Results tagged “adamminter”

Adam Minter has the answer:

"China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest Internet market by number of users, a research firm said on Thursday."

With all the bad press surrounding Steven Spielberg's Olympic boycott, Beijing seems to be scrambling to action to diffuse all the negative publicity by wooing a most unlikely target, the Pope. From Michael Sheridan of the Sunday Times (UK):

TEMPTED by the prize of a historic visit to China by Pope Benedict XVI, the nation’s leaders have authorised a renewed effort in confidential discussions with the Vatican to heal their rift and inaugurate diplomatic ties.

Continue reading "Catholic China: Beijing woos the Pope, a new bishop for Hong Kong and a nun's gay crusade"

For those of you that found that video of that Guangzhou train station stampede too gruesome to watch, then please, DO NOT click on this video (h/t to Global Voices). The clip contains images of dead bodies, and in fact it's so gory we're surprised that it hasn't been removed from Youku yet.

If you visit Contrasts Gallery on Jiangxi Lu now, you will find lots of migrant workers have actually made it their temporary home, but that is not some avant garde artist doing his latest exhibition. Here's a note from reader Arjen van der Schoot who loaned one of his paintings to the exhibition that is currently being held hostage by the workers:

Contrasts Gallery on Jiangxi Road opposite Hamilton House over a disputed RMB 1 million renovation at the gallery. About 20 workers have squatted in the gallery for nearly a month now, desperate to go home for Chinese new year with money they claim they are owed. The workers are sleeping on makeshift beds on the floor and the walls are lined with mounds of rubbish, mostly empty lunch boxes. Electricity has been cut off leaving most of the gallery submerged in icy cold darkness. The workers are also keeping about 25 works by well-known artist Qian Gang hostage. The 25 works represent two years worth of work, and Mr. Qian is anxious to have the issue resolved and his paintings, some of which are on loan from private collectors, returned. The gallery’s staff is taking turns to keep an eye on the workers.

... with SCAA's Christmas gala which happens this evening at 6.30pm at O'Malleys! RMB 100 at the door gets you a glass of Champagne, two standard drinks, comfort food, lots of free gifts and one Holiday Raffle ticket for a chance to win over 100 prizes totaling more than RMB 150,000! For those of you on the hunt for Christmas trees but don't know where to get them, Smart Shanghai has the answers! 'Tis the...

Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap describes his uneasiness at finding a medicine vending machine on the edge of "the city’s best (if not largest) fake market". Honestly, since Xiangyang was torn down, we're not too sure which other fake market has taken over as "the city's best fake market". This is a really kickass machine, and Adam's got some great close-ups too. Hop on over to his blog for some ‘Cold and flu medication,’ ‘Fever...

Yet another diplomatic tussle looms large between Beijing and the Vatican in the days ahead. It all started when the Catholic News Agency sent out the following really short story a few days ago, alleging that the Bible is "among objects prohibited at the 2008 Beijing Olympics":

Organizers of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing have published a list of “prohibited objects” in the Olympic village where athletes will stay. To the surprise of many, Bibles are among the objects that will not be allowed.

Continue reading "Beijing slams Catholic News Agency for "blatant lie""

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People who made the news this week

Shanghaiist is somewhat of a frequent flyer to Beijing, and because he isn't employed by some big multinational but rather runs his own little business, he can only afford to put himself on cattle class and often has to scour the internet for the cheapest available deals. We especially love this nifty little function on eLong.com which shows you the cheapest available flight within a week of your selected departure date. That has worked to our advantage in the past because we have relatively flexible schedules, and we have flown to Beijing for as low as RMB530 (that's RMB400 for the ticket and RMB130 for miscellaneous taxes) on Hainan Airlines.

PLUS brolly-toting Premier Wen and X-ray of Homer Simpson's brain!

I don’t want to dwell too much on the letter’s consequences; there are people far more qualified to do that, and they will. For now, I’d just like to point out that - in a small way - the letter serves as a near total and complete repudiation of the rhetoric and methods of the Cardinal Kung Foundation. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the Kung Foundation is an American non-profit whose stated goal is support of China’s underground Catholics; in reality, the foundation and its leader Joseph Kung have spent the better part of the last two decades agitating for more division among China’s Catholics (a stance which the Pope’s letter implicitly recognizes as contrary to his and the late John Paul II’s intentions). I outline some of this in my recent profile of Jin Luxian in the July/August issue of the Atlantic.