Blogs » Society » Foxconn's Taiyuan plant back up after brawl

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• Foxconn's Taiyuan plant back up after brawl
• Party of the Week: Max Tundra at The Shelter
• Global Times Olympics Journalist Tests Positive For Plagiarism
• Interview: Pet Consipracy
• South Korea Weighs In On The Diaoyutai Dispute: James Jong-soo
• Chinese Food Combinations to Avoid at Chinese Banquets
• Resumption Of China’s Nuclear Power Program Gets Closer
• Bringing Some Sunshine To China’s Solar Power Industry
• Watch: Uncomfortable music video by Zhang Muyi and his 12-year-old 'girlfriend' Akama Miki
• Presented By:
• Midweek Music Preview: Sep 26 - Oct 2
• Beware Of The Chemical-Water-Spraying Trucks (Of Death)
• Photo of the Day: Moganshan
• Hurdler Liu Xiang made fun of in ad for sexual dysfunction
• Today's Links: Malcolm Fraser, Hugo Chavez, aircraft carriers and Indian wargames
• Claim by daughter of Buddhist abbot for slice of 4 million RMB inheritance denied
• Chinese Park Exercises Cultivate The Mind, Body, And Soul
• Tibetan exiles to discuss self-immolations in most depressing meeting ever
• Civil Servant Called Out For Beating China Mobile Saleswoman
• Chinese consumers more emotional than previous generations

Foxconn's Taiyuan plant back up after brawl Posted: 25 Sep 2012 09:00 PM PDT Foxconn's Taiyuan plant resumed production Tuesday after a brawl by workers highlighted tensions that labor groups say were worsened by the pressure of a new iPhone launch. [AP] [ more › ]

Party of the Week: Max Tundra at The Shelter Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:55 PM PDT Date: Sep 26th 2012 10:51a.m. Contributed by: katvelayo

Global Times Olympics Journalist Tests Positive For Plagiarism Posted: 25 Sep 2012 08:14 PM PDT By Beijing Cream Let's talk about journalism and the Olympics. No, not the complete indifference given to China's 96 Paralympics gold medals, but a more familiar problem: plagiarism. A former senior journalist at the Global Times is probably still wondering what the hell hit her, after being caught lifting material and inventing quotes – including a fake interview with London mayor Boris Johnson – during last month's Games. The sorry saga began with the decision to send GT staffer Zhao Ran – who was in charge of the paper's "sports desk" – to London to cover the Olympics exclusively for the paper. Despite once having actual, English-speaking (and eager) Londoners on their Beijing staff, as well as at least one Chinese-British freelancer on hand in the British capital, it was felt that Zhao's qualifications – she's in her mid-20s and spent two years studying something in the UK – made her ideal for the job. And lo, the decision duly backfired in embarrassing fashion. On July 27, Tania Branigan of the Guardian filed this: Chinese sports officials have played down their medal chances in London, despite topping the table at the last Games in Beijing. China is fielding a streamlined London team with 396 athletes, including 29 gold medallists from the Beijing Games in 2008. The 171 men and 225 women are to compete in 212 disciplines in 23 sports. "It won't be a Beijing do-over for us," said Xiao Tian, the deputy chef de mission of the Chinese Olympic delegation. "We face unprecedented difficulties in catching up with the gold haul of Beijing without home advantage." Later the same day, Zhao Ran wrote (by a loose definition of the word, but good enough for GT to edit, post and, last we saw, still have on its website): China's sports officials downplayed expectations of Team China's performance at the upcoming London Olympic Games, as the country's sports fan worry China might not be able to again lead the gold medal tally. China is fielding a streamlined London team with 396 athletes, including 29 gold medalists from the Beijing Games in 2008. The 171 men and 225 women are to compete in 212 disciplines in 23 sports. "It won't be a Beijing do-over for us. We face unprecedented difficulties in catching up with the gold haul of Beijing without home advantage," Xiao Tian, deputy chef de mission of the Chinese Olympic delegation, told a press briefing. The article included an interview with a "sports reporter from The Salt Lake Tribune" and another reporter called simply "Kamesh," who was said to work at The Hindu. (Did she mean Ananth Krishnan? Who knows.) In another article from August 5  – entitled, ironically enough, "Games of Errors" – Zhao tackled a variety of organizational mistakes that supposedly marred the early stages of the Games, and interviewed, for some reason, "25-year-old Indian undergraduate student Jaime Gornsztejn." The decidedly non-Asian sounding name is shared by a middle-aged financier living in London. In other articles such as "Game Time" – which, if you search for it using the words  "Zhao Ran" on the GT website, now brings up a list of recent unrelated news articles but can still actually be found here – Zhao took an alternative approach to basic details like facts and quotes. Here, for example, is Joseph Bailey, a 31-year-old "Internet novelist" who says of the Games: "I get up, have breakfast and chat with friends online as usual. The only difference for me is that I can collect more stories for my writing… I can handle the inconvenience; everything will be back on track after three weeks." Indeed! But readers eager to see the fruits of Bailey's Olympics anecdote-gathering may have to wait a little longer. Or a lot longer. For, so far as anyone knows, "Joseph Bailey" does not exist — try googling this "Internet writer." Other dubious interviews include a supermarket employee called "David Beard" and "Susan Whipple," the latter a London resident who felt moved to remark, "Although we don't have tickets to the events, we do feel it's more interesting to watch the games in London to feel the Games in the air." None of this may have been queried had not Zhao upped the stakes by "speaking" to idiosyncratic London mayor Boris Johnson. "The Tube has performed pretty well so far, buses are running more or less to time and people are hospitable," Johnson told the Global Times. The same remarks appear word for word in a column Johnson wrote for The Telegraph on July 29. In the GT article, Zhao claimed that Johnson made the comments "during an exclusive interview" – so exclusive, in fact, that it appears even Johnson himself was not involved. The bumbling Johnson is famous for being a likeable embodiment of Colonel Blimp, and has quite a style that's distinctive for its bumbling pomp. Therefore, in the raw draft of the GT article that went to the copyeditor's desk, it seemed a somewhat off-form Johnson saying things such as, "It is true that some people want to make a killing during the Games and we do receive a few criminal reports for steal and robber, but that's normal and during the past four years, the criminal rate was declined continuously." Not exactly Boris's voice. But this partly mangled phrase was still polished and then published: "It's true that there have been a few cases of theft, but that's normal," said Johnson. "The crime rate has actually dropped significantly over the last four years," he noted. Though hardly a scandal to the GT management, the veil was finally lifted after the reporter submitted another a piece taken almost entirely from an article in the London Evening Standard about, of all things, Olympic pin collecting, albeit with the bits from the Evening Standard piece placed – in quotation marks – in the mouths of supposed "interviewees," including "Belgian collector Jamie McGill." An eagle-eyed foreign editor spotted the haphazard veering between language styles, which led to a scouring of Zhou's previous pieces. After a certain amount of hemming and hawing – the original plan was to hit her with a suspension of salary for one month – the Global Times editors did the right thing and canned Zhou, but not before pinning the offending pieces to a board in the office, like a medieval thief hung in a gibbet. (We sent an email last night to GT's "officer for communications and cooperation" for comment and will update if we receive a reply.) Her apparent protests that "I expected foreign editors to improve my pieces" cut little ice with a pissed-off management (another reporter was fined at the same time for ripping off large chunks of an Economic Observer piece without due acknowledgement; in regards to that incident, GT previously emailed us, "The Global Times takes plagiarism in any form very seriously. Every editorial staff member has been informed on many different occasions of our citation rules against plagiarism"). As mentioned, plagiarism is as rife in Chinese papers as op-eds by wingnut military academics, mostly thanks to the complete lack of attention given to the first deadly sin of nonfiction writing at university, where even senior professors think nothing of putting together papers stolen from colleagues or compiled by teams of graduate students from Wikipedia and Google Translate. This isn't the first time GT has had plagiarism problems, either; one US "commentator" was discovered to be translating articles from US papers into Chinese, sending them to the paper, and then having them translated back into English. That's one of the chief recourses of Chinese journalists with a little foreign-language savvy, since it avoids the easy Google search that's caught so many other plagiarists. Still, one supposes it's a good thing that the management is, at last, taking it seriously and adopting a "zero-tolerance" policy – though don't expect a coherent and cohesive strategy for eliminating plagiarism to emerge anytime soon.

Interview: Pet Consipracy Posted: 25 Sep 2012 08:00 PM PDT Pet Conspiracy (宠物同谋 Chongwu Tongmou) returns to Shanghai this week, this time to perform their first solo show at MAO Livehouse on Friday. The Beijing-based band, which first jumped on the Chinese electro scene in 2007, has become internationally recognized -- it was named MTV Asia's Band of the Month in 2009 and Best Electro Band in China in 2010. They're also known for putting on some pretty wild live acts, which in the past have included scenographies, brilliant visuals, flamboyant theatrical affairs and french kisses. [ more › ]

South Korea Weighs In On The Diaoyutai Dispute: James Jong-soo Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:46 PM PDT James Jong-soo Lee My good friend, James Jong-soo Lee–Harvard PhD, policy expert, and investment banker–has written an op-ed in The Korea Herald, 'Korea's Common Stance On History.' In it, he introduces the other claimants to the Diaoyutai (Senkaku) Islands dispute, or should I say the Dokdo Islands, North and South Korea. But, he places this in the larger Korean context. He contends: All Koreans in both halves of the Korean peninsula agree on the following: Dokdo is Korean territory; Japan's denial of and refusal to apologize for its aggression against Korea, including the "comfort women" (more correctly, "sex slaves") issue, is unacceptable; and China's effort to paint Goguryo [Koryo Dynasty 918-1392] as a Chinese kingdom is also unacceptable. The absolute Korean consensus on the above is the one constant that holds in both halves of the Korean peninsula regardless of changes in regime, differences in politics, ideology, religion or socioeconomic background. However, the two Koreas have failed to translate this consensus into an opportunity to fight together in the international arena for their common Korean national interest. This failure has meant the loss of a golden opportunity to build better inter-Korean relations.  Focusing just on the Dokdo Islands, he suggests: The current adverse state of inter-Korean relations needs a breakthrough, and a breakthrough is more likely if it is in an area where both Koreas can cooperate in a positive-sum game without a loss of face or detriment to each other's interests. The two Koreas can start by forming a joint commission to share their respective expertise on these issues and form a common front. As the two sides build trust and mutual understanding on these issues which unite all Koreans, they can move on to build trust on other issues such as economic cooperation and national security. With inter-Korean relations founded on a solid bedrock of mutual trust and consensus on these core Korean national interests, inter-Korean relations are more likely to endure the ups and downs caused by shifting political, economic and national security considerations. [paragraph mine] Failure to seize this means that: It is about time that visionary leaders in East Asia stepped forward with calls for a "common East Asian home" that overcomes the current trends towards competitive nationalism and provides for regional peace and prosperity. Such a "common East Asian home" is not possible with a divided Korean peninsula that fuels inter-Korean rivalry and invites Great Power intervention. It seems clear that a foundation for a common East Asian home is a "common Korean home." It is high time that visionary leaders in both halves of the Korean peninsula stepped forward with calls for a "common Korean home" that ensures Korea's territorial integrity and provides for Korea's peaceful reunification. For that, we will have to wait at least until the finish of the South Korean presidential election to find out if such a leader will emerge.

Chinese Food Combinations to Avoid at Chinese Banquets Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:38 PM PDT Date: Sep 26th 2012 10:26a.m. Contributed by: chefhu

Resumption Of China’s Nuclear Power Program Gets Closer Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:28 PM PDT The Shanghai Securities News reports that new nuclear power safety regulations are about to be published, opening the door to a formal resumption of China's reactor building program. A halt to construction and a review of the country's ambitious nuclear … Continue reading →

Bringing Some Sunshine To China’s Solar Power Industry Posted: 25 Sep 2012 06:58 PM PDT The global solar industry is going through tough times. Excess capacity has caused solar-panel prices to plummet. Chinese solar-panel manufacturers face double trouble because their exports are also under anti-dumping investigations in the EU and the U.S. So Beijing is … Continue reading →

Watch: Uncomfortable music video by Zhang Muyi and his 12-year-old 'girlfriend' Akama Miki Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:00 PM PDT The romance of the century, between 24-year-old Chinese popstar and Zhang Muyi and 12-year-old Canadian model Akama Miki, is all over the news today both inside China and out, after the two publicly courted each other on Weibo. Many Western media outlets tried to frame this Chinese-version of Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchison, as something creepy, rather than the beautiful, wholesome relationship it is that is definitely not someone covering up their own sexuality by choosing a girlfriend who people can never expect him to be physical towards. [ more › ]

Presented By: Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:00 PM PDT

Midweek Music Preview: Sep 26 - Oct 2 Posted: 25 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT Midweek Music Preview is a rundown of all the events happening on stages across Shanghai. On the docket this week: German electro superstars Booka Shade take over MUSE Mixing Room that has totally nothing to do with the ubiquitious nightclub chain, the Russian State Ballet performs the alltime classic Swan Lake, and MAO Livehouse Shanghai already turns 3! And with all the great acts on stage, make sure you don't miss out The Smith Street Band from Australia on Monday night next week! And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. [ more › ]

Beware Of The Chemical-Water-Spraying Trucks (Of Death) Posted: 25 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT By The Good Doctor I still remember my first encounter with one of these trucks of death. I was walking near Xinjiekou when everybody suddenly scrambled into the nearest shop. I couldn't figure out what was happening until I saw what looked like a firetruck watering the trees. Everyone else knew what I was about to learn: whatever chemical they were spraying, it doesn't discriminate between mosquito and man. The fact that they are still using these truck more than a decade later baffles me. It certainly hasn't stopped me from waking up several nights a week during the summer with mosquito bites. My only conclusion is (warning: unsubstantiated opinion coming up) the city maintains these outdated public works in order to keep people employed. It's probably the same reason they water the streets during a rainstorm. Youku video for those in China after the jump.

Photo of the Day: Moganshan Posted: 25 Sep 2012 05:00 PM PDT Want to see your picture here? Share your photos with us on Instagram and Flickr using the tag #shanghaiist! [ more › ]

Hurdler Liu Xiang made fun of in ad for sexual dysfunction Posted: 25 Sep 2012 03:01 PM PDT Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, the nation's sports darling after snatching a gold medal in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, has become the target of ridicule and a protagonist of a cautionary tale in an advertisement for premature ejaculation treatment. The photo of this advertisement in print has been viral on Chinese social media, including Sina Weibo, a microblogging service that boasts 250 million users. In the advertisement, a dejected Liu Xiang can be seen sitting on the track inside London Bowl, the main venue for the 2012 London Games, apparently suffering from an injured leg. The ad screams in bold, large fonts, "He fell right after the start! PE, a pain that men are too embarrassed to talk about!" A tiny line of lettering under the loud statement says, "Huifen European-style NT penile dorsal nerves minimally invasive surgery. Within only a quarter of an hour, your sex life can be prolonged 15 minutes." Liu Xiang tumbled over the first hurdle back in August in the men's 110 m final in London, and only finished the race by hobbling on one leg. In 2008, he withdrew from the final at the last moment in Beijing Olympics, citing concerns over the aggravation of his injury. His two Olympic appearances sans any medal have become a national letdown, leading to speculations that his fall was staged as a graceful exit for a competition he could not win without losing commercial endorsements and sponsorships. Photograph: Daniel Ochoa De Olza/AP Even though the sex ad is secondary to none in its cheesiness, which has clearly violated some law, it is not the first time Liu Xiang is teased about his failure and fall. Ever since the London Games, several property developers in China ran ads in newspapers that draw some interesting and yet far-fetched analogy between Liu Xiang and China's property market bubble. "Not until this Olympic Games will you realize that, your body and the home prices were at their best in the '08." "Not buying a home when it's still cheap, Is like quitting at the height of your career." "Buying a home should be done at one 'stride'. Other wise, you might get 'really hurt'." Last but not least, a cautionary banner in Harbin, northeast China, which warns people not to cross over the fence to the other side of the street, was spot-on on the Liu Xiang incident. The Weibo users were all cheering the witty slogan. "Being Liu Xiang is not easy! Hurdling makes (you) injury-prone!"

Today's Links: Malcolm Fraser, Hugo Chavez, aircraft carriers and Indian wargames Posted: 25 Sep 2012 04:00 PM PDT A few links to start off your day: Malcolm Fraser, Hugo Chavez, aircraft carriers and Indian wargames [ more › ]

Claim by daughter of Buddhist abbot for slice of 4 million RMB inheritance denied Posted: 25 Sep 2012 03:00 PM PDT A Yunnan court has rejected a woman's claim to over 4 million RMB left by her late father, a former Buddhist monk and abbot, to his former temple. The court ruled that the money was meant as a donation to Lingzhao Temple, and should not be given to the daughter. [ more › ]

Chinese Park Exercises Cultivate The Mind, Body, And Soul Posted: 25 Sep 2012 02:00 PM PDT Ian Bennett, who runs the travel mini-video-series website Follow the Foot, caught some Chinese people engaged in very interesting park exercises not long ago, but instead of doing what most of us would — watch from afar — he hopped in. This enviable video is the result, with music by The Careless Lovers – "Blue Turning Grey Over You." Our Chinese Parks series continues. Let us know if you'd like to contribute. Youku video of the above for those in China after the jump.

Tibetan exiles to discuss self-immolations in most depressing meeting ever Posted: 25 Sep 2012 12:30 PM PDT Tibetan exiles from around the world have flocked to India to attend the second Special General Meeting of Tibetans, which will focus on the recent dramatic increase in self-immolations by pro-Tibetan-independence activists across China. As many as 51 Tibetans, mostly Buddhist monks and nuns, have set themselves on fire since February 2009. [ more › ]

Civil Servant Called Out For Beating China Mobile Saleswoman Posted: 25 Sep 2012 11:23 AM PDT In another era, Wang Xiaolei would be just another overweight public official in Zhengzhou, Henan province. But in the era of ubiquitous surveillance cameras, he's a publicly outed asshole, thanks to one of his recent actions being caught on tape: he's seen hurling a trash can at the female manager of a China Mobile Store, then further assaulting her and throwing her on the ground. We clearly see him going back and trying to pick up the trash can, presumably to beat her some more, but he's thankfully restrained by his wife, who happens to also work at the store. The dispute allegedly began when the manager, Wang Ke, refused to grant Wang Xiaolei's wife time off. The incident made it to Sina Weibo (of course), where Wang was identified as a municipal government employee and is suspected of being the son of another official. We've seen cases of this before — remember the "My father runs the Public Security Bureau" guy, and this official who beats up a woman? While Wang's status has yet to be confirmed (if he's a hotshot, why would his wife be a receptionist at China Mobile?), netizens are none too happy nonetheless. "Can you still call this person a person? No matter how wrong the receptionist is, you shouldn't raise a hand, especially against a woman who doesn't strike back," says @寂寞泡泡鱼. "This type of person absolutely deserves severe punishment," says @禾子-xg, followed by four angry emoticons. Implication, however unspoken: punishment rarely comes to those who deserve it most. Youku video for those in China after the jump. (H/T Alicia)

Chinese consumers more emotional than previous generations Posted: 25 Sep 2012 10:15 AM PDT China's emerging consumer class is more emotional than any other generation of shoppers, and marketers must shift standards to meet the needs of this more self-indulgent, individualistic, and brand-concious Chinese consumer class, according to consulting firm McKinsey. [ more › ]

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