For months, scratch that, for years I’ve been thinking that China’s vision of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is just completely out of whack with the reality of the event. Seeing large city squares be constructed, buildings erected, national pride stoked, all in preparation for Er Ling Ling Ba – the year of China’s Olympics …Read More
I just finished reading Walter Russell Mead’s cleverly titled opinion piece in the LA Times: The great fall of China. I gotta say, he paints an interesting picture of Americans, never mind the “China” he is writing about. The article points to a recent study by the World Bank that concluded that their previous figures …Read More
Just a little over a week ago reports came out about a man, Wei Wenhua, being beaten to death by hired city official “enforcers” in the city of Tianmen, Hubei. Wei had stopped near a clash between city officials and locals who were protesting the dumping of garbage by their homes. When Wei attempted to …Read More
Today marks 70 years since the imperialist Japanese army entered Nanjing, then capital of China, and began one of the most brutal massacres of the 20th century and has led to harsh friction between the two countries in the years since. I’ve always liked history, in a purely sofa sort of way. Back when my …Read More
George W. Bush earned kudos for speaking Spanish when he ran for president in 2000, and while it turns out his language skills are, at best, “halting to conversational,” having the confidence to use another language on camera in America probably still counts for something. Other heads of state are more legitimately bilingual, and a …Read More
What can I really say to this, other than: if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is her sick and twisted evil half-sister. BEIJING (AFP) – Used condoms are being recycled into hair bands in southern China, threatening to spread sexually-transmittable diseases they were originally meant to prevent, state media reported Tuesday. In the …Read More
I didn’t blog about the YouTube block earlier this month because I just couldn’t accept it as the truth. Sure, I got the denial of service message just like the rest of the folks stuck here behind the GFW, but something just wouldn’t let me believe it was actually happening. I woke up each day, …Read More
This week’s Photo of the Week comes from talented HK photographer (and sometimes LLW writer) Derrick Chang, and was taken at the [*dem*] march in HK. Be sure to check out his site – www.maskofchina.com – for more great photos. Every week we’ll feature a funny, interesting or otherwise noteworthy photo here. If you have …Read More
Does it merit mention anymore? Wikipedia is dead. The craptastic part is that even using the until-now infallible hack, it doesn’t work. Bullocks. Danwei reports that Chinese IT bloggers are getting pretty pissed at the extreme measures the [*chingov*] is taking to assure a harmonious 17th Party Congress this coming October 15th. The Danwei article …Read More
Barely a week goes by without Western media reporting on the latest trademark, copyright or IP infringement coming out of China. Just today I read that Chinese companies are distributing fake Icewine. Touting it to the rising middle-class that are looking for ways to show off that don’t involve a Mercedes and 30,000 RMB dinners. …Read More
Oh, sure, you may THINK that 2008 begins in just five months or so, but for 1/5th of the world (give or take), it all starts one year from now – as today Beijing’s Olympic Clock hits the magic 365 days number. Yee haw! Many have said that these Olympics will be “China’s coming out …Read More
Nary a week goes by that the Chinese media doesn’t provide us all with something to chuckle at and re-enforce our “oh those crazy Chinese” mentality. This week’s big news flub comes right from the top, Xinhua. The State-owned mouthpiece’s English-language Web site ran a serious story about a breakthrough in identifying what causes multiple …Read More
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