Results tagged “southafrican”

A South China tiger has been born in a South African wildlife reserve in South Africa, the first to be born outside China, raising hopes that the species can be saved from extinction. Only about 90 South China tigers are left in the world today. More from Sydney Morning Herald.

China's very first Miss World, Zhang Zilin (张梓琳) was crowned yesterday at the 57th edition of the beauty pageant in Sanya, Hainan. Miss Angola was first runner-up and Miss Mexico was second runner-up. This year's pageant coincided with World AIDS Day and was used by organisers to help raise awareness about the disease. Highlights of the show included a televised speech by former South African president Nelson Mandela, whose son Makgatho died of an AIDS-related...

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, after a hot CPI reading on Tuesday, China’s central bank lifted the benchmark lending and deposit rates on Friday. The 27 basis points move is the fifth such increase this year by the People’s Bank of China, second in less than 30 days. The PBoC last hiked rates on August 22. One year deposit rate now stands at 3.87 percent from 3.6 percent previously; and one year lending rate is also 27 basis points higher, at 7.29 percent. PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan is targeting a positive real interest rate. Real interest is nominal interest rate less inflation. With annual CPI around 4 percent, most economists believe that China will raise interest rate at least once more this year.

Shanghaiist loves lists. We've embraced the love of lists ever since we picked up Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity. So when browsing the morning news yesterday, our honed powers of list detection and surveillance led us to discover that Shanghai has been included in yet another list. Not just any pokey little list might we add, but The Economist magazine's 2007 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey (WCOL) for expatriate workers.

Or at least on one Chinese song, written about a migrant worker's yearning to return home to see his parents:

Chinese online hit "I Wanna Go Home, Mom and Dad" about migrant workers is expected to end Hollywood director Mel Gibson's next movie.

The song is supposedly going to be used—at least partially in Chinese—in Gibson's upcoming film project. We were unable to find out what this film is called in English, but from this Chinese report, it seems to be called 《卡衣》(Ka Yi) in Chinese and is based on a South African novel. In it, there's a character that leaves home for the big city and then, after many years, becomes the mayor of that city. We're not really up on South African literature, but if someone knows what novel this is, please leave a comment or email. The following are the lyrics to the song:

That's the way it was back in the 1930s and 40s. They even had a board game to that effect -- it was called "Shanghai Millionaire" (pictured). We learned about this Monopoly clone via the weekly newsletter of market intelligence firm Access Asia. You can read the current newsletter here, but be warned that it will switch to the next newsletter at the end of the week (how about an archive, guys?).

Newsweek has story Shanghaiist can relate to this week. It's called "The Drifter" and has a subhead "Young expats looking for adventure and opportunity are being drawn to China, where the economy is booming, rents are cheap and skills in short supply." The story tells us that "China seems to be awash in expats who seem content to drift from one job to another before landing something that catches their fancy." Who is the lead subject for this story? Jeremy Goldkorn, who is the main man behind Danwei.org. Here's what they say about him:

It is with sheer reluctance that Shanghaiist brings itself even to utter the word “cricket”. We’re still in disbelief at Australia’s loss to England in The Ashes. Arriving at work on Tuesday morning in drizzling rain and having relinquished the little urn, we finally understood what it feels like to be a Pom.

Running is no fun. Shanghaiist knows this because, having tired of frequent comments about our growing beer paunch, we hit the treadmill last night for the first time since -- wait for it -- the fall of the Berlin Wall. And man was it hateful.