News: January 2009 Archives

Photo from arndalarm

It didn't take long for Chinese netizens to get on the case of the brutal Virginia Tech murder. Almost immediately, forum members human flesh searched the killer, Zhu Haiyang, and sussed out his university scores, his QQ number and - most importantly - his blog. While nobody can know for sure why he decapitated 22-year-old Yang Xin in the middle of a public cafe, there are now a few more guesses as to what caused an otherwise affable and studious PhD student to snap.

Chinese premier leaves Beijing for European tour [Xinhua]

• About 30,000 cleaners swept up 1,200 tonnes of fireworks debris left over from Sunday night's big celebrations.
• Originally scheduled for launch in August 2008, the much-touted luxury hotel Jumeirah HanTang Xintiandi Shanghai, will now be open for business sometime this year.
• Chinese government officials have denied U.S. Treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's allegations that China is manipulating its currency.

AFP reports:

One person was killed Sunday in a blast near a police post in China's financial hub Shanghai, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

Continue reading "One killed in police post blast on Wuning Nan Lu"

On Wednesday night, a Virginia Tech (维吉尼亚理工大学) graduate student from Beijing was decapitated in a cafe on the campus of the university. Yang Xin, 22-years-old, was starting her first semester as an accounting graduate student. She had only been on the campus for 13 days.

A Chinese court handed down the sentences for three of the people involved in the contaminated milk scandal, and it wasn't pretty. Zhang Yujun, the head of a workshop that was allegedly China's largest source of melamine, and Zhang Yanzhang, a melamine powder buyer and reseller, were both given the death penalty.

For lots of young folk going back to visit their families, the Spring Festival can be a bit of a pressure pot. Many times, Chinese parents like to follow up the customary greeting of "Have you eaten?" with "So when are you getting married?" One 31-year-old in Ningbo was so desperate not to disappoint mom and dad that he posted a notice asking to hire a pretend girlfriend.

Chinese volunteers have organised a charity event and donated over 100 tonnes of rice to Sarah Obama, the relatively poor step-grandmother of US President Barack Obama who "only recently got electricity in her metal-roofed shack" in Kenya. The rice was for her 82 adopted orphans aged between four and 18 most of whose parents have died from AIDS, as well as other impoverished, starving Kenyans. Said Julius Ole Sunkuli, Kenya's ambassador to China, "She will be very happy to see the support from China after she returns from Obama's inauguration."

Yes, indeedy, change is coming to the US of A and people, you'd better believe it! If Sen. Nancy Jacobs, Sen. Barry Glassman and Del. Wayne Norman, three Harford County, Maryland Republicans, have their way, it is soon going to be ILLEGAL to sell an American or Maryland flag made outside the country (ie., China), and all flags displayed on state property must be manufactured in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Said Sen. Nancy Jacobs to the Baltimore Examiner: "It just seems rather unpatriotic to be buying flags made in China... It's important to a lot of people. Basically, I'm happy that this starts the conversation on buying American." She proposed the general prohibition because she was asked to by "a good friend of mine who happens to be a union leader and who believes very strongly in buying American products." According to the Flag Manufacturers Association of America, the US imports about $5 million worth of flags each year, mostly from China. The association boasts of a wonderful programme that certifies that every step of the flag-making process -- fiber, dyeing, weaving, sewing, staff-making -- is completed in the US so that bored inmates at the Maryland Correctional Enterprises have something to do. Addendum: Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap writes in to inform us that as of late 2007, it's been illegal to sell Chinese-made US flags in Minnesota. Here's what he wrote last year.

Because we know you've all been searching high and low for it, here's a video of President Obama's inaugural address with Chinese subtitles that we found on Chinese video site Youku. The video is complete and includes Obama's references to "fascism and communism" (censored by Chinese media) but the Chinese subtitles leaves "fascism" intact, editing out only the "communism" [insert whatever joke you like here]. For your convenience the full transcripts of Obama's speech, in English and Chinese are included after the jump:

If you were jam packed into Glamour Bar with 600 other people earlier this morning, watching President Barack Obama being sworn in, you might have been a little too dizzy with euphoria (and possibly heatstroke) to notice particular segments of his 18-minute inauguration address -- specifically, ones that likely caused the head honchos in Beijing to collectively cringe.

Welcoming the New Year a tad prematurely, a fireworks stall on a busy Xi-an street ignited, setting off a chain of explosions that went on for about 20 minutes, burned up at least seven cars and reduced about 100 meters of similar fireworks stalls to ashes.

This time last year, many people were prevented from going home to celebrate Chinese New Year with their loved ones because of the deadly winter storms. This year, it's the global economic crisis that threatens to dampen the holiday spirit for China's 200 million migrant workers, many of whom are now jobless as factories are shut down and jobs are cut. Kimberly Lim of Reuters speaks to a Shanghai-based couple who are unable to fork out enough money to return home to neighbouring Anhui province. (On a totally unrelated note, we found it interesting to see a cross adorning the wall of their small, bare room.)

• China will start providing two imported HIV drugs, Viread and Kaletra, to patients who have started developing resistance to cheaper, domestic alternatives. This means that nine of 20 drugs to combat AIDS are now available to patients in China.
• The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has condemned China's deportation of a musician from Cape Town, South Africa, who was ordered to leave China within 48 hours when health authorities found she was HIV-positive. Apparently, the woman was not even informed or counselled about her HIV test.
• Health authorities in Henan province claim that significant improvements have been made in controlling HIV/AIDS and that death rates there are "closer to the normal mortality rate and lower than the national average". According to them, Zhumadian, one of the cities hit by illegal blood sales in the 1990s, has seen death rates more than halved to 5 percent in the past six years.

After a two year old girl in Shanxi and a 27 year old woman in Shandong province succumbed earlier to the H5N1 virus, a 16 year old boy in Hunan province has become the third fatality recorded within a month. Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu has called for health departments across the nation to pay "great attention" to the situation now that tens of millions of people are travelling home for the Chinese New Year.

If you can prove to China that you're a "qualified expert" on something, you might soon be in luck with regards to your visa situation. According to the Shanghai government, high-level professionals who meet several standards could convert their temporary stay permit to a permanent residency in 2009.

Tibetan lawmakers have designated March 28 as an annual "Serfs Emancipation Day" to mark the liberation of about one million serfs in the region and the end of what the Chinese government says was a system of feudal oppression 50 years ago. This CCTV report carries the official party line of what life in pre-Liberation Tibet looked like for serfs. It portrays them as having suffered immensely under a theocratic system and the despotic rule of lamas and aristocrats, and how they were often subjected to judicial mutilation such as the gouging out of eyes, and the cutting off of hands or feet.

Apropos of nothing, the previously scrapped maglev train line that would have linked the Pudong and Hongqiao airports together is suddenly being dusted off again. Construction on the proposed 31.8-km train line was shelved in 2007, after everybody realized that it was a terrible idea. Well, at least we thought everybody realized it was a terrible idea.

In this news report from Hunan TV, police opened the luggage compartment of a crowded long-distance bus bringing passengers eager to return home for the Spring Festival and found a huge surprise -- eight people were hidden inside, tucked inconspicuously behind suitcases and packages. With buses and trains fully booked out, and legal tickets hard to come by, some entrepreneurial Chinese bus drivers are welcoming the opportunity to make a quick buck from those desperate enough to get home in time. One young man that was caught in the luggage compartment told reporters that nobody forced them to do this and they were more than willing to travel this way. [h/t Youku Buzz]

A toddler in Shanxi province has been confirmed infected with bird flu. The two-year-old, originally from Hunan, was taken to the Shanxi Children's Hospital on Wednesday night and tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. She is now in critical condition. This is the second case of bird flu this week, after a 19-year-old Beijing resident died after handling ducks at a local wet market. See our tips for preventing bird flu here. Source: Caijing (Chinese only)

Thomas Crampton points us to a special fundraiser held Friday night in Shenzhen by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China to benefit orphans. Star of the evening was none other than Presidential-elect Barack Obama's half-brother Mark Ndesandjo. The media spotlight was firmly on him as reporters turned up in full force to get close to Ndesandjo.

Photo from Laurence&Annie

Starbucks has launched a new brand of coffee grown in Yunnan Province in southwest China called South of the Clouds, the meaning of Yunnan (云南) in Chinese. Martin Coles, president of Starbucks Coffee International, told AP that his goal is to bring Chinese coffee not just to China but to the world: "Ultimately I'd love to see our coffees from China feature on the shelves of every one of our stores in 49 countries around the world."

Of the 22.6% of the country that now has access to the Internet, 162 million blog, while 234 million log on to read up on the news.

Chinese farmer Wu Yulu came from an impoverished village outside of Beijing and did not have the chance to attain secondary education, but this did not stop him from teaching himself to build robots. This video features Wu's "30 second son" (as he affectionately calls it), a walking, talking, rickshaw-pulling robot which he says is now dearer to him than his own son. Having accidentally burnt down his own house and plunged his family into debt in the process of experimenting with robots, Wu has been hailed by the media as "China's cleverest farmer-inventor" and now works with universities and robotics companies, travelling around China to exhibit his creations.

Jimmy Carter, the former US president who formalised ties with China 30 years ago, meets Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) in the same room where he first met the late Deng Xiaopeng (邓小平). Carter said he visited China as a young man when he was in the navy and always thought of his life and destiny as being "very close to China". Accompanying Carter were other leading former US officials, including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

So apparently the controversies in international media this summer over China and the Olympics came as a bit of a shock to the Chinese people. While the government's retained tight control over its own media, it's been less able to harmonize those pesky news outlets abroad. Not one to take perceived insults to its national image lying down, Beijing is now throwing RMB 45 billion into targeting global audiences.

• The Spring Festival migration has started in earnest, with an estimated 9.2 million railway passengers having already headed home this past weekend. Follow the latest on Xinhua's new "Travel Rush" website.
• Little-known Chinese car manufacturer BYD has upped the ante in the electric car race with the world's first production plug-in hybrid. The F3DM will be unveiled tomorrow at the International Motor Show in Detroit.
• Land disputes are again cropping up in China: villagers in Jilin are forming an independent farmers' union to collect funds from appropriated lands, while the Economist reports on a potentially "revolutionary" land auction outside Beijing that turns out to be "little more than a typical story of a rural official trying to make money from land." The apparent problem in the latter case is that some 50% of the farmers in the area can't provide evidence of their land rights.

Over 2.3 billion passenger trips are expected to be made via land and water transport over the 40 days of the Lunar New Year season. 188 million trips are expected to be made via railway alone, up 8% from last year. As a result of the global economic crisis which saw many factories going under all over China, waves and waves of migrant workers started going home much earlier this year. Where these people will travel to after the Spring Festival remains a big question mark because most of these people still do not know where their next job will be.

To spread the Lunar New Year cheer, the central government has decided to distribute RMB9 billion worth of hongbao's (or red packets) to 74 million of the poorest residents in cities and villages as one-time disbursements meant to help them tide through the hard times. Villagers will receive RMB100 each, city dwellers RMB150 each, and those on state pensions/subsidies RMB180 each. All this money is coming straight from the Ministry of Finance and the central government has already given strict instructions to governments at all levels to disburse the monies in a "just, fair and transparent" manner.

• A man and a woman have been killed by a carbon monoxide leak in a downtown Shanghai apartment yesterday morning while two of theirr roommates remain in a coma.
• Taiwan is coordinating with mainland authorities on the possibility of increasing the number of charter flights to and from Shanghai for the convenience of Taiwanese residents looking to go home during the Lunar New Year season.
• North Carolina has opened its seventh foreign trade office in Shanghai. This is the state's second China trade office after Hong Kong.

According to the following report, a panda has mauled a man at the Beijing zoo. The cause for the violent outburst appears to be stupidity: a man was trying to recover a toy his child dropped in the bear cage. Though there are many that think it's silly to give a child your seat on the subway, jumping into a bear cage has to be considered a major victory for the xiao huangdi camp.

The Philippines have been exporting college graduates to work as domestic helpers / maids in other countries for many years now, but now, their Chinese counterparts are looking to do the same domestically:

Desperate Chinese graduates, facing grim job prospects amid slowing economic growth, are clamouring to find posts as nannies and domestic helpers for the rich in one southern province, state media reported on Wednesday.

Continue reading "Fancy a graduate ayi?"

China Tech News reports that about 80 copyright holders will be ganging up on Tudou for copyright infringement. Some of these companies in the alliance include Joy.cn, Beijing Polybona Film Distribution, Beijing Orange Sky Entertainment Group and SFS Emperor and are said to be suing for RMB10 million. Tudou is a video sharing website that is bigger than YouTube in China showing 1.2 billion videos each month including bootlegged versions of TV shows and clips from Hollywood movies. Tudou, possibly in response to this suit, will be launching a reporting system for copyright owners after Spring Festival that they are currently testing. Of course the alliance could be fishing for some of that $85 million they raised in funding, most of which is apparently just sitting in the bank.

Yes, people are crazy and times are strange. Two days ago, a fashionably dressed young woman ate a RMB280 lunch at a Japanese restaurant somewhere near Nanjing Xi Lu and Chengdu Bei Lu. When it was time to get the bill, she told the wait staff that she had no money on her and needed to withdraw some cash. A restaurant employee followed her to a nearby China Construction Bank (CCB) ATM, whereupon the woman locked herself inside and forbade anyone to come near her, saying she had a knife and would kill herself if anyone tried to force their way in. CCB staff tried persuading her to come out but met with no success. Eventually the police were called in and the woman was finally brought out after three hours of self-imposed captivity. The woman is now being subjected to psychological tests to see if she is mentally sound.

Another day, another factory closure, another worker protest. That's not new in Guangdong anymore but with the Chinese New Year drawing close, people are desperate to claim their unpaid wages so they can travel home for the annual reunion with their family. This is an otherwise regular report if not for the footage of the angry crowd pushing policemen back when they tried to stop the NBC crew from doing their work. Outnumbered, the cops could only watch timidly from a distance, quietly video-taping all the goings-on to report back to their higher-ups.

A total of 14 people were killed in two separate illegal fireworks plant blasts, one in Hebei province and another in Shandong. The former took place in a factory that originally produced hell money which are burnt to the dead by Chinese folk religionists. [Xinhua]

China's young generation are tightening their belts and cutting their spending, and one young man in Beijing who launched a campaign to curb weekly living expenses to 100 yuan says he's already garnered 55,000 participants. [Reuters]

The 15,000-seat Wukesong Sports Center baseball field, which was Beijing's Olympic baseball venue, has been slated for the wrecking ball to pave way for the development of a shopping mall, dashing all hopes for the preservation of the venue as a centre for the future development of the sport in China. [Reuters]

As it turns out, China's 3G licenses will be issued to China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom by Spring Festival. Guangdong Mobile (a China Mobile subsidiary) is already releasing a new set of 3G numbers all starting with "188" beginning this Thursday. In addition GPRS fees will be cut by as much as 2/3 in most cities. According to Pacific Epoch, Shanghai Mobile users can "now pay RMB 5 per month for 30MB, rather than the RMB 5, 10 MB package originally available, while RMB 20 per month gets 150MB, also three times more than before".

Late last year we documented SH magazine's trials and tribulations. The English-language weekly stopped publishing in December, but it continues to be a source of drama in 2009. A final "funeral issue" — death themed from front to back — was finished and set for publication on December 19. But the swan song never saw the light of day. Until now. The issue in its entirety can be found after the jump on this post. Here's some back story from someone familiar with the situation:

This warning may have come a little too late for some of you but the story needs to go out anyhow. The dog you see on the right, Addie, which belongs to Ryan McLaughlin (who also writes LostLaowai and CNet Asia's The Tech Dynasty) has just died from contact with aflatoxin-contaminated Optima dog food. Aflatoxicity leads to rapid liver failure and kills 80% of all dogs afflicted with it.

• 50 year old Shen Zhengjuan, director of the state-owned assets administration, or SASAC, jumped to her death from her apartment in Shanghai’s Huangpu District on the last day of 2008. Caijing Online speculates her suicide may have to do with the corruption scandal of former mayor Chen Liangyu. More here and here. (Update: The Huangpu District has issued a statement to state that Shen was not corrupt and was "a person of decency" and "an official who showed true conviction to her job.")
• Approximately 80% of college students in Shanghai are willing to lower salary expectations for their first jobs, with 2% saying they would even consider a job that paid a monthly salary of under RMB1,000.
• Intestinal washes are now becoming increasingly popular in Shanghai as a result of the all the recent food scandals. One hospital reports as many as 200 customers a month.

China and North Korea will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations in 2009 in a 'Year of Friendship', reports AP. Yesterday, Chinese President Hu Jintao praised 'deep and traditional friendship' between the two nations and said, "The development of bilateral relations not only conforms to the fundamental interests and common will of the two peoples, but also contributes to the peace and stability of the region." What will the two good friends do in this new 'Year of Friendship', you ask? For a crystal-clear answer, let's turn to Xinhua:

During the year of friendship, China is willing to work together with the DPRK to further enhance friendship, promote exchanges and deepen cooperation through a variety of activities, in order to have a better future of China-DPRK friendly and cooperative relations.

In other interesting DPRK news, North Korea may use parliamentary elections in 2009 to lay the groundwork for the post Kim Jong-Il era. Meanwhile, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), North Korea's first foreign-funded university is finally expected to open this year after several delays. The initiative to build this school came from a Korean American man by the name of Kim Chin-Kyung who was detained for six weeks in North Korea in 1998 for allegedly spying for the US, and who also helped found the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in northeast China. He raised about US$31.5 million from Christian churches and individual donors in South Korea and abroad to build this new school.

Last month, we reported that Chinese-made grenades were found to have been used by the terrorists that launched the deadly spate of attacks in Mumbai. This time, Israel is saying that whereas previously Palestinian terrorists used predominantly home-made rockets, now they're using more sophisticated rockets, some made in China. Said Brigadier-General Avraham Ben-David of the Israeli Defence Forces to YNetNews:

The army official said the rocket that struck the school in Beersheba was manufactured in China, is heavier than the Qassam and can "potentially cause much greater damage." He said the rocket contains metal pallets that can spread out across a radius of up to 100 meters (about 328 feet) from the point of impact.

As a result, all planned events with over 100 participants would be cancelled in Beersheba, and Ben Gurion University will remain closed till the end of the week.

Another day, another Kappa Girl story. Looks like our good friend has caught the attention of professional pornographers and may finally be getting her big break soon. You see, the kind souls at adult entertainment studio Harmony Films were totally flabbergasted to hear that Kappa Girl was sacked by her employer, and after purveying the 12 minute sex video that got her into trouble, have decided to help her do what she does best and make money at the same time by offering a contract to her — no, not as a fluffer or a lighting assistant, but as a pornstar.