjan sits down on the carpet that covers the floor. Sunlight filters through Islamic-style mullions to illuminate this traditional residence. In the corners are colorful tile mosaics, just within reach. The entire wall in the sitting room is a mosque-shaped plaster latticework, and the compartments are filled with fine ceramics that have been around for several generations, as old as the house itself.

Alimjan's father and grandfather were born in this mud brick house, and though Alimjan's beard has now grown as long as his grandfather's, there has been no perceptible change to the house.

Mud bricks are the most important earmark feature of homes in Kashgar. An academic in Kashgar who preferred to remain anonymous gave this description: "Square houses built of mud bricks laid out in thick layers, with a capped wooden roof covered in reeds, straw, and mud...to guard against earthquakes, the walls are built 70 to 90 cm thick, and their durability is rarely seen in the Muslim world."

Alimjan's grandfather recalled that over the 100 years since the home was built, it had always been rock-solid and never needed to be repaired. The lanes surrounding it were peaceful, and you could hardly feel the passage of time.

But sudden changes crashed into this placid life.

In 1958, Kashgar was electrified. This miraculous event changed the working habits of the inhabitants of the old city. Previously, even though they had kerosene lamps and candles, residents would still plan their days the way Allah intended, going to sleep as soon as it got dark and waking up at around 4 in the morning. Going out onto the balcony at night, you could see the moon half-hidden behind an earthen wall.

After electricity came, nighttime was like a lantern. Not only was the nighttime bazaar illuminated, but people could read at home, and they delayed their bedtime.

In 1968, red guards charged through the old lanes. They tore off women's scarves and threw them to the ground, they smashed old artifacts and tore up mosques, and they surged into people's homes and burned old books.

Two years later, the old city experienced its first major "reconstruction" under the new regime: digging tunnels.

The neighborhood committee told everyone that Soviet revisionists were going to attack. Alimjan hoisted a shovel and dug into the ground. Air-raid shelters were dug under many streets in the old city, four to seven meters down, and about two meters high.

The old city was already crowded, so the earth that was dug up had to be piled along the road. In some places it stood a meter high, so the old drainage system failed and rain and snow flooded people's yards and ate away the foundations of the walls.

In the end, Soviet revisionists did not attack. Half a year later the tunnel digging campaign came to a quiet end, and residents sealed up the strange tunnels that had entrances but no exits. The days continued on.

At the end of the 1990s, running water came to the old city. Alimjan remembers that it came along with a number of other things: the term "Eаst Turkestаn" circulated ever more stridently through the old lanes, and mosques and public address systems echoed with lectures about ethnic unity and anti-splittism.

Then one lane after another was torn down. In 2002, renovations to the Id Kah Mosque commenced.

During this round of renovations, the traditional bazaar and old residential area in front of the mosque vanished and were replaced by a broad square and giant commercial buildings on the other side of the street.

This time, things were different from the past. A Kashgar official who preferred to remain anonymous recalled that between 2002 and 2006, the sounds of disturbances in the old city were carried overseas.

In 2004, Minister of Construction Wang Guangtao made an inspection tour of Kashgar. In a speech, Wang said that as soon as he got out of the car, he went looking for the old city: "Earthen-walled structures cover four square kilometers, and in the middle a mosque famous across Central Asia. Let me make it more tangible for you: these four square kilometers are worth more than the districts surrounding you, their price is far higher."

Wang stressed that the old city's original appearance had to be preserved as much as possible while improving the road network and expanding services: "Mud brick structures are the basic characteristic of this ancient city...plans for precautionary strengthening against earthquakes should not be overemphasized."

The eye of the foreign media first turned toward the old city's reconstruction in 2006. Alimjan was surprised to discover that their voices of protest seemed to have born fruit: large-scale reconstruction in the old city largely came to a halt.

But after the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008, calls for "earthquake precautions" overwhelmed everything else.

The television repeatedly aired scenes of the ruins in Wenchuan, and the old city was described as a dangerous place that could completely collapse at any moment.

This time, the government's will was firm. "We will absolutely not let a few people use the guise of protecting historical culture to hoodwink our populace, making them pay a price in blood and face a loss of life and property to protect old and dangerous homes that have no value whatsoever, and we will absolutely not let those people with ulterior motives fabricate erroneous public opinion to prevent the development of Kashgar," warned the General Management and Publicity Outline for the Reconstruction Project for Old and Dangerous Houses in Kashgar's Old City.

On February 27, 2009, at a municipal mobilization meeting, officials were requested "to immediately dismiss any leaders who intentionally interfere with or refuse to cooperate on the work, or do not carry out their respective duties and obligations. There is no alternative...."

On March 25, the first stage of demolition of the Östang Boyi* neighborhood commenced, and nearly one hundred families were moved to a residential neighborhood five kilometers away.

"We had no right to choose." One resident of the street said that after being moved to the new district, some of the older people would come back to the street in the evenings to stand in front of their demolished homes for a long while.

On his way back home, Alimjan saw this scene play out in the shadow of the old street-spanning building: two old men in identical doppas, with identical white beards, clad in identical long robes, stood in the shadows shaking hands and exchanging a greeting in Uighur, while a tourist snapped a photo.

What the camera did not capture was the tear at the corner of one old man's eye, while the other felt in his heart an uncertainty that stretched as long as the lane itself.

Note: 吾斯塘博依. I originally had the Pinyin Wusitangboyi, and replaced it with a version supplied by a commenter. Neither rendering appears to be all that common in English.

Links and Sources

Phoenix Weekly 凤凰周刊, The End of Kashgar (最后的喀什), June 2009 (#331), p16
This is Xinjiang blog: Signs of the Fall
Far West China: Kashgar's Old Town Bulldozed; Is Uyghur Culture in Danger?
The New Dominion: Old Kashgar: Reconfiguring Space With Bulldozers, includes links to a number of detailed news reports

Tags: architecture, development, Kashgar, old town, Phoenix Weekly, This is Xinjiang

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Danwei talks to Caijing about the public's right to collect information

suggest@danwei.org (Alice) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:27 +0700

Li Xin, English editor at Caijing

Caijing magazine has a formidable reputation in Chinese media circles. They reported straight away when the Green Dam "delay" notice came from Xinhua last night, and has held onto their reputation for hard, investigative reporting.

Although they talk about current events such as chief Hu Shuli's editorial on the Green Dam, Caijing is a leader in financial analysis. They are also developing an English-language news agency service.

Danwei interviews Li Xin, who is an editor at the English and international desk. She is responsible for Caijing's English website, and sometimes reports on international affairs.

Between 2006 and 2007 She was Caijing's correspondent in Washington DC, covering Sino-US relations, politics and finance.

Danwei: What were you doing before going to Caijing?
Li Xin: I was a documentary producer for Rediscovering China at CCTV-9.

Danwei: Caijing has a reputation for using tough and investigative journalism. What are you most proud of covering, and which stories do you wish you can report?
LX: Currently my responsibility is overseeing the English desk, involves limited original reporting. Back in 2006 and 2007 when I was Caijing's correspondent in Washington DC, I enjoyed writing an in-depth piece of Chinese companies lobbying in the states. They just started to learn the game in DC, paying a dear price. In the failed CNOOC－Unocal deal, the Chinese firm spent US$ 3 million in 3 months on lobbying and PR, but its image just couldn't be changed overnight.

It takes more than money to cultivate trust, to convince Americans that Chinese investment isn't intimidating, especially to those who fear "waking up to find a Communist under their beds." Instead it can be a purely commercial decision. Chinese firms need more time. They need a deeper understanding of the country they are investing in, and they need the effort of more than one company on more than one deal. Later on, a number of Chinese firms set up their lobby representatives in DC, and afterwards, we have seen overseas investment deals being crafted more skillfully, such as in the Huawei-3Com case and this year's ChinaCo-Rio Tinto case. The results, of course, are another story.

I also had lots of fun working with my colleague in covering how several Chinese businessmen selling a much-inflated "silicon valley high-tech product" to a land-locked Chinese province and finally the business went belly up. It was so tranquil between 06-07', and I missed the historical presidential election and the financial crisis.

Danwei: This is the month when everyone is talking about the Green Dam, the limiting of Google services and the internet in China. I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions about these issues. First, do you think that the Green Dam will have any benefits for anyone?
LX: There must be someone who benefited commercially from the Green Dam, say, the software developer. But it hurts the public's right to collect information, sets a bad example of opaque procedure in drafting and implementing administrative rules, and damages the government's image, both at home and abroad. We do hope public opinion has an influence on the government's decision-making. The delay is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough.

Danwei: What news do you think there will be in the Chinese media come July 1, regarding the implementation of the Green Dam?
LX: We just heard that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology delayed mandatory installation of the Green Dam. The debate will go on. Of course we are curious if that delay is temporary or permanent, will they modify the current Green Dam or switch to another filtering software with clear description of what kind of information it will filter; and how the public will view the delay. Foreign governments may press the Chinese government to let go of the idea. I don't think they will succumb, but they will certainly listen.

Danwei: On the issue of Google － some of whose service has been suspended in the China mainland, and with reporting that there has been regional blocks in China － do you think that China is right to limit Google's service?
LX: I don't think it's right to limit Google's service. Again, the general public deserves the right to collect information. It's a basic right.

Danwei: How useful do you think English Caijing articles are to Western China watchers?
LX: Reading an in-depth article from Caijing is always a good learning experience for me. I think it would be the same to Western China watchers who are looking for unbiased, serious journalism in China.

Caijing's articles are based on hard facts and data, which readers can use ot make their own judgments. We let the facts speak for themselves, especially on certain sensitive topics.

As a journalist I take pride in working for Caijing. The balance of our writing comes from not merely relying on "he says, she says," but a belief that stories we cover have complexity, have many nuances and twists. By presenting the many layers and different stakes of people involved, there is a natural balance.

We are lucky to work for a magazine with the luxury of a two-week deadline. Also, now we have a website for posting stories in real time. It's a lot of fun. I know Caijing's focus this year is building on the website and raising our profile in the English-language world.

Danwei: Which foreign newspapers or magazines do you like to read in your spare time? Do you ever let them influence the way you report?
LX: I follow New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Der Spiegel's English version. They might have influenced the way I present my story -- inverted pyramid, nut paragraph, clear background information etc. But they won't change my way of reporting, nor any editorial judgement.

I guess journalists who read Caijing are also for the information we collect on their behalf, and to know our perspective. I never dreamed that we can influence how they think or report.

Tags: Caijing, Google China, Green Dam

This article is from Danwei.org.

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People's Daily celebrates with a party wrap-up

suggest@danwei.org (Eric) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:00:00 +0700

People's Daily
July 1, 2009

A special edition of the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, marks the party's 88th birthday with a profusion of red print on its front page, and an abundance of feel-good political buzzwords inside.

Beside the nameplate of is a wrap-up titled "The number of the party members have increased 16 times," which reviews the development of the CPC since 1949:

This year is the 60th anniversary of New China. According to statistics from the Central Organization Department, through the end of 2008, Communist Party members totaled 75.931 million, 16 times the number at the time New China was founded. The number of the low-level party cells is 3.718 million, 19 times that at the time New China was founded. The numbers indicate that the party membership has consistently grown its ranks, optimized its structure, and gradually improved its quality. As the party organization increases its coverage, the CPC demonstrates great vitality and energy.

In terms of sex, ethnicity, and educational background, the 15.969 million female party members account for 21% of the total, compared to only 11.9% in 1949. There are 4.944 million party members who are ethnic minorities, accounting for 6.5% of the totality, compared with 2.5 % in the country's earliest stages. [25.833] million members have college degree, accounting for 34%. In 1949, that percentage was 0.3%.

The top headline concerns President Hu Jintao's recent talk on promoting in-party democracy.

Hu was quoted in the article saying that in the face of new historical conditions, "We must converge the wisdom and strength of the Party to an utmost level; we must fully inspire the creativity and vigor of the Party, and we must spare no efforts to consolidate the unity of the Party." He also spoke about the need to stick to the principle of scientific administration, democratic administration, and rule of the law and to join the bring together different ethnic groups to promote the great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Beneath the lead article are three reports on the activities of other central leaders, laid out from top to bottom apparently by the order of their ranks:

● Premier Wen Jiabao sent his congratulations to the 7th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union. (Full transcript in translation here)

● Vice-President Xi Jinping visited a conference with selected outstanding party members. Xi encouraged the attendees to be the "vanguards of the time" and take the task of burnishing the party into their own hands.

● Zhou Yongkang, head of the CPC Central Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, met with Zimbabwe's Minister of Defence Emmerson Mnangagwa. Zhou said that although China is facing its own difficulties in the global financial tumult, it will offer Zimbabwe help within its capacity to do so. Zhou also encouraged Chinese enterprises to invest more in Zimbabwe.

The headline at the bottom of the page heralds a report on the life of Wu Daguan, an aviation engineer who played a leading role in the research for China's third-generation fighter jet engine, codenamed Taihang. Wu passed away on March 18 this year at the age of 93.

Wu was praised for his unwavering faith to the party even when he was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution on suspicion of being a spy. In what seems a self-advertisement, the article wrote that Wu had been a subscriber to the People's Daily in his last days.

Also, the paper has announced a makeover starting today: the former 16-page newspaper has been expanded to 20 pages, but the price will remain the same.

Links and Sources

People's Daily (Chinese): The number of party members increased by 16 times, Hu Jintao emphasizes the importance of promoting in-party democracy, Wu Daguan, father of the Chinese aviation
Xinhua via CPC: Chinese Communist Party chief stresses inner-party democracy

Tags: CCP, Hu Jintao, People's Daily, Wu Daguan

This article is from Danwei.org.

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The political background check of a petitioner's daughter

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:31:07 +0700

Politically qualified

If you've got a grievance against local officials, here's another reason not to take your case to the national petition system: you may end up derailing your child's dreams of studying law enforcement in college.

A good score on China's college entrance exam — the gaokao (高考) — is just one requirement for university admission. Applicants also have to submit a physical examination, and for certain fields, they have to take an oral interview.

Then there's the "political inspection" (政审), a background check that certifies, among other things, that applicants possess a clean criminal record, are not involved in any evil cults, do not have non-ethnic tattoos or other markings of gang membership, and do not have close relatives involved in major criminal or cult activities.

Applicants to military and law enforcement schools are required to have their current school, local party committee, and local police station sign off on the inspection form before they can continue with the application process.

The petition system, another hot-button topic, was connected to gaokao political background checks in news reports this month about Hu Jiajia, a high school student in Hebei Province, whose background check was denied by the local PSB because her father had once been detained for three days for petitioning to have the village repay a loan.

After the story ran in the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, local authorities backtracked and cleared Hu's background check. The Beijing News caught up with Hu and her family for an interview last week:

The Political Frustrations of a Petitioner's Daughter

"I don't blame my dad"
by Wu Wei / TBN

On the evening of June 22, at an eatery in Beijing's Haidian District separated from the street by a railing, Feng Wucheng and two other members of his family were busy with their barbecue stand.

Aside from the occasional return trip to their hometown of Dongliang, in Longyao County, Hebei, for the harvest, Feng Wucheng's main duty is to make money in Beijing with his wife, Zhang Jingmin, so that they will be able to pay tuition for their daughter, Feng Jiajia.

Because her father's status as a petitioner, Feng Jiajia encountered problems during the gaokao-related political examination, but when things eventually cleared up, she said that regardless of what the future holds, "I won't leave myself the chance for regret."

Daughter: I didn't blame my father's petitioning

After this year's gaokao, Feng Jiajia applied to the Central Institute for Correctional Police (中央司法警官学院). The school required a health exam, an oral interview, and a background check for admission. Feng took her form to get stamped by the local police station, which informed her that because her father had been detained for three days for petitioning, it could not apply the stamp.

The Beijing News: What happened the first time you went to the police station to have them issue a background check document?
Feng Jiajia: I went on June 15. The day before, I had gotten my school to issue a certificate.

The neighborhood officer checked the computer and said, I can't do it, your dad's been in jail. He said he'd talk to the captain. I was outside, but I could hear someone inside say in a loud voice, don't do it. Even if you do it, she won't pass.

I was furious, and I stormed out with the form.

TBN: What were you thinking at the time?
FJ: I wanted to go home, to pretend that nothing had happened, to suppress it, and not let them (parents) be burdened. I couldn't let my father feel bad after learning that his petitioning had affected me. So I didn't want to go through with it.

That day, I got a call from my aunt asking me to go to my grandmother's. I was wondering whether I should mention it. Later, I couldn't hold it in and told her. I never thought my grandma would call my mom.

TBN: Was it uncomfortable?
FJ: For a few days after it happened, I felt really awful, and just sat around the house all day. But apart from the one time I cried with my grandma, I didn't cry again. Whenever anyone brought it up I got annoyed and didn't even listen.

TBN: When did you learn about your parents' petition?
FJ: I've forgotten the exact time. I learned about it probably not long after they came back, when I came home for a vacation. But when I was writing up the application, I didn't think about that element, so I didn't include it. I never imagined that it would have an effect (on the background check).

TBN: Do you blame your dad?
FJ: I don't blame my dad for petitioning. And I don't think he's done anything wrong. He's spoken to me about this (the background check). He's always bringing it up. I told him, don't talk about it anymore. I'll go to another school, OK? Applying to that school (the CICP) won't affect the others.

I've talked mostly with my mom. Dad is pretty serious.

I've thought it over. If this school doesn't work out, then my first choice is business management, because of the influence of our family business when I was younger. There's also teaching, and interior design.

Father: I petitioned because the village hadn't repaid a debt

His daughter's background check got held up because of one petition experience. The captain of the Dongliang Township police station in Longyao County told the media that according to the rules, five crime-free years after the completion of a sentence are enough to pass a background check. Feng Wucheng was once detained for petitioning, so his daughter could not pass a background check.

TBN: What was your petition about?
Feng Wucheng: The village borrowed money from me and didn't give it back. In 1997, the village needed to install street lights. The wiring needed to be overhauled, and they were short two transformers. The boss said, install them first and then allocate the funds, and the village secretary Feng Qifang told me that they'd pay me back based on the bank's highest loan interest rate.

I was running a feed processing plant at the time and was doing fairly well financially. So I gave them 30,000. I've still got the receipt issued by the village committee. At the end of the year, they gave me 15,000.

The next year was the end of the committee term, and then they delayed and delayed, and it became harder to scrape money together. My dept became an "old problem."

TBN: When did you start petitioning?
FW: I started petitioning the county in 1999. They felt it was a simple matter: debts need to be repaid. But the village wouldn't repay it. After another half-year delay, I began to go to the city, which had the same attitude. But the village kept putting it off.

Debts need to be repaid. That's a law of nature. But now a creditor has become a petitioner. Isn't that ridiculous?

In 2005, the feed processing plant closed due to poor business. In 2006, when the Xingtai Municipal Petition Office sent me back to Longyao, the police locked me up (three days for "disturbing social order"). They didn't beat me, they just told me that the village hoped that the money could be repaid in installments, not in one lump-sum. If I agreed, they'd let me out.

When I got out, a few village officials took me to dinner as an apology.

TBN: Has the debt been repaid yet?
Zhang Jingmin: They've paid back 13,000, but that's just interest. The 15,000 principal hasn't been repaid.

TBN: Did you tell your daughter about your petitioning?
FW: I never told her. Room and board for her was at school, and I didn't want her to worry about it. Usually when we've got knotty things in mind, she'll draw them out of us, but she never took the initiative to speak about this one.

Even after the background check was denied, she didn't blame me. She only told me not to play nice to them. She wasn't going, and she didn't want us to beg anyone.

TBN: What kind of influence did petitioning have on your family?
ZJ: We're uneducated farmers. When you're ignorant of the law, you suffer for it. So we need our daughter to go to college so that she can understand the law and learn how to protect herself. Right now, our family is in Beijing making money by selling barbecue. No matter how much hard work it takes, we're sending her to college.

Daughter: My application to a law enforcement school had nothing to do with my father's case

After the test, when his daughter's background check failed, a father took his case to the media. This action brought a change in circumstances.

TBN: Why did you apply to the CICP? Did it have anything to do with your family history?
FJ: When I was in elementary school I really wanted to be a police officer. They looked really cool, and in that uniform you'd have a real feeling of responsibility.

I chose the school myself. I applied to the Judicial Police major so when I got out I could work in a court or a prison. But what I really want to be is a judge.

FW: Jiajia's uncle works at the Qiuxian procuratorate (in the city of Xingtai). He went to college, and he told her what colleges were good and what advantages they had. We're farmers, with no money or connections, and we worry that after she graduates she won't be able to find a place to work. Lots of college graduates these days just stay at home without a job. This school's got to be a little better, right?

She heard that if she couldn't get in to this one college, then she could go to another one. This one wouldn't affect that one. So she ended up applying.

TBN: Do you have any classmates who applied to the same school?
FJ: Yes. I called up some of the other people at school who applied to law enforcement schools. One said that his family wouldn't let him go, and three others felt there wasn't much point: you'd have a tough time finding a job after graduation, so even though they applied they didn't go.

I asked them, did you pass the background check? They asked me, what background check? I thought it was a real shame that they didn't go. If only I had one of their background forms.

TBN: Did your parents' experience subconsciously influence your desire to become a protector of social order?
FJ: I don't think so. It's more of a "uniform complex," which I've had since I was young. If I'm actually able to do that sort of work, I will feel an immense amount of responsibility. I think I can say that I'm the sort of person who can undertake that responsibility. I won't let everyone down.

TBN: Did you look to teachers for help after your daughter's background check failed?
ZJ: She didn't tell her school teachers. She was afraid of letting people know about her father's "priors." She's got a strong sense of dignity.

TBN: What was your reaction?
ZJ: I was worried at the time. If handled poorly, it could affect her entire life, and for the rest of my life I'd feel that I'd let her down, particularly because it was because of her parents' petitioning. I never imagined that everything would be smoothed out after the media reported it.

TBN: Did you take the initiative to talk to the media?
ZW: Yes. I found the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily tip hotline and called up a reporter in Xingtai, and then they reported it.

Father: I don't blame the police station. So long as the background check is approved, it's all fine

After the media report on June 19, Feng Jiajia received a supplemental gaokao background check certificate from the township police station. Zhang Jingtao, political director of the Longyao County PSB, said that the background check guidelines jointly issued by the Hebei Provincial Recruitment Office and the Provincial Public Security Department did not make it clear whether children whose immediate family members had been detained for petitioning could not pass a background check for a law-enforcement school.

TBN: How did you find out that your background check had been approved?
FJ: At around six or seven on the evening of June 18, I was standing outside the door to our home when the village secretary came over and said, go with your dad to the police station tomorrow, I've talked it over with Hongbiao (Cui Hongbiao, Dongliang Village station captain) and the background check passed.

At the time it was only me and a classmate who were at home. I asked her, should I go or not? I was a little hesitant, but not really ticked off. My classmate said, since the inspection's been granted, then go if you want to - whether or not you get admitted, at least you won't regret that you didn't try.

TBN: Did you speak with your dad that evening?
FJ: No. I only told him the next morning. I got the form, and I had to go on my own for the physical. I felt that I really had grown up. I could do those things all by myself, and I didn't want to add to their worries.

TBN: How do you feel now that this whole background check business is over?
ZJ: It's like a load off my mind. Jiajia is happy. Otherwise, I'd have chest pains from the stress.

ZW: I don't blame the police station. Now that it's done, the stress is gone.

A similar story that also took place in Hebei Province ran in the Beijing Times yesterday (although it was broken by the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily the day before).

A young woman, also named Jiajia, applied to a military academy but had her background check denied by her local PSB because her parents had spent a few weeks in jail several years ago. Once again, when the media brought the story to public attention, the officials backtracked and apologized.

In this case, however, it was too late.

Student's background check denied because of parents' prior arrest

Beijing Times, from China Youth Daily and Zhaoyan Metropolis Daily reports

Upon her school's recommendation, Hu Jiajia, a student at Yongqing's #1 High School in Langfang, Hebei Province, prepared to apply to a military academy. But her background check got held up at the local police station, and she failed to qualify for an interview. Hu said that the station refused to stamp her form because her parents, Hu Zhenying and Duan Shuzhi, had been in jail in April 2007, which disqualified her from the requirements for a background check. But although the police station initially blamed her parents' situation, it later changed its explanation to say that the police station could not approve the check because it had not received any documents concerning the background inspection process for military academies.

Hu Jiajia lives in the village of Dawangzhuan, in Chouzhuang Township, which is located in Langfang's Anci District, adjoining Yongqign County. She scored a 516 overall on this year's gaokao, fourteen points above the second-level cut-off. Her aspiration is to go to a military academy: "My parents are both farmers, and if I go to a military school, it's free and I'll get an additional subsidy, and there's security in national defense work."

As planned, when she finished the gaokao, Hu Jiajia went to the local People's Armed Forces Department in Yongqing County to obtain a "Political inspection form for civilian high school graduates applying to military academies and defense students applying to civilian colleges." The deadline for submission was June 18.

On June 15, Hu Jiajia and her mother Duan Shuzhi went to the Chouzhuang police station to meet Deng Zhiming, the police officer in charge of their neighborhood, and station captain Gan. The form required stamps from the village committee, the school, and the police station. The committee and school had already stamped it, but the police station refused to stamp the background check form. The reason they gave was that in 2007, Hu Jiajia's parents had gotten into a scuffle with their neighbors over a land issue and were jailed for fifteen days. Zheng Zhiming had been responsible for handling the case, and it was Zheng who refused to stamp the form.

Duan said that she explained to Zheng, "The mistakes of adults have nothing to do with their kids. People are responsible for their own actions. Why should this be tied onto the kid?" Zheng said, "Even if your kid has astronomical talent, she's not going. So long as I'm alive, you're not signing this."

Mother and daughter sought out captain Gan Shuangle, who said that he needed to make a few phone calls. Hu Jiajia said that after making a number of calls, Gan still wouldn't sign.

Duan consulted the Anci District PSB on June 16 but obtained no results.

Back at home, Hu Jiajia received a call from the Yongqing County People's Armed Forces Department informing her that the deadline for background checks had passed, all forms had been turned in to their superiors, and the physical exam had been pushed ahead. Her dreams of going to military school had come to an end.

Hu Jiajia was mystified by the background check process: "Even murderers don't have any connection to their children. This was just jail. How does that involve a kid?"

On June 24, captain Gan of the Chouzhuang police station denied that Zheng Zhiming had said anything like, "So long as I'm alive, you're not signing this," and said, "It's absolutely impossible. The decision is out of our hands." But when Yanzhao Metropolis Daily journalist Cheng Jianhui visited the station June 23, a station staffer said that it was precisely because Hu's parents had been in jail that they had refused to stamp the form: they needed to "seek truth from facts, and be responsible to the army."

Captain Gan said that the form was not signed because he had not seen the military academy's background standards, and was only familiar with the standards for the police academy. According to his logic, the military academy's standards ought to be higher than the police academy's.

Background checks are conducted according to the Political Qualification Guidelines for the Acceptance of Civilian High School Graduates by Military Academies and the Acceptance of Civilian College Graduates by the Military, jointly issued by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Security, and the General Political Department. The Guidelines list eleven circumstances under which admission may be denied. The first nine involve illegal activity including leaking secrets, spying, harming national security, hooliganism, theft, hijacking, fraud, gambling, and smuggling. The tenth class is people whose immediate family members, close extended family members, or others in a direct guardian relationship have been given a criminal sentence or dealt party discipline, and who are unable to correctly deal with the situation. Hu Jiajia said that her parents were jailed for fifteen days over an altercation with their neighbors in 2007, when she was away at school, and she was able to "correctly deal with" the situation.

Consulting the Political Provisions for Conscription, this reporter found that "parents jailed by public security" does not fall under "political conditions unfitting for conscription."

On the morning of June 25, members of the Anci branch of the Langfang Municipal PSB and the Anxi District People's Armed Forces Department visited Hu Zhenying and his wife. the PSB agreed to provide the family with financial compensation, the amount of which has yet to be determined. Hu Zhenying said, "We didn't do it for the money. My child has to write in her intended college today. Two classmates who applied to military academies got in, but her future has been delayed. It's not a question of money."

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): The Political Frustrations of a Petitioner's Daughter
Beijing Times (Chinese): Parents in prison, girl has political examination rejected
Sunny Gaokao (Chinese): On the Political Qualification Guidelines for the Acceptance of Civilian High School Graduates by Military Academies and the Acceptance of Civilian College Graduates by the Military
Security Department of Jiangxi College of Chinese Medicine (Chinese): Political Provisions for Conscription
Image from Jiang Zemin's Five Sentences, found on Nipic

Tags: background checks, Beijing Times, gaokao, petitions, political inspections, The Beijing News

This article is from Danwei.org.

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A bridge collapse and a train crash

suggest@danwei.org (Eric) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:27:11 +0700

Modern Jinbao
June 30, 2009

Today's front pages were dominated by two major transportation accidents that took place yesterday.

Today's Modern Jinbao, a Ningbo-based newspaper, features a large photograph of a a road bridge in Tieli, Heilongjiang Province, that collapsed yesterday morning, causing eight vehicles and 21 passengers to fall into the river. Four have been confirmed dead.

The bridge was built in 1973. According to a primary investigation, an overloaded heavy-duty truck weighing about 60 tons is believed to have been the last straw for the aged structure.

The other accident, which appears in a small photo at the bottom of the page, took place in Chenzhou, Hunan Province. A failed brake system caused the K9017 passenger train to plow into another stopped train as it was approaching the station. The K9017 subsequently derailed, knocked down a wall, and hit a building before coming to a complete standstill.

Among the three people who died in the accident, two were train passengers and the other was a resident of the building the train hit. In addition, more than 60 other people were wounded.

The top headline of the newspaper reports that National Development and Reform Commission, the government agency responsible for domestic energy pricing, raised gasoline and diesel prices by 600 yuan per ton, starting at 12:00 am this morning. This is the second time this month that the NDRC has raised fuel prices.

Rumors about a sale of French fashion brand Pierre Cardin have been buzzing around recently. In the front-page sidebar, a headline reports that several Zhejiang and Guangdong companies are in talks with Pierre Cardin.

Inside the newspaper, an article reports that a recent anti-smuggling campaign in Russia has taken a heavy toll on the Zhejiang importers doing business there. For about two decades, Chinese businessmen got their goods into Russia through legally dubious channels, including bribing Russian customs agents.

Among the two billion US dollars worth of smuggled goods that Russian authorities claim have been seized, the paper estimates that 1.5 billion belonged to Zhejiang businessmen.

Links and Sources

Modern Jinbao (Chinese): Bridge collapsed in Heilongjiang, Train collision killed three in Chenzhou,Zhejiang Businessmen suffered great loss in Russia, Chinese businessmen show interest in acquiring Pierre Cardin

Tags: accidents, bridges, Chenzhou, Modern Jinbao, trains

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Stubborn persistence in pursuit of World Heritage status

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:18:39 +0700

I can outlast you

Two famous Chinese mountains were put up for UNESCO World Heritage status this year. Shanxi's Mount Wutai was successful and was recognized for its wealth of Buddhist architecture.

Mount Song, a Daoist peak in Henan Province that is home to the Shaolin Temple, missed the cut and had its application put off until next year.

Not to worry, writes Xie Yong in an op-ed for the The Beijing News chock full of martial arts references: the persistence of regional authorities in their pursuit of international recognition will eventually wear down the judging panel and win World Heritage status for Mount Song as well:

The wonders of "Chinese-style heritage bids"

by Xie Yong / TBN

One of the most mocked scenes in martial arts fiction has a student coming to find a teacher to instruct him in the art, and he kneels for days before the gate as snow gathers on the ground, until finally the master, moved by his persistence, accepts him as a disciple. As I muse on such stories now that my age and reading experience have increased and my heart has grown gloomier, they seem a little off: both teacher and student are clearly scheming shortsightedly. And while the eventual outcome always has the teacher finding a disciple and the student finding a teacher, and everyone is happy, I always wonder whether, having gone through that bout of suffering and scheming, the teacher-student and student-teacher relationship will contain much sincerity at all.

These musings were spurred by the enlightening remarks made by one official from Henan's Cultural Heritage Bureau. According to the Oriental Morning Post, after examination of the twenty-seven bids for Cultural Heritage status at the 33rd World Heritage Convention, China's Mount Wutai barely made the cut, while another application, for Mount Song's historical architecture, was returned with a request for supplemental material, and its decision was postponed until next year, bringing to an end China's remarkable unbroken fifteen-year string of successful applications. As for why Mount Song's bid got "jammed," an official from Zhengzhou's Municipal Cultural Bureau who attended the convention said that the expert panel had already arrived at the decision to turn it down: "Our charge at the pass got tied up, and although things did not turn out exactly as we would have liked, we basically achieved our goals." The official said that after more than one hour of animated debate by the committee, the status of Mount Song's bid was changed from "postponed indefinitely" to "decided next year," making it an automatic candidate next year.

After reading that statement, a scene gradually coalesced in my mind: Wei Xiaobao [hero of Jin Yong's The Deer and the Cauldron] at the feet of a master, clutching at her leg: "Master, take me in. If you don't, then I'll come grab at you again tomorrow...." I firmly believe that the World Heritage application for Mount Song's architecture, which includes the famous Shaolin Temple, will reach an entirely satisfactory conclusion next year. Just like Wei Xiaobao achieved meteoric success, delighted in women, and ultimately resigned his post to live out his days in satisfaction. There's nothing that the Chinese people cannot accomplish! After the Olympics, to be a Chinese person is to have such confidence. And sure enough, that Henan official was brimming with confidence. Mount Song's bid next year will definitely be successful! Only, then there's West Lake, which has been waiting patiently in line for next year — evidently, Chinese-style heritage bids will continue to struggle forward.

In both "Chinese-style apprenticeship" and the "Chinese-style heritage bid," the amazing thing is that neither teacher nor World Heritage is treated as important, and the louder it is proclaimed, the less important it becomes. For the former, look at Wei Xiaobao flattering Mao Shiba, Chen Jinnan, Kangxi, and Mie Jue. For the latter, see Lijiang, supposedly an original specimen of Naxi culture. When I went there in 2006, I first had dinner at the KFC beside the gate, and then when I passed a large waterwheel and a ring of old Naxi women dancing, I was immediately dumb struck by the throng of people. The place had become one of China's most likely venues for passionate encounters, with flashily-dressed men and women whose eyes shone as they tracked their quarry....Sure, from high up, Lijiang has become a symbol, a symbol of the free sexuality of the Chinese people that has been written into China's 21st Century history. But this identity has little to do with World Heritage.

The image of the kneeling martial arts student is a screengrab taken from the 2002 TV series The Young Wong Fei Hung (少年黄飞鸿). Li Pengfei (李鹏飞) plays Club Foot (鬼脚七), who kneels in the rain for three days and nights to gain entrance into the Shaolin Temple to further his nefarious plans.

Searching on Baidu for the show title and the name of the actor illustrates one of the annoying side-effects of China's stringent keyword filtering requirements. Here we are, looking up an entertainment factoid, something completely unrelated to anything that would be considered politically sensitive, and there's only one result. This is despite the presence of Li's name on the cast list in Baidu's own encyclopedia entry about the show.

All of the other results have been filtered for being against the law, probably because of something to do with unpopular former premier Li Peng (李鹏). Google.CN gives an identical result.

One legal result found

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): The wonders of "Chinese-style heritage bids"
Xinhua: China's sacred Mt. Wutai, witness to Buddhist history, joins UN Heritage list
Global Times via Xinhua: Mt Songshan fails to enter World Heritage list

Tags: Jin Yong, The Beijing News, UNESCO, World Heritage, Xie Yong

This article is from Danwei.org.

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"What do you think about the Green Dam?" asks HKU admissions

suggest@danwei.org (Alice) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:00:41 +0700

Why do you like Michael Jackson?

An editor from Henan, Yue Jianguo, wrote in to the Beijing Youth Daily to comment on the questions asked by Hong Kong universities － in this case the University of Hong Kong － to their mainland applicants.

His central thread is how the creative, open-ended questions foster discussion and non-textbook answers. Questions varied from students' view of Michael Jackson, and the Green Dam.

The Beijing Youth Daily also reported on the highest scoring student in the Arts, Liu Tingmei, and her interview with the Hong Kong universities.

HKU interview questions: cracking examination-based style of education

by Yue Jianguo / BYD

Lately, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has been conducting interviews in Beijing. "Why do you really like Michael Jackson?", "Why are girls better at studying compared to boys?" are the kind of questions asked at the interviews. The interviewees must split into groups and discuss these topics and talk about what they think. A number of interviewees think that the interview questions of the HKU won't leave you "speechless" (from Legal Daily, June 27).

Face-to-face interviews are just as important as the written examinations for HKU, and it is definitely not just a formality: if the interviewee does not pass, then they are not accepted. And in such important examinations, questions which are so close to real-life events and even ones which are contentious, of course has shocked many people. And because of this, it's worthy of discussion.

I think that these questions from HKU provides a sudden flash of inspiration because this sort of question and the thinking behind the questions is a kind of “breakthrough” for people who are used to a kind of exam-taking and ideas about education.

For example, the question about Michael Jackson. Using an event that has just occurred, the student is unable to prepare, and this does not abide by the rules of exam-based education. The life of Michael Jackson does not appear in the textbooks, and teachers won’t all know about him, and he died suddenly before the exams － there would be no way for the teachers to give lessons about him. Therefore, the students’ general reading, interests and whether their school has taught them skills apart from the ones needed to pass an exam, will be detected instantly.

Michael Jackson is a popular figure, and you can say that his is a anti-mainstream cultural phenomenon. But mainly he is about song and dance, and he is also a foreigner, and this won’t affect the mind of the students because of the seriousness of the topic: but instead a lively debate topic is presented, where any one will have something to say in the midst of an open atmosphere. This also enables a lot of students to really show their powers of expression and ability to answer questions spontaneously.

This kind of question has another specialty: there is no authoritative conclusion to the matter, so it's asking the student to make a conclusion on a complex topic. Jackson was definitely someone who affected the world, and overturned many ancient rules and orders: his art won’t ever fade, but at the same time, during his lifetime he was plagued by a lot of negative news. He is a very complicated and multi-faceted character, and it is hard to give an objective conclusion about him. This would be the way to test students who can can both see the overall point of view as well as the slimmer details.

HKU’s exam questions has no set answers, and only aims to ask students to justify their answers and be spurred on by it. “Why do people like Michael Jackson?” Many people say different things to answer this, for example some people like his music, some like his dancing, many are converted after the achievements on being King of Pop, some like his ideas and actions, some revere his talent, and some are impressed by his generosity in the charity field. For this kind of phenomenon, not only don’t you have time to design the standard answer, but any kind of standard answer would seem shoddy.

The student who had achieved the highest score in Beijing for the Arts, Liu Tingmei, who'd previously expressed interest in attending university in Hong Kong (as well as Peking University) was also interviewed by HKU. Also from Beijing Youth Daily:

Yesterday morning, the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology interviewed candidates in a hotel near Wangfujing. Liu Tingmei, who scored the highest in the Arts in Beijing also showed up － whether she will choose a Hong Kong university or Peking University will be decided after the results of the interview is out, she said.

The students being interviewed have all scored 630 or above. According to the spokesperson for the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, the financial crisis this year has caused applications from the mainland to drop by 30%, but students applying from Beijing rose 10%. The interviews of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology took place in groups, with 4 to 5 to a group, the topics included, "What is your proudest experience?" "Why do you want to apply to this university?" The examiners also asked questions in relation to the subject matter that the applicant is applying for. For example: "Who designed the Bird's Nest?" and "What is the biggest prize in the computer world?"

Around 10am, Liu Tingmei, dressed in a white top and black skirt, attended an interview with Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, the question asked was, "Please discuss your views on the Green Dam software." On the 26th, the University of Hong Kong interviewed Liu Tingmei. After half an hour the interview was over. Liu Tingmei felt that her performance was average.

Links and Sources

Beijing Youth Daily (Chinese): HKU interview questions: cracking examination-based style of education
Beijing Youth Daily (Chinese): Number One of the Arts presents herself at Hong Kong university interviews
Image from Global Times via China.org.cn

Tags: Beijing Youth Daily, University of Hong Kong

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Nine held in connection to collapsed Shanghai apartment building

suggest@danwei.org (Eric) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:38:36 +0700

The Beijing News
June 29, 2009

Yesterday's front pages were largely devoted to a 13-storey riverbank apartment that tipped over in Shanghai on the morning of June 27, killing one worker inside.

The building remained in the news today: according to a report in The Beijing News, nine people, including the "developer, contractor, and quality supervisor," have been detained in connection to the accident.

The 132 households living nearby returned to their homes yesterday after an examination ruled out the possibility that a similar accident would strike again. An investigation of cause of the collapse is under way, but explanations are only speculative at the moment.

Many people believe that inferior construction materials lead to the disaster, based on the photos showing snapped concrete piles that are hollow, with steel reinforcing bars that are thin and sparse.

Others speculate that the breakage of a river levee a few days prior to the accident could be the real culprit.

A third reason, pointed out by an industry insider quoted by The Beijing News, may be that a large quantity of soil excavated for the construction of an underground car park may have affected the balance of stresses surrounding the building. To make matters worse, the soil was piled up next to the building, and its weight may have destabilized the building.

In other news, the central government has authorized a plan initiated by the government of Macau Special Administrative Region to develop Hengqin Island. The first project of the plan involves a new campus for the University of Macau.

According to the agreement, the land, which currently falls under the administration of Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, will be leased to Macau through December 19, 2049, renewable upon mutual agreement. Macau's laws will apply within the campus.

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): Nine people involved in the collapsed building incident under custody, University of Macau's development plan of Hengqin Island was authorized by Chinese goverment
Xinhua via KDNet: Photos of the collapsed building

Tags: accident, Macau, Shanghai, The Beijing News

This article is from Danwei.org.

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The Huangguoshu Waterfall in Anshun

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:35:16 +0700

The Anshun waterfall

This is a piece by a contributor, Dustin Ooley, who is a U.S.-China Friendship Volunteer, part of the Peace Corps, presently stationed in at Anshun Teacher's College,
Anshun, Guizhou PRC.

I came to China as a Peace Corps Volunteer in June of 2007. In September I was assigned to Anshun, a somewhat remote city in China’s poorest province, Guizhou. I wrote a satirical article about the waterfall as a comment on the willingness of people to visit me on the sole condition that they got to see the waterfall, Huangguoshu Waterfall (黄果树瀑布). The result was the mistaken notion that I hated the waterfall.

When I travel around China and have a conversation where I need to explain where I live and work, I always use the waterfall for reference: “Huangguoshu Pubu,” I say with interlocked thumbs and dangling fingers – to mimic the shape of our province’s biggest attraction. It never fails to elicit smiles and recognition.

How big is this waterfall? I’ve never heard the same answer twice. The Chinese tell me all sorts of different things about Anshun’s Huangguoshu Waterfall. I have heard that it’s the loudest in the world, the tallest in Asia, the biggest in China, the third largest in the world, and the second largest in the world (right after Niagra Falls, as the man told his son while I listened with skepticism).

“Is it the second largest by volume?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Not by volume, no,” he replied.

“By width, then?”

“No, it’s not a case of width,” he said uncertainly.

This went on for some time and I got no closer to the answer than when I arrived in China two years ago and was told that it was the third largest waterfall in the world. But by using context clues and lots of body language, I had learned the Chinese for ‘volume’ and ‘width.’

The Internet is less than helpful – spewing a variety of heights and widths that suggest the waterfall was measured by advanced guesswork or the eyeballing method, making it difficult to know which information is correct. Unofficially I will say that the waterfall is about 75 meters high and probably more than 80 meters wide (I read somewhere that it was over 100 meters). It’s like one of those philosophical questions: “How can we know this waterfall even exists?” But I assure you it does and it is well worth the trip – even if you have to make an extra stop before going to the much more popular provinces of Guangxi or Yunnan. The guidebooks seldom offer more than a few scant pages about Guizhou, which should be appealing to anyone with a sense of adventure and the proper Giardia medication.

Huangguoshu is large, loud, and remote. I heard the waterfall long before I saw it, walking along the cement path with hordes of Chinese tourists. The path approaches some of the best places for photos of the waterfall itself – platforms stretch to the edge of the water where eager Chinese tourists seem as lost and excited as the foreigners who come to this region. Moving on, the trail winds upward past local vendors selling the most stifling, cheap rain slickers you have ever worn (at the low price of 5 yuan!). I took it off immediately and used it to protect my backpack. Once you level off at the top of the hill across from the waterfall, the mist gets pretty heavy. One of the most exciting aspects of this waterfall is that the trail goes behind the falls – offering people the chance to look out from within the waterfall. The 30 yuan for an almost unending succession of escalators back to the main gate was worth every jiao.

Chinglish signs are abounding and offer the careful observer a private chuckle when they are told that there is, “No Climbing Danger,” or, “No scribbling or firing in the scenic area.”

Getting to the waterfall is relatively painless and one can be in and out of Anshun without spending the night. Take a train (12 yuan) or bus (35 yuan) from Guiyang to Anshun and go to the West Bus Station (客车西站) to buy a ticket to Huangguoshu City (12 yuan). Tickets for the waterfall are 180 yuan, but one of my students had guanxi with someone who worked at the falls – I got in for free.

Afterwards we opted to hire a driver to see other waterfalls in the area, including Yinlianzhuitan Waterfall (銀鏈墜潭瀑布). The taxi driver charged us 80 yuan, dropped us off at a trail that passed another series of smaller waterfalls, and picked us up 2 hours later at the other end. Some say this addition to the main waterfall is essential to make a day of this trip.

To the people of Guizhou, the waterfall is almost a part of their identity. “Have you seen the waterfall?” is usually the third question I hear from inquisitive Chinese. “Of course!” I reply with mock surprise. The pride of their question betrays the notion that they somehow invented this natural attraction.

One of my students wrote in her journal that going to the waterfall was the happiest day of her life:

“When we stepped into the gate, we couldn’t see the waterfall at first instead a beautiful garden. But we could hear of the roaring. After ten minutes’ walking, we saw the great waterfall. The water was a white ribbon link sky and earth. It fell into the lake with a great thunder. There were two or three rainbows in the middle of the waterfall. It made me think that we were live in paradise.”

Tags: Anshun, waterfall

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Students choose English, oracle bone characters for entrance exam essays

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:25:12 +0700

Not particularly auspicious

China's competitive college entrance exam is a source of great anxiety for graduating high school students.

The essay portion of the language arts section of the exam, which took place on June 7 this year, may be oriented toward essays that are boring, predictable, or slanted toward a particular point of view, but some students, particularly if they are not confident of achieving high marks overall, see the essay as a chance for self-expression, or a way to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

One student in Sichuan took the unusual step of responding to the essay prompt in modern Chinese written using ancient characters. The student, Xiao Huang (not his real name), said that he was afraid that otherwise his essay wouldn't stand out.

His gambit seems to have failed: a report in the Chengdu Business News said that his essay received a score of 8 points out of 60 (later reduced to 6):

A knowledgeable source said that Xiao Huang's ancient character essay only scored eight points. The test marking team supervisors found an ancient writing expert to interpret the essay and then held a lengthy discussion before deciding upon that score.

"One supervisor insisted that it be given a zero." The source said that the supervisor felt that although gaokao rules did not stipulate that essays must be written in simplified characters, the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language Law clearly requires the use of standard written language — that is, simplified characters — in public venues and published materials. "The law naturally trumps gaokao rules," and thus the essay should be given a zero.

However, another supervisor felt that giving the essay a zero was unfair: "Using ancient writing is something innovative, after all." And while it strayed from the topic, that was not enough to justify a zero. For this reason, they ultimately gave him a low score.

The test paper reproduced by the newspaper (and shown in the image above) is a copy rewritten by "Xiao Huang" after the exam. In the original, the author substituted the title "Thorough Understanding" (深入了解) for the prescribed "Familiarity" (熟悉) because he could not remember the ancient forms of those two characters.

The newspaper included a transcription of Huang's essay made by his language arts teacher, Pu (not his real name). Although Huang's use of "oracle bone characters" is highlighted in media reports about the essay, his writing was actually an amalgam of various ancient forms:

This reporter's initial reaction was astonishment when I first saw the paper covered in ancient characters on the copy Xiao Huang made of his essay. After inspecting it carefully, several language arts teachers who had studied ancient characters discovered that it contained oracle bone characters, bronze inscription characters, and seal characters. And after reading Pu's transcription, a number of language arts teachers said that although some of the sentences were ungrammatical or strained, the meaning was basically understandable.

Pu said that Xiao Huang's writing was usually better than this, so the ancient characters may have affected his thought process.

Given his poor performance on the essay portion, Pu expects Huang's total score to be around 480, which will be beneath the cutoff for major universities.

Huang went to Shanghai to meet with Liu Zhao, a professor of ancient writing at Fudan University. News reports suggested that he hoped to duplicate the experience of Cai Wei, a laid-off factory worker with a high school education who was admitted to the university's PhD program on the recommendation of Liu and Qiu Xigun, another professor in the ancient documents department. However, Liu told Huang to gain a good grounding in the basics at college first before pursuing graduate studies.

Meanwhile, in Wuhan, another student found success with a non-traditional essay. Zhou Haiyang answered the prompt "Standing at the Door to _____," from Hubei's province-wide test paper, with a long poem about the 1911 Huanghuagang uprising. Test scorers gave it full marks.

Zhou's "Standing at the Gate to Huanghuagang Cemetery" contains 102 seven-character lines, along with a preface and afterward written in classical Chinese. The Chutian Metropolis Daily quoted the breathless praise of the test-scorers:

"In both form and expression it's excellent," said one test scorer, who teaches at a provincial-level model high school. The teacher said that although the old-style poem used historical material, it was not empty of content but expressed feelings of reverence and aspiration. Another teacher said that a high school student who chose such a form and wielded it so deftly must have read widely and must possess a good grounding in the classics.

The Beijing Youth Daily spoke with Zhou late last week and reported that he had never actually been to the Huanghuagang Cemetery: he based his poem on visits to the Wuchang Memorial Park and information he had gleaned from the Internet and TV. He also said that the poem was written on the spur of the moment during the test. He he had not prepared it beforehand.

However, Zhou's performance on the math portion of the exam — 45 point — did not match his success on the essay, and along with middling scores on the other sections, his final score of 370 was far below what is needed to place into a major university.

Zhou told the Chutian Metropolis Daily that he intends to take the exam two more times in the hopes of evening out his imbalance between math and humanities disciplines.

Another Wuhan student reportedly went in the opposite direction on the recent high-school entrance exam and answered the essay prompt, "Doing Your Best is Enough," in English. Again, from the Chutian Metropolis Daily, June 26:

Yesterday, news came from the Wuhan high school entrance exam marking center: one student used English to complete the essay portion of the language arts exam. The test scorer immediately reported this to the expert panel. According to a source at the marking center, the essay, written entirely in English, was titled "Do, try you best" (sic). The quality of the essay is currently unknown.

A language arts teacher in Wuchang District who has scored entrance exam papers many times in more than a decade of teaching, claimed never to have encountered an English-language essay before. This reporter talked to a number of other junior-high language arts teachers who all expressed their surprise. One teacher in Hankou said that teenage rebellion should not be ruled out in the case of individual test takers, but using English to answer an essay question was particularly risky.

Reportedly, one test-scorer at the marking center hypothesized that the author of the English essay may have been a "network recruited student" (网招生) who, according to the rules, was already admitted to a high school and had no need to take the entrance exam. Perhaps the student took the exam simply for the experience, and thus could risk "demonstrating English ability" on the essay portion.

A source with the Wuhan Institute of Educational Science said that they had not yet received a report from the marking center, but if an essay question was indeed answered in English, it would be translated and judged according to whether it was on-topic. If it was in-line with the standards for high-school exam essays, it would not be given a zero.

Links and Sources

Chengdu Business News (Chinese): Oracle bone essay scores 8 points; original text comes to light (clear image via Peninsula Metropolis Daily)
Chutian Metropolis Daily (Chinese): Hubei test taker wins title of "most awesome full-score essay" for long, classical poem (includes full text)
Chongqing Morning Post via Xinmin (Chinese): Oracle bone essay writer goes to Shanghai in the hopes of meeting Fudan university professor
Xinmin via Netease (Chinese): Fudan denies admitting oracle bone essay student
Beijing Youth Daily (Chinese): I wrote out the poem in 80 minutes at the test site
Chutian Metropolis Daily (Chinese): "Awesomest essay" writer has total score of 370
Chutian Metropolis Daily (Chinese): Wuhan high-school entrance essay answered in English
Earlier on Danwei: Invisible Wings: 2009's college exam essay questions

Tags: characters, essays, gaokao, oracle bones, zhongkao

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Danwei T-shirts for sale at Plastered and online

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:30:49 +0700

Just in time for the Party's birthday, the official Danwei T-shirt is now on sale at Plastered stores in Beijing and retailers in Singapore, Guangdong and Seattle (see shop addresses).

You can also purchase online on Taobao (in Chinese), and from the Plastered online store if you're outside China: click here for men's and here for women's.

Tags: communism, Danwei, T-shirt

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Dogs and farmers unwelcome

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:45:30 +0700

CG artist Bao Yongliang took this photo of some cautionary signs for patrons at the entrance to the Charter Shopping Center (卓展购物中心) in Changchun:

In the post, tagged "No Dogs or Farmers Allowed" (农民与狗不得进入), he writes:

Changchun Charter Shopping Center: Moral Discounters

Don't tell me oh-so-professionally that this is the international symbol for improper attire. Fuck that.

I used my mobile phone to take the photo and they came to stop me. This is a place with no freedom or rights whatsoever.

A wider view of the door signs:

Links and Sources

Bao Yongliang's blog (Chinese): Changchun Charter Shopping Center: Moral Discounters

Tags: Bao Yongliang, Changchun, farmers

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Chinese newspapers mourn the death of Michael Jackson

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:30:55 +0700

In lieu of an in-depth front page story today, here's a collection of front pages from Chinese newspapers who marked the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson:

Michael Jackson dominated Chinese newspapers on June 27, 2009

Most of the headlines are variations on either "Michael Jackson dies" or "Goodbye Michael." A few newspapers went with something different, but the usual punning headlines that accompany major international news stories were fairly uncommon:

Dongguan Times (东莞时报): "The Whole World Mourns"
Chengdu Evening News (成都晚报): "Farewell to a Legend"
New Information (新消息报): "The King Will Not Return"
Modern Express (现代快报): "Heaven Gets the Moonwalk"
City Evening News (城市晚报): "Remember"
Chinese Business View (华商报): "The Black and White Life of a Lonely King"

In addition, major online news portals like Sina, Sohu (auto-plays music), and even Xinhuanet collected news, music, photos, and memories from Chinese and foreign media.

Links and Sources

China Daily: Thriller of a life ends, stuns fans
Covers via ABBao
Earlier on Danwei: Mosaic of Obama front pages

Tags: Michael Jackson, newspapers, obituaries

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China in the 1920s

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:02:07 +0700

Found via Liuzhou Laowai, a 1920s silent film shot in Beijing, Shenyang, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Tags: Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Mopping up in Liuzhou

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:16:33 +0700

Liuzhou Laowai has photos of the flooding in Liuzhou, which reached 7 meters above the danger level.

Earlier photos here.

Link picked by Danwei.org

Populism in China's courts

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:16:28 +0700

David Hechler at the Columbia Law School Magazine looks at Professor Benjamin L. Liebman's research into China's judiciary:

The fascination for Liebman is in watching Chinese courts advance—or lurch—in one direction or the other. Recently, he tracked the influence of the internet and the media on the judiciary. In some ways, he found, those entities further the rule of law; in others, they reinforce the primacy of the Party and popular opinion. “Part of the uniqueness of China,” he says, “is that it’s a single-party state in which the courts are playing a very important role. There are very few comparable examples.”

via Chinese Law Prof Blog

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China @ ICANN

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:46:50 +0700

Rebecca MacKinnon summarizes some of the issues under discussion at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers of interest to China: ICANN's relationship with the US government, generic top level domains, and "internationalized" TLDs written in extended character sets.

Link picked by Danwei.org

How to sell a motorbike in eleven easy steps

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:21:27 +0700

Chris at cdrum sells his motorbike at the Beijing Vehicle Management Center.

Link picked by Danwei.org

"China Daily" appeals license revocation in "Taiwan"

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:55:22 +0700

The Taipei Times (via AsiaMedia) reports that the China Daily has appealed General Information Office's recovation of its publication license. The GIO felt that the paper was part of a "united front tactic" against the island:

The newspaper's agent, CF Books Co, received permission from the GIO on July 1 last year to introduce the Hong Kong edition to Taiwan for a year, and sent an average of 1,000 newspapers free of charge to colleges, academic institutions, local officials and government institutions. The permission was revoked by the commission on May 19 after a review.
...
Among the reasons used to revoke the permission was that reports continually referred to President Ma Ying-jeou as "Taiwan leader," put in brackets the terminologies representing Taiwan's sovereignty, place news about Taiwan and Hong Kong on the same page, and its weather information showed Taiwan was part of China, Cheng said.

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Transformers II as American military propaganda

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:37:25 +0700

ESWN translates an essay that ran in the China Youth Daily that reads the Transformer movies as tools to burnish the image of the American military:

At the beginning of the movie, the American military and the Autobots were fighting the Decepticons in the streets of Shanghai. The Egyptian air force and the American military attacked the Decepticons on the pyramid together. Actually, we observe the typical thinking of the American military: no matter whether it is the yet-to-happen alien invasion of Earth, or the regional conflicts or human wars on Earth, the best guarantee for world security and defending human civilization is to unite politically with America at the core and to have the American military as the command center.

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Air China will offer direct flights between Beijing and Lhasa

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:12:02 +0700

From AP:

Air China will begin offering direct flights from Beijing to Tibet this month, shaving two hours off the current travel time in a bid to boost tourism, state media said Wednesday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the new service to Tibet's capital of Lhasa will depart Beijing daily from July 10. Currently, all flights to Lhasa are routed through Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern China's Sichuan province.

Xinhua said the new service was designed to boost tourism in the Himalayan region. The industry took a major hit following the riots in March 2008 when Tibetans protesting Beijing's rule attacked Chinese migrants and torched much of Lhasa's commercial district.

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It's not over for Yao Ming

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:04:32 +0700

With Yao Ming's career on the brink, Austin Ramzy at Time gives his career and his fans a once-over:

Granted, Yao's star has faded slightly in China, his jersey being outsold in recent years by other NBA stars like Kobe Bryant. But he is still closely followed. "I'm so bummed out about his injury," says Yan Xin, 27, a Yao fan who never misses a Rockets game when they are televised in China. "In hindsight, he should have just focused on the NBA, and not be forced to play for the Chinese national team. I can't imagine how anyone can deal with such overwhelming pressure and intense schedules."

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Hong Kong protest march held

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:44:57 +0700

The Shanghaiist aggregates news about Hong Kong's protest today:

"Through this event, we hope to encourage the people of Hong Kong to commemorate the 12 years since reunification and at the same time look forward to the future," Cheng said.

Asked if the July 1 pro-democracy march would counteract the spirit of unity generated by the parade, Cheng said: "Hong Kong is a city of free expression...it is normal for people to express their opinions and differences."

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Tsvangirai gets loans from China for Zimbabwe

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:27:21 +0700

The New York Times reports that Morgan Tsvangirai, prime minister of Zimbabwe and political rival to president Robert Mugabe, has obtained a package of loans worth US$950 million from China:

Mr. Tsvangirai said Tuesday that the finance minister he had appointed, Tendai Biti, had negotiated the loan package with China. Details of the deal were scant, and Chinese officials could not be reached to confirm the deal or to comment on it.

Officials close to Mr. Tsvangirai said they believed that at least some of the financing would be provided on the condition that the money was spent on Chinese goods, like fertilizer.

Link picked by Danwei.org

An incident in Xi'an

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:52:40 +0700

bezdomny ex patria looks at a post by blogger Yang Hengjun that describes a car accident in Xi'an:

A very weak-looking local woman, a clearly visible white BMW from another province, a group of locals looking on, the situation did not look very favourable for that BMW driver. But what surprised me was most of the onlookers stayed silent and the few locals who did speak were not speaking up for the woman.

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Green Dam content filter deadline pushed back

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:50:41 +0700

Despite its complete confidence in the product, a claimed 90% filter rate against porn, total respect for intellectual property, dismissal of WTO concerns, and discussions with computer manufacturers stretching back to March, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has declared that today's deadline for installation of the Green Dam-Youth Escort content filter is postponed, with no new deadline given. Reuters reports.

China Daily has more.

China Law Blog says I told you so.

Link picked by Danwei.org

China's Marlboro Country

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:57:20 +0700

Te-Ping Chen writes for Slate about the counterfeit cigarette industry in Yunxiao, Fujian Province.

Link picked by Danwei.org

Tipping and Beijing air pollution index

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:37:34 +0700

The Atlantic's James Fallows has left China － in this blog post he misses not tipping and hopes that the people on top of the Beijing U.S. embassy will predict some positive weather for Beijing on Twitter soon.

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Delays for Green Dam filter installation

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:45:43 +0700

The Financial Times is reporting that computer retailers in Beijing aren't expecting PCs equipped with the Green Dam-Youth Escort software until several weeks after the official deadline of July 1:

Staff selling Lenovo, Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, Asustek and Founder computers at a branch of Suning, a big electronics retailer in northern Beijing, all said Green Dam-equipped PCs would not be available for about another two months.

An information technology ministry spokesman declined to comment on whether the government would penalise PC makers who failed to comply with the July 1 deadline.

Some retail staff said they did not expect the government to enforce its order strictly.

Link picked by Danwei.org