Results tagged “chinadaily”

Yes, the rest of the article clarifies what they actually meant... but what can we say? We're easily amused by the things we find on China Daily.

Yeesh, speaking of propaganda, it seems that China Daily has an entire section devoted solely to foreign dignitaries wishing China, among other things, a happy birthday and a bright future.

Sometimes we wonder if China Daily isn't trying to take the piss out of us with these kind of stories.

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

The Boston Globe? Hanging on by a thread.

The second career of Chinese diver-turned-actor Tian Liang has so far been received tepidly, but his latest role has sparked a big debate in China. Tian, a gold medalist in platform diving at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and a bronze medalist in Athens, has been chosen to play Lei Feng, a soldier held up by Mao as an example of selflessness for all of China to follow. The choice of Tian for the role has angered a host of Chinese netizens, who basically argue that Tian is too self-centered, materialistic and publicity-loving to play Lei Feng. Tian was kicked off the Chinese diving team ahead of the 2008 Olympics for too enthusiastically pursuing commercial activities.

Remember the government's proposed 45 billion yuan effort to ensure that the rest of the world sees a media more aligned with what the central politico wants it to see? It's started!

Much like the better toilet campaign enacted by Beijing before the Olympics, Shanghai will be upgrading its public restrooms in time for the World Expo. The city has said it will clean up and renovate more than 5,200 public toilets to meet the “urgent needs” of roughly 70 million expected Expo visitors.

The U.S. isn't the only country that's making incredibly super rich people cut down on their incredible super richness, China has now also set compensation caps for its State-sector financial companies. Salaries for top executives are now limited to 2.8 million yuan. Caps for pay packages will be slashed for regular executives, down to four times their annual salary (50,000 to 700,000 yuan). Oh, the humanity! Source: China Daily

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.

The China Daily has issued a damning verdict on the construction of the new 632 meter Shanghai Tower — soon to be China's tallest skyscraper. It says that with the new tower, "blind worship and race for skyscrapers has reached a new high" and that the 121 storey tower will be a "milestone in turning Shanghai into a less pleasant concrete jungle". The opinion piece (God knows who it was written by as no byline was supplied) then sought to substantiate with a litany of reasons why the Shanghai Tower would be a bad idea: (1) Shanghai is sinking, and a new skyscraper isn't going to help; (2) Traffic in Lujiazui is congested enough and a new building is going to make rush hours all the more "nightmarish"; (3) The "urban heat island effect" is going to make Shanghai feel even more like a sauna in summers; (4) Skyscrapers are vulnerable to attacks and disasters; (5) The economic risk of building the Shanghai Tower will be shared by various state-owned enterprises and the money could be "better spent elsewhere"; (6) Shanghai should instead save its old buildings from demolition; (7) Shanghai's public transportation sucks. Why not spend more money there? (8) It also has the fastest graying population in China and should build more facilities to cater to the elderly. In conclusion, China Daily judged super skyscrapers like the Shanghai Tower to be "not a priority for Shanghai" and that it "could cause more harm than add to its glamor". Such words of wisdom.

And those reports were published by China's state-run media. On November 3, Xinhua listed He Kexin as being 13, referring to her as "this little girl" (an apt description for any of China's diminutive gold medalists). A May 23 story in China Daily listed He as being 14. Gymnasts must be 16 the year of the Olympics to be eligible to compete. He's birthday is officially listed as January 1, 1992, a rather eye-opening date we must say, signaling that either He is truly 16 or someone is a very lazy liar. He helped China win its first ever women's team gold on Wednesday. China's denies the age-fixing allegations (the ages of two other Chinese gymnasts have also been questioned) and the offending state-media stories have either been "fixed" or erased from the internet. The questions remain: How much of an advantage do you get from using underage gymnasts? And is it better to say you lost to a bunch of really young looking 16-year-olds or to admit you lost to 13-year-olds, some of whom are reportedly missing teeth? [Source]

Sina.com have officially entered the war of words over CNN's Tibet coverage with an online petition that is currently up to 1.14 million signatures. This latest development in the ongoing row over doctored and mis-titled photographs is breaking over on China Daily:

The website's appeal read: "Violent crimes of beating, smashing, looting and arson broke out in Lhasa in early March, but Western media organizations such as CNN and BBC have churned out untrue and distorted reports of the event. Please sign your name here to lodge your strong protest."

Continue reading "Tibet Update: Enter ... Sina.com"

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

As a country that has largely distanced itself from the clusterf*ck we call 'The International War on Terror' back in America, China has generally been considered one of the safer places in the world in terms of not getting blown up. While we hope that this doesn't change any time soon, recent developments have given us some cause for concern.

We've been here before so don't get too excited, but it seems that blogspot sites are once again accessible in Shanghai.

We told you about Shanghai's skyscraper envy. Now, the World Financial Center has barely been completed but our wonderful city has already announced plans for yet another skyscraper that will dwarf it. Two days ago, the all-authoritative Xinhua produly proclaimed that the new building, which is to be named Shanghai Center (we are unsure if this has any relation to the existing Shanghai Center) will be the world's tallest at 580 meters and 118 stories. According to them, that's 72 meters higher than the Taipei 101 Tower, currently the tallest building in Asia at 508 meters and "25 meters higher than the 555-meter-tall Burj Dubai skyscraper, which is still under construction".

Xinhua: Danish PM wishes for closer cooperation with China in New Year

China Daily: Shanghai to base growth on service industry

AFP: Shanghai to close hundreds of migrant schools

By JFK Miller

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.

Continue reading "Will Playboy come to China?"

Gay China seen through the eyes of three different media this week

By JFK Miller

Compiled by Shanghaiist Staff

Forbes: Taiwan president says opposition win could see island join China

A BBC report (proxy needed) talks about the Confucian schools that are now thriving across China. And why are parents sending their kids to such schools?:

"Traditional culture has many advantages that cannot be learned by modern education," says Yu Fang, the mother of a three-year-old pupil. "It emphasises virtues like kindness and self-discipline. It is very good for my son and very good for Chinese society as well." Another mother, Wang Ching, agrees: "This is a material world, people want a higher standard of living and they are focused on material things, not spiritual ones." Modern China, with its headlong rush for growth, needs more balance and more of the social order and courtesy extolled by Confucius, she says. Confucianism and Communism have never been happy bedfellows... [read more]

It is no secret by now. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together (yes, even more than the Islamic world). In fact, Amnesty International says China carries out about 80 percent of the world's total capital punishments, if not more (1,770 people in 2005). The recent UN vote for a moratorium on executions saw a fractious two-day debate between the anti-execution camp led by Italy and the pro-execution camp led by Singapore, which has the ignominious honour of having the highest number of executions per capita in the world (coming from there, we are ashamed). The result of the vote: 104 for, 54 against and 29 abstentions. Opponents of the moratorium included the United States, China and Iran (one rarely finds these three countries in the same camp).

So we know that scientists get paid peanuts in China, but there's hope yet: China Daily ran article about an amended national law which allows scientists to report failures.:

The law, for the first time, allows scientists to report failures during the process of innovation without harming their records in future funding applications.

Continue reading "China's scientists: Failing upwards since 2008"

2007 was a great year for Shanghai's LGBT community. Brimming with events and parties that forced us to dig up photographic evidence to remember, the one-year old and 650+ member ShanghaiLGBT group really got into its stride this year, organizing events for all of the crazy and diverse characters in the group. The growth of the LGBT community in Shanghai was evident at this year's second annual LGBT Pub Crawl, where people were turned away after around 200 people signed up for slots on the two large coach buses. The event left people saying, "Can we do this every month?"