Blogs » Society » China’s Slow Growth Finds Its Trough

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• China’s Slow Growth Finds Its Trough
• Taki Sushi: Affordable and Tasty Sushi Options
• The Utopia Within: In Which Phaedrus and Wilbur Go Fishing
• Hong Kong wants more tourists from the Middle East
• Today's Links: Angela Merkel, Mitt Romney, Ford Lincoln and the forgotten souls of the Hong Kong Cemetery
• Arctic Ocean ice levels reach record low levels, opening new sea routes
• The Most Patriotic Haircut, Featuring Tiananmen
• Masked Men Try To Rob Shopping Mall After Hours, Are Pretty Dumb
• Drink of the Day: TKO India Pale Ale @ Boxing Cat Brewery
• Successful Sourcing From China. The PowerPoint
• Toronto body parts victim was a refugee, parents in Changle speak up
• Italy's "cancer town" in battle over polluting steel plant
• Liu Xiaobo rumored to be on medical parole... again
• Mid-Week Links: Chinese seduction of Western businessmen, Shenhua FC’s hot streak, and translation, like love, is a slow simmer
• You’ll Click This Because There Are A Lot Of Women In Bikinis
• DVD Review: Guan Hu’s Refreshing Black Comedy "Design of Death"
• Myth Busters: Debunking Misconceptions About Chefs
• Arrests made in attack on Japan ambassador's car as both sides seek to ease tensions
• The 2012 Nike Festival of Sport
• Director Song Zude on China's loneliness and its fake friends

China’s Slow Growth Finds Its Trough Posted: 29 Aug 2012 09:05 PM PDT How much stock should we put in the talking up of the economy by leading Chinese officials? Given that they have little control over the biggest short-term driver of the economy, external demand, that they are running out of time … Continue reading →

Taki Sushi: Affordable and Tasty Sushi Options Posted: 29 Aug 2012 07:29 PM PDT Date: Aug 30th 2012 10:21a.m. Contributed by: miss_ng_in_action

The Utopia Within: In Which Phaedrus and Wilbur Go Fishing Posted: 29 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT

Hong Kong wants more tourists from the Middle East Posted: 29 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT CNN's Ramy Inocencio checks out some of the measures Hong Kong is taking to make itself more friendly to travellers from the Middle East. [ more › ]

Today's Links: Angela Merkel, Mitt Romney, Ford Lincoln and the forgotten souls of the Hong Kong Cemetery Posted: 29 Aug 2012 04:00 PM PDT A few links to start off your day: Angela Merkel, Mitt Romney, Ford Lincoln and the forgotten souls of the Hong Kong Cemetery [ more › ]

Arctic Ocean ice levels reach record low levels, opening new sea routes Posted: 29 Aug 2012 01:45 PM PDT Great for the economy perhaps, but disastrous for the environment -- ice levels in the Arctic Ocean are expected to reach a record low level in the upcoming week. This will open up new sea routes for ships going between Europe and Asia, and a Chinese icebreaker has already become the first ship to cross the Arctic Ocean from China to Iceland. [ more › ]

The Most Patriotic Haircut, Featuring Tiananmen Posted: 29 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT Don't know how or why that Mao portrait and CCP symbol are there. But good on this barber. He probably could've used this client to break the monotony of giving crew cuts. [tt.mop, via Alicia]

Masked Men Try To Rob Shopping Mall After Hours, Are Pretty Dumb Posted: 29 Aug 2012 11:15 AM PDT This incident happened on May 8, but a video of it just appeared yesterday, so you're getting the story now. In a shopping mall in Chaoyang district, two masked men sought to steal some liquor and smokes. The fact that they were walking through an empty wall after opening hours attracted the attention of security guards, who confronted the two. For the next 10 minutes, a game of cat and mouse ensued in the six-story mall, as no security guard seemed able to execute a simple tackle. (One security guard actually throws a stool at a masked man to slow him down.) Finally, eventually, real cops arrive on the scene, and they convince the cornered criminals to drop their knives and turn themselves in. "I didn't think the mall would have so many security guards," one of the arrested men says. "I thought the mall would have five or six of them." Oh? AND THEN WHAT? Youku video for those in China after the jump.

Drink of the Day: TKO India Pale Ale @ Boxing Cat Brewery Posted: 29 Aug 2012 09:50 AM PDT Our personal favorite is the TKO India Pale Ale. Modeled on the original hoppy English beer, this microbrew by brewmaster Michael Jordan is hopped with a hefty blend of Simcoe and Cascade hops, which in lay terms, means it's one bitter mug of suds, and the perfect IPA for hop-heads like us. But this doesn't overshadow its floral, citrusy tinge, and we'd even say its flavor's comparable to some of the United States' finer IPAs like Dogfish Head 90 Minute or Harpoon. [ more › ]

Successful Sourcing From China. The PowerPoint Posted: 29 Aug 2012 09:09 AM PDT A number of people have e-mailed requesting that we post the PowerPoint from Dan's recent presentation on how to succeed in sourcing product from China.  Though I am a bit reluctant to do so, since much of the key points of my talk are not on the PowerPoint, I am caving into popular pressure and choosing love over respect.  So for those of you looking to source product from China and for those of you already sourcing product from China, and even for those of you merely doing business with China, I give you my PowerPoint:  SuccessfulChinaSourcing When I get more time, I will explain each section of this PowerPoint in detail. In the meantime, I suggest we make the comments section to this post a compendium of China sourcing tips, with as many people as possible setting forth what they think are the important considerations when sourcing from China.

Toronto body parts victim was a refugee, parents in Changle speak up Posted: 29 Aug 2012 06:16 AM PDT The pieces are finally coming together in the second body parts case that has rocked Canada and China this year. [ more › ]

Italy's "cancer town" in battle over polluting steel plant Posted: 29 Aug 2012 03:51 AM PDT Owners of the polluting Ilva steelworks are under house arrest, and shutdowns have been ordered – but the plant has defenders despite sky-high cancer rates. Tom Kington reports. chinadialogue reported on China's cancer villages back in 2011. See the full report "Shadow over rural China". In the neighbourhood over the fence from Italy's – and Europe's – biggest steelworks, Francesco Mastrocinque is poking his toe into the layer of black and red powder that covers every pavement and counting his friends who have died of cancer and respiratory illnesses. "It's about one a month, but people round here try not to think about it," said the shopkeeper, as he looked up at the chimney towering over Taranto's Tamburi quarter – a dark, dusty corner of Puglia, southern Italy, where residents are now forbidden by law from touching the soil. The Ilva steelworks, owned by Italy's Riva family, employs 12,000 and breathes life into the depressed local economy, but has long been accused of killing off local people by belching into the air a mix of minerals, metals and carcinogenic dioxins – 8.8% of the total dioxins emitted in Europe, according to a 2005 study. More recent government figures put the cancer death rate in the area at 15% above the national average and lung cancer deaths at 30% higher. Prosecutors say emissions have killed 400 people in 13 years. So few were surprised when a magistrate this month ordered the shutdown of the most polluting furnaces, described Ilva as "an environmental disaster" and placed members of the Riva family under house arrest, claiming they were "perfectly aware" of what they were dumping on Taranto. A former employee was also put under investigation for allegedly paying off a government inspector to tone down a report. But what happened next was less expected. Unions went on strike to protest against the magistrate's decision, blocking roads with banners. "Dioxin levels have been reduced and emissions can be cut further with new technology, without stopping production," said Rocco Palombella, secretary general of the UILM union. He has worked alongside the furnaces at Ilva for 36 years without, he says, falling ill. The government then backed the unions, with the environment minister, Corrado Clini, saying it would take eight months for the furnaces to cool down, during which time Chinese competition would reap rewards. Bizarrely, Italy's health minister warned that losing your job was detrimental to your health. Clini, who met local leaders in Taranto earlier this month, promised cash to clean up Ilva. He also said health studies do not reflect emission cuts already made. "Clini is lying about this since the magistrate's report is based on studies concluded this year," said Angelo Bonelli, leader of the Green party in Italy. "We know that mothers in Taranto today have three times the allowed level of dioxins in their milk." In a region known for baroque towns like Lecce and traditional Trullo cottages tucked into olive groves, Taranto is the exception. Its skyline is dominated by smoking chimneys and its old town is a half abandoned collection of bricked up and crumbling palazzi. Farmers were put out of business when grazing was banned within 20 kilometres of Ilva and almost 3,000 livestock with excessive dioxin levels were slaughtered. Mussel cultivation, for which Taranto is renowned, is struggling after beds were moved away from the steelworks. "There isn't a family in Tamburi without a sick or dead member thanks to Ilva," said Rosella Balestra, a local activist. "People ignored it for a long time but now, when I talk to them, tears often come. Slowly, a wall of self denial is coming down." Despite initial suspicion among mothers, Balestra began warning children playing in the piazzas not to touch flower beds after she discovered the council had done little to publicise its ban on contact with the polluted soil. Pollution is part of local life. Every day residents sweep their balconies clean of the red mineral dust blowing in from Ilva's mountainous deposits and the black soot from its chimneys, which regularly clog storm drains. "The magistrates launched their inquiry here when politicians failed to do their duty, and now the politicians are attacking the magistrates for doing theirs," said Balestra. According to Patrizio Mazza, a doctor, the dust is killing young and old. "I first noticed the increase when I treated a 10-year-old boy five years ago with throat cancer," he said. "It is no good reducing emissions now because any new emissions at all simply top up the saturated earth and water. The furnaces must be shut down." A growing protest movement, which mounted a 2,000-strong march in Taranto this month, has found a champion in Cataldo Ranieri, a 42-year-old Ilva employee who initially backed management against the magistrates, blocking a road in protest in July. "A man came up to me that day and said, 'My wife needs to get through to do her chemotherapy.' That changed my life." Mazza said rates of tumours among Ilva staff who were campaigning to keep the plant open was 10 times higher than the national average. "Workers there just wanted to think about their work, not illness," said Vincenzo Pignatelli, 60, who worked near the furnaces for 29 years and survived leukaemia after retiring in 2002. "Four colleagues in my group of about 100 died of leukaemia and I would see so many former colleagues during my trips to hospital it was like a works reunion." Bonelli shrugged off the government's view that the local – and national – economy would suffer if Ilva closed its most polluting furnaces, saying: "Bilbao and Pittsburgh managed it thanks to investment, why not Taranto?" In Tamburi, Francesco Mastrocinque watched as children kicked a football around on a dusty patch of earth, flouting the ban. "The red mineral powder glitters in the gutters, but the black soot feels like fine sand when it gets into your mouth," he said. "Ilva have paid for improvements in the neighbourhood, like putting fountains in the cemetery, but they didn't clean the tombstones, which are slowly turning black and red." http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Copyright © Guardian News and Media Limited 2012  Homepage image by Gin Fizz

Liu Xiaobo rumored to be on medical parole... again Posted: 29 Aug 2012 03:25 AM PDT Online rumors now swirling online have it that Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned dissident and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been allowed medical parole and will be freed. [ more › ]

Mid-Week Links: Chinese seduction of Western businessmen, Shenhua FC’s hot streak, and translation, like love, is a slow simmer Posted: 29 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT Kevin Durant with the Terracotta Warriors, posted on @KDTrey5, via @blackChinahand; more pics of his visit to Shanghai and Xi'an via Beyond the Buzzer. First Floor might have a good Monday food deal, but Tuesday's all about half-price food night at Brussels. (Bear with me, people, I'm warming up for Restaurant Week.) Eat well over links. Crazy. "Just after 10 am yesterday morning, when the company's Party leadership committee was having a meeting on the sixth floor of a company building, a retired former female employee of the company, Shi Mou (石某), suddenly burst into the room and started spilling gasoline all over the room and igniting it. In the ensuing fire, three people were burnt to death and four were injured." [Danwei] On Han Han's relative obscurity outside China. "One reason his global fame might trail that of other Chinese figures could be that nothing he has done has garnered international headlines of the sort that came with Ai Weiwei's arrest, Liu Xiaobo's Nobel prize, and Chen Guangcheng's escape. It's one thing for an individual to be profiled in magazines, and quite another for him or her to do something that lands them on the front page or the CNN news ticker, displayed on muted televisions at airports and in gyms. And there is something about the narrative of the brave, rebellious dissident that appeals to Western audiences in a way that an inside-the-system blogger might not." [Jeffrey Wasserstrom, The Atlantic] How soon until this program is canceled? Then again, 电视问政 (Ask a Politician on TV) could be revolutionary. "The program is a joint production of Wuhan TV station (武汉广播电视总台) and an office under the city government that's responsible for finding solutions to every day problems (治庸问责办公室). The show is broadcast live and this season it's aimed at 'Resolving Wuhan's Ten Most Pressing Issues.' // During last year's season, members from the city's Communist Party Standing Committee and deputy mayors also appeared on the show. // The program has aroused heated public debate in Wuhan and around the nation. The EO has learned from the local Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC that they're planning to make the program a regular feature that will allow ordinary people to track the performance of government. // 'The TV program is just one thing,' said Che Yangao (车延高), member of the local Standing Committee of the CPC and secretary of the local Commission for Discipline Inspection. 'From this one point we want to make a larger impact.'" [The Economic Observer] "Chinese officials are extremely good at seducing Western businessmen with friendly gestures and generous promises." "One of the most glaring, if unremarked, oddities concerning China nowadays is how perceptions of its leaders diverge depending on the observer. In the eyes of the Chinese public, government officials are venal, incompetent, and interested solely in getting lucrative appointments. But Western executives invariably describe Chinese officials as smart, decisive, knowledgeable, and far-sighted – roughly the same adjectives that they once used to describe Bo Xilai, the disgraced Communist Party boss of Chongqing, before he was purged. // …A third reason why Western businessmen get China wrong is that their admiration of the Chinese government is a reflection of their frustrations with their own governments. They have grown impatient with the messiness of the democratic process, stifling regulations, high taxes, and media scrutiny." [Project Syndicate] The Atlantic's Helen Gao on learning English. "At the discussion table in my college English seminar, or in the crowd of a Friday night happy hour, the air suddenly feels thicker, my tongue heavier. I find myself haunted by an uneasiness I remember from my first English lesson, an uneasiness, I've found out by talking to others, shared by many advanced foreign language speakers." [Tea Leaf Nation] It's because of this, isn't it? "Stephen Shen, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) minister [of Taiwan], said that sitting on the toilet like women do creates a cleaner environment. // This has generated a lot of online debate, says the BBC's Cindy Sui. // Officials are to ask local governments this week to put up notices in public places advising men to sit." [BBC] Yao Ming calls for more sports programs in schools. "'The development of school sports activities in China remains small. Sports still lag far behind studies in terms of importance in student's school lives… // Sports should play a much bigger role in school life for kids than it does now. By taking part in sporting activities, kids can be more confident and happier.'" [China Daily] Bummer, no sex at PKU. "Peking University (PKU) said Tuesday that an internal investigation has so far uncovered no evidence to support the allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior between faculty members and staff at a restaurant near the campus. // However, some social commentators have said that for the sake of the university's image, it may have been better to have had an independent investigation." [Global Times] Former top official under investigation flees with 200 million yuan? "Wang Guoqiang, who was party secretary of Fengcheng city in Liaoning province, left for the United States in April with his wife, the People's Daily said. // Local officials said Mr Wang, who was being investigated for corruption, had been removed from his post, it said." [BBC] Don't look now, but Shanghai Shenhua haven't lost in the last seven matches. "Two months into the second phase of the Shanghai Shenhua revolution, with Didier Drogba freshly installed as the team's new alpha male, the team have gone unbeaten over seven games. It's all very unusual for the average supporter in the blue half of Shanghai- before this recent run of form began, Shenhua had just lost to Qingdao Jonoon and were looking like they were being sucked into a legitimate fight to stay out the relegation spots." [Andrew Crawford, A Football Report] From last week, but a fantastic interview. "Jeffrey Wasserstrom interviews Jonathan Campbell: Punk and Protest in China and Russia." [Los Angeles Review of Books] Han Han and Ai Weiwei are notable mostly for being the best things that ever happened to journalists who don't speak Chinese. — Brendan O'Kane (@bokane) August 29, 2012 Pairs of nuts interlude: Finally… Congratulations are in order as this blog approaches its 10-year anniversary: [Wangjianshuo] We haven't had art in a while, so apologies. Here's "Chinese art academies' best of graduations 2012," featuring CAFA. [Drawing Beijing] Love in the Time of Cholera finally hits Beijing bookstores with first authorized Chinese translation. [Global Times] Official caught smiling at deadly bus crash. [Ministry of Tofu] A review of the Beijinger's New Music Showcase. [Beijing Daze] Finally, finally… Largest sofa in the world, in Shanghai [Photo/Asianewsphoto], via China Daily

You’ll Click This Because There Are A Lot Of Women In Bikinis Posted: 29 Aug 2012 01:05 AM PDT This is so lame. Slightly less lame is the fact that China now holds the Guinness World Record for largest bikini parade. On August 19 in Huluadao, Liaoning province, this happened: That's 1,200 people walking 1.8 kilometers in an hour and 30 minutes, according to China News.

DVD Review: Guan Hu’s Refreshing Black Comedy "Design of Death" Posted: 29 Aug 2012 12:45 AM PDT Date: Aug 29th 2012 3:25p.m. Contributed by: joe_schaefer Design of Death (杀生), in which writer / director Guan Hu has ignored the genre templates of the West and instead created something absurd, audacious and ver

Myth Busters: Debunking Misconceptions About Chefs Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:43 PM PDT Date: Aug 29th 2012 2:20p.m. Contributed by: chefhu

Arrests made in attack on Japan ambassador's car as both sides seek to ease tensions Posted: 29 Aug 2012 12:21 AM PDT China has arrested a number of suspects who ripped off the Japanese flag in a recent attack in Beijing on a car carrying Japan's ambassador Uichiro Niwa, according to Nikkei. [ more › ]

The 2012 Nike Festival of Sport Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:06 PM PDT Date: Aug 28th 2012 1:06p.m. Contributed by: cityweekend_sh

Director Song Zude on China's loneliness and its fake friends Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:00 PM PDT China is becoming more and more lonely! With its fake statistics and its fake prosperity, it's parading itself in front of a world that now sees it as a threat and an enemy. We may reluctantly accept our neighbour North Korea as a friend, but they're not true friends and may fall out anytime. The friends that we bought with money in Africa are more like parasites -- withhold your financial support from them and they'll break their diplomatic ties with you. China is so lonely because of the corruption of some of its officials, and the backwardness of the political system that has left it incompatible with the international core values of democracy. If we don't start embarking on political reform now, it will all be too late. [ more › ]

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