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Blogs » Society » Shanghai trader made $510 million bet on cotton futures |
- Shanghai trader made $510 million bet on cotton futures
- This Week in Shanghai Sports
- Doing The Splits Is The New Planking, And Even Xinhua’s Getting Into It
- The British Bobby: Best Police Brand In The World
- Photos: Classical garden style Fuzhou Starbucks
- Noodle Chat: A Perfect Spot for Beers and Noodles
- The Tibetan Buddhist Nazi 'Iron Man' from space
- An evening at the Beijing Bookworm
- Frame by frame, Chinese anime blatantly plagiarizes Japan’s Hikarian: Great Railroad Protector
- Maoist professor slaps anti-Mao 80-year-old during protests
- I can't stop looking at this cute Chinese dog bathing in a bucket
- China, Japan, South Korea Free Trade Talks Suspended
- Photo of the Day: Companions
- ‘Man in Chongqing Hits Woman on Motorcycle with Car Then Gets Out and Slaps Her Saying “I’m rich!”‘: Haohao
- Today's Links: Ai Weiwei, Baosteel, Taobao and the Asian budget airline industry
- Kidnapping Attempt In Broad Daylight Foiled In Wuhan
- Weekendist: Sep 28 - 30 - Perverts, Spelling Champions and How to Die in a Motel
- Everything under heaven is in chaos: China’s digital publishing market
- Most Chinese women don’t know how to use contraceptives
- Shanghai skyline turns green for Angry Birds spin-off
| Shanghai trader made $510 million bet on cotton futures Posted: 27 Sep 2012 09:00 PM PDT  American regulators have instituted a landmark fine against a small, Shanghai-based firm called Sheenson Investments Ltd and its founder Weidong Ge for the firms involvement in rampant speculation on soybean oil and cotton futures. [ more › ]     |
| Posted: 27 Sep 2012 08:11 PM PDT |
| Doing The Splits Is The New Planking, And Even Xinhua’s Getting Into It Posted: 27 Sep 2012 08:21 PM PDT
It's more than likely that Xinhua has unintentionally joined the "splits" craze that's sweeping across Chinese social media. The picture above is from its latest slideshow, "Funny pictures, happy life." We don't really expect Xinhua to be at the vanguard of trends, so it's probably just a funny picture, happy coincidence. This girl though — this girl is definitely at the vanguard:
That's from the Sina Weibo account of one @-宋瑶. In case you missed it, the story goes that on Sina, the following girl posted a picture of herself doing somewhat perfect splits in her dorm room:
And now everyone is doing it, including these hapless fellas:
Dudes. Leave it to the experts.
So what do you think, readers? Can you beat em? (H/T Reddit) |
| The British Bobby: Best Police Brand In The World Posted: 27 Sep 2012 08:30 AM PDT
Photos: Ray Ally The killing last week of two young women police constables has reignited the question of whether British police should be armed. The officers were responding to what they thought was a routine low risk burglary callout, when they were ambushed in a hail of bullets and grenade attack. It's a tragic story, but in that situation it's unlikely that being armed would of saved their lives, as the surprise attack was over in seconds. The British police have arguably the best reputation of any police force around the world. One of the cornerstones of its strong brand image is the fact they are not armed. They are one of the few forces where regular police do not carry guns. Interestingly, one of the others are the police here in China. Opinion is divided in the UK, but the majority of the general public and the police forces still agree that the "British bobby" should not be armed. Sir Peter Fahy the police chief of Manchester, where the two constables were shot, said his force still believed "passionately" that police should not be armed and stated:
The main reasons for not arming police are historical and cultural, dating back to the establishment of the Metropolitan police in 1829. It was the world's first police force set up by the conservative home secretary, Sir Robert Peel. They were dressed in blue uniforms and unarmed except for a wooden truncheon, to differentiate them from the regular army. At that time the army was used to quell public protests and street demonstrations often with violent and bloody means. So people were initially suspect of the police, but their primary role was the protection of the public, not as an instrument of the state. Their guiding principle of "policing by consent" continues to day, which is why people in the UK generally hold the police in high regards. Peel believed the key to effective policing was to be visible, having officers walking the streets and getting out into communities. Building relationships with the public through mutual trust, respect and co-operation. This he stated was the foundation of good policing, focusing on the their basic mission of "preventing crime and disorder". He famously quoted:
While the unarmed bobby on the beat is still relevant today as it was in the 1800s. There is also a need for highly trained specialist armed police. These officers are deployed at high-risk security venues like airports and events that could be targeted by terrorists. They also respond to crime incidents where suspects are thought to be armed and dangerous.
At the recent Olympics games in London I witnessed the two different types of police on duty; the regular bobby and the SCO19 specialist firearms officers. Despite the high professionalism required for each role, they still very approachable and friendly, which is the hallmark of British police. In today's modern world, it may seem old fashioned, quaint or even a weakness that our police do not carry guns. However, carrying a gun does not create a better policeman or make our communities a safer place to live. I believe because the British bobby's is unarmed is their greatest strength, which makes them the envy of other countries and the best police brand in the world. |
| Photos: Classical garden style Fuzhou Starbucks Posted: 27 Sep 2012 08:00 PM PDT           |
| Noodle Chat: A Perfect Spot for Beers and Noodles Posted: 27 Sep 2012 07:42 PM PDT |
| The Tibetan Buddhist Nazi 'Iron Man' from space Posted: 27 Sep 2012 07:00 PM PDT |
| An evening at the Beijing Bookworm Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Frame by frame, Chinese anime blatantly plagiarizes Japan’s Hikarian: Great Railroad Protector Posted: 27 Sep 2012 05:36 PM PDT It may be offensive to review how China lags far behind and yet is so eager to imitate Japan at a time when anti-Japanese sentiments have swept China, but a video that compares scenes of the Japanese anime "Hikarian: Great Railroad Protector" with a Chinese cartoon called "高铁侠", which literally means 'High-speed Train Hero', can surely make most viewers laugh and may help diffuse the tension. Any one that see clips of the two anime put side by side may agree that the two look strikingly similar, and even the plot and the characters are exactly the same, except that the Chinese knockoff, produced in 2010, is so much coarser than the Japanese original released in 1996. Video: Below: screencaps of the side-by-side comparison. Top left: China's High Speed Train Hero; Bottom right: Japan's Hikarian.
This is another blatant copy of foreign works on screen. In January, 2010, Ministry of Tofu broke to the English-speaking world the news of state broadcaster China Central Television passing off scenes from Tom Cruise's Top Gun in its coverage of a military drill. A former employee of Feifan, the Chinese animation company that stole the idea from Hikarian, ranted about the absurd plagiarism in his blog. According to him, government subsidies are the main driver of the catch-as-catch-can animation industry that often produces unoriginal and unappealing works. "In China, an animation production company with an annual output of 2,000 minutes (of works) can receive a subsidy of 1,000 yuan (US$150) per minute. The bigger the annual output, the higher per-minute subsidy you receive," he wrote in the post. "In 2011, Feifan produced 10,000 minutes of animated works," he went on with his tirade, "Anyone that has worked in the industry knows how to make sense of it. An annual output of more than 10,000 minutes means churning out 40 episodes of 20-minute-long anime series every month. To put that into perspective, if Feifan were a Japanese company, it could undertake all new episodes in the entire country… with no pressure. "In this case, no matter how many unpaid interns Feifan has or how low the salary of a full-time employee is, it cannot possibly meet the requirement, so how did they tackle this problem? Our genius boss came up with a great idea: he finds old classics and transfer them directly into 3D works shot-for-shot. This is how he created the legend." |
| Maoist professor slaps anti-Mao 80-year-old during protests Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT  Bai Yansong (白岩松), a prominent CCTV presenter has criticized Maoist professor, Han Deqiang (韩德强), for slapping an 80-year-old man who he deemed to be being "anti-Mao" during last week's anti-Japan demonstrations, calling the professor a "traitor." [ more › ] |
| I can't stop looking at this cute Chinese dog bathing in a bucket Posted: 27 Sep 2012 05:00 PM PDT  Weibo user @missfrenchie's feed is a catalogue of reasons why, deep down, dogs must hate humans: from dressing them up as a weird rabbit-baby-dog crossover, to trying to feed them mooncakes (feeding mooncakes to humans is cruel enough). [ more › ] |
| China, Japan, South Korea Free Trade Talks Suspended Posted: 27 Sep 2012 04:06 PM PDT The maritime sovereignty dispute between China and Japan has derailed discussions about creating a free-trade zone involving the world's second and third largest economies plus South Korea. Chen Yulu, a People's Bank of China advisor, broke the news at a … Continue reading →  |
| Posted: 27 Sep 2012 03:30 PM PDT  Want to see your picture here? Share your photos with us on Instagram and Flickr using the tag #shanghaiist! [ more › ] |
| Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:51 PM PDT I have been scanning reports here for today's CHINA Debate post. Plenty of analyses and news, such 'Jiang Zemin, the old boss, wants to become the new boss,' and 'Chinese Scientist Finds No Evidence of Cyanide Poisoning in [Gu Kailai] Trial Testimony.' Ho hum. But, then I noticed 'Man in Chongqing Hits Woman on Motorcycle with Car Then Gets Out and Slaps Her Saying "I'm rich!" on Haohao. At first, I thought, what else is new? But, I had a read, and, well, my heart was warmed. Here's a part: A man in Chongqing ran over a female motorcyclist in his sedan recently, and then proceeded to slap her while boasting about his wealth, according to an account of the incident online and in interviews with witnesses. An angry crowd gathered and flipped over his car. [emphasis mine]  'Police stand in front of a car that was turned over by an angry crowd in Chongqing. The driver slapped a woman he had just knocked of [sic] a motorcycle, according to an account online and interviews with witnesses. The driver is pictured above. (Weibo.com)' Bystanders quickly began expressing their sympathy and support for the woman, and some of them wanted the driver arrested. The man then shouted "I'm not scared of the police, go ahead and call them!" Seeing the crowd's growing support for the woman further angered the man. He loudly proclaimed that he was from a rich family, and that for him, it was simply a matter of recompensing any injured parties. He then proceeded to slap the woman a few more times, according to witnesses. The angered bystanders then worked together and flipped his car over. Police soon gathered and quelled the crowd. You get your justice where you can. Good on 'em! |
| Today's Links: Ai Weiwei, Baosteel, Taobao and the Asian budget airline industry Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:26 PM PDT  A few links to start off your day: Ai Weiwei, Baosteel, Taobao and the Asian budget airline industry [ more › ] |
| Kidnapping Attempt In Broad Daylight Foiled In Wuhan Posted: 27 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT
On Tuesday afternoon in Wuhan, a man was minding his own business when four people set themselves upon him and tried to smuggle him into a car. According to China News Service via BJ News, the kidnapping attempt was over money. But the man sure as hell wasn't going to go easy. He screamed at those nearby, "Call the cops! Dial 110, dial 110." He struggled so much that when the kidnappers did stuff him in their car, he kicked down a side-rear window. One Wuhan reporter on scene snapped 35 pictures, according to Sina. Seeing that they had been recorded, the would-be kidnappers let the man go. Police are investigating this case. More images after the jump.
(H/T Valentina) |
| Weekendist: Sep 28 - 30 - Perverts, Spelling Champions and How to Die in a Motel Posted: 27 Sep 2012 01:02 PM PDT  We have finally made it, it's weekend, and the long holidays are about to begin. Some of us might suffer from that dorky but all too common "we give you some days off just to ruin your weekend with an additional day of work" rule, but in the end there's plenty of fun stuff for you to do on every single day. Happy holidays! Read on for the details.And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. [ more › ] |
| Everything under heaven is in chaos: China’s digital publishing market Posted: 27 Sep 2012 09:25 AM PDT  Digital publishing has been around since the early days of the Internet in China: literary websites first appeared in the late 1990s. First accessed via desktop computers, users are now more likely to use mobile phones, e-readers and tablets. Today, around 200 million Chinese people read digital publications, and serving the market is a wide range of mostly Chinese companies with a similarly wide range of e-readers, formats and platforms. With an as yet incomplete regulatory environment, the market resembles a formless, chaotic mass with endemic copyright infringement. Yet as the various competitors strive to produce the one device and one platform that will outshine the rest, the digital publishing market in China has a lot of business and publishing potential, even if its not currently clear when the market will sort itself out properly. Large pond, many fishA 2010 survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publications (CAPP) of more than 19,000 people nationwide concluded that Chinese people read 613 million electronic books that year. According to a July 2012 report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), nearly 200 million people regularly read 'online literature' (网络文学), although that term is not defined precisely. Another government body, the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), says that digital publishers earned revenues of 137.79 billion yuan in 2011, an increase of 31% over 2010. Despite the low cost of digital literature (two to three yuan for 'original fiction' on literary websites and seven to eight yuan for novels on platforms like Dangdang [当当]), piracy is rampant. The CAPP survey stated that an "acceptable price to download an e-book from the Internet is 1.33 yuan" and that "nearly 54 percent of digital readers say they would pay an average of 3.45 yuan to download e-books". But whatever the respondents to that survey said, what they're actually doing if they're reading e-books certainly includes the downloading of a great deal of pirated material. The market in China is fragmented. Chasing e-book revenue is a very wide range of companies: online retailers, hardware manufacturers, social networks, telecom operators, search engines and even traditional brick-and-mortar stores. The market for e-readers in China is currently dominated by local companies Shanda (盛大) and Hanvon (汉王), collectively accounting for around 75% of the market. Growth in the e-reader market actually fell by 7.5% in the first quarter of 2012, with industry analysts attributing this to rising iPad ownership. That may perhaps also account for the fact that CNNIC recorded a drop in Internet users of 'online literature' from 202.67 million in December 2011 to 194.57 million in June 2012. According to a report released on August 27 by Analysys International's Enfodesk information service, China's e-reader market rebounded slightly in the second quarter of 2012, selling 293,000 units. Hanvon (汉王) dominated, with a 49.9% share of the market, while Shanda's Bambook (盛大锦书) accounted for 28.4%. The remainder of the market is divided up among a rash of minor players, led by Teclast Electronics (台电) with 1.5%, Newsmy (纽曼) with 1%, and Jinke / Hanlin [津科 (翰林)] with 0.7%. Hanvon's share of the market continues to slip, however, dropping off from the 54.7% it commanded in Q4 2011, while Bambook's share rose from 23.1%. These numbers are still dwarfed by the sales of other handheld electronic devices. As Wenhuibao (文汇报) reported in August this year, "Taken together, the ten leading companies sell no more than 2,500 e-readers a day, about the equivalent of a third-string domestic mobile phone brand. In the first quarter of the year, the sales total of domestic smart phones and tablets was 110 times that of e-readers". Underscoring this lopsided distribution, Shanda added a Bambook-branded smart phone to its e-reader line this month. The Enfodesk analysis also noted that overseas e-reader brands were making gradual inroads even though they were not being directly marketed in mainland China. This is not entirely surprising as no single player in China yet offers anything like the stable and comprehensive ecosystem of Amazon's Kindle. With over 20 e-book formats, 10 prominent manufacturers of e-readers and countless e-book marketplaces, consolidation is sorely needed. Even established players like Dangdang, China's leading online book retailer, are still far from where they want to be. Dangdang's recently released e-reader, Doukan (都看), has been criticized by users on Weibo for delivering a poor experience, despite it being tightly integrated with Dangdang's popular e-book store. Wild WestThe digital publishing market in China suffers from endemic hardware and software copyright infringement claims and lawsuits. Shanda and Dangdang are among several companies that have been accused of distributing copyrighted works freely on their e-book markets, with Baidu Library (百度文库) and Sina's 'iAsk' (爱问) platform cited as prolific violators. This month, a group of Chinese writers won a small judgment in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Baidu. Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing (李国庆) has been quoted as saying that his company is directly copying the Kindle, and Sina continues to do nothing to address accusations of infringement. Foreign companies have also been accused of copyright infringement in China. Several lawsuits were filed against Apple earlier this year, for example, alleging that the iTunes store had distributed 59 works without license. These followed an earlier complaint in 2009 by the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS), which alleged that Google had scanned over 18,000 books from 570 Chinese writers without the proper permissions. With a proliferation of paid e-book platforms since 2011, digital publishers in China have attempted to shed their image of piracy. Dangdang and Baidu Library have both made real efforts to purge their e-book platforms of infringing works, although cynics may question how thorough the purges have been. China's largest e-publisher, Shanda, with its publishing subsidiary Cloudary (云城), has re-launched its publishing platform, the Cloud Bookstore (云中书城), adopting a Taobao model and allowing publishing houses to set up their own store fronts. Shanda in particular is betting heavily on its ability to sell content. It has significantly under-priced its own Bambook e-reader (at 499 yuan) in the hopes of recouping losses through content sales, confident in its ability to enforce its copyright. The openness of the Internet and the ease of publishing on literary websites that enable mass piracy do also have their benefits. As Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin China told the New York Times in November, 2011, "The Internet created all, and I say all, the literary trends that took off in 2005 and afterward". Three of the most interesting Chinese writers who are currently popular, Han Han (韩寒), Bi Feiyu (毕飞宇) and Murong Xuecun (慕容雪村) have built their reputations and readerships almost completely via the Internet. The relative lack of regulation and order have also allowed a surreptitious entrance to China for foreign companies, with many foreign publications now available in China via Apple's iTunes Newsstand that would otherwise require lengthy license applications or would simply be denied access to the Chinese market if distributed through traditional print media. This openness is not possible in China's heavily regulated and systematized traditional publishing market. One should not however expect loopholes like the iTunes store to remain open once they are significantly popular. Yet being less encumbered by regulation in China is not currently helping growth in the industry much. For the makers of e-books, the risks of launching and of being shut down are great, and hence they are unwilling to enter the market without solid guarantees that they will be allowed to stay in business. Yet there are no guarantees because there are no licenses – how do you create a formal legal definition of an e-book to distinguish it from an online article or a sample chapter? Recently, there have been significant legislative steps to bring digital publishing out of its legal grey area and under greater regulatory control. At the 4th China Digital Publishing Fair in July 2011, Liu Binjie (柳斌杰), the head of GAPP, acknowledged the relative immaturity of the Chinese digital publishing market, and urged digital publishers to adopt better long term relationships with content providers and to strengthen legitimate distribution channels. In 2010, GAPP began mandating digital publishers and content providers to apply for digital publishing licenses (互联网出版许可证), with Shanda and Hanvon being among 21 digital publishers that received licenses. Although carrying few restrictions at present, the issuing of these licenses heralds the start of a more stringent regulatory environment for digital publishing. This legislative push coincides with GAPP's stated goal of seeing digital publishing constitute 25% of China's press and publishing industry by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan in 2015. The problem of course, is that while increased regulation might be good for the literature business, it is unlikely to be good for the literature itself. Searching for a modelAt the 2012 annual Digital Publishing Conference in Beijing, Sun Shoushan (孙寿山), the Deputy Director of GAPP, stated that he still believed China's digital publishing market could improve, although he acknowledged that despite strong growth in the industry, long term growth opportunities seem limited. Sun was especially worried about the lack of original content. Another problem that is often cited is the relative immaturity of the core technologies behind digital publishing. Attempts by companies in China to achieve profitability have led to the adoption of various business models, with none yet achieving any kind of dominance. Some companies have adopted the wholesale and agent models popular in Western digital publishing. In the wholesale model, publishers sell at wholesale prices with the price the consumer pays set by distributors. In the agent model, distributors take a percentage of publishers' set prices. The market in China is still far from finding a 'sweet spot' for digital book sales. Yet Jo Lusby has pointed out that Penguin is only now approaching the sweet spot for the US market, the world's most mature e-book market, with digital books priced at 30-40% less than print. Founder Technology's Apabi (方正阿帕比), one of the best established digital publishing platforms in China, has adopted a partnership model, setting a price floor and a ceiling, and allowing distributors to set prices anywhere between the two. Founder Apabi has also signed a distribution deal with Penguin to distribute the latter's full list UK and Dorling Kindersley titles in English in China, although as yet this is mainly for institutional clients like universities and public libraries, and not for direct sales to the consumer. Baidu and Sina have adapted an advertising-led model, while literature sites such as Shanda's utilise the 'freemium' model, where users are allowed free access to the majority of works and only 'VIP' authors' works carry a nominal fee. In short, the digital publishing industry in China has a lot of potential both as an unprecedented platform for literary publication and as a business. But there's still a long way to go. In March this year, Jo Lusby noted at an event at the Bookworm Literary Festival in Beijing that every year seems to be the "year of e-books in China", but every year seems to fall short. "All the parts are in place but it's not yet coming together." Additional resources
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| Most Chinese women don’t know how to use contraceptives Posted: 27 Sep 2012 10:12 AM PDT by Barry van Wyk on September 27, 2012  The front of the City Lady (都市女报), a national newspaper focused on women's issues, today makes the startling claim that most Chinese women don't really know how to use contraception. Based on what it describes as the findings of a new investigation (the details of which are sadly lacking), the 1.3 million annual abortions in China could be substantially reduced if women had better knowledge of contraceptives and used them consistently. Just underneath this headline, the City Lady has placed a provocative picture of a beauty contest for buttocks that was held in Brazil recently – and there they are all in a row for your watching pleasure. City Lady laments that although yesterday was world contraception day, the findings of a new study have shown that public knowledge of contraception in China is low. In particular, the following are some of the most startling findings:
The study also found that of the around 1.3 million abortions in China every year, about 50% are repeat abortions. The main reason for this, the study concludes, is that most women in China simply don't know how to use contraceptives. Yet why is this still the case in China? The reasons that the study puts forth is that young people today still face certain barriers in accessing reliable information on contraceptives, notably a reluctance and shame to talk about such topics, or a fear of coming across as stupid. According to Wu Shangchun (吴尚纯) of the National Population and Family Planning Commission of the Science and Technology Institute (国家人口计生委科学技术研究所), most of the women make two common mistakes with contraceptives: they push their luck and they want to keep things too simple. The basic reason why half of the women get abortions is because they simply did not use contraception; the other half did apply some form of contraception but were unable to persist in using it correctly or adequately. Only about 10% of people persisted in using condoms every time they have intercourse. Ironically, underneath this headline City Lady placed a front page picture of a beauty contest for buttocks that was held recently in Brazil. Apparently the contestants' faces did not matter at all; all that counted in this contest were firm, tight and nicely rounded buttocks that don't sway too violently during walking. And it would be remiss of me not to point out briefly the other headlines that make up today's very insightful front page of the City Lady:
Links and sources |
| Shanghai skyline turns green for Angry Birds spin-off Posted: 27 Sep 2012 09:00 AM PDT  Did you notice feeling rather queasy last night? Perhaps that was a side-effect of the entire Pudong skyline turning green, part of a series of publicity stunts by Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment for the launch of spin-off title Bad Piggies. [ more › ] |
It may sound like a headline straight from Search Engine Optimisation 
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