Results tagged “southchinamorningpost”

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"

A BBC report (proxy needed) talks about the Confucian schools that are now thriving across China. And why are parents sending their kids to such schools?:

"Traditional culture has many advantages that cannot be learned by modern education," says Yu Fang, the mother of a three-year-old pupil. "It emphasises virtues like kindness and self-discipline. It is very good for my son and very good for Chinese society as well." Another mother, Wang Ching, agrees: "This is a material world, people want a higher standard of living and they are focused on material things, not spiritual ones." Modern China, with its headlong rush for growth, needs more balance and more of the social order and courtesy extolled by Confucius, she says. Confucianism and Communism have never been happy bedfellows... [read more]

A man on the inside sent us this Brand Republic story from late last week. If you've ever wondered why bloggers never link to the South China Morning Post or why you don't see any stories from them on Google News, here's why:

Some things you were never supposed to hear about ... so keep them to yourselves please! Shhhhh.

Ching Cheong, the Hong Kong journalist who was chief China correspondent for the Singapore-based Straits Times, is ailing in prison somewhere in the Guangdong province right now. On 22 April 2005, Ching was apprehended by Chinese security agents in Guangzhou, where he was to meet a source who had promised to give him a copy of a politically sensitive manuscript on former premier Zhao Ziyang. It took one and a half years before he was eventually prosecuted (for spying on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency and for divulging state secrets) and sentenced to five years in prison.

Remember the Bus Uncle? Maybe we'll call this latest Hong Kong video star the Bus Nephew, or maybe just Bus Bitch. Tian emailed us with the story and a link to the video (embedded) entitled "巴士四眼仔欺負82歲老翁" or "Bus Four Eyes Bullies 82-yr-old Man." We don't understand Cantonese and there aren't any subtitles, but it's not too difficult to get the gist. Here's Tian's summary:

An unlinkable story from the South China Morning Post relays the chilling tale of Chongqing municipality's Wanzhou district, where the local government has ordered that all pet dogs be put to death because a resident died of rabies. Just when you think being a dog owner in China can't get any scarier ...

Photo by chinapix 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.

CNET reports, via Reuters and the South China Morning Post, that a courts in a city in Shandong province have been using a computer program to help calculate sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases:

Shanghaiist keeps following these stories on rabies that keep popping up around the country. Slaughters are happening in places like Nanjing, and now stories about dog bites and rabies cases in Shanghai and Beijing. Our paranoid mind can't help but wonder if the state media is planting seeds of warning.

media reported on Friday. They welded the cage shut. Add him and his wife to the ranks of the sexually frustrated.

Shanghaiist was horrified to find another story in the unlinkable South China Morning Post about another planned mass-slaughter of dogs in another part of China:

But taking a dip into a major, disgustingly-polluted body of water is exactly what the governor of Guangdong Province and the mayor of Guangzhou did ... along with 3,500 other loyal citizens. Why? To prove that the Pearl River is now "neither black nor stinky" -- in certain sections -- after 30 years of being completely offensive:

Meanwhile, at Shuffle Bar, a supposed “stolen” mobile phone led the lead singer of the Cuban band to shout a few obscenities from the stage and storm off. Also, a bachelorette party showed up totally expecting “Shanghai Latin Power” to be a different kind of show.

Many American private universities have huge endowments, which are something like a trust fund, or more colloquially a "nest egg," sometimes worth billions of dollars that the universities use for whatever purposes they see fit. The size of the endowment (stop snickering now) is in no small way related to the reputation of the university. For example, Harvard University's is worth a whopping $22.6 billion (second only to the Gates foundation in net worth among non-profits). Of course, you don't get this kind of money by letting it sit in the bank -- you use all the investment tools and expertise at your disposal to make more money.

After seeing this story on the Chinese legislative body, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, deciding not to criminalize sex-selective abortion, Shanghaiist was admittedly surprised that this practice had not actually already been outlawed. Turns out that currently, selective abortion is only in violation of much less stringent family planning regulations which have no clear provisions for any sort of punishment. These regulations do have a significant effect on clinics practicing selective abortion, but still a very limited reach when it comes to individuals actually getting the abortions. Some of the reasons the lawmakers shied away from this decision are understandable:

A couple items of interest from the ever-unlinkable South China Morning Post's online Mainland news rundown. These are quick hits that often leave many facts open to interpretation:

A couple stories that you may have seen on Shanghaiist recently have ended up in the mainstream media.

Which should at least ensure that our Friday nights out are slap-free. From the North Korea Times, a piece about censorship:

Have you ever heard of Henrik Stenson? He's a very good golfer, but not exactly a household name (unless, of course, you are from Sweden). He is, however, the highest ranked golfer participating in this week's BMW Asian Open in Shanghai. Ernie Els, Luke Donald and David Howell all pulled out of the tournament, citing one ailment or another. It's leading some to wonder: Are the world's top athletes allergic to Shanghai? You may remember the mass exodus of top names at the ATP Tennis Masters Cup last fall. And more recently, many of the big guns did not make the trip to the World Short Course Swimming Championships. The South China Morning Post has taken to calling this the "Shanghai Sickness" -- we always thought that was food poisoning. Anyway, here's a list of athletes that don't seem to be current on their Shanghai shots:

The Guardian today reports on another riot in rural China:

If you wear Adidas Y1 HUF (Fong) shoes, there are a growing number of people who would say, "Yes." CSR Asia's Stephen Frost has been on the story for a while now:

After reports of 121 skulls being found in a remote ravine on the border of Qinghai and Gansu provinces, western China was already starting to look a little creepy, even if the skulls may have actually been a part of a Tibetan Buddhist ritual, as the unlinkable South China Morning Post reports:

And here's the kicker: The tops of their skulls were sawed off. Forensics experts are now trying to determine whether they are human or monkey skulls, but the unlinkable South China Morning Post story makes it seem like there is little doubt that these skulls are human, and that these humans died not too long ago.

Unfortunately, Shanghaiist was not quite through with lunch when we decided it was a good idea to read a South China Morning Post (subscription only, and therefore unlinkable) story entitled "Woman decapitated by husband". Of course a story like this is expected to be gruesome by any account. But, there are a few key words in this particular story that bump up the queasiness factor:

Shanghaiist is sick of bird flu. But we're dedicated to weeding out the most interesting and useful stories amid the media hysteria surrounding the whole issue. (And we also have to keep up with it for work ... but that doesn't negate our dedication to our readers.) In no particular order of importance, a quick run through of some of the information floating around this week.

China has finally announced its long-awaited (and in Shanghaiist’s opinion very long overdue) first human case of bird flu. While the CNN story does not confirm the flu strain, the unlinkable subscription-only South China Morning Post (which has some of the best, most up-to-date information on bird flu) reports that the boy in Hunan province tested positive for the H5N1 strain. While the boy has successfully recovered after falling ill at the end of October from eating part of a chicken that had sickened and died, his 12-year old sister did not … though at the moment her death can only be presumed to be caused by bird flu. Three other suspected human H5N1 cases have not yet been confirmed.

We have no idea, but it's happening, according the subscription-only South China Morning Post (via the World Business Council for Sustainable Development):

Hurry, Shanghai! It's almost time to meet the person of your dreams person of the opposite sex who happens to be standing in the closest proximity to you! UPI (via the SCMP) reports: