Results tagged “chineseacademy”

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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]

Today I saw reports on CCTV-12 related to the crackdown on porn sites. And unlike other reports on murder, theft, and sexual crimes, I thought there was a problem with these reports.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently published a report about how much income you need in order to be classified as white-collar in various Chinese cities. At the top of the list was Hong Kong, where you needed to make at least 18,500 RMB. As for some of the other cities:The benchmarks in some major cities at the upper end are: 8,900 yuan ($1,194) in Macao, 5,350 yuan ($717) in Shanghai, 5,280 yuan ($708)...

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on China's plans to reverse the brain drain that has seen one million of its students sent abroad, with two-thirds not coming back:

"It has been a great loss for China - which is now in dire need of people of expertise - to see well-educated professionals leave after the country has invested a lot in them," the official newspaper China Daily quoted one of the report's authors, Li Xiaoli, as saying.

With a title like that, who could resist? The Shanghai Daily report in question discusses the recent controversy surrounding noted professor Li Yinhe (李银河) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The article is an opinion piece written by Jiang Yunsheng and says that while he/she respects Li's research on sexuality ...

Robots will perform tai chi at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo:

Shanghaiist went to Big Bamboo early this morning to watch a ref from Uruguay dominate the World Cup match between the U.S. and Italy. Shortly before the 3 a.m. match time, we plopped ourselves down on stools upstairs with a prime view of the bar's only big screen TV. That's when we were told that they were closing the upstairs part of the bar and asking everyone to watch the match downstairs, because they wanted to create an "atmosphere." Um, OK. Who wants to watch the World Cup on a big screen anyway?

Shanghaiist is pretty sure that this has something to do with the Da Vinci Code fever that swept the world in the last few years. While not many Chinese will lay claim to being descendants of the Son of God (making them descendants of God as well!), there are quite a number that could possibly be descendants of another thinker. One was the son of a virgin and the other was born out of wedlock, but you can never judge a man by his origins. Confucius did all right by himself, as we reported earlier. But some of you, especially those surnamed Kong, are not going to be satisfied until you know that you are definitely descendants of Confucius. Well, 1,000 RMB is all that is standing between you and an answer. You can take a DNA test and find out:

Now take a wild guess: Which occupation is the most dangerous in Shanghai? According to this report (in Chinese) by the Shanghai Evening Post, journalists, corporate managers and scientific researchers are the top ones in danger now.

Liaoning Province now has a personal robot to go with all of its sex toys:

Our friends suggested we buy an apartment in Shanghai because paying down mortgage is better than paying rent as the money eventually goes back to us (in theory). After some serious consideration, a few rounds puzzling over how exactly we would pay for our own apartment, we decided no go…for now. Why? Well, in this city, even a one bedroom “hole in the wall” goes for at least 600,000 RMB. Shanghaiist needs to borrow money just to come up with the minimum 30 percent down payment. Then, there are the mortgage payments, the interior decorating expenses and the rent we’d have to pony up for another place while our bathroom is being built, among other things.. . Grrrrr. If we bought an apartment, we’d always be thinking about saving money and paying it back for the rest of our lives. No more 58 RMB cocktails at Manifesto. What a horrible life! Well, according to this Sina's real estate analysis (news in Chinese), nearly 70 percent of Chinese citizens agree.

This doesn't explain why Shanghaiist's taxi driver the other night had never heard of "Xintiandi" -- "I'm from Pudong" was his excuse -- but it might explain why so many behind the wheel in Shanghai drive like assholes. They're just angry, is all ... because their car's GPS navigation system uses a fake city map that is just plain wrong:

In New Orleans, we have seen the devastation that can come from failing to heed scientific warnings. Will Shanghai be the victim of a similar stubborness regarding the Three Gorges Dam? Well, here's another warning:

Sexual harassment, which apparently had been legal in China, is now on its way to becoming a crime, according to Xinhua: