News: December 2008 Archives

A nameless source in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has leaked the news that the three restructured mobile telecommunications carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, will be issued licenses on the same day after a meeting with the State Council today.

The Shanghai Daily reports yesterday that a senior at the Shanghai University of Engineering Science who was accused by his teacher of cheating in an English proficiency test was so distraught he jumped from the fifth floor of his school building. As a result:

The student, Zhang Meng, is now lying in an intensive care unit at No. 1 People's Hospital in Songjiang District, the news Website, eastday.com, reported today.

Continue reading "Student accused of cheating in English test jumps from 5th floor to prove his innocence"

The New York Times reports:

Police officials say that a man who died Christmas Eve after trying to plant a bomb at a coffee shop in the southwestern city of Kunming was also responsible for a pair of bus bombings there in July that killed two people and wounded 14, state news media reported Sunday.

Continue reading "The mysterious deathbed confession of the Kunming bomber"

The Chinese media is rife with reports of a 25 year old Shanghai woman, Chan Juan (pseudonym), who supposedly gave up her RMB10,000 job, spent RMB100,000 in search of the ideal husband and cycled over 2,000 kilometres from Guangzhou to Shanghai to attend a matchmaking party that was organised just for her. She was promised by the organiser that 1,000 young men would be waiting for her but eventually only two men showed up, one from Shandong and the other from Zhejiang. More than 30 candidates from Shanghai were said to have indicated interest but all chickened out at the last minute.

The Shanghai Daily reports that a 40 year old man has been arrested in Nanjing for "forcing dozens of young men" to provide gay sex services, some of whom he also forced to have sexual relations with himself. Citing the Yangtze Evening News, the report said "about 80 percent of [the man's] 'little brothers' were not gay but were forced or fooled into joining the business. The youngest was only 18." The operation supposedly catered to over 100 clients a day including "a professor from a prestigious university in Nanjing... and local government officials" (were they caught, we wonder?) who paid RMB300 for their first visit and RMB200 for repeat visits. The man took a 30% cut from his sex workers and reportedly even charged them RMB10 per condom if they asked for it.

This video, taken by a deliveryman with his cellphone at KFC's Yuen Long Plaza (元朗广场) outlet in Hong Kong, has been sending shockwaves throughout the territory of late. He recently blew the whistle by telling Hong Kong gossip rag Next Magazine 《壹週刊》 that staff at this outlet would frequently stop kitchen operations, throw away all leftover food, and start cleaning up before the restaurant closes so they can go home on time. During this time, if a customer walks in, employees will pick up the food from the trash and serve it to customers -- and this is apparently all done with the consent of the restaurant manager so they can "avoid reheating the frying machine".

Aric Queen, former executive producer of ChinesePod, writing from exile, appears to think so. Once upon a time, his friend Frank Fradella flew to Shanghai and approached ChinesePod with a pitch for a new show designed to teach foreigners how to recognise radicals [see video below]. He was told by the Shanghai startup that they didn't have the budget for the show and Fradella flew home a little dejected, but that was that.

If you've ever wondered how Chinese kids are being indoctrinated with nationalistic bullshit ideals from a young age, here's how. This video shows a class of elementary school students reciting a poem entitled 《2009中国加油》("2009, Go China!") written by their teachers on how a triumphant China is rising against earthquakes and the wiles of evil politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy in "pathetic Europe" with a successful Olympics, the launch of Shenzhou 7 and the "iron will" of its people. Watch it with the Chinese transliteration and English translation from China Digital Times after the jump, but be warned, this is spine-tingling and hair-raising stuff. We find it hard to think that teachers in cities like Shanghai or Beijing would make their kids do the same thing, but then again you never know.

If you have a US iPhone 3G and have been tempted by repeated reminders in iTunes to upgrade to the 2.2 version of the iPhone firmware, you may soon be able to give in to the temptation without fear of relocking your device to AT&T. The iPhone Dev Team has announced that they will be launching a software hack to unlock your 3G iPhone on New Year's Eve. This will allow you to upgrade your firmware and keep it unlocked for use in China or anywhere else with a GSM network for that matter.

Scary news just in from our friends at GoKunming:

This morning at 10:30 the bustle of Wenhua Xiang's cafes and restaurants was violently interrupted by an explosion at Salvador's Coffee House.

Continue reading "Cafe bombed in Kunming"

• A 23 year old woman has been charged in Minhang District for attempted extortion for allegedly trying to extort 500,000 yuan from her boss after she saw a love letter on his computer.
• Great news for families of migrant workers here: Children without a Shanghai hukou can now apply to the local education administration to receive education.
• Over 100 fare dodgers on the Shanghai subway were caught and fined the maximum penalty of RMB45 during a four-hour crackdown yesterday. Maybe if the maximum penalty were a little higher, people would think twice next time.

Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera reports from Beijing of the discrimination that Hepatitis B carriers in China have to deal with — in school and at the workplace. Most of this discrimination, of course, is rooted in the widespread ignorance about the virus throughout society, and results in Hep B carriers being shunned in the same way as HIV/AIDS carriers are shunned in China.

WARNING: This video contains graphic images that may not be suitable for everyone.

• Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap says China's block of the New York Times does not matter as much as it once did.
• Chris Gill of Shanghai Eye says he has it from a reliable source that the HSK, the Chinese proficiency examination for foreigners will be scrapped in two years.
• Jenny Leung of China Digital Times interviews Qi Hanting, the student who founded the Anti-CNN website.

Image by Roger Wo

UPDATE 2: Adult entertainment studio Harmony Films wants to offer 'Kappa Girl' a real job

    

Last Friday, the Xuhui District PSB was reported to have received a "threatening message" claiming there was a bomb in the Ikea store located on the corner of Caoxi Lu and Sanhui Lu. Acting on the news, a team of about 50 policemen was dispatched to the store to evacuate everyone. Patrons were only told there was a "mechanical problem" and within half an hour, the store was empty. Police then combed through the store with the help of the special service unit of the fire department and ascertained that there was no bomb in the store. The case remains under investigation.

Shanghai-based Canadian documentary photographer Ryan Pyle informs us:

It appears that Li Guoxing, the first recipient of a face transplant surgery in China as been confirmed dead. Li Guoxing received a face transplant surgery in 2006 from surgeon Guo Shuzhong in Xi'an, China. If you can remember Mr. Li, 30 years old when he had the surgery, had is face ripped off by a bear while hunting in rural Yunnan province where he lived in a small village community. Mr. Li's death, it has been said, was due to an infection because he wasn't taking prescribed immune-system drugs properly. Another report says he was favoring herbal medicines instead. No final report on the death will be available because Mr. Li has been buried for several months now, and no autopsy was completed.

Continue reading "China's first face transplant recipient dead"

Scene at yesterday's press conference at the Foreign Ministry according to Reuters [h/t to Imagethief]:

[Foreign Ministry spokesman] Liu Jianchao was asked what he thought of Sunday's incident, when the television journalist also called the American leader a "dog," and replied all leaders deserved respect.

Continue reading "Newsflash: Foreign affairs spokesman Liu Jianchao has a sense of humour"

Photo from fateless_gypsy

... and before you start scoffing, it's all from a very reliable and authoritative source of course — no, it's not AC Nielsen and neither is it Taylor Nelson Sofres — it's a doctoral student from Shanghai University by the name of Ni Lin. Never heard of her? Well neither have we, but if the Shanghai Daily starts quoting her as proof of its popularity among expats in this town, then she must be something right?

"The Rixin neighbourhood committee in the city's north-east has begun a campaign to discourage residents' longstanding habit of wearing pyjamas out of their bedrooms and on the streets...'We're telling people not to wear pyjamas in the street because it looks very uncivilised,' community official Guo Xilin was quoted as saying."

We’re hunting for a Project Champion, an American corporate executive most likely, to get us started (i.e., $250,000 to organize, plan, and create enough documentation to pursue serious funding). Although an old law prohibits government funding, we have good connections in the new one and that could change. Unfortunately, they aren’t in charge until February, two months into the one year left for us to do anything of quality.

Finally some good news that will make anyone in China rest assured that the food on our table is safe. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) continues to be busy at work ensuring food safety for us all. After banning soy sauce and wasabi imported from three Japanese producers found to be tainted with toluene and ethyl acetate last month, AQSIQ has now withheld about 312 tonnes of Irish pork across the country, on global concerns that pork from Ireland contain potentially harmful levels of the cancer-causing agent dioxin. Even as many other countries are starting to ban Irish pork, this latest move by AQSIQ will hurt the Irish pork industry big time as China is a HUGE pork-consuming nation. Between September and now, China imported 2,047 tonnes of pork from Ireland.

Ok folks, it’s official! Now that the State Council has released its 2009 holiday schedule, we can start our planning and make full use of the precious vacation time for the coming year.

China takes a lot of crap for failing to get a second opinion on the English they throw into circulation, often leading to amusing f*ck ups like this and this. It turns out, however, that this knife cuts both ways.

French retailer Auchan hypermart, perhaps worried about the rising anti-French fury among the Chinese public and the calls for boycotts against French businesses and products resulting from President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama, did something it knew would tug at the heartstrings and the pursestrings of the people of Shanghai — it called for a sale. The two-hour sale on Tuesday night at Auchan's Changyang outlet in Yangpu District was so successful that a stampede nearly broke out. Shanghai Daily adds:

At least one shopper fainted and children were left crying in the crush as crowds stormed the shop at 10pm trying to find the discounted specials. "I was shopping about 9:30pm and was astonished to find people rushing to the store late at night," said a customer surnamed Cheng.

Continue reading "Boycott? What boycott? Auchan sale brings in crowds and chaos"

Video from ChinaSmack.

Wang Chen: China Registers Historic Progress in Human Rights [Xinhua]

Short 50 second report on CCTV with footage from Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Beijing showing how Muslims across China are celebrating Eid Al Adha, the holiest feast in the Islamic calendar conducted to mark the end of the Haj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca.

A group of 38 petitioners from Shanghai yesterday made their way to Hong Kong to submit their application forms for the establishment of a "Chinese Petitioners Alliance" to the Hong Kong Police Headquarters. RFA adds that outside the police headquarters, the petitioners unfurled banners protesting forced evictions by the Shanghai government and accusing the PSB in Shanghai and Beijing of lawlessness. Petitioners said that they were doing this because Hong Kong had greater relative freedom than the mainland, greater respect for the rule of law and greater media freedom. Some of them, who shall remain unnamed here, told the media that prior to this trip to Hong Kong, they were repeatedly harrassed by their local police and area councils and warned that they might be detained on their return to Shanghai and sent in for 're-education'. More news and videos available here (in Chinese and behind the GFW) for those of you that are interested.

"Nearly 1,000 workers staged a rare sit-in protest outside a Shanghai factory Tuesday in the latest sign of strain in China's manufacturing industry, which has been hit hard by the economic crisis."

Russia Today reports that the end of a 40 year old border dispute that's seen 340 square kilometres, or half of an island called Bolshoi Ussuriyasky (or Heixiazi island in Chinese) being officially ceded to China has warmed up bilateral ties and boosted trade. BBC cites unnamed Chinese reports that say Russia will also return all of Yinlong island (or Tarabarov in Russian) — a detail which was not mentioned in this report. In the first five months of this year, Sino-Russia bilateral trade rocketed ahead by 60%.

The road to Obama's inauguration has the world equally fixated as the election itself. Jeffrey Garten, former undersecretary of commerce under the Clinton administration poses an interesting proposition: that the President-elect, in his first presidential trip abroad, makes China the first stop. Not only that, Garten says Obama should bring his all-star cast to Beijing: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his appointed ambassador.

The Dalai Lama has been keeping the guys at the Chinese Foreign Ministry working overtime lately with his eight day tour around Europe. Last week, after telling Nigerians in Lagos that "sex invariably spells trouble", the Dalai Lama flew to Prague to meet Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and democratic hero Vaclav Havel. He then hopped over to Brussels to meet Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme and to address the European Parliament, which led China to scrap a summit with the EU at the last minute. Two days ago in Warsaw, the D.L. was given a rousing welcome by Polish anti-communist hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Wałęsa, as well as Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz. We're not sure if the Polish premier Donald Tusk got to meet the Dalai Lama eventually but he did say he "would be honoured" if he had the opportunity to do so. And then this latest image of the Dalai Lama draping French President Nicolas Sarkozy with the traditional Tibetan kata totally had the Chinese foreign ministry and media railing against France. It will be interesting to see how French businesses in China will suffer from the new fallout and whether there will be a fresh round of anti-French boycotts. While it's unlikely that China would penalise the entire European Union for the warm welcome it gave to the D.L., it's not hard to imagine all the above-named nations taking a hit, with France bearing the brunt of it all as it currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

Photo from fateless_gypsy

Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden speaks to Thomas Crampton about the rise of China and how the world has not quite come around to understanding its magnitude and significance. An excellent communicator and engaging speaker who's great at putting figures into perspective. If you're interested to hear more, watch him debunking third-world myths in this presentation he gave at TED.

Shanghai-based startup Qifang.cn has been named by the World Economic Forum as one of 34 visionary companies to be part of its Technology Pioneer Community "for their accomplishments as innovators of the highest calibre, and whose technologies will have a deep impact on business and society." This makes the peer-to-peer microlending platform with the sole purpose of helping poor students complete their university education the very first Chinese enterprise to gain the honour. Our several chance encounters with Qifang's CEO Calvin Chin led us to believe this guy has a grand vision of where he wants to take this next. This is one startup you can expect to hear more of in the days ahead.

• China says AIDS sufferers led attack on Belgian TV crew [China Media Project]
• The Chinese government is now offering a 13% subsidy to farmers in rural areas for the purchase of basic household appliances like washing machines, cell phones, color TVs, and refrigerators. Will the plan work? [WSJ China Journal]
• Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou spoke directly to a mainland Chinese audience for the first time since he took office yesterday. Live broadcast in Chinese here.

President-elect Barack Obama has a half-brother by the name of Mark Ndesandjo who's been in Shenzhen for a few years now. According to this video report by a Shenzhen TV station (we think), on the day of Obama's victory, Mark Ndesandjo sent a text message to all his friends announcing "新美国来了！” ("The new America has come!"). The video also shows Ndesandjo teaching kids piano at an orphanage and practising calligraphy in his free time when he's not running his Internet company World Nexus. And, oh, he seems to speak very fluent Mandarin too.

This story caused us to hyperventilate after we realised that it happened right here in what is supposed to be China's most liberal city. Professor Yang Shiqun (杨师群) of Shanghai's East China University of Political Science and Law (which by the way is supposed to be a pretty good uni) was reported by two of his female students to the public security bureau and the municipal education committee for his alleged anti-government and counter-revolutionary ideas. Steve Cotner of The Foreign Expert translates a blogpost written by the professor (which seems to have been removed by Sohu in the meanwhile — read his other less subversive views here) telling his side of the story:

Students Accused Me of Being “Counterrevolutionary”

Continue reading "The Yang Shiqun Case: Political science students report their lecturer to the PSB for 'counter-revolutionary' ideas"

The China Daily has issued a damning verdict on the construction of the new 632 meter Shanghai Tower — soon to be China's tallest skyscraper. It says that with the new tower, "blind worship and race for skyscrapers has reached a new high" and that the 121 storey tower will be a "milestone in turning Shanghai into a less pleasant concrete jungle". The opinion piece (God knows who it was written by as no byline was supplied) then sought to substantiate with a litany of reasons why the Shanghai Tower would be a bad idea: (1) Shanghai is sinking, and a new skyscraper isn't going to help; (2) Traffic in Lujiazui is congested enough and a new building is going to make rush hours all the more "nightmarish"; (3) The "urban heat island effect" is going to make Shanghai feel even more like a sauna in summers; (4) Skyscrapers are vulnerable to attacks and disasters; (5) The economic risk of building the Shanghai Tower will be shared by various state-owned enterprises and the money could be "better spent elsewhere"; (6) Shanghai should instead save its old buildings from demolition; (7) Shanghai's public transportation sucks. Why not spend more money there? (8) It also has the fastest graying population in China and should build more facilities to cater to the elderly. In conclusion, China Daily judged super skyscrapers like the Shanghai Tower to be "not a priority for Shanghai" and that it "could cause more harm than add to its glamor". Such words of wisdom.

Air China, China Eastern and China Southern have dispatched special charter flights to bring home stranded Chinese tourists caught in Bangkok during the recent anti-government protests there.

Photo from lookoutbelow

Construction started Saturday on the Shanghai Tower, Shanghai's next "tallest building". At 632m tall and with 138 floors, it checks in with a price tag of $2.2 billion USD, and will take six years to build. By comparison, its next-door neighbor, the Jinmao Tower, is 421m tall, while the still-brand-spankin' new World Financial Center is tops out at "only" 492m. The Shanghai Tower will, obviously, be the tallest building in China when it is completed.