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April 30, 2008
Photo by Sabershadezero After a long and sometimes chaotic winter, the recent heatwave has been much celebrated around the city. Outdoor dining is back, the windows are open, and the locals are sporting this season's hottest pajama fashion. But with all the good weather there's a silver lining or, perhaps more accurately, a poisonous death haze. This is that magical time of year where all the tiny particles in the air heat up and...
Continue Reading "A fresher breath of air?"
| Related links: AP: China blames speeding for train crash that kill 70 people Xinhua: French nationals hurt in China train crash to be treated in Beijing Xinhua: Military withdraw after completing train accident relief work Xinhua: Third rail official dismissed over east China train crash China Daily: Survivors recount pre-dawn nightmare...
Continue Reading "Raw footage: Rescue work at train collision site in Zibo"
From nocas via our Contribute page:today we went to the restaurant downstairs and finally took a picture of this gem in the menu (which i dont think neither of us would have the courage to taste). and just now i found out that this same virus is actually lethal and killing children in anhui province. not nice. Xinhua says the enterovirus 71, which can cause the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) has hit...
Continue Reading "Dish of the Day: Braised enterovirus in claypot"April 29, 2008
After a successful month running at reduced capacity, the new Terminal 2 at Pudong Airport took another 18 airlines under its wing today. Whilst you should double check when you get to the airport (the airline who sold you the ticket may not be the one running the plane), the full list of airlines now operating from Pudong reads as follows:AeroflotAerosvit (Ukraine)Air CanadaAir China Air IndiaAir MacauAir New ZealandAlitaliaANA NipponAsiana (RoK)British AirwaysCathay PacificCebu PacificDragon AirEVA...
Continue Reading "Pudong Airport Terminal 2: More airlines added"President Kim Jong-Il may not have been there personally for yesterday's Olympic torch relay in Pyongyang, but that did not stop hundreds of thousands of ecstatic North Koreans from turning out in full force and waving the Kim Jong Ilia (flower named after the "Dear Leader") as the flame went across their city for the first time in the history of the Olympics. Earlier this week, DPRK officials promised the Chinese a smooth and trouble-free...
Continue Reading "Happy and harmonious torch relay through Pyongyang"Advertisement: Shanghaiist Continues Below!
April 29, 2008
China's worst train crash in a decade happened yesterday somewhere between Qingdao and Beijing and killed at least 70 people. Fatalities did not include any foreigners, although a group of four French nationals travelling together were among the hundreds left injured. Terrorism was ruled out as a cause of the train collision and two railway officials (unnamed) have been sacked following the accident.Police in Guangdong province have busted a factory there for making Free Tibet...
Continue Reading "Today's Links: Train crashes, Made-in-China "Free Tibet" flags and the fight against piracy"April 28, 2008
From Associated Press: "A group of protesters planning to protest the Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong have been barred from entering the city, local media and activists say. They were questioned at the airport and put on a flight to London." (April 27) From France24: "The Olympic torch is travelling from its historic home in Olympia, Greece, to the Chinese capital Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games. Watch our special report on its relay...
Continue Reading "Video News: Torch protestors, Olympic merchandising and China's business with Africa"April 27, 2008
Taikang Lu has developed rapidly in the last few months — expanding from the original alleyway into a sprawling collection of labyrinthine lanes populated by galleries, arty shops, and some great restaurants. However, the revitalisation of Taikang Lu hasn't been welcomed by everyone. Yesterday, on a gloriously sunny afternoon that saw large numbers of people flock to the area, some local residents decided to voice their dissent against the ongoing development. Three white and blue...
Continue Reading "Residents protest on Taikang Lu"April 25, 2008
This just in from the AP:The Chinese government plans to meet with a private representative of the Dalai Lama in the coming days, state-run media reported, after weeks of pressure from world leaders. The official Xinhua News Agency said it had learned of the development "from official sources." It quoted an unnamed official as saying there had been requests repeatedly made by "the Dalai side for resuming talks." The BBC said that the Dalai Lama's...
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Urban webzine SmartShanghai has closed down its online forum. After five odd years of heated discussions and raging debates, it was determined that the SmartShanghai Forum did indeed address and solve all the world’s problems, and it was decided that its purpose as a bastion of free speech and intelligent discourse was no longer required. So we’re taking a break from it for a bit, waiting for the world to get completely awful once again,...
Continue Reading "Smart Shanghai closes its forum"April 24, 2008
Following up on our previous post entitled "Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan," we were contacted today by James Galvin, the unnamed American volunteer mentioned in the story which has now gone on to receive coverage by the Associated Press. In his email, Galvin provided his first-hand account of the alleged incident outside a Carrefour Sunday night in Hunan Province. He feels the story has gotten blown out of proportion....
Continue Reading "Volunteer in China: "I was not in fact attacked by a mob""
Richard Brubaker of All Roads Leads to China has some good visa news (if true), but only for UK citizens. An update he quoted from the British Chamber of Commerce:Visa Situation Update The British Embassy lobbied the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing and have now secured confirmation from them that 12 month multiple-entry business visas will continue to be available to all qualifying UK applicants. Chinese Embassy websites now makes clear that the following...
Continue Reading "Good news for UK F visa applicants?"Graham Webster of CNet blog Sinobyte reports that William Chang, chief scientist for Baidu, told the WWW2008 conference in Beijing yesterday, "'There's in fact no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based 'out there'... It's very natural for China to make it's own products," and hence all of us should be good boys and girls and use Baidupedia instead. He of course conveniently forgot to mention Chinese Wikipedia remains blocked.HiPiHi, the Chinese clone...
Continue Reading "The Chinese people have no use for Wikipedia (and other tech news)"April 23, 2008
News from the subway in the past couple weeks:"Can't the city give some street performers some space?" - Street performers in Shanghai are often lumped together with beggars as public nuisances, but often they are just free spirits chasing a musical dream. One cited example are Tuotuo and A-qing, a couple of guys who play the guitar and sing every evening at the City Plaza Mall in Jing'an, often attracting a crowd of mostly young...
Continue Reading "Getting Around: Street performers, Haibao, pickpockets and a call for opinions"Al Jazeera: "Transformed from being the land of bicycles into a land of cars, China's booming economy is driving up demand at a time when car sales are slow elsewhere in the world. Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng visited the Beijing motor show which showed much promise in making China the future of the automotive industry." Al Jazeera: "More than 80,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in China last year, making the country's roads the...
Continue Reading "Video News: The land of cars, deadly roads and anti-western sentiment"Advertisement: Shanghaiist Continues Below!
April 22, 2008
READ THIS: Volunteer in China: "I was not in fact attacked by a mob" Editor's note: This post has been updated. Details after the jump. Here's an email we received from a volunteer teacher from an Ivy League university volunteer programme in Hunan Province (who shall remain unnamed to protect the identities of everyone involved) — a chilling account of an attack on his colleague by an anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou. The matter has been...
Continue Reading "Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan: UPDATED"
Danwei informs us that Carrefour.com.cn is currently "undergoing a website update and maintenance", but CarrefourS.com.cn is alive and hopping with nationalist messages and other "user-generated propaganda". Crazy times....
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UPDATE, 17:15: An article over on Sina (link in Chinese) is pointing to policing problems and a lack of adequate security as the cause of Midi's demise (a claim seconded by theBeijinger) whilst also quoting festival organiser Zhang Fan as saying that "a postponement is possible, but only possible, there has not been a definitive decision yet". Meanwhile, CityWeekend also quote Zhang: "I'd rather not say right now. There will be an announcement tomorrow". That,...
Continue Reading "Breaking News: Beijing Midi Festival postponed"Protests, protests everywhere — in Europe, within China, and all across the United States. Quite frankly, we can barely catch up with it all. Watch protestors shout "CNN liar! Cafferty fire!" in this video of the anti-CNN demonstration which took place outside CNN's studios in downtown LA that we told you about earlier. [h/t to Danwei] Related links Photos: Chinese students show their love for the motherland at Place de la République in Paris Anti-French,...
Continue Reading "Video: Anti-CNN protest in Los Angeles"
By Benjamin Cohen The major construction phase of the Shangzhong Road Tunnel is complete, finishing two years behind schedule.Police seized 10 kilograms of cocaine found attached under the hull of a foreign cargo ship.Some local ATM's will be outfitted with mirrors to prevent password theft and rear sneak attacks.Shanghai has seen a 10-fold increase in registered drug addicts since 2005 while police have seized increasing amounts of "new drugs" including ecstasy, ketamine and methamphetamine.An "Art...
Continue Reading "Around Shanghai: Construction, drugs, mirrors and art"
We're somewhat late bringing this to you, but yes, over the weekend, anti-French protests took place over the weekend all over China outside Carrefour stores in Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xuzhou, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Jinan and Kunming. Although these were mainly anti-French anti-Carrefour protests, they were described by People's Daily as "protests against Tibetan independence". As usual, ESWN has been on top of things bringing us the latest news. This incident related last Thursday by ESWN...
Continue Reading "Anti-French, anti-Carrefour fury bubble over all across China"April 21, 2008
Hot off the press: a CNN-affiliated website The Sports Network (also http://sport.si.cnn.com) has just been hacked by a group called HackCNN, and this was the message placed by the hackers on the website: The Sports Network seems to have regained control of the website in the meanwhile, and here is the message we now find on their homepage:Please Note The Sports Network website and other major news sites have been hacked by a political entity...
Continue Reading "Chinese hackers strike again; another CNN website down"
From Mutantpalm.org comes a post about a Ming Pao report about a BBS posting (!) in which it was stated that some black-suit clad Freetibetters came into the subway and began playing tapes that advocated, well, you can guess what. This blog says the same thing. The four men got on on Line 2's Lujiazui and started playing the recordings and then got off. That blog post also mentions that security is a bit tighter...
Continue Reading "Free Tibet gets technological on Shanghai subway"April 20, 2008
By Benjamin Cohen "I Love Tibet, but I Hate the Dalai Lama," and "F*** CNN, Say No to Riots!" are two of the nine nationalist t-shirts for sale on Taobao.com (english version). The shirt's creators state, "Tibet was, is and always will be apart of China!" We're pretty sure they mean "a part" (h/t to Megan Shank). But semantics aside, these shirts show growing nationalist sentiment that first gained ground with MSN messenger displays of...
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By Benjamin Cohen There's no need to wrestle with paraplegics to get your hands on a 2008 Olympic torch. Someone on Ebay is now listing a classic edition of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch, and it's apparently made from the same construction steel that is used to build the new Olympic Stadium (aka the bird's nest). A crystal base accompanies the torch and there's also a map that shows the torch's journey around the world...
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April 19, 2008
Since we broke the story on CNN's site outtage in China yesterday, the story was picked up by top US blogs such as Mashable and Gawker, although mainstream media continue to be strangely silent blissfully unaware of what happened. CNN's PR machine has since leapt into action as it seeks to explain what happened. This morning we received an email from CNN Worldwide's Director of Public Relations, Jennifer L. Martin, directing our attention to their...
Continue Reading "CNN report on its site outtage in China yesterday"April 18, 2008
Since we told you about the MSN (L) China campaign yesterday, the mainstream media in China has lapped it all up. Shanghai's Dragon TV today claimed a whopping 5 million MSN users. And just as you're wondering where the hell they plucked that figure from, Xinhua today quoted a paltry 2.3 million MSN Messenger users, and even has a very authoritative source to back that up:MSN China spokesman Feng Guangshun released the figure on Thursday....
Continue Reading "Dragon TV claims 5 million MSN Messenger users "heart" China"
function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} html .fb_share_link { padding:2px 0 0 20px; height:16px; background:url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/share/facebook_share_icon.gif?0:26981) no-repeat top left; }Share on Facebook Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China talks to Magic of VisaInChina and throws in a few comments on the impact the new visa regulations will have on Hong Kong-China business:Just spoke to Magic, a well known consultant in Shanghai, about the current mess and it seems that the door opened again on the 16th…...
Continue Reading "More updates on the Chinese visa situation"
function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} html .fb_share_link { padding:2px 0 0 20px; height:16px; background:url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/share/facebook_share_icon.gif?0:26981) no-repeat top left; }Share on Facebook Today we received the following two tips on our Contribute page:Dutch news sources say that tens of thousands of foreign students in China are being told to go home. Supposedly, instructions have been handed down to Universities that they are not allowed in China during August and September - even if a student continues their studies...
Continue Reading "Foreign students to be exiled during the Olympics?"
Frequent travellers such as grade B Shanghainese men should be painfully aware that airports the world over (LAX, we're looking at you) love to gouge their guests with prices inflated above those in the city. News that the Shanghai Airport is clamping down on this practice should then come as a relief. Shadowing a promise by the Beijing's airport to keep prices low at the new Capital Airport's new Terminal 3, the Pudong Airport Authority...
Continue Reading "Pudong Airport ends price gouging"