Blogs » Society » Man Who Gets Mercilessly Bullied By BMW Driver Offers Some Levelheaded Advice

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• Man Who Gets Mercilessly Bullied By BMW Driver Offers Some Levelheaded Advice
• Shanghai's Best Home Catering Services
• Zooq.com Makes Online Shopping Easier
• Acid Dumplings [24]
• Pity The Winners
• Nexen Likely An Easier Deal Than Other Chinese FDI
• Remember Du Chuanwang, The Boy Who Inspired A Public Outpouring Of Goodwill? This Latest Update Is Sickening
• What’s Driving China’s Real Estate Rally? Part 1
• Guangzhou’s rubbish charge struggle
• Chinese students living in fear in the USA
• The Beijing deluge of 2012
• Study abroad websites for Chinese students
• Meet: Liu Ximei, an AIDS patient fighting discrimination in China
• Top-of-the-Week Links: “Gay” definition omitted, iPad 3s don’t cause Apple store riots, and China is apparently an A cup, breast-wise
• Top 10 Search List (July 23)
• Donations for abused 13-year-old child worker taken away by uncle for 'safekeeping'
• Caption This Moment and Win Loot
• Spa Pick: The Oil Massage at OXY
• DVD Pick: Late Autumn
• Shanghai White Night at Bar Rouge

Man Who Gets Mercilessly Bullied By BMW Driver Offers Some Levelheaded Advice Posted: 23 Jul 2012 08:04 PM PDT First, the video: watch as the driver with the dashboard cam futilely tries to pass the red BMW 4S, whose license plate reads BMW X6 (we understand this car was from a dealership, and the man inside was going for a test-drive). Something obviously happened between these two guys before the recording began, and the road rage must have festered. The BMW driver engages in a bit of street gamesmanship for nearly two minutes, then stops, and that's when the dashboard cam driver sprints out of his car and chases after the BMW. The BMW driver gets out, and we see he's a much bigger man. A minor physical tussle ensues, which ends with the dash-cam driver getting his lower lip split open. This happened exactly a week ago in Nanjing. The day after, it made the news. Longhu News tracked down the bullied writer, who wrote on a forum: I got out and slapped his window, asking, "Why are you blocking me? Why flash your brights?" At which time he grabbed my neck, "How did I flash my brights?" His fists promptly went up. But apparently there's an amicable ending. The drivers of the two cars eventually met again and, as best they could, resolved their differences (with compensation possibly forthcoming): After the incident, I found the guy, and was satisfied with this 4S store's handling of the situation: first, took me to the hospital, and actively coordinated with police to start negotiations [Ed's note: for recompense, he means]. A week later I'll go get these stitches removed. And there's more. In the original Youku video description, the uploader pasted some tips the bullied driver offered for diffusing road rage: 1. Summertime, in these fit-of-anger situations, (before) you get out of your car, pay attention to safety. If there was no bump or scratch, doing more isn't better than doing less. 2. Don't punch by any means, a gentleman uses his mouth, not his fist. 3. It's best if your car has a recording device. 4. You must be prepared if you do get out of the car, don't hit people, and don't get hit (this is what I say). Not bad advice. But what if you're really angry, because someone (test-)driving a really nice BMW has decided to be a jerk? What would you do?

Shanghai's Best Home Catering Services Posted: 23 Jul 2012 06:00 PM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 5:26p.m. Contributed by: jvb From high-end cocktail parties to quick and tasty deliveries, Shanghai's best home caterers can help out in a pinch.

Zooq.com Makes Online Shopping Easier Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:00 PM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 5:01p.m. Contributed by: mengsta Zooq.com, a recently established bilingual online fashion boutique, has womenswear and accessories from over 50 indie designer-brands, including Lipsy, Free People, House of Harlow 1960, Jarlo and Full Circle.

Acid Dumplings [24] Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:00 PM PDT

Pity The Winners Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:31 PM PDT Another lighter post while I'm at Buddha Camp. Just as the Supreme Court 'knows pornography when it sees it,' I know beauty when I see it. Unlike the Supreme Court, I don't believe my opinion that a woman is beautiful has any meaning beyond myself. The same cannot be said for Chinese netizens. Or, Korean ones either–my Korean wife first alerted me to this story from reading Korean quips about it at China's expense. At issue, the top three winners of the Miss International beauty pageant China competition in the Chongqing division, held recently. According to CHINAHUSH, this photo 'was re-posted on the Internet over 6,000 times just within one day': The reason, the winners aren't pretty enough. '…[n]etizens criticized in unison, saying they don't even reach the average level of Chongqing girls' looks.'  Here's Weibo entry that CHINAHUSH has been re-Twitted (I assume many times): It is well-known that Chongqing women are beautiful, but there has been a controversy recently… why? The top three were selected in the 52th Miss International China competition in Chongqing division, but they were questioned by netizens. Some people commented, ''they are so ugly. If you tell me this is the standard of the women's beauty of Chongqing, I will be embarrassed to say that I am from Chongqing.'' What do you think about that? Ouch. That's harsh. Beyond questions of beauty here, which I will leave to the reader, is the broader question of corruption in China's many pageants. According to CHINAHUSH, …the reporter contacted one of the anonymous judges last night and he told the reporter the "truth". ''In fact, we got some pressure when choosing the top three, so the winners were not what we selected." He said, "As a judge, I felt shameful and disappointed with the result as well, I also thought the winners were not qualified to represent the image of Chongqing beauties." China Forbidden News, no friend of the current regime, shed more light on corruption in this pageant in a video titled, 'RMB $600,000 Wins You Miss International': The Global Times got into the act with an article published there and on People's Daily Online, 'Beauty In The Eye Of The Beholder?', which is actually pretty balanced, addressing questions of corruption in this and other pageants. Worth a look. In the end, all good fun. But, I do feel bad for the three winners in Chongqing. Tough for them now. In a few years, though, after this blows, the only thing people will remember is that they were chosen beauties of Chongqing. That must be worth RMB 600,000 each.

Nexen Likely An Easier Deal Than Other Chinese FDI Posted: 23 Jul 2012 11:30 AM PDT Governments around the world are taking a more critical eye to Chinese direct investment, but CNOOC's proposed $15.1 billion merger with Canada's Nexen is likely to get the nod from regulators, regardless of it being the largest Chinese foreign direct … Continue reading →

Remember Du Chuanwang, The Boy Who Inspired A Public Outpouring Of Goodwill? This Latest Update Is Sickening Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:02 AM PDT On June 30, two adults at an auto repair shop in Xiajin county, Shandong province pressed a mechanical air pump agains the anus of a 13-year-old boy and nearly inflated him to popping. Literally. The crime was almost too ghastly to comprehend. But comprehend we did, and in the successive days, it was as if society awakened to its own monstrous potential and decided to redeem its collective self by donating to the boy's father and a charitable foundation called Angel Mom. Reports say Angel Mom received about 280,000 yuan in less than two weeks, while the family has collected 360,000 yuan to date. There was a glimmer of hope for all of us. I remember watching a news feature about the boy's transfer from Shandong to a Beijing hospital and letting down my cynical guard: a camera crew followed the boy into an ambulance as it zipped down relatively quiet Beijing streets, which, we were told, were cleared by traffic cops in anticipation of Du Chuanwang's arrival. Was it all a fucking lie? A despicable manipulation of public opinion? A crime against sympathy on top of that original sadistic attempted manslaughter? According to Shanghaiist: Donations that came in through a special bank account set up by the boy's father Du Shehou have now been removed from his care by his cousin, who has since taken the bank card back to his hometown in Shandong. Oh fuck no. "The [ICBC] bank card is now with my cousin, Dong Qilu," said Du Shehou to Southern Metropolis Daily. "I have asked him to return me the card but to no avail. He said he was going to take the card back home." "He's controlling my daily expenditure here, and said I can't spend more than 100RMB each day. He said this money is from the society and that we have to use it more sparingly." Reporters contacted Dong Qilu, who said "he and other relatives have decided to help 'safekeep' the card because they were concerned that the boy's father would not use the money wisely. He did not give an answer when further pressed on why he needed to 'safekeep' the card, saying only that the family would be 'above board' in all financial dealings and that the card would be returned to Du 'soon.'" One will try to not assume the worst — that Dong Qilu is a blackguard who has no qualms stealing 360,000 yuan from the public, his brother, and his critically injured nephew — but it gets pretty damn hard to keep cynicism in check when you read on: With lingering public mistrust of official charity organisations, cynical internet users have asked pointed questions about the overall handling of the boy's case, and the selection of the Beijing Bayi Children's Hospital. The motivations of Wang Xi, host of Qilu Television's Daily News show who followed the boy from Shandong all the way to Beijing (we briefly mentioned her here), have also come under great scrutiny. Wang has since suspended her Weibo account without giving a proper account of how she came to be involved in the case. What. The. Fuck. Did Bayi Children's Hospital pay off the Shandong hospital to receive the boy as a publicity grab? Was Wang Xi the middleman? Was the entire transfer an unnecessary public relations stunt, jeopardizing the boy's life by possibly exposing him to gross infections that now threaten his recovery? I blanch at the thought of the adverse effects this case might have to "national morals." The way the government would have it, moral action is a matter of right and wrong, to be praised when right, condemned when wrong. For nearly two weeks, the media has been condemning those who hurt Du Chuanwang and praising those who have aided in his recovery. But in this construct, is there room for middle ground, where the rest of humanity — those who don't write for state-sponsored mouthpieces — reside? Let us pretend, for a moment, that the world is indeed filled with individual actors who do good or bad things, inspired by greed or generosity. Now: why should anyone ever trust anyone else, for in such a Manichean construct, does it not warrant that my charity will be automatically countervailed by your avarice? You don't want to overthink like that, of course. But the simpler and harder question, in light of cases like that of Du Chuanwang — meaning the people around Du Chuanwang who insist on keeping him in the spotlight so they can continue operating in the shadows and the fringes of good conscience — is how do we trust? Perhaps by convincing ourselves that to be duped is a worthy risk. Is it usually? More pertinent to the case at hand — is Du Chuanwang worth it? A horrible question, I know: it's a lot of pressure to put on a 13-year-old boy. Yet as soon as he's able to talk, I can almost guarantee you the cameras and journalists will be by his bedside asking him to comment on the public's outpouring of goodwill. What does he think? What does he want to express, from his heart? And viewers will all silently — or publicly — judge him for the answer he supplies, as we'll finally know: was he worth it? It's a damn shame that the society we live in forces us to make such a consideration.

What’s Driving China’s Real Estate Rally? Part 1 Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:38 AM PDT The buzz is that China real estate is back.  After nearly a year of steep discounting, with both land and housing sales in April looking like they were falling of a cliff, the market was electrified in late May by stories of would-be home-buyers lining up around the block and entire luxury developments selling out on the days sales opened.  China Securities Journal reported that Beijing housing sales were up 46.5% YoY in May, Xinhua reported they were up 50.6% YoY in June, and property agency Centaline says they've continue to surge at 37% YoY in the first half of July. Over Dragon Boat Festival weekend, in late June, China's Housing Ministry said sales volume for Beijing residential property soared 289% YoY (nearly 4x), and Centaline said six other cities saw sales growth greater than 100% YoY that same weekend. In Shanghai, housing sales surge 65% WoW in late June and, according to China Business News, primary market sales that month rebounded close to their five-year average.  Securities Times reported that, even in 2nd-tier Wuhan, primary market sales were up 18.7% YoY in June. Word is that property developers, encouraged by the turn-around in sales, have begun ditching discounts and raising their prices again.  Official statistics for June showed property prices rising in more cities (25) than falling (21) for the first time since last September, with Dow Jones calculating average nationwide prices increasing by a modest 0.02% after eight straight months of decline.  Online property site Soufun said nationwide home prices rose 0.1% MoM in May, the first gain in 10 months, while the China Real Estate Index System (CREIS) showed the national average rising 0.05% MoM in June (with Beijing prices bounding ahead by 2.3% MoM in June).  Just this week, Tiahe Group put a new batch of luxury villas on the eastern outskirts of Beijing onto the market for the eye-popping price of US$47.5 million each, which works out to RMB 200,000/sq. meter or $2,925/sq. ft. (for reference, the average price on Manhattan's pricey Upper East Side is $1,426/sq. ft.).  Perhaps encouraged by such trends, Longfor Properties, Agile Property Holdings and Evergrande Real Estate Group all made big land purchases in recent months, with Evergrande paying a record-setting RMB 33,000/sq. meter for plot in Guangzhou.  This month, developer SinoBo easily topped them by paying more than RMB 41,000/sq. meters in a Beijing land auction. However, other numbers tell a very different story.  According to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics, total floor space sold was down -9.3% YoY in May, and -3.3% YoY in June.   Total sales in June rebounded to +6.9% YoY, the first gain this year, but hardly makes a dent compared to the 33% YoY increase in units for sale.  Meanwhile, land sales resumed their downward slide to -22.4% YoY in June, and new starts were down -16.3% YoY that month, the worst this year.  As a result, growth in total floor space under construction has steadily declined, from 35.5% YoY at the beginning of the year to 17.2% YoY in June.  I've been hearing more and more stories about that construction being put on hold, a storyline that appears to be validated by the fact that completions, which were up 45.2% YoY in January, have fallen to 0.3% YoY in June — basically flat compared to last year, and heading into decline.  No surprise, then, that growth in real estate investment has fallen from 27.9% YoY for 2011 to 16.6% for 1H12 and 11.8% YoY in June — numbers that will feed directly into lower GDP growth. In the meantime, China's property developers are facing intense financial pressure just to stay afloat.  As the Wall Street Journal reports: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services says China's more than 80,000 developers could face a battle for survival as a wave of short-term property loans fall due this year. The risk is that these businesses could become so desperate they will either default, leaving behind half-finished projects at a time economic growth already is slowing, or start offering steep discounts, triggering a price war. It's not just the small-fry who are sweating it, either.  China Daily reports that, among A-share listed developers (some of China's largest) 17 expect losses for 1H12, 22 forecast profit growth, while 13 expect lower profits than in the first half of 2011.  Developers tell the paper that losses are mainly due to the rising burden of carrying huge unsold inventories, and that many continue to feel pressure to offer big discounts to raise cash.  The Wall Street Journal notes that much of this pressure comes from a tidal wave of trust loans coming due: Securities brokerage China International Capital Corp. estimates that about 223 billion yuan ($35 billion) of trust loans are due to mature this year, almost half of which reach maturity between July and September, with a further 282 billion yuan due next year. Combined, that represents almost 75% of all outstanding trust financing to the property sector at the end of 2011. With developers under this much pressure, it's hard to imagine the market suddenly turning into a seller's paradise. So what's really going on with China's property market?  Is the rebound in sales real, and if so, can it last?  Is the market bottoming out, surging back, or seeing one of those false rallies that precedes an ever steeper decline?  Since the decline in China's property market since the end of last summer has been something of a leading indicator of the nation's broader economic slowdown, and since the assumption of ever-rising property prices underwrites a large part of China's lending, it's important to get to the bottom of this question.  If China's property market is on truly on the mend, it bodes well for a much-anticipated recovery in the 2nd half of this year.  If it's still broken, things may get worse before they get better. I've spoken to as many people as possible over the past two months — buyers and sellers, bankers and developers, economists and officials, bulls and bears — and I've heard five basic theories to account for the latest bump in China property sales numbers: Lower Prices are Bringing Buyers Back Looser Restrictions are Unleashing Pent-Up Demand Optimistic Buyers are Misreading the Market Government Intervention is Boosting the Numbers Developers are Fudging Numbers to Stay Afloat I'm going to walk through each of these theories in turn, and try to determine which of them — if any — offers the most credible explanation for what's happening in the market. 1. Lower prices are bringing buyers back.  For a while now, one of the main concerns about China's property market is that prices have spiraled so high that most potential homebuyers find them unaffordable.  But with prices dropping, and wages rapidly rising, maybe that equation is changing, with more buyers willing to snap up what are starting to look like good deals.  The chart below depicts how an economist would see the process: the supply curve shifts outward as overzealous developers build more than they can sell at prevailing high prices, leading them to cut prices and moving the market equilibrium point down and right along the existing demand curve.  The behavior of buyers hasn't changed, but offering them lower prices translates into greater quantity sold. Based on anecdotal evidence, this certainly does appear to be the rationale many would-be homebuyers are giving for re-entering the market.  As one 29 year-old buyer recently told the Financial Times, "Everyone has been paying attention to this development, because it is a big one. I saw the prices go down and I thought they were now reasonable. I can't see them falling by much more."  In early June, a senior official with Beijing's real estate industry association told Jinghua Times that the reason for strong May sales was aggressive price-cutting, and that when a few projects tried to raise prices, they saw sales fall off immediately. The problem with this explanation is that — according to official statistics at least — prices haven't fallen all that much and are starting to rise again.  Dow Jones calculates that prices in June were a modest 1.3% lower than a year before, while Reuters estimates 1.5% — not much to get excited about, if you're a stretched Chinese homebuyer.  And if higher demand is the effect of lower prices, there's absolutely nothing in that dynamic that would cause prices to go back up — which is what we're told is now happening. There are two possible answers to this objection.  The first would be to not put too much credence in the official price statistics.  When prices were rising, over the last few years, there was a noticeable disconnect between the rapid price increases people were seeing the ground — prices doubling in 2-3 years — and the modest rises reported in the official statistics.  Over the past year, there has been a similar disconnect between the 20-30% discounts regularly offered at point-of-sale and the 0.1-0.2% MoM price declines in the official and "independent" (CREIS, Soufun) indices that still get much of that get much of their data from the same industry and local government sources.  There's plenty of reason to believe that actual prices rose a lot more — and have fallen a lot more — than the official data suggests. Second, if rising incomes are indeed part of homebuyers' calculations, then we need to understand the "Price" axis on the supply-demand chart as indicating real rather than nominal price.   If other prices, including wages, are rising due to inflation, then home prices actually don't need to fall much (or at all) in nominal terms to become more affordable in real terms.  The Shanghai E-House real estate research institute, for instance, calculates that China's price-to-income ratio for houses peaked at 8.1 in 2009, fell to 7.4 in 2011, and will decline further this year — in part due to rising wages, in part to falling (nominal) home prices.  What E-House's affordability ratio doesn't explain very well, however, is why the latest sales boom appears to be centered on cities that still have extremely high price-to-income ratios, like 12.4 in Shanghai, 11.6 in Beijing and 15.6 in Shenzhen. If the recovery in sales volumes really is being driven by lower prices (either nominal or real) that's hardly good news for developers.  It means that for the market to clear — for them to sell down the large inventories that are weighing so heavily on their finances — prices will have to drop even further, or at least not rise for some time.  That means a continued squeeze on their profits, which some may not be able to sustain.  That's why most developers prefer an alternative explanation of what is happening, one based on a burst of pent-up buyer demand. Tomorrow:  Theory #2, Looser Restrictions are Unleashing Pent-Up Demand

Guangzhou’s rubbish charge struggle Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:08 AM PDT The idea of paying for the collection of household waste is a controversial one in China. This summer, Guangzhou became the first mainland city to trial charges for this service. Wang Haotong reports. Like many of China's rapidly growing cities, Guangzhou is under siege from landfill. The southern city produces about 18,000 tonnes of household waste every day, 14,000 tonnes of which needs to be disposed of after sorting and recycling. That is as much as the city can handle. Some of the waste is incinerated, but most is sent to landfill, and dumping grounds are slowly surrounding the city. In a controversial move, the city decided from July to start charging residents for waste disposal according to the number of rubbish bags used. An additional charge will be applied for excess waste. The authorities fear that, as Guangzhou continues to grow, so will the waste produced, leaving its disposal systems struggling to cope. Wan Qingliang, the city's Party secretary, has said efforts to sort and reduce waste will fail unless all of the city's residents take part. The new charging project includes "to-the-truck" disposal, where residents must place their rubbish bags on the street at a certain time each day to be collected by sanitation workers, as well as special bags for kitchen waste and per-bag charges for household waste. There is a strict ban on household waste being placed in public bins. If you miss your chance to put the rubbish out one evening, you have to wait until the truck comes around again the next morning. If you miss it again, you can pay a visit to the central collection point for the neighbourhood. With the per-bag charges, residents still pay 15 yuan (US$2) a month per household for waste disposal, as they did before the new rules. But now they must obtain government-made bags from distribution points and use these to deliver their waste to the truck. Every household gets 60 bags per month and more can be bought for 0.5 yuan (7 cents) – so if you use fewer bags, you can save money. The bags even have anti-counterfeiting marks, along with serial numbers, so that they can be matched to individual households. If a resident is found not to have sorted their waste, enforcers can track down the culprit. Bao Lunjun, chief engineer at Guangzhou's urban management commission, explained that the new scheme uses financial incentives to get residents to cut down on waste. Residents who use fewer bags will have their waste disposal fee reduced accordingly – so the less you throw away, the less you pay. Guangzhou's mayor, Chen Jianhua, has insisted that the income generated from the cost of the bags will be spent on sorting and handling waste, and is not a ploy to boost government revenues. With extra spending on sorting and transportation, investment in waste management in Guangzhou this year is expected to be higher than last year's 2.2 billion yuan (US$345 million). Jianhua has also said that said that the serial numbers and data on household waste will not breach privacy. Taipei successful rubbish charge Guangzhou's confidence that the new scheme will work is in large part due to the success of similar moves across the Taiwan Strait in Taipei, which has seen a significant drop in waste volumes in the past decade. In 2000, Taipei was producing 1,834 tonnes of household waste daily. By 2008, that had dropped to 971 tonnes per day, while the recycling rate had rocketed from 9.79% to 42.37%. Construction of 10 rubbish incinerators around the island was put on hold, saving almost 60 billion Taiwanese dollars (US$600 million). Half of the capacity at Taipei's three incinerators is not currently needed. And yet, despite the alluring prospects and successful examples, pay-as-you-throw policies are not easy to implement and present challenges for city bosses. To start with, how practical is the scheme? The media have pointed out that Guangzhou has 3.5 million households, ranging from gated communities with mostly educated residents to, more often, less well-managed older buildings, privately-constructed buildings and villages that have been absorbed by the city. The attitude of the residents, observers suggest, will to a large degree determine the success of the policy. Research by the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University found that many residents would compress rubbish – so they could stuff more in – or use ordinary garbage bags instead of the official ones. Many even took to dumping rubbish on the streets at night, a situation which led to the city's then mayor Ma Ying-Jeou turning out to join efforts to stop them. Realistically, it may be necessary to resort to CCTV and other technology to make the scheme work properly – but not many Guangzhou neighbourhoods have CCTV cameras. Success in Taipei has relied on cooperation across all government departments, not just one or two. Hong Kong environmental group The Conservancy Association found that the scheme had the full support of senior city politicians, with Ma Ying-Jeou appearing on public education posters and senior officials displaying rubbish bags at public events. Different government departments worked together to make the recycling scheme a success. For example, the civil affairs authorities were in charge of raising public awareness, while the education authorities worked with local schools and even the police were involved, dealing with 4,500 reports of rules being broken each day when the scheme first started. Taipei's most senior environmental official Chen Yongren said that sorting and recycling waste needs to be "humane" and a system that relies too heavily on penalities won't work. The Taipei government placed great weight on publicity and education, not only to help the scheme run smoothly, but also to reduce public resistance. Initially, waste sorting was voluntary, but thanks to successful publicity campaigns and the introduction of financial incentives, the city found it relatively easy to make the switch to compulsory sorting in 2005. Wang Haotong is a journalist based in Beijing. Homepage image by  Y，t

Chinese students living in fear in the USA Posted: 23 Jul 2012 09:58 AM PDT "You own a BMW, you poor little rich kid." "They deserved to die." These were two comments from Chinese Internet users responding to the murder of two Chinese students at University of Southern California in April this year. The students were gunned down and murdered off-campus sitting in a parked BMW. The above comments are by no means cherry-picked; other comments circulated on the Chinese Internet were more explicit about the reasons for the schadenfreude: "Well-killed! Must prevent these heartless rich corrupt government officials who live off of the people and cheat the people from continuing their family lines!" "Garbage is garbage, thinking they don't have to worry about anything because their fathers knows how to embezzle money, just wait until their fathers die, and I'll see how cocky these garbage will be then!!! Good riddance!!" "I support the above! Hahaha! So good that they died!!!! Oh yeah!~~~~ Oh yeah~~~~ Oh yeah~~~~ Let some more overseas students die, let some more American running dogs who emigrated to America die! This news is great news for everyone!" Source: China Smack Many Chinese students abroad were shocked by such reactions from their compatriots back home. In online postings, they pointed out that a second hand BMW is not an expensive car in the U.S. and that not the luxurious life of leisure that some imagine is not very common. While there are certainly plenty of Chinese students overseas who are spoiled brats, often called 'second generation rich' and 'second generation officials' (fu erdai and guan erdai, 富二代, 官二代) who live off the fruits of their parents' corruption or enterprise, the majority of Chinese students in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other popular destinations are there because of a lifetime of scrimping and saving on the part of their parents. Photo from Soul of Athens: "Andy Liu, 20, an undergraduate student from Tianjin… Andy would like to make more American friends, but finds the undergraduate party culture hard to relate to". The photo shows Andy stepping into his dorm room, decorated with a poster of Mao captioned "Let's Party". Moreover, for many students, the U.S. in particular is a very tough environment to get used to. ★ A study released in June this year by Elisabeth Gareis in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication analyzes the results of a survey of 454 international students in the U.S. looking at how their home countries and host regions in the U.S. affected their friendship experiences as students. Students from East Asia had the "least positive" experiences. About 25 percent of the responses express a desire for greater open-mindedness and interest in other cultures [on the part of American students]. Thus, one student wrote "I wish they were more open and culturally sensitive" (male South Asian), and another "I think Americans don't need to make Asian male friends" (male East Asian). Another theme is the perception of unreliability (19 percent), as in the following response: "I wish they were more constant in their friendships. Sometimes, you meet an American and never hear back from them again. Anecdotal evidence on the Internet matches the survey findings. Here are two typical laments of lonely Chinese students in the U.S. on Weibo: Chinese proverb lesson: All alone and lonesome (茕茕孑立，形影相吊). It means alone, lonely, on one's own, so alone you can only comfort yourself by talking to your shadow… There is no better word to describe our lives in the United States. @叮叮当当-咚咚锵锵 This is only the beginning, it is inevitable that in the United States you will study long-term loneliness… @瑛妹拼命努力打败数英小怪兽中 This writer has spent the summer this year rooming with a Chinese student in Beijing , whom I'll call Abby. She complained about the same issues the Elisabeth Gareis survey noted. She finds American personalities to be very abrasive, blunt and outspoken. At some point America disappoints me. My friends and I say that American girls have queen personality. They act like a queen. Very self-confident and say whatever they want. Vickie, another Chinese student from The Ohio State University, also found personalty and culture to be difficult obstacles: Even though I've been living in Columbus for three years, I still think learning the language and fitting in the mainstream culture are the most difficult things for me. I guess I just don't have the language talent. I can't express my feelings and tell my stories in English well and also because my personality is very reserved, I feel great pressure when I talk to strangers in English. I think fitting in the culture is hard as well. Americans refer a lot of cultural phrases in conversations and I have no idea what they are talking about. ★ Agents in China work hard, sometimes unscrupulously, to recruit students to fill American university's pockets, but that is not always enough to actually help Chinese students get by in the U.S., academically and away from the campus. Helping with applications, essays, English tests and placement is always the main focus of the agents' work. Some Chinese students cannot remember what their admissions essays said, because they did not write them, the agency did. Their English skills are often poorer than their application make out. Such agents are woefully neglectful when it comes to preparing Chinese students for actually living in the U.S. and making friends. ★ The murder of the two Chinese students at USC has added another factor to the anomie and cultural difficulties: fear. Murder, robbery and assault happen every day in the U.S., and some Americans may just see the USC murders as just another random act of violence. However it has left the families of the murdered students, their friends and other Chinese students studying abroad terrified and outraged. During an arraignment, which is a legal procedure where a person is formally charged for their crimes and asked to make a plea, on June 25 students from USC hoisted a banner that read, "Protect our Safety" with thousands of signatures from the Chinese community. A letter with 7,000 signatures was also given to District Attorney Steve Cooley and one line read, ""We and many others in China and elsewhere are paying close attention to this case." The unsympathetic reaction from China to the murder of the students was also shocking. My roommate Abby said some students in China had a different response "Maybe we are luckier than you because we are born in rich families, but that doesn't mean we deserve to die." Vickie said the Chinese reports on the murders were also to blame: Chinese media reported it in a completely biased, subjective way with no truth.  I was even angrier by that and I'm sure a lot of Chinese students in the US felt the same way as I did. So we wrote a lot of blogs on Chinese Facebook (Renren) and Chinese Twitter (Weibo). The thing that made me upset is not the killing, but how Chinese people see this incident… Internet users thought they deserved it. They thought the two victims were wealthy, spoiled kids doing nothing at USC, but that was a completely false perception from Chinese media. Abby says that Chinese students have become very "freaky" about everything that goes on in the U.S.: There is a television show called A Bite of China about Chinese food that is very popular right now. Since the "zombie attacks" in the States, the Chinese joke there should be a show called A Bite of America. Abby also refuses to fly on any domestic American airlines in fear there might be a bomb on board. When asked if the she felt safe in the U.S., Vickie said she felt Shanghai, where she is from, is safer. ★ Despite the fears of personal safety, the USA is unlikely to lose its draw as a destination for Chinese students. Everyone from Xi Jinping (whose daughter is currently studying at Harvard) to chinese families who find financial support by selling their homes and reaching out to their extended family are sending their children to USA for a better education and the status of having a USA educated child to show merit. Whether the students are happy or not, their parents will push them to study abroad, and often to seek work and stay on after graduation. Abby's mother encouraged her to study in the U.S., and look for a job opportunity there. However, the Chinese American Dream of living and working in the U.S. is changing, and many students can't get work in the U.S. and prefer to come home. Abby really wants to follow the returnees after graduation, but she says she could never tell her mother that. See also on Danwei: Study abroad websites for Chinese students Links and Sources ABC News: Miami Face Eating Attack 911 Calls Released The China Daily: Chinese Students in U.S. Coming Home for Jobs China Post: Viewers Get Fired Up Over Employment Reality Show (host mocks returnee graduates) China Smack: Overseas Chinese Students Shot Dead at USC, Netizen Reactions The Chronicle: The China Conundrum, American Colleges Find the Chinese-student Boom a Tricky Fit Danwei: Confessions of a Chinese Graduate, Opening the door to American universities with lies, Study abroad websites for Chinese students Forbes: China Needs American Education. Here's How to Bring it There. Huffington Post: Capturing the Educational Moments in International Education, Asia Now Has the World's Most Millionaires, Shaken by USC Shooting, Chinese Students Still Seek US Colleges Journal of International and Intercultural Communication: Intercultural Friendship: Effects of Home and Host Region New England Cable News: Arraignment Delay in Chinese Student Killings Soul of Athens: Not Here or There The Wall Street Journal: CCTV's 'Bite of China' Takes Off, and Steam Pots, Pigs' Feet Benefit Too Weibo Quotes: @叮叮当当-咚咚锵锵 , @瑛妹拼命努力打败数英小怪兽中

The Beijing deluge of 2012 Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:07 AM PDT Xinhua reported on Monday morning that the death toll after torrential rains pounded Beijing on Saturday had climbed to 37. The report said that "Among the victims, 25 were drowned, six were killed in house collapses, one by lightening strike and five were electrocuted." Xinhua said that storm was the "the heaviest rain in six decades… with the average precipitation reaching 170 mm while a township in the suburban district of Fangshan recording 460 mm of rain". The image at left is from Han Dongji's Weibo. The captions says "Remember to be moved! Even more importantly, make some movement on fixing the drainage pipes!". The image is accompanied by the following: Floods in Beijing, 37 people died. This matter must be reflected on: 1) Officials, this is your shame, don't continue to boast, some people should resign and accept blame; 2) Citizens of Beijing were at their best, there are many people whose actions were very moving, even to the point of sacrificing their lives; 3) Lessons should be learned and pointless sacrifices should not be made, for example if passengers and drivers had left their vehicles, perhaps a few lives would be saved; 4) All cities should take this as a lesson; today it's someone else, tomorrow it will be you. Even the editor of the pro-government Global Times Hu Xijin, who is usually quick to attribute problems in China to the complications of a developing country, was hard-pressed to find anything positive to say on his Weibo: The death of 37 people after Beijing's big storm is shocking and tragic. Firstly, this is undoubtedly a natural disaster but at the same time the fact that 37 lives were lost in the capital, where disaster relief capacity is strongest, makes it even more shocking, and I hope it will really move China. This is certainly a blemish on modernizing China. I only hope that it will become the starting point for real reflection and real change. On the other hand, The Beijing Daily, a conservative newspaper controlled by the Beijing Communist Party, was much more focused on building team spirit with the top headline 'Make the disaster relief, cleaning up the aftermath and stability maintenance the work priority'. Other front page stories include photos at the top right of the page of three of "Beijing's most beautiful people" who lost their lives trying to help others in the floods, and a teaser for a flood related story titled "Don't let even one villager remain in danger", illustrated with a photo of a flooded village in Fangshan. The front page also features an obituary for former China propaganda chief Ding Guanggen, who would probably approve of everything else on the page. Other newspapers took a different tack. There seems to be a little bit of schadenfruede from the provincial newspaper Guizhou Business Post which featured photos of flooded Beijing street scenes with the headline in English "One night in Beijing", a reference to a popular song. Links and sources On Weibo: Hu Xijin, Han Dongji The Beijing Daily: 当前要把工作重心转到救灾善后维稳上来, 抗击强降雨, 最美北京人, 东街村惊心救援八小时, 丁关根同志逝世 The New York Times: Ding Guangen, Former China Propaganda Chief, Dies at 83 Guizhou Business Post: One Night in Beijing front page Xinhua: Death toll from Beijing downpours rises to 37 Tea Leaf nation: Torrential Rain in Beijing Brings Out Best and Worst in China's Capital The China Daily: Death toll from Beijing downpours rises to 37 (with details on disaster relief in Fangshan, the hardest hit area)

Study abroad websites for Chinese students Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:07 AM PDT Below is a list of four popular websites that Chinese students use to research, plan and comment on studying abroad. This list is a companion to the article Chinese students living in fear in the USA. Taisha  Information and forums on various countries and life on campus, as well as testing, visas, language learning and lists of resources. This site is probably the leading study abroad website in China by traffic and user participation. Chasedream Forum to share experiences on preparation for GMAT and TOEFL tests, business-school applications, school life and career development. Chinese Undergraduates in the United States A community of Chinese students that plan to study abroad or students that are currently studying abroad with forums about lifestyle and culture in different countries, campus life, visa information and learning resources. Jituotianxia Forums, news, and resources on different examinations, schools, test materials, resume building, interview tips, visa and trip preparation, and dealing with dealing with studying abroad or returning to China.

Meet: Liu Ximei, an AIDS patient fighting discrimination in China Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:26 AM PDT Via AFP: "Liu Ximei was infected with HIV when blood sellers at a rural hospital injected her with a used needle. Now she's fighting for compensation and an apology while fending off widespread discrimination in China." [ more › ]

Top-of-the-Week Links: “Gay” definition omitted, iPad 3s don’t cause Apple store riots, and China is apparently an A cup, breast-wise Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT A Structure of Human Rights in Beijing, 2012 Skyscraper Competition Honorable Mention, via eVolo The Olympics begin this week. Bet you forgot, huh? Be reminded over links. New Chinese dictionary leaves out alternate definition of "comrade" as meaning "gay": "The newly revised sixth edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary has 69,000 entries, 13,000 Chinese characters and more than 3,000 new phrases. // They include internet slang such as 'geili' – meaning awesome – and such non-Chinese expressions as PM2.5, which refers to a pollution indicator for particulate matter. // But 'tongzhi' – in colloquial Chinese the equivalent of 'gay' as in 'homosexual' – is not among them. // Linguist Jiang Lansheng, one of the compilers of the dictionary, said in a Chinese television interview: 'We knew about the usage but we can't include it.' // 'You can use the word whichever way you like, but we won't put it into a standard dictionary because we don't want to promote these things. We don't want to draw attention to these things.'" [BBC] Stories that are uplifting: happy Apple customers pick up their pre-ordered iPad 2 3s. "First in line to purchase the new iPad in Beijing on Friday was Ye Huafei, a 34-year-old software engineer who arrived at the store just two hours before opening. Forced to purchase this new iPad after his iPad2 had been poached by his mother to watch TV dramas, Ye elected to arrive early to pick up his new iPad so he could bring it to work and show it off to his colleagues. // 'It feels great to be first,' said Ye. 'The scene here is fantastic.' // Apple's new product releases tend to attract a younger, status-conscious crowd in China. But mixed in the opening throng of customers was Mr. Wu, an older customer who coyly put his age at 'under 65.' // Wu owns an iPhone 4S, but decided to upgrade to an iPad because he is getting older and his eyes have been getting tired looking at the small screen." [Behind the Wall, MSNBC] About that third Chinese veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria: "Britain said it was 'appalled,' and ambassador Mark Lyall Grant singled out Moscow and Beijing for having 'chosen to put their national interests ahead of the lives of millions of Syrians.' // Curiously, you won't find many at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who disagree with that assessment. Indeed, China has its own interests at heart…. China's actions on Syria must be understood as part of a growing sense in Beijing that its world view is under assault from the West. // …So how far will China's support for Assad extend? China doesn't go for underdogs, so expect a parting of ways as Assad reaches his seemingly inevitable end, much as China did in the case of Libya." [Evan Osnos, New Yorker] A 19-year-old Chinese American girl was in Aurora for Batman's opening night, but not in the same theater where the shooting occurred. She wrote down her thoughts on guokr.com, as translated by China Hush: "There are a lot of gun crimes in the United States.  There are no requirements for buying guns.  Just have to be over 18.  Everyone says the United States a safe place, I also said the same.  I came to America for 10 years already, I lived in Colorado for 10 years.  I am 19,  it is first time in my life encountering this kind of thing. I often go there to watch movies, we also lived around that theater with my family.  Therefore I was never scared before.  So naïve, thought it never would happened to me.  Now, it happened, I am scared.  I cried, because I knew how important my live is now." [China Hush] A bit late to this piece, but it's great. "Apparently, to [Carmelo Anthony], Jeremy Lin is not in the fraternity. Or at least, Lin's place in it is dubious enough that he has not earned the omerta that every other player gets. Anybody wanna try to convince me it has zero to do with Lin being Asian-American? Because, and let's cut to the quick, Carmelo Anthony never ever would've made that remark about a black NBA player's contract, and I doubt that he ever would've said it about a white player's, either… // Could it be that Dolan thought the nice, quiet, devout Christian Taiwanese kid would be too cowed by The Great Man to play hardball over money? Could it be that he thought he owned Lin, had made him, and became furious when Lin refused to behave like it? Could it be that he expected Lin to be more – ethnic stereotype alert – submissive?" [Devin Gordon, GQ] Today in dumb proposed US bills: "Congress is considering a bill that would revoke the visas of nearly all the 800 or so Chinese journalists in the U.S…. // But some American journalists have voiced concerns that the proposed law would cast doubt on America's commitment to freedom of the press and risk sparking a visa war with China, which could result in the expulsion of Americans working for commercial media in China and impair American press coverage of China." [Law and Border] In which the artist was not actually at the hearing: "Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist who has emerged as one of the government's most nettlesome and high-profile critics, has lost his appeal of a $2.4 million tax evasion case that was widely seen as an effort to derail his antigovernment activism." [NY Times] Chinese students in America. "This writer has spent the summer this year rooming with a Chinese student in Beijing , whom I'll call Abby. She complained about the same issues the Elisabeth Gareis survey noted. She finds American personalities to be very abrasive, blunt and outspoken: // 'At some point America disappoints me. My friends and I say that American girls have queen personality. They act like a queen. Very self-confident and say whatever they want.'" [Danwei] Michael Phelps would be wise to keep quiet, because it's likely Ronda Rousey could beat him up. "Rousey said while at a party for all American Olympians, the athletes happily mingled together. NBA players hung with the rest of the group, but Phelps had his own area that was just for his group. // 'These NBA players are a bigger deal than this guy, and they're hanging out with us. We're teammates. We're not a bunch of groupies. Come hang out with us,' Rousey said." [Fourth-Place Medal, Yahoo] Promise in Pyongyang, a Chinese-North Korea production interlude: Finally… Sammy Lee, 91, first Asian American gold medalist. [Disgrasian] Shanghai Shenhua vs. Manchester United on Wednesday: buy tickets here. "Panic at the Top": a South China Morning Post editorial about the 18th Communist Party congress, via a site that's not SCMP because SCMP uses a paywall. [Central Tibet Administration] Finally, finally… In case you can't see the legend in the bottom left corner, China is an A cup. [yarkko, Target Map]

Top 10 Search List (July 23) Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:53 AM PDT Here's the top 10 real-time search list for today, recorded at 12:55PM. 1. 北京最强暴雨37人遇难 Běijīng zuì qiáng bàoyǔ sānshíqī rén yùnàn –  Online users are checking news updates on the rain storm that pelted down on Beijing last Saturday, which is said to be the biggest rainfall the region has had in 61 years. According to the latest information provided by Chinese media, 37 have died from the storm, 7 still remain missing, and more than 60,000 people have been evacuated from their homes due to flooding. Here's the story in English. 2. 派出所长殉职 pàichūsuǒzhǎng xùnzhí –  Li Fanghong, Superintendent of Yanshan District Public Security Bureau, died on duty while saving 63 stranded civilians from Fenghuangting village during the rain storm last Saturday. Here's the story in Chinese.  3. 华人新首富 huárén xīn shǒufù – Li Jiacheng, Hong Kong business magnate and formerly the richest man of Chinese descent, has recently transferred one-third of his family trust rights from his younger son Li Zhekai, to his eldest son Li Zheju. Li Zheju now succeeds his father as the new wealthiest Chinese man, with two-third of the Li family trust rights under his possession. The remaining one-third remains under the control of the now 84 year-old Li Jiacheng.  Here's the story in Chinese.   4. 妈妈的油茶果 māma de yóucháguǒ – Not too long ago, Headmaster of Peking University Zhou Qifeng attracted significant public attention for kowtowing his mother at her 90th birthday celebration. Zhou is attracting media attention once more for his great demonstrations of filial love by having publicized a song he had written for his mother called "Mother's Camellia Fruit" yesterday during the cross straits headmasters' conference held at Nanjing University. Zhou had prepared the single on a CD as a gift for the Headmaster of the City University of Hong Kong. Here's the story in Chinese.     5. 章子怡 撒贝 Zhāng Zǐyí Sǎ Bèi – Popular actress Zhang Ziyi is rumored to be dating CCTV host Sai Beining.  According to Chinese entertainment media, Sai had recently flew into Guangzhou to visit Zhang on her film set for the movie "The Grand Master," and was acting very flirtatious with her. Here's the story in Chinese.   6. 救猪身亡 jiù zhū shēnwáng –  A resident farmer of the Liangshan autonomous district leapt into a cesspool to save a pig that had fallen in, three of his family members leapt in soon after to save the first man from drowning. Sadly none of them climbed back out alive due to the poisonous gas emitted from the cesspool. Here's the story in Chinese.   7. 黄榕 Huáng Róng – Hong Kong entertainer Huang Rong recently exposed to entertainment media that she had been secretly dating actor and singer Edison Chan between year 2003 to 2005.Edison Chan is best known for the disastrous leakage of his bedroom photos with numerous Hong Kong female celebrities a couple of years back. Here's the story in Chinese.    8. 丁关根 Dīng Guāngēn Former member of the political committee of CPC Central Committee Ding Guan'gen passed away in Beijing yesterday at 83 years of age. Here's the story in Chinese.    9. 泸州洪水 Lúzhōu hóng shuǐ –  Beijing was not the only city that drowned under excessive amounts of precipitation last week. The city of Luzhou in Sichuan province experienced the strongest rainfall in the past century last Saturday, causing severe flooding in parts of the city.  Here's the story in Chinese.   10. 浙大校长 zhèdà xiàozhǎng – The Headmaster of Zhejiang University was caught on photo playing card games on his personal PC during the headmasters conference held in Nanjing University yesterday. Here's the story in Chinese.    READ MORE

Donations for abused 13-year-old child worker taken away by uncle for 'safekeeping' Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:19 AM PDT Public outrage is mounting over the way donations are being handled for Du Chuanwang, the 13-year-old boy who made national headlines after two colleagues at the auto workshop he was working at forcibly inserted a pump nozzle into his anus, and pumped him up like a car tyre. [ more › ]

Caption This Moment and Win Loot Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:19 AM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 6:19p.m. Contributed by: katvelayo

Spa Pick: The Oil Massage at OXY Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:42 AM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 4:44p.m. Contributed by: clairebared The newly opened OXY Massage on Ferguson Lane offers a budget-friendly 90-minute aromatic oil massage.

DVD Pick: Late Autumn Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:27 AM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 4:19p.m. Contributed by: csteiner Late Autumn (晚秋), Tae-Yong Kim's remake of the '60s Korean classic, stars Tang Wei and Hyun Bin.

Shanghai White Night at Bar Rouge Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:15 AM PDT Date: Jul 23rd 2012 5:03p.m. Contributed by: cityweekend_sh City Weekend's city seen galleries capture Shanghai's party-goers. Check out the photos from the Shanghai White Night at Bar Rouge

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