Links » Crème » Friday Links: Buried alive, serial killer, “two flies,” and now we have lots of documented proof that chengguan are assholes
Links » Crème » Friday Links: Buried alive, serial killer, “two flies,” and now we have lots of documented proof that chengguan are assholes |
- Friday Links: Buried alive, serial killer, “two flies,” and now we have lots of documented proof that chengguan are assholes
- Top Ten Search List (May 25)
- Today’s China Readings May 25, 2012
| Posted: 25 May 2012 09:55 AM PDT
It's been somewhat of a stressful day for the blog, considering our server went down for several hours. Apologies for it all, and the lateness of these links. There are few worse ways I can think of to die than being buried alive. "Chinese police have arrested a young couple who buried an old woman alive believing she was dead after their car hit the 68-year-old, newspapers said on Thursday, in a case which has sparked outrage over declining public morality. // The couple had been at an all-night karaoke session when they hit the woman while driving in the early hours of the morning in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang last month, the official China Daily said." [Reuters] As far as I can tell, the only purpose chengguan (street officers) have is to bully street vendors and generally act like thugs and knaves. They exist because…? "The 76-page report, 'Beat Him, Take Everything Away,' documents abuses by the chengguan Urban Management Law Enforcement (城管执法) forces, including assaults on suspected administrative law violators, some of which lead to serious injury or death, illegal detention, and unlawful forceful confiscation of property." [Human Rights Watch] Seventeen people missing in Yunnan, serial killer feared. Seventeen people? "Aside from the relative youth of the victims, they do not seem to have much in common. Moreover, their family members all say that they did not run away, did not own any major property that could tempt anyone, nor did any of them have any major inter-personal conflicts, all of which are common features of missing-persons cases." [Danwei] Confucius Institutes under risk? "'Haha, the U.S. is scared of our education,' the user wrote. 'It's because we're good at brainwashing. The U.S. is afraid we'll turn their next generation into our current generation.'" [WSJ] Porn is not a trivial matter. "Local police were still searching last night for a male suspect, who fled an Internet café after stabbing an employee who had tried to stop the man from downloading software to play porn. // …'It didn't occur to me that he would stab me over such a trivial matter,' Shi told local media Wednesday." [Global Times] Headline almost as confusing as the regulation itself. "Authorities in the Chinese capital have set new standards for public toilets, including a stipulation that they should contain no more than two flies." [BBC] Anyone seen 62 missing issues of Time? "Like other foreign news publications available in limited quantities in China, TIME is subject to the occasional banishment from the newsstand. Our issue the previous week on disgraced Communist Party official Bo Xilai had been barred from distribution at hotels and other select purveyors, although subscribers living in China received their copies without a hitch. An essay on the plight of legal activist Chen Guangcheng that appeared the week after the People's Republic of Scandal cover was ripped out of each issue before the magazine was allowed in." [Time] Jews wanted. "It's nice to know there's still a part-time job available in Beijing for a tall, white, male, Jewish, Harvard-educated fluent Mandarin speaker." [Foreign Policy] Props to the Beijinger for running more original content recently: "The Nirvana Man dwells in Wudaokou, where he wanders along the sidewalk outside Pyro's Pizza and Propaganda, conversing with random young foreigners. He's a skinny, oily-looking guy, with a greasy quaff that stands about four inches high and teeth that look like little shards of porcelain." [the Beijinger] K-Town reality TV show interlude, via 8Asians (YouTube video there): Finally… Hutong brewing with Hardy Sims. [World of Chinese] Another assault against Chinese students in Sydney. [Radio Australia] Tom Doctoroff: "Why Chinese Shoppers Love U.S. Brands." [The Atlantic] Chinese famine documentary. [BBC] Gan Lulu at the Shanghai Kitchen & Bath Expo, via Shanghaiist: |
| Posted: 25 May 2012 03:50 AM PDT
1. 甘肃猪蹄厅长 Gānsù zhūtí tīngzhǎng – Liu Weizhong, director of the Gansu Province Department of Health, is known far and wide across the Chinese internet as "Director Pig Trotter" for a startling ignorant public service message earlier this year in which he suggested that terminally ill patients could cure themselves by eating pigs' hooves. Now, he is taking a new wave of online heat, since the posting of a new announcement on the official website of the Gansu Department of Health in which the department celebrates the success of a recent cultish nine-day training course for students of spinal studies at the Gansu provincial hospital. The post congratulates a whole "41 out of 47 students" on their successful "mastery" of a procedure designed to open up access to a system of legendary acupuncture points known as the "ren du liang mai" (任督二脉). The announcement proudly asserts that the students have "proven" the magic of the Jing Luo (经络) Theory of acupuncture and are now all converted "believers." (Also known as the "Channel Theory," Jing Luo is the school of thought which holds that there are channels running through the entire body connecting the internal organs to the limbs and joints. It probably takes longer than "nine days" to get it down.) Mr. Pig Trotter himself was the keynote speaker of the training course, and netizens are railing on him for, among other things, "thinking he is a character in a martial arts story," "putting followers of his 'teachings' in danger," and "obscuring the real, positive features of effective Chinese medicine" behind an enormous cloud of quackery. Here's the story in Chinese. 2. 高速节假日免费 gāosù jiéjiàrì miǎnfèi – China's Ministry of Transport has recently announced that it is drafting a new law under which citizens nationwide will be exempt from paying highway and bridge tolls during major national festivals. Traffic is formidable over the holidays, especially at the start of spring festival (the Chinese New Year) when the vast majority of city dwellers return to their hometowns to be with their families. In response to scores of netizen cries for free passage, it seems like the Ministry of Transport will be granting it. Here's the story in Chinese. 3. 香港收回捐款 Xiānggǎng shōuhuí juānkuǎn – "Hong Kong Takes Back Donations": Yesterday, Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong Stephen Lam Sui-lung announced that after leading a delegation to Sichuan to investigate potential misuses of donations made to the region by Hong Kong following the 2008 earthquake, the HKSAR government will be recalling a 2 million HKD donation it originally presented to the Mianyang city government for the purposes of rebuilding the Mianyang "Red Bud" school (or Mianyang Zijin Minzu High School), which has now been torn down, after only two years of operation, to make way for a commercial development. Reports have come out that the rebuilt school was demolished by developer Dalian Wanda Group, and Mianyang's local government is claiming that the developer went ahead with the project without any official approval. Wanda, meanwhile, is planning to issue an official statement which will likely refute this claim, and its CEO has already essentially said to reporters, "How would we ever be stupid enough to go ahead with a project like this without the permission of the local authorities?" While Wanda and Mianyang point fingers, netizens are criticizing both for blatantly disrespecting Hong Kong's initial magnanimity. Here's the story in Chinese. 4. 汤淼 Tāng Miǎo - Search volume is high for news of an amicable divorce between a beloved athlete couple: former Chinese men's volleyball player Tang Miao and women's volleyball player Zhou Suhong. Both parties have told reporters that while they still care about each other, the nature of their relationship has changed, largely due to an incident in June of 2007 when, in a friendly competition between the Shanghai team and the Russian national team, Tang Miao suffered a serious injury that left him paralyzed. Several news articles are calling this "divorce in the name of love," citing Tang's explanation that he "does not want to hold Zhou back any longer." Though some are taking sides, the overwhelming current of public opinion has been in support for the pair, with microblogger after microblogger wishing both of them well. Here's the story in Chinese. 5. 印度女婴喂狗 Yìndù nǚyīng wèi gǒu – Netizens are up in arms over the recent discovery that doctors in Beed, India have been feeding aborted female fetuses to dogs to hide evidence that they are engaged in the practice of sex-selective abortions; the news has sparked widespread discussion today about the importance of seeing girls and boys as equally worthy of love and life. Here's the story in Chinese. 6. 少壮派富豪榜 shàozhuàngpài fùháobǎng – The Hurun Research Institute yesterday released its 2012 "Richest Chinese Under Forty List." First place goes to the heiress of Guangdong-based development company Country Garden (碧桂园) Yang Huiyan, who is also considered the wealthiest person in mainland China (under 40 or not), but only 8 out of the 33 listed young billionaires are actually "second-generation rich" (富二代), while many of the rest are self-starters and entrepreneurs. Here's the story in Chinese. 7. 跨国电信诈骗 kuàguó diànxìn zhàpiàn – On Wednesday, a total of nearly 500 people suspected of involvement in an enormous transnational telecom scam were arrested by Chinese mainland and Taiwanese law enforcement officers as well as other police forces across Asia. The over-11.5 million USD scam was reportedly targeting people in China. Here's the story in Chinese. 8. 2011年度人权国别报告 2011 niándù rénquán guóbié bàogào – Upon the release yesterday of the U.S. State Department's annual human rights report, whose discussion of China focuses on the government's crack-downs on activists, use of internet censorship, and repression of minority groups, a host of reports in the Chinese news media range from firmly dissatisfied to completely incensed with the results, asserting that the U.S. has altogether overlooked strides China has made on the human rights front, in favor of seizing any opportunity to pick it apart. Here's the story in Chinese. 9. 倪妮 Ní Nī – More people are dating each other. Chinese actor William Feng and Chinese actress Ni Ni, best known for her role as "Yu Mo" in the 2011 Zhang Yimou film "Flowers of War," have now confirmed their romance through proclamations of love via Sina Weibo. Here's the story in Chinese. 10. 东莞理工命案追踪 Dōngguǎn Lǐgōng mìng'àn zhuīzōng – Yesterday at the hearing for the murder trial of Ao Xiang, the college senior from Dongguang, Guangdong province who in November 2011 brutally killed a female classmate after following her into a girls' bathoom and attempting to rape her, the Dongguan intermediate people's court declared Ao guilty of rape and murder but ruled that he pay a 508,799.50 RMB fine in compensation to the family of the deceased as his only punishment. The victim's family refuses to accept the light sentence, and is appealing the case. Here's the story in Chinese.        |
| Today’s China Readings May 25, 2012 Posted: 24 May 2012 05:44 PM PDT Bloomberg tells us of another sign of economic troubles in China Banks May Miss Loan Target for 2012, Officials Say, the Wall Street Journal tells us how Economists React to China Flash Manufacturing Gauge Declining Again, Reuters reports that China's top aluminium province idles plants as demand slows, David Pilling writes in the Financial Times that in spite of the negative economic trends The wobbly panda won't fall yet, and this morning Bloomberg reports that China's Top Fund Manager Sees Stock Gains on Pro-Growth Policy. Did the sharp deceleration of the economy in April surprise Chinese policymakers, or did the turmoil around the Bo Xilai case delay a policy response by a month or more? Turning to a micro-perspective, yesterday I accompanied a friend who wants to buy an apartment in a luxury development near Sanlitun on the east side of Beijing. We went at the recommendation of another friend who had recently bought there. It is a nice place, average price is 66,000 RMB/m before discounts (up to 15% if you pay cash; before the real estate restrictions kicked in the original price was set near 100.000 RMB/m) and units are selling, albeit much more slowly than if there were no government restrictions. The tier 1 Hong Kong developer is keeping many of the best units off the market in anticipation of eventual policy changes but decided to sell some to generate some cash flow from the project. The excursion was another reminder that there is still huge demand for real estate in Beijing and that the government is intentionally suppressing both prices and transaction volumes. I think the fact that the real estate slowdown has been BY DESIGN occasionally gets lost in some of the more animated ursine commentary, though of course China may be overshooting on the downside. Trying to manipulate economic activity is not easy… To help stimulate the economy China may be launching its hardest private-sector push in decade. At the same time, Xinhua reports that the Communist party is expanding its presence in thriving private sector, an expansion important enough to be one of the top stories on page 1 of today's People's Daily–中共中央办公厅印发《关于加强和改进 非公有制企业党的建设工作的意见（试行）》 CCTV and soft power are in the news again. The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at CCTV's overseas expansion in Sino the times: Can China's billions buy media credibility? and China Media Project discusses some of the ideological issues blunting China's soft power efforts in the excellent Rigid thinking beggars China's "soft power", In 2010′s Can China Successfully Build Soft Power Without A Global Internet Strategy? I argued that the concerns about China's overseas expansion into old media were misplaced and that under the current Internet regulatory regime China was likely to fail in its soft power push: China is leveraging the media channels and distribution mechanisms it understands, and hiring, no doubt at great expense, western old media hands as consultants. But as Google and Facebook and its 500m users have shown, the future influencers globally are increasingly online…none of the top Chinese Internet firms-Baidu, Tencent, Sina, Sohu, Shanda, Netease-have either the DNA or the credibility to succeed materially in major overseas markets…when it comes to the Internet, the reality is that China has a poor image and a weak product offering for most global netizens. Given the recent news about Confucius Institutes, this 2010 Daily Show segment is worth watching again China's Soft Power Meets The Daily Show And Stupidity In California. Further to yesterday's discussion of Chinese views towards Jews I recommend Jon Ansfield's 2006 piece Arab, Jew and Chinese: Speaking before a crowd of 100 at my nuptials a few years ago, my father-in-law, who's Chinese, could not contain his pride in my heritage. "Jonathan, as you all know, is a Jew," he kvelled. "And Einstein was a Jew," he added. "And Oppenheimer was a Jew," he went on. "And my wife and I, as Communist Party members, also have a Jewish ancestor – Marx!" We all know China's environmental challenges are monumental and today there are a few interesting reminders. The Asia Society has released a new documentary short film on Northern China's Huge Water Crisis, Bloomberg tells us that China Projects Skirt Around Price Floor, Avoid CO2 Supply Cuts and thanks to Greenpeace we can read about the Good, bad and the ugly: Chinese cities ranked by air quality. Thanks for reading, and remember the best way to see this daily post is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still blocked here. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Feel free to recommend to friends or donate.
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