Public relations impresario Richard Burger, better known as the Peking Duck, comments on the PR disaster otherwise known as the Confucius Peace Prize:

This is what we call a train wreck. Everything the CCP has done to suppress the Liu Xiaobo story has only succeeded in keeping it front and center. The Confucius prize only exists, of course, because of Liu, and any coverage it gets dredges up the embarrassment China suffered with the empty seat in Oslo. Now once again China faces smirks as the world witnesses the internal disarray that seems to spell the end of the Confucius Peace Prize. And once again, the story of Liu’s imprisonment and his wining the Nobel prize gets churned up all over again. more ›

Global Times, the flag bearer of timely, accurate journalism, has published an opinion piece cum journalism lesson, entitled "Accuracy should come before politics in reporting on China" which had us doing a double-take just to make sho' it wasn't written by our good friend Hao Leifeng. more ›

Recently, a Yale professor and "Superior Chinese mother" published a wildly controversial opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal espousing just how much better the "Chinese" method of parenting is - no playdates, ultimate discipline and a complete disregard for your children's feelings because really, what do they know? I thought it was some kind of satirical joke at first. But no - it was a terrible tragedy of a piece that probably only got published thanks to those recent Shanghai PISA test scores demonstrating (to those not looking close enough) some sort of amazing educational secret Asian people have that others MUST KNOW. Having lived through a version of the Chinese Parenting Experience, and having been surrounded since birth with hundreds of CPE graduates, I couldn't not say something. The article actually made me feel physically ill and, judging from the comments section of Amy Chua's piece, garnered similar reactions from others who'd gone through what she's espousing. more ›

A Shanghai Evening News article, called “New Heroes Rush Into the Shanghai Bund, No Restrictions on Their Place of Origin, They are All Elites,” has drawn protest amongst Shanghai residents. One retired national leader even called the city's party secretary, Yu Zhengsheng, to complain. more ›

Rebecca MacKinnon, formerly CNN's Beijing bureau chief and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, writes an open letter to President Barack Obama in the Huffington Post, In Talking to China, Remember its People. She encourages the president to adopt a more nuanced view of the Chinese citizenry:

The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy, they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones. Despite often crude censorship of the Internet and state-run media, despite manipulation, intimidation of dissidents and political astro-turfing of the blogosphere by paid commentators, there is no unity of thought in China today. Civic minded citizens manage to hold wide-ranging debates on the Chinese Internet, in living rooms, dormitories, office break rooms, and classrooms about many public issues. Reading the Chinese blogs I've found all kinds of views about you and your new administration. Many are inspired by your personal story and the idea of truly equal opportunity that you represent. Others hope that you will be more forthright and principled on human rights issues than the Bush administration was. Others are very concerned that you will be protectionist in order to help the American people in the short run, and that this will hurt the Chinese people economically. Others lament cynically that no matter what happens, the rich and powerful in both countries will be the relationship's main beneficiaries.

Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests - from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law -- shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won't be able to stop it. Nor should they want to if they're wise - because the resulting conversation would help both governments build a more stable and rational relationship that would truly benefit the people of both countries.

Tudou cofounder and mastermind behind the Chinese online game site game.com.cn (we wonder how much he paid for that domain name!) Marc van der Chijs seems to think so:

This week we were analyzing the traffic figures on our Chinese online game sites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com, when we noted a strange effect. During weekdays there was hardly any growth on our portals, but on weekends the growth was similar to what we were used to. We looked a bit deeper into this and may have found a reason for this: staff in companies play less online games during working hours (normally we see a spike in traffic around 11:30 AM and from 4 PM onwards). more ›

by Jeffrey Wasserstrom more ›

By Jeffrey Wasserstrom more ›

Lately, the Olympics has started to remind us of the kind of conversation wherein someone is prepared to reveal a secret, but the key details are not forthcoming. Rather, the speaker dances around the facts, dropping a hint here and there at a carefully measured pace, meanwhile we sit silently, captivated and spellbound awaiting the payoff when the whole truth is finally revealed to us. So we will wait another 14 days for the start of Games of the XXIX Olympiad. more ›

For this week's edition of Opinionist, we present to you some of the thoughts of Ho Kwon Ping, founder and executive chairman of the Banyan Tree Group which owns and operates a chain of award-winning premium resorts, hotels and spas, surrounding the great Sichuan earthquake. Ho, who owns resorts in Lijiang, Shangri-La and Sanya, had a close shave with the earthquake as his flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong was almost taking off when the earthquake struck. more ›

In this week's edition of Opinionist, we present to you an excerpt of the speech made by Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong made at the Society of Publishers in Asia's awards dinner on the 19th anniversary of the June 4 incident. The senior writer of the Singapore-based Straits Times was detained by Chinese authorities in April 2005 for over 1,000 days on charges of spying for Taiwan. In this speech, Ching Cheong spoke at length about press freedom, Hong Kong's core values and his optimism for positive changes in China. For the full speech, please click here. more ›

In this weekend's edition of Opinionist, we present to you the China-relevant portions of Lee Kuan Yew's latest interview with Haslinda Amin of Bloomberg News. At 84 this year, Lee was Singapore's first Prime Minister and current Minister Mentor. In this excerpt, Lee gives his take on recent anti-Chinese sentiment, China's challenges going forward and what China can learn from Singapore in handling the Western media. The full transcript (PDF) of the interview can be downloaded from the Straits Times. more ›

Xinhua has an interesting opinion piece about the recent unbanning on mobile phones and computers in Cuba. First, the title of the article: 从免于匮乏的自由开始 meaning "Starting with the freedom from want". The political significance of the phrase "freedom from want" comes from Franklin D. Roosevelt's State of the Union address, and comes, as we say nowadays, bundled with three other freedoms: speech and expression, religion, and fear. more ›

NOTE: The opinions expressed in "Opinionist" columns are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Shanghaiist. more ›

In Shanghai there are a couple of early week shows that are worth checking out. Tonight, Too Dumb to Die, a bohemian group of gypsy vaudeville musicians who have rode their oddly tall bikes from Istanbul will take the stage out at Yuyintang. Sound interesting? Well, Shanghaiist thinks so, and can't wait to see them perform. While tomorrow, Yuyintang will host German hardcore punk band, No Opinion. Shanghaiist had the chance to catch No Opinion... more ›

Looks like we spoke too soon. Just when we told you that Chinese media were getting the hang of the art of spin, look what we found in today's Shanghai Daily. Not one, but two pieces of pure, unadulterated propaganda that would make any Xinhua editor blush. Oh wait a minute, they actually came from Xinhua. more ›

The Xinmin Evening Post announced today the winners of the third annual City of Shanghai Outstanding Website Awards. This year a committee of specialists chose 58 winners in 13 categories to receive awards, categories including Best Portals, E-Commerce Sites, Sites serving Women and Children, Higher Education Websites, and Sites for the "New Countryside". more ›

Photo from Shanghai Sky. more ›

How does the other half live? Shanghaiist is talking about our print media counterparts — you know, the ones that have actual deadlines and office space to fuss over. We won’t pretend to put ourselves in their shoes (well, some of us might, seeing as how we occasionally swing both ways — in the non-biblical sense, of course), but we can, at least appreciate an alliterative headline, a punchy lead, and some slick, savvy reporting. Oh, and artsy photos — we like those too. So without further ado, we bring you Shanghaiist Reads, where we tell it like they tell it — only better. And without costing you a dime. (Just kidding ... we love our local rags. And they’re free.) Think of our summary of what's in the local mags as a tribute to our print brothers and sisters who fight the good fight — and still have time to come to our website when their bosses aren’t looking. more ›

Miss World, Miss USA, Miss Hong Kong, and now here comes Miss Blogger PRC! Earlier this month, BlogChina, a poupular -- you guessed it -- Chinese blog site held a nationwide beauty contest for female bloggers. Both the public and a panel of celebrity judges took part in deciding the outcome. In addition to the usual “hotness” factor, contestants’ writing/blogging talent also played a significant role, supposedly. One look at the final awards had us convinced that was indeed the case: Cash prizes between 10,000 and 20,000 RMB were given to the “Most Beautiful”, the “Sexiest”, the “Most Popular”, the “Most Fashionable”, and last which may or may not be the least, the “Most Talented”. Where Shanghaiist just had a few chuckles, some of the more self-righteous web crawlers felt compelled to opine. One male blogger, “Idai” had this to say: more ›

Opinion is probably going to vary on Google's new name, but Shanghaiist isn't too fond of it and we agree with what this fellow said on his blog: more ›

Shanghaiist is sure that this announcement will come as a relief to all of you misplaced upturned-collar-polo-shirt-wearing frat boys who swear by the Lacoste crocodile: a Shanghai appeals court has ruled that the French company will not have to pay that creativity-challenged Singaporean company, Crocodile, $1 and a public apology. So ends -- for now, at least -- an epic court battle over crocodile-use rights (involving an irritatingly petty punishment), only for the issue to be thrown over the wall to be decided by relevant trademark law. Shanghaiist doesn’t really understand why this wasn’t originally a trademark law issue. Apparently, any real decision, like which company actually gets to keep its crocodile in the Chinese market, has yet to be determined. more ›