In desperate attempt to fight myopia, China invents goofy eye exercises

In desperate attempt to fight myopia, China invents goofy eye exercises
The Tragic Story Of A Father, His Son Who Died Of Leukemia, And The Bone Marrow He Declined To Donate
Did Chinese investors attempt to bribe Australian politicians?
The Voice of China
Meet City Weekend's New LGBT Columnist
Watch: Obama And Romney Talk China At Third Presidential Debate, Plus Analysis From Joseph Stiglitz
Major reshuffle of People's Liberation Army announced
Meet City Weekend's New LGBT Columnist
Health Matters: Five Anti-aging Do's and Don'ts
More anti-mainland protests in Hong Kong border town
Midweek Music Preview: Oct 24-30 - MIDI Electronic Festival
Debating China: President Obama and Governor Romney
‘China Econtracker’: Wall Street Journal’s Great Tool
Of Course China Is Sending A Team To The World Pole Dance Competition
Japanese Companies Rethink Their China FDI
Watch: 150ft wide sinkhole opens up in Northwest China
Seve: Ho-hum pizzas and pastas
Atlantic writer got a ride from protester who attacked Ambassador Locke
Weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo, Who Won A Gold Medal For Kazakhstan, Repatriates To China
Virgo Grand Opening Party

In desperate attempt to fight myopia, China invents goofy eye exercises

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 08:44 PM PDT

A new set of eye exercises, which can reportedly relieve eye strain and help prevent myopia, has become the latest running joke on Chinese social media. In the demonstrative video, a little girl at about the age of ten keeps rolling her eyes and squinting sideways, which makes Chinese netizens, all of whom have grown up doing a different set of eye exercises, roll on the floor laughing.

The new eye exercises, promoted by Taizhou office of China Campus Health Movement and "Bright Angel" Students' Eye Protection Center, include the following eye movements: Move eyeballs as far as possible to the right, to the left, down and up; roll eyeballs clockwise and counter-clockwise; close eyes and reopen them really hard. Many netizens, who strenuously followed the routine, reported that their eyes "really can't take it," but the little girl is really adorable.

The video (shown below) has been shared by tens of thousands of Weibo users and received altogether millions of hits on popular streaming sites such as Youku, 56, and Tudou within one day.

Demonstrative video of the new eye exercises

Chinese youth are getting increasingly near-sighted. According to some media reports, as many as 90% of urban Chinese youth, or 360 million people, are afflicted by myopia and wearing glasses.

In addition, the current version of the vision therapy, which was invented four decades ago based on acupuncture points in Chinese medicine, has been strictly enforced in all primary and secondary schools across China, has been under attack for 'lack of scientific basis and efficacy,' which may have prompted the invention of the new set of eye exercises.

In July, a microblogbger, who goes by the alias "Live from Shanghai," railed against the so-called eye exercises on Sina Weibo, "The eye exercises have been doing harm to Chinese youth for 49 years. Of all the countries in the world, only China does these eye exercises by massaging totally useless acupuncture points. It cannot help improve vision. Many students contracted pinkeye and other eye infections from rubbing their eyes with dirty hands. Eye exercises were designed by Liu Shiming, director of Office of Physical Education at Beijing Medical School, and were adopted across the nation under state diktats without any scientific basis.

The post immediately got national attention and sparked a debate over if the current eye exercises should be abolished. While some experts in Chinese medicine defended the efficacy of the vision therapy and netizens are divided over the issue, there is wide consensus that the ever-rising incidence of myopia among students in China is mainly caused by the heavy workload from school and killing competition, particularly the National College Entrance Examination (gaokao), that they have to take in order to get into a decent college.

The Tragic Story Of A Father, His Son Who Died Of Leukemia, And The Bone Marrow He Declined To Donate

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:14 PM PDT

What exactly is the price of life? What's the price of life if one has no money? And what's life actually worth if it'll just be filled with pain and suffering?

These are all questions that have haunted philosophers for millennia, and everyday citizens since the start of the modern medical era. In China, one recent case has brought these questions to the forefront.

The story via Global Times:

The father of a 5-year-old boy who died of leukemia after he refused to donate his bone marrow has responded to the public condemnation in which Web users described him as "cruel- hearted" and "scum."

However, his wife told the Global Times Tuesday that his response was ridiculous.

The boy, named Hu Yushuo, who died on October 17, was diagnosed with leukemia in August 2011. Doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant, but his father Hu Qingsen, who had agreed to donate his marrow, suddenly pulled out and stopped paying the child's daily expenses in May, the Legal Mirror reported.

When Hu, a taxi driver, failed to attend his son's funeral at Babaoshan Cemetery on Sunday, public anger intensified.

First: How dare any of us judge the way another person responds to sorrow. That's fucking pathetic.

Second: What does failing to attend a funeral signify when, in this country, even funerals have been co-opted by businesses that exploit the grieving process and essentially dare the family of the deceased to negotiate on the most basic of services? Funeral costs for the average middle-class family is all but guaranteed to cost at least thousands, and can easily run into five digits when one factors in morgue storage costs, last rites, and van rental to the crematory — we're not even including the cost of ceremonial wreathes (so important!), chrysanthemums, the urn, various talismans and charms, sacred cloth, etc. Of all the injustices that are levied against the common people here, one of the most underexposed remains public and private profiteering off the dead, a shameful practice that is a disgrace to values both traditional and modern — hell, timeless — and it's as widespread as it is sickening.

Global Times continues:

Hu released a blog on Sunday to respond to the public vitriol. He claimed in the blog that he and his family have suffered huge pain, humiliation and sadness and encountered condemnation from Web users who do not know the truth.

The reason he refused to donate the marrow was actually to extend his son's life and reduce his pain because the son's health condition showed that it was "not the best time for a transplant," he wrote.

He claimed that he and his family had paid over 300,000 yuan ($48,000) during the early days of his son's disease.

The rest of the article explains a strange husband-wife relationship, featuring this quote from the wife: "It's because it takes about 10 days to go through the necessary medical checks, if only he had told me earlier [I could have donated my bone marrow]."

All told, it's a tragic story, made more so because, in our age of journalism and microblogging, some people initially implied that the father refused to donate bone marrow to his son because, you know, he just wanted him to die. It's never that simple, is it? In China or anywhere.

(H/T Alicia)

Did Chinese investors attempt to bribe Australian politicians?

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:00 PM PDT

Damn Melbourne councillor Ken Ong, don't you know that snitches get stitches? Melbourne's Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has announced that he will request a police inquiry into allegations that Chinese investors have attempted to bribe local councillors. [ more › ]

The Voice of China

Posted: 21 Oct 2012 06:00 PM PDT

American Idol premiered in the United States in 2005, and China has had a metric ton of song-related reality television shows since then. So what exactly is it that has turned The Voice of China into a nationwide craze? Since its premiere in July on Zhejiang Television, the show has become probably the most talked-about television series in the entire mainland, with a band of fanatical followers including some of us here at Popup Towers.

Learning Chinese? If your Chinese is already at a relatively advanced level, join Echo, Andy and Gao today for an advanced Chinese lesson focusing on a lot of vocabulary related to The Voice of China and other reality television shows. Our conversation here is entirely in mandarin, but if you have any questions or problems, we encourage you to leave comments or questions in the discussion space below, or write Echo at echo@popupchinese.com

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Meet City Weekend's New LGBT Columnist

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:56 PM PDT

Date: Oct 24th 2012 10:25a.m.
Contributed by: the_boy_in_stripes

Watch: Obama And Romney Talk China At Third Presidential Debate, Plus Analysis From Joseph Stiglitz

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 08:21 PM PDT

At the third and final presidential debate on Monday, Governor Mitt Romney backed off claims he made in the previous debate to go hard on China. But as New Yorker's Evan Osnos notes, "But in China, to be frank, nobody takes it all that seriously. Romney's tack toward the middle in his final debate (a theme that my colleague John Cassidy explores in his post today) seemed to foreshadow to a Chinese audience the kind of softening that is consistent with a pattern that has run through three decades of American foreign policy: candidates who rail against China on the stump rarely follow through if they win, because China stops being a convenient foil and becomes instead a complicated reality." (The rest of that article respectfully paints Romney as utterly clueless and generally wrong when it comes to China.)

If you'd like to hear Obama and Romney's discussion about this country, Wall Street Journal has you covered with the above video (on Youku for those in China after the jump).

And then watch Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, talk to Reuters about Romney's "scary" stance toward China and the potential trade war that America would probably lose.

Stiglitz:

(H/T Malcolm Riddell)

Major reshuffle of People's Liberation Army announced

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 08:00 PM PDT

As the new Politburo Standing Committee prepares to take over running the country, changes are also afoot in the top ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with a reshuffle that will replace seven of China's ten most senior generals. [ more › ]

Meet City Weekend's New LGBT Columnist

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:23 PM PDT

Date: Oct 24th 2012 10:25a.m.
Contributed by: cityweekend_sh

Health Matters: Five Anti-aging Do's and Don'ts

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:00 PM PDT

Date: Oct 23rd 2012 6:52p.m.
Contributed by: sfriedman

More anti-mainland protests in Hong Kong border town

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:00 PM PDT

The arrest of 337 suspected parallel traders hasn't put off Chinese smugglers who "were out in force [...] despite police and immigration officials carrying out their 13th raid in five weeks against the cross-border trade". Nor have the raids placated residents in Hong Kong's border towns, who held another "Reclaim Sheng Shui" rally on Tuesday. [ more › ]

Midweek Music Preview: Oct 24-30 - MIDI Electronic Festival

Posted: 23 Oct 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: The JZ Festival Master Hall Series, domestic talents Cold Fairyland, Give Band and Hollow Shadow, and imported goods such as The Black Atlantic, Halo of Pendor and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. Saturday sees an extraordinary music event hattrick: The first all-electronic MIDI festival takes place in Pudong, Yuyintang throws a big halloween concert with tribute bands, and Shanghai Oriental Art Center shows a dance performance by the acclaimed Motionhouse company. Looks like everybody gets lucky, don't you think? And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. [ more › ]

Debating China: President Obama and Governor Romney

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 04:22 PM PDT

In their third debate, this one about foreign policy, President Obama and Governor Romney spent about 15 minutes on China and related (sort of) issues.

Ahead of the debate, Reuters presented 'Four burning questions on China ahead of final debate – The Trail':

Here's a recap of the questions. All pretty good. Unfortunately not discussed.

'What bargaining chips does the U.S. have to pressure China, and how would you use them to win concessions on trade?'
'As China prepares to change leadership, what opportunities and risks do you see for the U.S.? Could it be turning point in U.S.-China relations?'
'Could rising tensions between China and Japan over the South China Sea draw the United States into an Asian conflict?'
'What is your specific plan to combat cybersecurity treats from China?'

After the debate, CNBC wrote 'U.S. candidates pass over tough China questions in final debate.' Somewhat different tough questions from Reuters, but the point is the same.

Next, reaction for Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia prof and Nobel Prize winner in economics. 'Stiglitz: Romney's stance on China "scary" – Fast Forward (3:40)'

To here what about China was discussed, here's the China portion of the debate itself:

‘China Econtracker’: Wall Street Journal’s Great Tool

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 03:03 PM PDT

The Wall Street Journal's ChinaRealTimeReport has a handy tool, the 'China Econtracker.' You can see graphs on key economic factors for one year or over time, by month or by year. As a bonus, you get the ChinaRealTime Twitter feed.

Of Course China Is Sending A Team To The World Pole Dance Competition

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:00 PM PDT

China's fascination with the pole dance extends to competitive pole dancing as well: three females and one male are traveling to Zurich, Switzerland to compete in the World Pole Dance competition on November 10. The Chinese contestants are listed on World Pole Dance's website as Cao Haijing, Meng Yifan, Song Xuemei, and Yan Shaoxuan, all of them with bios "coming soon…" We think there's at least one case of mistaken identity on that official list, as "Meng Yifan" is probably "Yi Fan," who China Daily calls "China's best pole dancer" for finishing in the top 24 in last year's competition.

Here she is, doing ridiculous things to and with a pole:

And here are some of the other Chinese competitors, via Sina:

Shanghaiist has collected a few more pictures as well.

Japanese Companies Rethink Their China FDI

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:57 PM PDT

September's Japanese trade figures underlined the economic impact of the maritime territorial dispute in the East China Sea that Tokyo is embroiled in with Beijing. Exports of Japanese cars to China and imports of Chinese tourists in particular were sharply … Continue reading →

Watch: 150ft wide sinkhole opens up in Northwest China

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:50 AM PDT

At 8:30 on Tuesday morning, the ground of a vegetable market in Guyuan City of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region suddenly opened up, leaving a hole over 150 feet wide and almost 20 feet deep. According to witnesses, a tricycle with its driver and several pedestrians fell in. [ more › ]

Seve: Ho-hum pizzas and pastas

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:30 AM PDT

Pizza and pasta joints have been sprouting up like chicken pox these past few months and we've tried our damndest to hit every one. Our latest was Seve, a quiet trattoria in the French concession that unfortunately proved the straggler in the herd. [ more › ]

Atlantic writer got a ride from protester who attacked Ambassador Locke

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Damien Ma, a China analyst at the Eurasia Group, has an article in The Atlantic this Tuesday on "A Taste of Mob Rule in China", an overview of the anti-Japanese craziness that swept the streets of most major cities last month. [ more › ]

Weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo, Who Won A Gold Medal For Kazakhstan, Repatriates To China

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:01 AM PDT

Much hubbub surrounded 19-year-old weightlifter Zulfiya Chinshanlo's gold-medal win in London this summer, as it wasn't exactly clear which country she was actually from, Kazakhstan or China. Both nations claimed her — "Chinshanlo's Olympic page cites her birthplace as Almaty, Kazakhstan, and claims she speaks both Russian and Kazakh," according to The Atlantic, while Xinhua stated (paraphrased by CNN) that "she was born and raised in Yongzhou, Hunan province under the Chinese name Zhao Changling," and that she was merely on "loan" to Kazakhstan.

What's past is past – Chinshanlo's win will forever count toward Kazakstan's medal tally — but for the foreseeable future, she will be competing for China under her birth name. (That the pinyin of her given name is remarkably similar to "changeling" will not go unnoticed here.) On Monday, Zhao sat in at a Changsha, Hunan province public security bureau to have her picture taken for a new ID (above), one that will restore her nationality, fully, to Chinese.

"I'm entirely Chinese now," she said, as reported by Hunan's Xiaoxiang Morning Post. The paperwork hasn't been processed yet, but it's only a formality now, as gold medalists are precious commodities here. If only Mark Kitto's magazine had won Olympic gold, he'd totally have gotten his wish to become Chinese as well.

Zhao said her Kazakhstan name was given to her by her coach, for the sake of convenience. "I still like people to call me 'Zhao Changling,'" she said.

And one more almost-too-perfect soundbite: "It feels good to come home, because I can again be with teacher He (Yicheng) and coach Zhou (Jihong)," Zhao said. "More importantly, I can finally eat Hunan cuisine whenever I want."

Ah, the life of a pampered Olympic star. The only question that remains is: will she feel so welcomed after her career ends?