Results tagged “forbiddencity”

Alright, we don't really have anything to say about this, we just love the picture. How can you not? It's one of the most beautiful places in China, and certainly one of the most haunting in the world (though, like Obama's trip, it's been hollowed out and stripped of any sort of deep significance, turning it into a mere symbol). Plus, the press has been following Obama around like lost fauns, waiting for him to make the right face or hand motion that will perfectly capture the essence of the president, in relation to his surroundings in China. It seems that the best thing that can come out of this trip for Obama is a bunch of good photo ops.

• Last week Baidu announced after two years of searching the appointment of Li Yinan as the new Chief Technology Officer for China's leading search engine. Just when everything began to fall into place and we were getting ready for a season Googlesque innovation, rumours began to fly that William I. Chang, Baidu's Chief Scientific Officer was planning to resign because he didn't like his new job scope. Not sure though how much of a rumour it is when they have already named his successor.
• To make CEO Robin Li's life even more stressful, Baidu's next big push will be into the e-commerce arena with the launch of youa.com may be thwarted by Alibaba Group's announcement that it will invest another RMB5 billion into its own online Taobao.com to strengthen its 57% market share. Of course Alibaba claims that this had nothing to do with fending off Baidu and we of course believe them.
• In its own corporate reshuffle, Alibaba has for the first time in its five year history appointed a COO. Zhang Yong, former CFO was promoted to fill the void left by Huang Ruo, the former VP and B2C business director who resigned at the end of September.

Our parents and sister just visited China for the first time. We won’t bore you with the details on what we did in Shanghai, but since many of you are hosting visitors and/or visiting China for the first time for the Olympics, here are some of the highlights from our travels to Beijing including suggestions for elderly and disabled (something we couldn't find anywhere else online).

By James Creegan

The last time an anchor from our favourite TV channel made it to the news, he created such a brouhaha that culminated in the eviction of one coffee company from the Forbidden City. In the news this time is New Zealand-born anchor Edwin Maher who for many years before arriving in China was a weatherman with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Los Angeles Times published a profile of Maher that started it all off. It...

Billed by Sotheby's as "among the most historically important paintings of the Chinese avant-garde ever to appear at auction", the painting had apparently been sold a decade ago "under condition that the painting not be shown in public because of its subject matter".

CCTV-9 news anchor Rui Chenggang should be happy now. Finally, a store that serves not just coffee but traditional Chinese beverages like tea too! After all, Rui was the wonderful guy who sparked it all off with a post on his blog which said that having a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, "is not globalising, but trampling Chinese culture". The coffee chain is "a symbol of low-end US food culture presence" which "undermines the Forbidden City's solemnity' and is 'an insult to Chinese civilisation". His vitriol attracted half a million hits within two days, and eventually led to the ousting of Starbucks from the Forbidden City.

When Shanghai resident and blogger Jakob Montrasio posted this photo on our Contribute Page, we wondered exactly when he visited the Forbidden City, because the blue skies in the photo weren't in Beijing last week when we were there. Then we realized the photo was taken in Zhejiang Province — a place called Hengdian World Studios (横店影视城) — where a seemingly life-size replica of the Forbidden City can be found (with a small mountain...

Via China Digital Times: This 2 minute video clip from buggyrun creatively juxtaposes images of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Photo by Anton Berkovich.

Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.

This Thursday at 7.30 pm, the Lille National Orchestra will perform at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center Concert Hall. The show is part of the "Croisements" festival organized by the French Embassy. Formed in 1976, Lille is a very famous orchestra in France and is currently directed and conducted by Jean Claude Casadesus. In August 1997, Casadesus and the orchestra were the first artists to perform in the newly retroceded Hong Kong. And 10 years later, they came back for the French May of Hong Kong, and they will also stop by Beijing (they will perform in the Forbidden City) and Shanghai.

This is a snippet from Reuter's report on yesterday afternoon's case of vandalism in Beijing's Forbidden City.

Last fall, we told you about the China Bowl — the NFL preseason (American) football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks scheduled for early August in Beijing. In February, we told you about all the China Bowl plugs we saw during the international broadcast of the Super Bowl. And just one month ago, we told you about the three Chinese kickers (one named "Rambo") the NFL was training with the hopes that at least one of them could suit up for the China Bowl. We even had one reader email us to see if we could confirm the date (we had heard anywhere between August 7 and 9) — because he had already booked plane tickets for his brother-in-law, a huge Pats fan, to come to Beijing, but was worried he had him schedule to fly back before the game even started.

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning.

Even though we've long put our public relations days behind us, we can't help but think what a day in the life of a PR executive at Starbucks must be like. They must all have been working overtime lately with the Seattle-based coffee company hitting the headlines like crazy lately. First it was the landmark victory against Shanghai Xingbake, then there was the trans fat issue.

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Photo by theshanghaieye 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.

America's favorite action star and advocate for the mentally handicapped, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, isn't the only US governor on a trade mission to China this week. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is here too, just nobody seems to notice. AFX reports: