News: June 2009 Archives

• Rockets could lose Yao for season or more [Yahoo! Sports] "As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s(notes) broken left foot hung like an anvil over the Houston Rockets. The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer. The Rockets and Yao’s reps are frightened over his future, and the concern is the most base of all: Does Yao Ming ever play again?"
• Kobe Bryant Conquers China [WSJ] "One of the great curiosities in modern sports is the Chinese people’s lavish affection for Kobe Bryant. During last year’s Beijing Olympics, he was greeted with a rapturous reception and mobbed everywhere he went. He appears in commercials and on billboards, has a popular Web site and had a reality show on Chinese television. He sells more NBA jerseys there than Yao Ming. On Tuesday in Los Angeles, the love affair will reach a new level. Not only is Mr. Bryant accepting an award from the Asia Society for his work as a “cultural ambassador,” the ceremony will be attended by Liu Peng, China’s Secretary of Sport and a member of China’s Communist Party Central Committee."
• The strange, underground world of Chinese counterfeit cigarettes [Slate Magazine] "Ringed by thickly forested mountains, illicit cigarette factories dot the countryside, carved deeply into caves, high into the hills, and even buried beneath the earth. By one tally, some 200 operations are hidden in Yunxiao, a southwestern Fujian county about twice the area of New York City. Over the last 10 years, production of counterfeit cigarettes has soared in China, jumping eightfold since 1997 to an unprecedented 400 billion cigarettes a year—enough to supply every U.S. smoker with 460 packs a year. Once famed for its bright yellow loquat fruit, Yunxiao is the trade's heartland, the source of half of China's counterfeit production."

Early last Sunday morning, a 29-year-old female worker was mauled to death by two big dogs in nearby Nanjing. Most frighteningly, over ten bystanders watched without doing a single thing.

• Michael Jackson and China [Global Times] "Legends of the ilk of Michael Jackson die to leave behind both a legacy and an influence. For China, it is the latter, which is being discussed passionately today among thousands of his fans here after the music icon has passed away in a sudden cardiac arrest. There are all kinds of reactions to Michael Jackson's death here: shock, disbelief, grief or the feeling of being lost. But Ding Dawei, one of his numerous Chinese fans born in late 1960s, said he should have died a long time ago."
• Snitching for China leads to sorrow and exile [The Associated Press] "Dozens of small white scars mark the inside of Li Yuzhou's left arm, where he slashed himself repeatedly with a piece from a broken tea cup. The scars speak of his terror of being deported from Thailand back to China. Li has more reason to fear than most: He used to be an informant for China's secret police. When he learned his snitching had sent four innocent people to jail, he fled to Thailand. But now, after eight years, he and his family face being sent back to China, with his betrayals following them — first of his friends, and then of the Chinese government."
• Youth feel pressure of looking after aging parents [China Daily] "These young people were born into only-child families in the late 70s and early 80s under the national family planning policy and they now face the task of looking after two parents due to traditional filial piety as well as inadequate public services for aging people. A recent survey published by China Youth Daily found that nearly 70 percent of these young people feel incapable of taking good care of their parents because of pressures they face at work."

Is 2:34am the witching hour in China? In a bizarre and terrible coincidence for infrastructure, a bridge in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province collapsed at the exact same minute as two passenger trains crashing into each other in the central province of Hunan, if reports are to be believed.

Is 2:34am the witching hour in China? In a bizarre and terrible coincidence for infrastructure, a bridge in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province collapsed at the exact same minute as two passenger trains crashing into each other in the central province of Hunan, if reports are to be believed.

Is 2:34am the witching hour in China? In a bizarre and terrible coincidence for infrastructure, a bridge in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province collapsed at the exact same minute as two passenger trains crashing into each other in the central province of Hunan, if reports are to be believed.

Is 2:34am the witching hour in China? In a bizarre and terrible coincidence for infrastructure, a bridge in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province collapsed at the exact same minute as two passenger trains crashing into each other in the central province of Hunan, if reports are to be believed.

Those born after 1990 (called 九零后 jiu ling hou, or after 90s, in Chinese) have been known as the "alt generation" in China. Some say that they are individuals with their own thoughts of how they ought to conduct themselves; others complain that they are too unrestrained.

A group of cat lovers saved over 300 furry friends last night from being sold to restaurants in Guangdong Province after rescuing them from a cat dealer this weekend.

• A building in the Minhang district tottered over and collapsed after the riverbed it was built right next to rose. Surprisingy, it stayed almost completely intact. Sadly, one worker died. [ESWN]
• Things you probably won't see in the print version: CityWeekend visits a gay bathhouse to help hand out free condoms. [CityWeekend]
• Shanghai mourned the death of Michael Jackson with tributes at Shelter and a memorial event at People's Square. [EastDay]

• Award Offers Expats Lower Taxes [Shanghai Daily] "Shanghai will launch a "financial talent award" soon to make the city more attractive to foreign financial specialists, said Fang Xinghai, director of the Shanghai Financial Services Office, yesterday. The award also allows for a lower tax burden for expatriate financial talents in Shanghai and aims to build the city into an international financial hub by 2020."
• Mindful of Japan, US expert urges caution on China [AFP] "The United States should avoid a formal partnership with China to address global problems as it would hamper the alliance with Japan, an influential US foreign-policy thinker told Congress Thursday."
• 'Excellent' migrant workers get Shanghai hukou [Global Times] "Li Ying, a sanitation worker from Jiangsu Province, was so happy to be given a hukou for Shanghai Wednesday she burst into tears in the police station. Li - who has worked in the city for the past 10 years - was among a group of 40 “National Excellent Migrating Workers” to be given the household registration certificates for the thriving city."

Unless combovers and dye jobs are your thing, the Chinese Communist Party is not generally known for its youthful good looks. Perhaps that's why on Sunday, as part of a new campaign to nurture young cadres and rejuvenate the Party, a 29-year old man was elected mayor of the small city of Yicheng, in Hubei Province.

For the past year, the non-profit and non-governmental organization Hands on Shanghai, with the help of ad agency TBWA and Kodak, has been putting cameras in the hands of children from migrant families and teaching them principles of photography both inside the classroom and out in the field. Several of the photos taken by the kids through this learning program, called "Shutterbugs," will be on display and up for auction this Sunday at Glamour Bar, with the proceeds going towards expanding the program in Shanghai and Chengdu.

As Shanghai prepares for the 2010 World Expo at a frighteningly fast pace, one aspect of urban development is being overlooked: emergency shelters. Currently, should any sort of natural disaster befall the city, Shanghai's almost 19 million citizens would have only one (still unfinished) public emergency shelter to turn to.

• Baskin-Robbins just opened two new stores in Shanghai, bringing the total of the chain-with-31-flavors up to six in the city. [China Retail News]
• NPO Roots and Shoots' Tori Zwisler talks to Danwei about charity in Shanghai. [Danwei]
• The Shanghai Health Bureau reported four new cases of swine flu yesterday, bringing the total of cases here up to 84. [Eastday]

• U.S. Objects to China’s Web Filtering [NYTimes.com] The Obama administration lodged a formal protest on Wednesday with the Chinese government over its plan to force all computers sold in China to come with software that blocks access to certain Web sites.
• Do China And India Really Want Stronger Intellectual Property? [Techdirt] "Over the past few months, I have been researching the role that intellectual property plays in China and India, with specific attention to the frequent calls for increased protection in those countries. I believe that a careful and critical review of national goals, potential solutions and likely outcomes will, in fact, make intellectual property harmonization a disagreeable mechanism for bringing China and India to continued global prestige."
• World of Warcraft Languishes Offline in China [PC World] "A weeks-long World of Warcraft server outage in China has driven masses of players there to the Taiwanese server or to other games while a new operator takes the reins of the Blizzard Entertainment blockbuster in China. A Blizzard representative Wednesday declined to estimate when World of Warcraft would come back online in China."
• China reclaims $4 billion of embezzled public money [International | Reuters] "China has recovered 26.77 billion yuan ($3.92 billion) of public money that was embezzled last year, the country's top audit official said in a report seen Thursday. Some 30 people involved in 116 cases had been arrested and sentenced, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Liu Jiayi, head of the National Audit Office, as saying. Another 117 received punishment according to Communist Party rules, Xinhua said, without elaborating."
Continue reading "Today´s Links: U.S. Objects to China´s Web Filtering, World of Warcraft Languishes Offline in China"

We already know about the Chinese government's obsession with blocking porn. It's brought us the web portal clean up, the Green Dam and - most recently - the heinous Google block. But now they're even tearing down websites that are about sexual health.

We already know about the Chinese government's obsession with blocking porn. It's brought us the web portal clean up, the Green Dam and - most recently - the heinous Google block. But now they're even tearing down websites that are about sexual health.

Before Transformers 2 officially came out yesterday, a netizen from Chongqing posted a photo on Dayu of a 2-meter "Transformer" outside of a villager's house in Qianjiang Village. The villager told him that this "Transformer" is for keeping the doors safe.

• China on Iran (Not the Party Line): Letter from China [The New Yorker] "The most interesting Chinese reaction to the events in Iran is never going to be found in the Chinese newspapers. (The state-run press is, not surprisingly, adhering to the principle that all politics is local, so it has been consistently arguing against any disruption of the prevailing political order. On Tuesday, that meant, for instance: “Iranian Exile Groups Want to Use the Chaos to Overturn the Ruling Government.”)"
• Why size is everything in China [FT] "Big eyes, big noses, big breasts and now humungous Hummers - China seems to be indulging an obsession with size, just when the rest of the world is learning the virtues of moderation. In Shanghai, for example, business is booming on eyelifts, noselifts, chestlifts and other surgery aimed at enlarging classically Asian narrow eyes, flat noses and unobtrusive mammary glands. At the Shanghai Time Plastic Surgery Hospital, Dr Liao Yuhua says business is up 40 per cent since the end of last year - not despite the global economic crisis, but because of it."
• Plywood Infernal [Shanghai Scrap] "I was more than happy when told that - as part of something else I was doing - I would have the opportunity to visit a very large plywood factory in a northern Chinese city that manufactures several types of wood products (for various reasons I won’t go into now, I can’t and won’t reveal the name or location of this factory). Over the years, I’ve visited facilities where safety and environmental conditions were abominable; but I can say, I’ve never left any of them feeling as physically and emotionally upended as I felt after exiting this plywood plant."

This may be obvious to anyone who's ever seen cop beat down videos in the U.S., but you probably shouldn't spit on the police. That advice holds true in China.

The internet can sometimes be a very dangerous place, especially for teenage girls. Yesterday evening, a 16-year-old school girl named Fang was stabbed to death in Nanjing by a man she met online.

This video, which has gotten over 130,000 views so far, is of what netizens are now calling the bravest bus driver.

• Curious about who else came out winners in the Shanghai International Film Festival? They have the results up on their website now. [SIFF]
• The dudes who brought us the screening of Building 173 are now asking for Shanghainese people to participate in a “soundwalk project.” [biv0uac]
• The city has banned "free tour packages" in order to protect tourists from forced shopping trips and substandard service. But what if you WANT forced shopping trips and substandard service? [Eastday]

• China Raises Tobacco Tax Rates [Caijing] "China has raised the tobacco tax to as high as 56 percent in a bid to meet the central government's target of 9.8 percent fiscal revenue growth for 2009, according to the State Administration of Taxation (SAT)."
• Why Do Chinese Save? Boys Want to Marry [NYTimes] "The high Chinese savings rate has been one of the wonders of the world. The household savings rate, as a proportion of disposable income, is 30 percent, and has been rising rapidly in recent years. That figure is twice as high as the highest rate ever recorded in the United States. Traditional explanations for varying savings rates, such as life cycles — working age people save more — and income uncertainty, do not help much in explaining the rapid rise in China. Now two economists say they have found a reason that explains a large part of the increase. China has too many boys."
• China to Amend State Secrets Law, Avoid Internet Leaks [Xinhua] "China's top legislature Monday reviewed for the first time a draft revision to the Law on Guarding State Secrets, underlining the cutoff of Internet or other public network access to the country's confidential information. The draft revision was submitted to the ninth session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) for deliberation. It had been discussed and passed in April at an executive meeting of the State Council, the Cabinet."

The more filial amongst us know that Father's Day was this past Sunday. While many of us were giving flowers or chocolate (or in one editor's case, a bottle of 12-year-old Jamesons) for our dad, a 13-year-old Chinese girl gave her single dad a box of condoms as the "ultimate gift for Father's Day."

This goes down as one of the best pieces of news we heard all day: China is going to continue its more progressive bent towards AIDS/HIV awareness and has started a bunch of educational campaigns to inform higher risk groups - including sex workers, who don't have any legal standing in the country despite their prevalence.

Oh that troublesome Ai Weiwei! Not content to stick to taking subversive pictures around Tiananmen Square or investigating Sichuan Earthquake victims, he's now starting internet blackout protest days!

• China to recruit 120,000 college graduates to join the army in 2009 [People's Daily Online] "The People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China will recruit more than 120,000 college graduates this year, a military source said here Sunday. According to a website run by the Ministry of Education to help college graduates find jobs, it is the first time the PLA has recruited college graduates on such a large scale, as the army seeks to improve its overall quality by drawing more talent and advancing its science and technology."
• Building of dams goes on despite halt order [SCMP] Construction had continued on two highly controversial hydro dams on the Yangtze River in Yunnan province , despite orders from the mainland's top environmental watchdog for the projects to be abandoned, state television reports. The two dams are being built by power giants China Huaneng Group and China Huadian Group, which together produced a fifth of the mainland's electricity last year.
• Peking Opera troupes take bold steps to be profitable [China Daily] "The China National Peking Opera Company, China's top operatic troupe, entrusted Beijing Guoyishengping Culture Development Co, Ltd to manage the theater and make it commercially viable one and a half years ago. Zhang Delin and his wife Yu, a famous BTV anchorwoman, own the Beijing Guoyishengping. That move marked a turnaround for the State-owned firm used to government funding to run its operations. An opera ticket at the theater is priced between 2,080 yuan to 50 yuan."

The thousands of children kidnapped every year and the ensuing media attention has led to China finally starting up a nationwide crackdown on human trafficking, which began on April 9.

Around 6:30PM this last Saturday, a sudden explosion rocked the fourth floor of an apartment building on Chengzhong East Road in the Qingpu district.

• Audit Finds Beijing Games Produced Surplus [Wall Street Journal] "The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics produced a surplus of about 1.16 billion yuan ($171 million), according to the latest audit issued Friday by China's National Audit Office. Revenue from the Olympics, which China hosted for the first time in August, totaled CNY20.5 billion and expenditure totaled CNY19.34 billion, according to the auditor's report."
• Gingrich comments on Uighurs don’t sit well with some in GOP [Freep] "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got into a public spat with fellow Republicans this week after he denounced the 17 Chinese Muslims who are being released from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison as 'terrorists' who should be sent back to China, where they’re likely to face persecution."
• The U.S.: Always Making Trouble For China [Forbes] "Instead of offering the usual foreign-correspondent musings about China, Forbes invited an outspoken Chinese essayist to take a few shots at the U.S. and the rest of the West. Wang Xiaodong, a researcher at the Communist Youth League-affiliated China Youth and Children Research Center, urges that China strengthen its military and stand up to the U.S."

Get ready to say goodbye to Fido... if he's the second dog you have.

• Danny Boyle, talking at the Shanghai International Film Festival, has taken a stance against censorship in thsi country. [Guardian.co.uk]
• Want to hear more about what Danny Boyle has to say? Check out That's Shanghai's interview with him. He reveals that Ewan McGregor will be here today, which is all we wanted to know anyway. [Urbanatomy]
• Speaking of, Peter Chan has unveiled his huge 44 million RMB set - a recreation of 1905 downtown Hong Kong - in Shanghai for his upcoming film, Bodyguards and Assasins, as part of the SIFF. [Straits Times]

• Computer-makers fight China's filter order [SFGate] "Responding to another citizens' revolt, 4,000 miles from Tehran, China reportedly won't force individual computer users to install software to filter out "harmful" stuff. But it has not backed down on its order that, as of July 1, all PCs sold in China must have such software installed. That, as we've noted, puts No. 1 U.S. seller of PCs in China, Palo Alto's Hewlett-Packard Co., in a serious bind. Especially, as is now known, because the software can be used to block considerably more than "pornography.""
• Beijing Says 'Buy China' Directive Is Not Protectionist [VoA] "China is defending its so-called "Buy China" directive that gives Chinese companies first, and nearly exclusive, priority in winning contracts under the country's nearly $600 billion stimulus program. When the U.S. government debated adding a "Buy American" requirement to its stimulus bill, China protested loudly. Chinese officials called the move toxic and protectionist."
• Report on effects of Climate Change [Boston Examiner] "As Congress acts to enact a Climate Change bill, China is still seen as being unwilling to make carbon reductions. It would quite possible to have a carbon cap and trade program in place and then have the Senate not ratify the upcoming Copenhagen Protocol if China and India fail to enact law to reduce carbon emissions. The U.S. should lead by example and pave the way for developing countries to participate. Failure by the Senate to ratify the Copenhagen Protocol will send the wrong message to China, Brazil and India."

You know that whole initiative to get more "qualified experts" to actually receive a coveted Shanghai hukou? Well, now the city government has finally released details of its three-year trial plan, according to Shanghai Daily:

According to Netease.com, netizens are now undertaking a "human flesh search" for a deputy director general in Wenzhou, after an anonymous net post on a Wenzhou BBS claimed that the official raped a 14-year-old girl earlier this week.

• The Seven People You’ll Meet in Hotel Quarantine [A Product Guy] "Having now spent almost 3 days here in Hotel Quarantine, and adjusted to life in the Big House, I’ve noticed some common patterns among the types of people I’m encountering and sharing these experiences with. Generally, they fall into one of seven categories."
• Police fatally wound man during protest in China's Xinjiang [AFP] "Police in China's western-most Muslim region of Xinjiang fired warning shots to disperse a crowd protesting against a real estate project Tuesday, fatally wounding a man, state media said. The incident occurred in the regional capital Urumqi when a policeman identified as Kudelet Kurban accidentally fired his gun into a crowd of about 60 people, Xinhua news agency reported."
• U.S. may be within N. Korea missile range in 3 years, official warns [LA Times] "North Korea may be able to overcome technical difficulties and assemble a missile capable of hitting West Coast cities within three years, a top Defense Department official said Tuesday, but it is unlikely to be able to deliver a nuclear warhead in that time frame. The U.S. assessment came as North Korea's rulers show signs of preparing for additional weapons tests in the face of international condemnation and new United Nations sanctions."

                    

Shanghaiist intern Kirsti Jönson, who covered Shanghai Pride (a China first!) last week, gives us her account of the event and what it might mean for all the LGBTa living in China.

One of the most worrisome aspects of the last couple years in China has been its overly rapid development of urban areas - the nonstop construction of skyscrapers, high-rises, highways - and the sometimes careless disregard for its environmental and social impact. At least now it seems like someone in the government is recognizing the problem, to the point of calling the current economic downturn a great opportunity to refocus on other priorities.

Looks like public opinion against the Green Dam Youth Escort software, including the non-stop foreign media coverage and the numerous internet petitions, has finally convinced the government that maybe it shouldn't make the install mandatory. And good thing too:

For a bustling Chinese city, Shanghai has a pretty pitiful night market in the form of Wujianglu (especially when compared to Hong Kong and Taiwan). Now, the Shanghai government is thinking of overhauling the market right before the World Expo.

For a bustling Chinese city, Shanghai has a pretty pitiful night market in the form of Wujianglu (especially when compared to Hong Kong and Taiwan). Now, the Shanghai government is thinking of overhauling the market right before the World Expo.

• That pilot scheme for becoming a "real Shanghainese" home-stay guest in time for the World Expo is now kicking off in the Zhabei District. [Shanghai Daily]
• But will this help reverse the trend of less tourists visiting the city thanks to the financial downturn? Who knows! [Shanghai Daily
• If you're a fan of the Simply Life brand, Just a heads up in case you've been eyeing that ceramic dining set - they're hosting sales to celebrate their 10th Anniversary between July 4 and August 2. [Urbanatomy]

• China halts £18bn hydropower dam project over environmental concerns[guardian.co.uk] "China's environment ministry sought to reassert its authority on Friday by blocking a 200bn yuan (£18bn) cascade of hydropower dams near Shangri-la that would generate as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam. Despite pressure from local governments that want to push ahead with big ticket development projects to offset the financial downturn, the ministry suspended approval of the project along the Jinsha iver in Yunnan province for failing to carry out adequate assessment of the environmental impact."
• All Eyes Inward [Newsweek] "Until recently, the way Chinese artists got famous was to talk politics. The generation that grew up during the Cultural Revolution and the difficult years that followed was highly politicized and gained global recognition for its tongue-in-cheek images of Mao Zedong and Tiananmen Square, often rendered in eye-popping color... Though still hot, those new-wave artists are giving way to a very different group: the "me-first" generation, whose members talk about each other and themselves."
• New tax plan sparks China protest [BBC] "Protesters in the south-eastern Chinese city of Nankang have overturned police cars and blocked roads over plans to more strictly enforce payment of taxes. Officials in Nankang said several hundred protesters blocked a major road while others delivered a petition to a local government office."

If you are waiting anxiously for the upcoming iPhone 3.0 firmware update - due to be released tomorrow - but concerned that it will relock your iPhone, you need not fear (too much). @MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev Team announced on twitter that he would be airing a demo of an unlocked iPhone running on the new software.

So not only is the Green Dam firewall software filled with whopping security flaws, it now looks like it's not even original code. The Jinhui Computer System Engineering Company, creator of Green Dam, is now being accused of using stolen intellectual property from the American firm Solid Oak Software.

Women in China have it rough. Between being sold for 300 yuan, being dug up as corpse brides, and that pesky gender imbalance, a report has now come out stating that gender discrimination is widespread in the Chinese workplace.

                        

Yesterday, over a hundred technologists converged on Shanghai for TEDxShanghai at M1NT. Venture capitalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs from the Geeks on a Plane tour, along with the cream of China's technocracy, were treated to inspirational presentations about how social media and technology can influence the future of the human race.

On June 12, the tenth ever Iranian presidential elections were held in Iran and two days later, the publicized outcome catalyzed an explosive reaction.

• China state TV host denies spying for Taiwan [AFP] "A star presenter with China's state television network has denied allegations that she spied for Taiwan, amid reports that she could be under investigation, state newspapers have said. The China Daily, quoting unnamed sources from China Central Television on Friday, said Fang Jing, the 38-year-old face of the network's prime-time military programme 'Defence Watch,' had been 'taken away for a possible spy probe'."
• China's family planning policy shadowed by violations from rich [kazinform] "The rich and famous who break the rules have cast a huge shadow over the policy, denting social equality and even stability. Many mainland women gave birth in the Hong Kong special administrative region to skirt the restrictions, experts say."
• U.S. Births Hint at Bias for Boys in Some Asians [New York Times] "Demographers say the statistical deviation among Asian-American families is significant, and they believe it reflects not only a preference for male children, but a growing tendency for these families to embrace sex-selection techniques, like in vitro fertilization and sperm sorting, or abortion."

And we thought we had trouble determining the hard hitting news of the hour. (Thanks Brad!)

What's going on with China and its exploding buses? Just days after that bus fire in Chengdu killed 24 people, one in Shenzhen burst into flames as well. On the morning of June 13, a public bus on the 320 route began emitting smoke at a traffic light intersection.

• James Fallows puts the spotlight on a writer currently quarantined in Shanghai, who is experiencing a nightmare of helpless frustration in the face of such illogical preventative measures (current Shanghaiist editors hope they won't be facing something similar on entry). [The Atlantic]
• Schools around Shanghai are now being ordered to equip computers with the Green Dam software, effectively guaranteeing that they'll be infected by malware. [Shanghai Daily]
• China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines might be merging soon, which means that over 50% of air travel in the city will soon be under one company. [Bloomberg]

Well, one can always hope.

      

Around 1:30pm this afternoon thick plumes of black smoke could be seen coming from the corner of Huaihai Lu and Fuxing Lu, just above Laifu Restaurant. There is a small roof garden on top of the building and this seemed to be the main source of the fire, though officers from the five fire engines that arrived also gave the adjacent Hot Pot King restaurant considerable attention. The streets became flooded with people - evacuees and onlookers - while the toxic smoke covered the section of Huaihai Lu between Laifu and the Citic Bank opposite. There appeared to be no injuries or casualties.

We just read an article about a woman who sued a boob job clinic after they tried over fifty fruitless times in the last year to enlarge her breasts. On the basis of this deplorable record, Ms. Zhao decide to sue the clinic, and she won. The general rule in Chinese law is 1+1 compensation — meaning that if you spend 4800RMB, as Ms. Zhao did, that you get 9600 RMB as compensation. For Ms. Zhao, all's well that ends well, but the more we searched for similar stories, the more we got the feeling that this was just the very sensitive tip of a dark and sinister iceberg of fraudulence.

Resistance is futile: they've already started installing Green Dam internet filtering software in schools. The censorware is, according to its proponents, help in the eternal battle against smut and other morally damaging materials. Although we have our doubts as to how many Chinese students really have the time to scour smut at school, we are old enough

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced today that beginning tomorrow all kindergartens, primary schools, and care centers in the city will be closed for 14 days. It was decided after it had been determined that the recent H1N1 flu cases had been transmitted within the local community. From Bloomberg.com: "The government is well prepared and will monitor developments closely," Tsang said. "There's no need to panic."

Up until yesterday, it'd been smooth sailing for Shanghai's first Pride week. But as of Wednesday afternoon, the festival, a celebration of gay pride and social tolerance, ran into some problems with the authorities. Officials from a Shanghai commercial bureau visited and warned the owners of two venues that they would face "severe consequences" if they failed to cancel the events that were to be held there.

The national university entrance examination: a rite of passage for many Chinese students, and all important, some might say, in determining much of what happens in your life afterwards. It's a lot of pressure for 17 and 18 year-old kids. This video was taken in Hankou, supposedly before the test. One might be more inclined to celebrate afterwards, though of course those that might not have done so well would perhaps seek solace in Johnny Walker, as one does in times of need.

• KFC adds shaobing to set menu [China Daily] From next Monday, all KFC stores will start serving shaobing, but only during breakfast period. Other details, like pricing, shape, taste, and what KFC is going to call it, are being kept under wraps till June 15.
• Ma calls for agreement on use of traditional Chinese [Taipei Times] President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday he hoped that Taiwan could reach an agreement with Beijing on the teaching of traditional and simplified Chinese characters at schools for overseas Taiwanese and Chinese, whereby students would be taught to read traditional characters and write simplified characters.
• Naked Escorts in Wuhan Bar [Danwei] In recent months, our newspaper has been receiving letters from readers reporting that the May Flower nightclub in Wuchang offers "naked escort" services.

That's what the Washington Post reported. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two jailed American journalists, were working on a story about the trafficking of North Korean women in the border area of China and North Korea when they were detained. As you've no doubt heard, the two journalists have been sentenced to 12 years in a N. Korean labor camp, while people and governments around the world try their best to secure their release.

The Chinese government has been drawing a lot fire these last few days after it was revealed that they would be requiring that computers manufactured or imported in China have "Green Dam and Youth Escort"—an internet filtering software—preinstalled.

       

Public parks, bath houses, news stands—these were some of the venues for gay people to meet in the old days of Shanghai. The second day of Shanghai Pride featured a panel discussion on gay spaces throughout Shanghai history, along with a brief primer on the creation and reception of China´s first university course on homosexuality at Shanghai's Fudan University. Around 150 people gathered at Kathleen's 5 to listen and learn.

Jia's film, tentatively titled Shanghai Legend (上海傳奇), is scheduled to be finished towards the end of this year/beginning of next, and will be premiered around April 2010.

Yesterday, an MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) directive was leaked to Rebecca MacKinnon of Rconversations that stated that as of 1 July, all computers for distribution in China must have the net nanny software "Green Dam - Youth Escort" pre-installed. The Shanghai Daily reported today that schools in China had already received this directive last month. This news comes after the social media crackdown last week and reports that Twitter and Flickr have been unblocked in Shanghai.

George Soros was in Shanghai a few days ago and gave a lecture at Fudan, and then went off to meet his old buddy, Alibaba head honcho Ma Yun, in Hangzhou, where he talked without notes and generally enthralled people with his guru-ness. According to Soros China is the bomb and is already recovering from the financial crisis even as the rest of the world still founders, and yeah, he put Alan Greenspan in his place, and yeah those yangmei (Chinese bayberries) are delightfully delicious. Oh, and one of the articles had this interesting intro: