China news hounds had already probably grasped this discrepancy already, but nothing drives home the point like a graphic! There are over 300 million Chinese people currently learning English, compared to the tiny lil' 60,000 Americans learning Chinese. Maybe it's time to up those numbers - after all, lest you be like the only kid in third grade who didn't learn pig latin, and thus the only kid every other kid was making fun of openly, you upid-stay ingbat-day. more ›

In case you wanted to start out your morning learning a little Shanghainese, mandmx.com, a delightful little site for Chinese language learning, has what they're calling the Top 4 Most Important phrases. more ›

• Bruce Lee's siblings authorize Chinese biopics [AP] "Bruce Lee's older sister and younger brother have authorized a Chinese company to make a series of biographical films about the late kung fu icon, saying they want to produce a historically accurate account of their brother's life. Phoebe Lee and Robert Lee appeared at a signing ceremony with J.A. Media in Beijing on Monday, 36 years to the day after Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at age 32 from swelling of the brain."
• Chinese News Sites Go Down After Reports on Gov't Scandal [IDG News Service] "Two of China's most popular technology news Web sites went offline Tuesday after carrying news reports that linked the son of China's president to a corrupt African deal. The technology news sections disappeared for several hours from major Chinese portals Sina.com.cn and NetEase.com early Tuesday afternoon, when they started redirecting viewers to general news pages. Both tech sections had carried reports on a state-owned company accused of bribing Namibian officials in the last day, but those reports were missing when the Web pages reappeared."
• A Verdict in China Faces Court of Public Opinion [WSJ] "A local court Monday meted out a three-year prison sentence for Hu Bin, the 20-year-old Hangzhou college student whose reckless driving and reported lack of remorse incited outrage on Chinese Internet portals back in early May. Prosecutors elected to charge Mr. Hu with vehicular manslaughter... rather than “endangering public security,” a much more serious crime punishable by death. The three-year sentence was met by general cynicism (in Chinese) on one of China’s main Internet portals, with many anonymous postings claiming that justice had been bought rather than served."