Results tagged “people”

As foreigners in Shanghai, we understand the difficulties with assimilation: if you're not from Shanghai you are different, no matter where you're from. In all honesty, though, it may be easier to be a foreigner in Shanghai than it is to be an waidiren, an outsider from another part of China.

More photos on 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 (and here).

More photos on 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 (and here).

Take a little time to check out an interesting series on the ordinary man and woman in China (plus a few other non-commoner types including tycoons and an internationally-renowned avant-garde artist) by Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer. Commissioned by The Guardian, the duo spent six months on the road, traveling 20,000 miles to 31 provinces across China. Navigate on the interactive map to view portraits by the region, the short description by the side also helps to offer a little more insight on each portrait. Go here for more on the story behind the scenes. [Source]

Touring season has official started for Chinese bands and this weekend Shanghai is bursting with shows worth checking out. Tonight the action starts early with three Xian bands playing at Yuyintang. Both Hush and 24hour Party People have played in Shanghai before and put on solid shows. This time they are joined by punk band Sucker. If you miss tonight's earlier show, you don't have to feel like a total bum, all 3 bands will be playing the STD party later that night at Atanus (if the weather holds out this should be a wicked party), and at Live Bar on Saturday, giving you two shots at redemption. Also on Saturday, Hedgehog, those infectious pop rockers from Beijing are back in town taking the stage at Yuyintang. Having recently taken off on their first China tour, Hedgehog is preparing for an upcoming tour of the USA in April.

Photo from Shanghai Daily.

Xinhua: Foreign reporters enjoy greater freedom covering China's "two sessions":

Andrew Kirillov, Beijing bureau chief of the Itar-Tass News Agency in Russia, appeared joyous when registering to cover China's upcoming "two sessions", not only because he was to witness the important political event again, but he would find it much easier to locate interviewees.

Continue reading "What they're saying about the NPC: Xinhua vs SCMP"

By Wm Patrick Cranley

People Daily has this short two-paragraph news item on the latest developments in starting pay for fresh graduates:

The Education and Economic Research Institute of Peking University and the Institute for Higher Education recently issued the "2007 employment situation for college graduates" survey results. The investigation revealed that the employment rate of graduates in 2007 reached 70%; the average starting salary for graduates was 1,798 yuan; and half of graduates received less than 1,500 yuan. The employment rate of college graduates is worse than that of junior college students.

Continue reading "Average starting pay for graduates looking up, says People Daily"

Shanghaiist had long heard whispers of grandparents and parents heading to People’s Square at weekends and attempting to match-make their children but, assuming that it was merely half a dozen old people sat around talking, didn’t think it was anything to write home about. We were wrong. Very wrong.

Taiwan has formally recognised Kosovo:

Taiwan said on Wednesday it is recognizing Kosovo, in a move certain to anger diplomatic rival China which has resolutely opposed the Balkan region's independence from Serbia.

Continue reading "Taiwan vs China on Kosovo"

People’s Daily reports that Tianjin-based China National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre warns Chinese Internet users of a Valentine’s ‘virus’ which may spread through emails and on-line chat services (such as QQ and MSN): watch out for "Vbs_Valentin.A" in “attachments disguised with Valentine blessings for February 14.” Now who would like to mislead us naïve lovers on such a day like February 14?

Since Hu Jia (胡嘉) is currently being charged for inciting subversion behind closed doors, we figured there is no better time than now to show you Prisoners in Freedom City 《自由城的囚徒》, a documentary made by him and his wife, Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), while under a seven-month house arrest from August 2006 to March 2007. As ironic as it may sound, Freedom City is the name of the compound that houses the couple's apartment. This is not your typical arthouse documentary because it was made by Hu and Zeng with their little digital video camera, but what it lacks for in polish it makes up for with its power to send chills down your spine.

People who made the news this week

Now that the People's Liberation Army has been called in to battle the snow and the terms "war", "disaster" and "national crisis" are being used in association with the present weather conditions, we're feeling guilty for making a snowman yesterday in the park and secretly loving every flake.

We're often asked what things we miss most from home. Five years ago, we may have been ready with a long list of items in response. But now, it's a toughie. In many ways, Shanghai is home now, and a lot more Western comforts are readily available here in 2008 than there were just a few years ago. So when people ask the "what do you miss" question, we generally draw a blank on specifics and answer with something vague like, "People and places mostly."

Taco Bell, we hardly knew ya. An article in this morning's Metro Express commuter paper reported that a Yum Enterprises spokesperson has confirmed the closing of Shanghai's two Taco Bell Grandes, at People's Square and in Gubei, as well as the chain's single Shenzhen location. Instead of pushing Americanized Mexican food in a tough market, the owners of KFC and Pizza Hut have chosen to concentrate on expanding their new Chinese "quick service" venture East Dawning (东方既白), which according to Dianping.com already has 10 locations sprinkled throughout greater Shanghai. The People's Square former Taco Bell Grande will become East Dawning's flagship location. According to TIME magazine:

Recently we stumbled across an interesting website that might have finally answered the age-old question: 'What should I do with my visiting friends and family while I'm at work?' ChinaTrackers.com is a company offering MP3-guided tours of Shanghai and we would assume, from the animation on their homepage, other cities will be soon to follow. The Shanghai destinations include plenty of the standard tourist fare (Old Town, People's Square, The Bund), but also has a couple of off-the-beaten-path stops (two Hongkou tours) as well.

From 163.com [Translation by CDT]:

Before the founding of the People's Republic, people with leprosy were killed to prevent them from spreading the disease to others. In the 1950s, this disease could be cured and in the 1980s, medicines were handed out to leprosy patients for free. Even though the disease can be cured, the lasting effects, and discrimination, still stay with the patients. Leprosy communities are looked on as demons and are often not accepted by outsiders. There are about 10,000 people who have recovered from leprosy and their relatives living in Yunnan. Around 70% of Chinese patients live in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangdong and Guangxi.

Continue reading "Photos: Leprosy village in Jiudaoyakou village in Yunnan Province"

Yes, in the old days it was a national centre. The Jing Wu school was fully running before 1920 in Zhabei. Huo Yuan Jia was the most famous, although many people think he’s fictional these days. You can’t compare now to then but you can still find a lot of Bau Gua Zhang, Taiji and Xinyi, for example.

We've seen the signs off of Yan'an for years, but yesterday Shanghaiist decided to take one for the team and visit a real dinosaur of a museum: The Shanghai Natural History Museum. As far as we can tell, we have a new ranking contender for saddest museum in Shanghai (and we've been to the Bund 'Museum' under the Monument to the People's Heroes.) The paint was crumbling, the stuffed animals were near the point of disintegration, and most of displays look like they were taken straight out of a 1950s science-fiction novel. We didn't get too close to the dinosaurs out of fear that they might collapse at any moment. That being said, there's something about this museum, schadenfreude perhaps, that made the whole 5 RMB visit worth it.

The above is from a report about the cancer patients affected by the corrupted medicine from Shanghai's Hualian Pharmaceutical. According to an article from Jan. 10:

Under the guidance of and with the participation of a joint investigation team set up between the Ministry of Health and State Drug and Food Administration, concerned departments in Shanghai identified the cause of the accident: Hualian's staff mixed Vincristine Sulfate into Methotrexate for injection and Cytarabine for injection, and this caused damage to the drugs and made them unqualified and unusable.

Translation of captions:

OPPOSING THE SHANGHAI MAGLEV ONSTRUCTION PLAN: 10,000 RESIDENTS TAKE PART IN THE 'HARMONIOUS WALK' NEAR PEOPLE'S SQUARE

Continue reading "Maglev protest videos"

Yesterday, we were tipped off on our Contribute page that an anti-maglev protest was going to take place today 2pm at People's Square. Apparently that has been derailed by the police. From Reuters:

Police in China's financial hub of Shanghai detained scores of people on Saturday after hundreds showed up to protest a planned extension of the city's magnetic levitation train, or "maglev", worried it would emit radiation.

Continue reading "Anti-maglev protests derailed"

Ready for the great big leap over the 200M marker?

By Derek Sandhaus

It is no secret by now. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together (yes, even more than the Islamic world). In fact, Amnesty International says China carries out about 80 percent of the world's total capital punishments, if not more (1,770 people in 2005). The recent UN vote for a moratorium on executions saw a fractious two-day debate between the anti-execution camp led by Italy and the pro-execution camp led by Singapore, which has the ignominious honour of having the highest number of executions per capita in the world (coming from there, we are ashamed). The result of the vote: 104 for, 54 against and 29 abstentions. Opponents of the moratorium included the United States, China and Iran (one rarely finds these three countries in the same camp).

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.