Results tagged “bailing”

Today's Links: Al Qaeda stirs up stuff, spies make secret visits, and all sports were originally Chinese

  • Prepare to fight China, Qaeda figure tells Uighurs [Washington Post] "A prominent al Qaeda militant urged Uighurs in Xianjiang to make serious preparations for a holy war against "oppressive" China and called on fellow Muslims to offer support. Abu Yahya al-Libi, in a video posted on an Islamist website on Wednesday, warned China of a fate similar to that of former communist superpower, the Soviet Union, which disintegrated some two decades ago."
  • Inside the Ring [Washington Times] "China's most senior military intelligence official, a veteran of spy operations in Europe and cyberspace, recently made a secret visit to the United States and complained to the Pentagon about the press leak on the Chinese submarine that secretly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in 2006. Maj. Gen. Yang Hui said senior Chinese leaders suspected the Pentagon deliberately disclosed the encounter as part of a U.S. effort to send a political message of displeasure to China's military."
  • A Beautiful Life: Mean Streets and Meaner People [NYTimes] "It takes nerve to award Bai Ling a singing role in a serious drama, but nerve may be the one thing “A Beautiful Life” does not lack. Set among the mean streets and meaner people of downtown Los Angeles, this laughably clichéd dive into sexual masochism and hardscrabble survival replaces story with outline and characters with place holders. No wonder Ms. Ling’s breasts are the most animated objects on screen."

Ex-Playboy covergirl, epileptic dancer, and Shanghai Baby Bai Ling, was, as we told you earlier, arrested for shoplifting, but apparently, her shoplifting charges have been dropped and she was fined a grand total of US$200 for disturbing the peace. Here is her account of the incident:

"I went across the [hall] with the toy in my hand, and asked which battery would fit. They told me [they knew which would fit], but they had really long line and I had to make the flight," the New York Post quoted her as saying. Bai claimed store clerks asked if she could wait and she agreed, exiting to the side of the shop, continuing to call and text. The next thing she knew, she was being arrested for shoplifting.

From TMZ:

A China Daily report dated 14 December 2007 suggesting that Beijing may make a temporary exception for banned foreign publications such as Playboy and The Sun has travelled around the world and created a mini-furore and lots of confusion back home here. Here are the offending paragraphs:

All pornographic material is prohibited on the mainland but a temporary exception could be made for the Games, according to the biggest importer of foreign publications in the country. "Our law forbids Playboy and we should obey this, but we can't rule out the possibility that it might make its debut. There might be a demand for it (from athletes or visitors) during the Games," said Liang Jianrui, vice-president of China National Publications Import and Export Corporation, which will manage the nine magazine-selling kiosks sanctioned by Olympic organizers BOCOG during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Here, Shanghai, were your favourite stories for the year 2007:

We're not sure Bai Ling's latest lady parts on display counts as news, given the fact that her private parts are more well-publicized than she is. But, combine the Bai-sexual actress' escapades with Zhang Ziyi's body double's web-search for love; add the biggest dick in China; and throw in a PRC plug for "sexy famous models... touching each other," and we'll take the bait.

Plucky film star / delusional hologram Bai Ling—she of Shanghai Baby, multiple personalities, frequent public nudity, and one monstrously awkward dancefloor seizure caught on tape—announced yesterday that a tell-all memoir is in the works, and slated to publish with HarperCollins.

We told you how we're not so fond of Bai Ling here but the new star of Shanghai Baby has been showing some of her latest moves at Club Play in Hollywood celebrating the birthday of porn star Mary Carey (we wonder if her choice of friends is indicative of any new career move). She also (sort of) tries to dirty-dance a midget, and ends up looking like she's having epileptic fits in the process. Enjoy!

We are all sorry for Wei Hui's misery, but we still loathe her notorious Shanghai Baby—exactly what in this book attracts people? A slutty Shanghainese girl has an affair with disloyal married German man? C'mon, like these kind of stories aren't rampant in Shanghai? When we learned this book was adapted into a movie, we felt even worse. This Shanghaiist, as a Shanghainese woman, thinks this trash movie is going to make the reputation of Shanghainese women even worse, urgh! But when someone threw us this link today, we are shocked to see how well Bai Ling (we don't like her either) fits this character, Wei Hui's book and Bai Ling's acting, indeed a match made in heaven!

The end, at least, as an author. Recent news reports revealed that the erstwhile sexual socialite and author Wei Hui (卫慧) the author of the once titillating novel Shanghai Baby (上海宝贝) suffered a major spinal injury that left her in a coma for over 20 days and was in danger of permanent paralysis. The article, in Chinese, is not clear about what happened, but says that it was an accident that occurred in Shanghai while Wei was out "playing," which might mean partying or just out on the town.

The US-based SCI FI Channel announced last week that George Clooney is producing a six-hour miniseries based on Neal Stephenson's best-selling 1995 novel The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. We have not read the book, but BoingBoing describes it like this: "The Diamond Age tells the story of a group of neo-Victorians who've embraced strait-laced ethics and craftsmanship as a response to the infinite possibilities of nanotechnology."

Photo by Shanghai Sky taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site.

We all have our list of favourite China blogs (just check the left hand panel for some), for example the clever and always-entertaining Wanbro. When feeling the need to brush up our Spanish skills, we love to check out Chinochano. The language is rarely complex (thankfully -- we really need to brush up our Spanish language skills), but even if you are not a cunning linguist then you will enjoy his latest excellent article, in which he has admirably taken the time to compare and contrast Chinese Super-Beauties. Gong Li, Zhang Zi Yi, Maggie Cheung, Cecilia Cheung, Cheng Hong, Lucy Liu, Bai Ling, Michelle Yeoh, Valeria Chow, Shu Qi, Zhou Xun, Zhao Wei, Li Bingbing, Rene Liu, Wang Fei, Anita Mui, and (gasp) Ruan Lingyu are all pictorally honoured. Now that's blogging.

Or should we say Happy Night of Sevens! (七夕 or qi xi) or Happy Festival to Plead for Skills! (乞巧節 or qi qiao jie) or Happy Seventh Sister's Birthday! (七姐誕 or qi jie dan) or Happy Night of Skills! (巧夕 or qiao xi)? This is the day Shanghaiist has had circled on our lunar calendar for some time now, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Today we will display our skill at carving melons, we will decorate the horns of our neighborhood oxen with flowers and we will go to the "temple of matchmaker" and pray that we get hooked up. Good times, good times. China Daily fills us in on the holiday's history:

Last month, aging kung-fu fighter Jackie Chan pleaded for more Chinese women to marry westerns and spread Sino culture all over the whole freakin’ globe. Good ol' Hef must have heard the call because Playboy got a rise from western male readers with its first ever Chinese-born cover girl.

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