Results tagged “chinatown”

• China's 8.9% Growth? No Way [Forbes]"On Oct. 22, Beijing announced that gross domestic product grew by 8.9% in the third quarter of 2009 compared with the corresponding period last year. The National Bureau of Statistics also reported that growth for the first three quarters was up 7.7%. How could it not have been? Since last November, Beijing has spent perhaps as much as $900 billion-from its own funds as well as those of the larger state banks-to jump start its $4.3 trillion economy. No government can disburse that amount of cash without creating some economic activity."
• China's push for oil in Gulf of Mexico puts U.S. in awkward spot [LA Times]"China's push to enter U.S. turf comes four years after CNOOC's $18.5-billion bid to buy Unocal Corp. was scuttled by Congress on national security grounds. The El Segundo oil firm eventually merged with Chevron Corp. of San Ramon. Whether CNOOC's second attempt to lock up U.S. petroleum assets will trigger a similar political backlash remains to be seen. The sour U.S. economy and the need for Washington and Beijing to cooperate on potentially larger issues could mute any outcry."
• The story of China Incorporated [China Daily] "Twenty-five years ago, Megatrends was a must-read for any Chinese who was keen to know about the world - not just the world as it was, but the world that would be. And that included higher officials who were unaccustomed to foreign theorizing other than that by Marx and Lenin. By some estimate, the book sold some 20 million copies in China. The original English version was published two years earlier, in 1982, and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. Last month, John Naisbitt, the author of Megatrends, came out with China's Megatrends. This time, the Chinese edition debuted before the English original."
• Voices of Power Transcript: Chris Lu [Washington Post] "Chris Lu has known President Obama since they attended Harvard Law School together, but they cemented their friendship when Obama hired him in 2004 for his Senate staff. He's the Cabinet secretary — a title that belies an intense assignment as chief intermediary between the White House and the federal agencies. On a daily basis, his job is not only to convey the president's views and expectations to all the department heads and keep them on message, but also to help them resolve their issues with the White House. The son of Chinese immigrants, Lu is one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans in the administration. "
• A special report on China and America: : The price of cleanliness [The Economist] "The Beijing authorities built Taiyanggong to impress the world in the run-up to the Olympic games which opened in the city in August 2008—on the same day that America opened a new embassy in Beijing (heated, American officials say proudly, by Taiyanggong). Some 5,000 workers toiled night and day to deliver on the Chinese government’s promise to provide an environmentally friendly power source for the games. Taiyanggong was connected to the grid with nearly eight months to spare…Now the power station’s owners, led by a municipal state-owned company, are struggling to make it work financially. "
• Mandarin Eclipses Cantonese, Changing the Sound of Chinatown [NYTimes] "He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears. Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants."
  Continue reading "Todays links: China's Megatrends, Chris Lu, and Taiyanggong"

• According to this website, Shanghai's planning on building a shanzhai version of the U.S. Pentagon before the World Expo. Like most weirdly shaped complexes in China, It'll be a shopping mall. [非常日報]
• People's Daily looks at the "Bund Origin" program and reflects on the Huangpu area's last 60 years. [People's Daily Online]
• Adam Minter interviews a migrant worker who's working to clean up Shanghai all spiffy like by refreshing the paint on windows. [Shanghai Scrap]

In Paris, New York City and the Hague:

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

His instinctive understanding made the carcass snap and clarify beneath his nimble hand that held the knife so long, so many times, the handles' changed to shapes just like his fingers and his palms

Shanghai Daily tells us that all businesses in Xintiandi and along Huaihai Road, "especially foreign-brand stores", must add Chinese names to their signs and must do so before this Sunday.

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place.

While the work may no longer be at Shanghai Sculpture Space (please correct us if we are wrong), you can still see it here. You can also see photos from the party here and here. And you can buy a piece of art that is somehow related to the show here.

Our late night web prowl, in between reading ever-gripping SEC filings, turned up this little gem, WingKong.net. If by some miracle you recognize the reference, pat yourself on the back for being a true trivia buff as well as a great fan of American cinematography. The film in question, an 80’s classic is Big Trouble in Little China (The Wing Kong Exchange is home to the arch evil-doer Lo’Pan), starring Kurt Russel and yes, Kim Cattrall, burning up the big screen long before her Sex and the City Days.

For those of you who love generalizations of China in the Western media, we've got a doozie for you. The Chicago Sun-Times has a regular feature called "Agent of Travel" where readers will write in a travel related question and someone on the staff will track down the answer. Last week, the headline was "China wear tips: Casual clothes, comfortable shoes." Enjoy:

• Hybrid cars should hit Shanghai by the end of the year. Meanwhile, about 360,000 cars in Shanghai have received the "green" seal of approval.
• Weddings are up in the Year of the Dog. But what caught our attention was this: "For weddings with 200 guests, the current price is 18,000 yuan (US$2,236), which is 15 percent above last year."
• It is now officially illegal to discriminate against AIDS sufferers in China.

Chinese residents of New York City are about to get a little homesick -- or perhaps they will just be reminded of why they left China in the first place. Beginning October 20, New York based Brazilian artist Solange Fabiao will project her street scene videos of Shanghai and Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China, on a building facade on Canal and Centre Streets in New York City's Chinatown. Called Transitio, Fabiao's "city within a city" project will run through October 31 with nightly showings at 6:30 pm and 11 pm. Fabiao has been doing these Transitio things for a few years now, including one about New York (and Shanghai and Nanning) last year in Beirut.