Results tagged “worldwar”

Israeli photojournalist and documentarian Dvir Bar-Gal speaks to Thomas Crampton about Shanghai's Jewish history and intrigues us with what he had to say about Dr Ho Feng Shan, the Chinese Consul-General in Vienna in 1938-9 who was named a "Righteous Gentile" by the government of Israel for using his position to provide visas to Austrian Jews seeking to escape from the Nazis while the consulates of other world powers refused to do the same. This letter by Dr Lotte Marcus addressed to "ex-Viennese Shanghailanders" throws up another interesting fact — in those days, you didn't really need a visa to get to Shanghai and anyone who had the means to come was welcome. By issuing those visas, Dr Ho had provided Jewish refugees the legitimacy of "official" documents which helped them to escape.

Take a walk down Panyu (Fanyu) Lu from the Film Art Centre and you will soon pass by the SH508 restaurant. It occupies a slaughtered renovated colonial mansion adorned with a huge neon sign. Unknown to the proprietors, reviewers and most of the customers, this is actually the former family home of British writer J.G. Ballard.

Last weekend, we told you that Yahoo! is now apologizing for not telling the full truth to Congress at the February 2006 hearing where Yahoo! was taken to task for its role in the conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. Now both Republicans and Democrats have launched scathing attacks on Yahoo. San Mateo Democrat Tom Lantos has called Yahoo "moral pygmies", and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith compared Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese government to companies that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

Photo from US National Archive and Records Administration via Pingnews.com

Fire broke out today at the US$910 million 101-storey tall Shanghai World Financial Center in an elevator shaft on the 40th floor at about 4pm today. Eight fire trucks were dispatched to douse the fire, and it was eventually extinguished by 5.42 pm. There were no reports of injuries or deaths.

Image of the Great Wall from Laurence: Will it be counted among the new 7 wonders of the world?

Image of mass games in Pyongyang from wkenney.

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting story about General Tso's Chicken, probably the most famous "Hunanese" dish that most people from Hunan Province (or anywhere else in Mainland China, for that matter) have never heard of:

A Xinhua report dated Jan 11 tells us of a problem we all knew was bound to happen — that there will be MANY lonely Chinese men in the years to come.

On Friday, Chinese protesters clashed with Japanese coast guard ships and helicopters off the coast of the East China Sea islets, known as the Diaoyutai (钓鱼岛) in China and the Senkakus in Japan. The islands are located 170 km (100 miles) northeast of Taiwan and 410 km (250 miles) west of Japan's Okinawa island are a long-standing source of dispute between China and Japan. In brief, Japan claimed the islands in 1895 when it colonized Taiwan, but the United States controlled them after World War II and returned them to Japan in 1972. While they are currently administered by Japan, the Diaoyutai are independently claimed by Japan, China, and Taiwan. The islands are uninhabited but surrounded by rich fishing waters, and it is believed that they sit above vast underwater oil and gas deposits.

Would you agree with the following descriptions of Shanghai? First this:

Photo by eiro taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos 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.

Chen Yifei's film Barber (aka The Music Box or 理发师) was completed posthumously and shown for the first time in Shanghai on April 9. The renowned oil painter cum businessman and film director died on April 10 of last year. The film's producers had originally intended that the film be theatrically released on the first anniversary of Chen's death, but it seems that they couldn't finish up in time, so they did the April 9 commemorative showing, which you can read about here (in Chinese) and are planning for theatrical release later this month. Hong Kong mega-actress Rosamund Kwan (关之琳), a friend of Chen's, was one among the various celebs and personalities who showed up to watch the film and pay their respects. The film, which is a love story set at the end of World War II and the beginning of Chinese Civil war period, was finished by Chen's good friend, the Hong Kong film director Ng See-Yuen. The reports say that the film should be released around April 28. Here is more information on Chen Yifei's previous films. You can also try the Chinese Wikipedia's entry on Chen Yifei for more information.