Results tagged “california”

• Washington Post lies [China Daily] "How can the Washington Post choose to project the good being done by the Chinese government for the Uygur ethnic group to convey the exact opposite? It must be an obsession to ensure that every report about Xinjiang after the Urumqi violence in early July should be an attack on the Chinese government and its policy. How else can such groundless reporting and accusations be explained?"
• China says Falun Gong ban 'works' [BBC] "A Chinese official says the country has been successful in efforts to crack down on the spiritual movement Falun Gong, 10 years after it was banned. Li Anping, from the China Anti-Cult Association, told a national newspaper that people now realised the true nature of the movement. But Falun Gong still exists, and has organised protest events outside China to mark the anniversary."
• Amazing Stat: California Uses More Gas than China [Wired] "Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world’s most populous country is hogging all the world’s resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps. But, at least with transportation fuel, you’d be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)"

Shanghai Internet entrepreneur David Li, 32, had people talking at the annual Napa Valley wine auction on Thursday when he bid $500,000 for six magnum bottles of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. Apart from an $840,000 multi-bidder lot, Li's was the highest winning bid that night. While Reuters sees Li's bid as further proof of China's fast-growing wine market, Shanghaiist wonders who this guy is. Li told Reuters he had recently sold his Internet company for $3.5 billion last year, making him a certifiable multi-billionaire. But after searching high and low, Shanghaiist can't find one Google hit on him prior to his bid. He is nowhere to be found on the Hurun IT Rich List and the only Chinese news article we found on this Napa auction looks like it was translated from English and only has him down as Mr Li. Just who is this mystery man? It strikes us as odd that a 32 year old Internet billionaire would be so un-Google-able. Any leads are welcome. A very tiny, blurry picture of him is available here.

Having soft-opened since February 9th, Lawry's the Prime Rib is ready to put on its best face for Shanghai's beef lovers beginning with its grand opening tomorrow. Shanghaiist was able to do some preview dining and we were left with one distinct impression: this place takes its prime rib traditions very seriously.

We were surprised to read from the China Briefing blog that ShanghaiExpat.com has been reported to the Chinese Network Security Police:

The social expatriate website Shanghaiexpat.com has had a legal case against it lodged with the network security division of the Public Security Bureau in Shanghai for libel and ‘disrupting social harmony’ it has been reported today. The site, which last year celebrated its fifth anniversary, has proved popular with local expatriates yet has consistently drawn criticism for its generally negative online forums and it’s sometime racist portrayal of Chinese nationals and the general living environment in China, it has been alleged.

Continue reading "ShanghaiExpat.com reported to the Shanghai internet police?"

Image credit: Nature abhors a vacuum

By Michael Ohlsson

Those of you that were fans of the gritty documentary realism of Li Yang's first feature, Blind Shaft, will probably take an intuitive liking to Blind Mountain for that very reason. Li Yang's use of regular folks--non-actors--always feels like a breath of fresh air, especially after watching movie/pop-star bloated films we've recently watched, such as Lust, Caution and King of California. The story: it's the early 1990s somewhere in bumblefuck northwestern China, and a Bai...

We read a fair amount of China-related news, and it's hard not to get a bit apathetic about it all, since so much of it seems to revolve around the same few topics. Slate's article, however, touches on something we don't normally hear about: China's tomato products industry.:China, it turns out, now grows more tomatoes for processing—the kind that get turned into ketchup, pasta sauce, salsa—than any place in the world besides California, and maybe...

Someone told us recently that there was a new Mexican burrito place called Cal Kitchen that opened up not that long ago on Dagu Lu, and being long-time residents of California, we decided to see if it lived up to its billing as place for authentic Californian/Mexican food. Long story short, it doesn't. We ordered a big chicken burrito that in better days, might have been a contender—but as it was, it was a soggy...

CARMEN RESTAURANT: Carmen Restaurant recently materialised on Xikang Lu, near the even newer Steak and Eggs. Passing by, what caught our eye was their blackboard promotion for all you can drink: 50RMB for chicks and 80RMB for blokes. Went inside and discovered the deal was just for draught beer (Carlsberg) and cocktails. OK, could be acceptable, but decided we'd better try their cocktails first before committing to an all-out drink fest. Winopete chose a G&T that was actually quite decent. A friend opted for vodka and tonic which was also quite satisfactory. What was not so good was being hurried into deciding did we want the all-u-can-drink deal or single drinks, and also being asked to pay before a sip of alcohol had passed our lips. Furthermore, this night a bunch of rowdy German card players to descended around us which led to the staff cranking up the music to a very conversation-unfriendly level. The timing of both these events led to us upping and leaving. The mouldy-looking furniture for a brand new venue is never going to earn brownie points with me, but a decent all-you-can-drink deal grabs our attention, especially given the dwindling reputation of Bon Bon. The bottom line is we'll try Carmen again.

Li Heping, an outspoken Chinese lawyer said Wednesday he was abducted and beaten for hours, and accused of causing unrest by representing clients with complaints of official corruption and police abuse.

The latest issue of TIME Magazine has an interesting story of a US-based company that has just set up shop in where else but Inner Mongolia, to feed the millions of hungry Chinese who are now looking to eat something other than pork:

Shanghaiist loves our dear readers because you never hesitate to let us know when you disagree when it comes to a restaurant recommendation. Well, now's your chance to put a little of your own skin in the game. Famed restaurant guide Zagat is currently collecting survey responses regarding restaurants in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Users who submit the survey by the September 23rd deadline will receive a free copy of the resulting 2008 China's Restaurants and Hotels Guide when it's published. According to Zagat they are covering over 175 restaurants in Shanghai. We signed up (site registration is required in order to take the survey) to take a peek. The restaurants are broken out by district, and glancing at the full list it looks like usual suspects from the listings on City Weekend (which, by the way, appears to have upgraded their website).

Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) has released its fifth annual Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) which saw American universities take eight of the top ten spots. Harvard University emerged right on top, followed by Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley. Britain's Oxford and Cambridge -- the only two non-American universities to make it to the top ten -- secured the fourth and tenth positions respectively. The top university in Asia was the University of Tokyo, edging in at the twentieth spot.

Back in the late 1980s, we were of the opinion that the Oaktown (Oakland, California, USA) was a fetid, hopeless, de-industrialized, white-flight created shit-hole, but all of that was changed sometime around 1990 with the arrival of Oakland native MC Hammer onto the music scene. If America had gorged itself during a whole decade on the fashion excesses of pop stars, Hammer was like the long belch after the meal, but even if we had to squint and shield our eyes whenever MC Hammer was on MTV, before long, sparkle shirts, parachute pants, baggy suits, and spandex shorts with suspenders—standard issue Hammer wear—became firmly etched in American pop culture history, and in retrospect, we can say we are the better for it.

When it comes to live music, Shanghai's long had an inferiority complex when comparing ourselves to Beijing, and often drowned out that lack of music with plenty of beer. But after taking a glimpse of what is happening in June, we're starting to feel a real glimmer of hope. This week kicks it all off with a number of talented bands taking the stage.

According to the Shanghai Youth Daily (via CRI), 10 women have been scammed selected to make a trip out to Silicon Valley to meet the potential loves of their lives.

Some days, you just want to eat a big-ass burrito. Perhaps this is primarily an American craving (as many, we're sure some readers would point out, big-ass cravings are) but, trust us, sometimes the best cure for a Sunday morning hangover is an oversized soft flour tortilla filled with just about everything. We never thought this was an option here — Shanghai's selection of Mexican restaurants is ... well ... Shanghai really has no Mexican restaurants worth mentioning — until SH mag food guru Jarrett Wrisley told us where to go for our south-of-the-border[1] cravings: that's right, New York City Deli. And how does NYC Deli serve its "super burritos"? Of course, "California style."

A new organization called the American Craft Beer Partners (ACBP) has a mission statement you don't need to be drunk to rally behind: "[T]o bring some of the best craft beers in America to China and make them readily available to beer drinkers in Shanghai." These guys are the early front-runners for Shanghaiist 2007 People of the Year.

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to...

star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet.

The Washington Post reports that the former next president of the United States, Al Gore, is going to put on some massive live shows to help persuade the world to take global warming and climate change seriously:

At the news conference Thursday announcing this summer's ambitious "Live Earth" concerts -- designed as an exercise in "mass persuasion" about threats of global warming -- Al Gore described his vision: a 24-hour musical extravaganza across seven continents, featuring as many as 150 of the world's top recording artists, introduced by an army of "celebrities and thought leaders" (think: Cameron Diaz and Richard Branson), playing before a total live audience of a million people, and reaching 2 billion more via television, radio and the Internet on July 7.

The foreign cities hosting the stadium-size concerts will be Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio and Kyoto, Japan.

Editor's note: Sorry for getting this up so late in the day. But if you still happen to be stuck behind a computer, there is plenty of time left to show your love for Australia!

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Guardian reports that in Shenzhen, police paraded a bunch of prostitutes and johns in public:

As most American Football fans know, and ESPECIALLY University of Michigan fans (GO BLUE!) there's a huge game this weekend when #1 ranked Ohio State takes on #2 Michigan in Columbus. Back in Americaland, they're calling it the came of the decade. It's. Gonna. Be. AWESOME.

Here is how we ended up at Cafe Transat over the weekend. We were planning on taking a friend for dinner at A Future Perfect, but they were hosting a private function. So, we started leafing through our Enjoy book to find a replacement and, well, restaurants are listed alphabetically, Cafe Transat starts with a "C", the description sounded pretty good ... and we were hungry. (And, as usual, we ended up forgetting to use our Enjoy coupon anyway.)

Americans, and the American northwest in particular, have caught the China fever -- for why else would they decide to construct a Chinese pavilion in Des Moines, Iowa? OK, we don't really consider that a big deal, but then again we've spent some time in places like Richmond, BC (OK, let's include Canada) and Rowland Heights, California -- Chinese enclaves where you could go days without hearing English -- so perhaps we shouldn't take the pavilion for granted.