Blogs » Society » Announcing: PSY’s First China Performance Will Be On New Year’s Eve
Blogs » Society » Announcing: PSY’s First China Performance Will Be On New Year’s Eve |
- Announcing: PSY’s First China Performance Will Be On New Year’s Eve
- “Guy Tais” Are A Thing: Watch This Piece About Househusbands In Shanghai
- CY Leung admits liability for building illegal structures
- Jackie Chan retiring, was apparently not already retired
- ”Paradise Lost: In North Korea, Chinese Maoists Find The Land Of Their Dreams’: The Economist
- CIA handbook contains advice for Xi Jinping, don't wear sunglasses
- Photos: Inside China's "Black Kindergartens"
- Friday Night Musical Outro: The Fever Machine – La Chupacabra
- College consultants under scrutiny
- Watch: Free surgery for teenager with severely deformed feet
- Friday Links: On censorship and China’s fading ability to speak, CBA season preview, and My Little Airport’s Beijing show tonight
- Sex tape of Chongqing official and 18-year-old mistress leaked (UPDATE: Official sacked)
- China to replace prisoners with volunteers in organ donor program
- To Survive Upcoming Apocalypse, Man Builds Boat That May Or May Not Float
- That sinking feeling? It's Shanghai
- Shanghai to enforce total smoking ban in all public places
- Presented By:
- Impressions of Kashgar
- “Is There Anyone Against?” Reuters’s Chief Photographer Takes Us Inside The Great Hall Of The People
- Taiwan hurts the Dalai Lama's feelings for a change
| Announcing: PSY’s First China Performance Will Be On New Year’s Eve Posted: 23 Nov 2012 08:44 PM PST
Hold your saddles everyone, your favorite horse dancer is coming to China! Unfortunately, his first mainland performance will be in Changsha, as part of Hunan Satellite TV's "Carnival Week" to ring in the new year. Amanda, I kid. Changsha is a fine city. Unfortunately, it's in the middle of nowhere. Ah, I kid again. It's not nowhere. Unfortunately, it's Hunan province. We linked to this in last night's East is Read post, but it deserves another look: how racist Americans responded to PSY closing the American Music Awards. I can already see the Weibo messages from China's angry youth…
Eh. Doesn't quite have the ring as this, does it?
Here's the official announcement via the Changsha government. We can't wait for them to pull the rug from under us.
Also, this deserves reposting, from our Memes this week:
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| “Guy Tais” Are A Thing: Watch This Piece About Househusbands In Shanghai Posted: 23 Nov 2012 07:46 PM PST Devin Silloway, who says he coined the term "guy tai" on the front page of China Daily 10 years ago, has just been featured by Reuters TV's Decoder as the poster boy for a purportedly growing trend of stay-at-home expat dads in China. Guy tai, of course, plays off the term tai tai, which That's magazine editor Ned Kelly describes as "ladies at lunch… you know, the good life." Silloway and friends — there's a website devoted to their community, of course — seem to have no reservations about being men living this good life, despite stories that say the househusband trend hasn't caught on among locals. For what it's worth, Silloway seems like a personable, all-around good guy. "But what really gave me the willies," he said in a That's Shanghai feature in March, "was when I sensed that a few moms felt that, as the lone wolf, I was flirting with them. It's not a feeling one can explain, but I'm an expat kid so all I know in life is 'people,' and I know that vibe when I feel it. And since flirting with them was the opposite of being gay, it became ultimately laughable to me because – thank you – my wife is smokin' hot!" He was also just featured by People's Daily, et al. You'll be hearing more about him very soon. Check out his articles on Shanghai Family. Youku video for those in China after the jump. (H/T Alicia) |
| CY Leung admits liability for building illegal structures Posted: 23 Nov 2012 07:00 PM PST |
| Jackie Chan retiring, was apparently not already retired Posted: 23 Nov 2012 06:00 PM PST  Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong Kung Fu superstar who has become known more recently for lending his face to shampoo that gives you cancer, has announced his retirement from acting. [ more › ]     |
| ”Paradise Lost: In North Korea, Chinese Maoists Find The Land Of Their Dreams’: The Economist Posted: 23 Nov 2012 05:48 PM PST  At the bust of Mao Anying, the eldest son of Mao Zedong You have to love the diehards. As in 'Paradise Lost: In North Korea, Chinese Maoists Find The Land Of Their Dreams.' A grand and illuminating story from The Economist. 'For most members of the group of 15 tourists (except one who was there to report for The Economist) the visit to North Korea was a welcome relief after a grim year. As die-hard Maoists, they believe that China's leaders are betraying the ideals of the communist country's founder and leading it to enslavement by the West and perdition. The past few months have seen the purging of their idol, a Mao-quoting member of the Politburo, Bo Xilai, and the closure by the Chinese government of some of their most outspoken websites.' Oh, my. "I love [North] Korea!" exclaimed one of the tourists, who teaches physical education at a school in the central province of Hubei. "It is like a pure maiden, while China is like a heavily made-up young wife," he went on, to murmurs of approval from others as they drove through Pyongyang's grim streets. The teacher jokingly asked an accompanying guide how he could emigrate to North Korea. As Liao Yiwu reported in The Corpsewalker:
Oh, my. |
| CIA handbook contains advice for Xi Jinping, don't wear sunglasses Posted: 23 Nov 2012 05:00 PM PST Before reform and opening, China-watchers sweated in Hong Kong, trying in vain to catch glimpses across the border into the sometimes confusing policies of the Mao-era government. [ more › ] |
| Photos: Inside China's "Black Kindergartens" Posted: 23 Nov 2012 07:00 AM PST            |
| Friday Night Musical Outro: The Fever Machine – La Chupacabra Posted: 23 Nov 2012 07:41 AM PST Shanghai favorites the Fever Machine will be in Beijing tomorrow to hold a release party for its two-song, 7-inch vinyl record, La Chupacabra. The guys will play a free show at Temple Bar starting at 9:30 pm, with the first 60 through the door receiving a free copy of the record. (They'll play Shanghai's Yuyintang on December 1, with free records going to the first 250.) The outfit's Beijing-based label, Genjing Records, describes it as combining "the swirling, spacey elements of psychedelia with progression song structures," with "melodic pop hooks" and the "grime of stoner rock and proto-metal without buffering out the dents." See for yourself: featured here, the album's title track (also after the jump on Youku for those in China). |
| College consultants under scrutiny Posted: 23 Nov 2012 06:00 AM PST  In the wake of scandals like one in which an HK couple spent $2.2 million in failing to get their son into Harvard, the New York Times reports that the Chinese Education ministry is planning to crack down on companies that help send Chinese students to foreign schools. [ more › ] |
| Watch: Free surgery for teenager with severely deformed feet Posted: 23 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST Meng Weixin, a 14-year-old boy from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, suffers from a rare disease causes his feet to swell and his toes twist, leaving him unable to wear shoes. The Children's Hospital of Shanghai agreed to perform corrective surgery pro bono after one of Meng's teachers posted pictures of his condition online. [ more › ] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2012 05:22 AM PST
Need something to do tonight? Our music contributor highly recommends the show My Little Airport, which is playing at MAO Livehouse as part of its "Romantic" China tour. Again, that's tonight. Otherwise, links. A Peking University talk about freedom of speech and censorship. "China is currently in the process of losing its ability to speak. // Even animals are practically able to speak. When it stops raining, birds begin to chirp. When flowers blossom, bees buzz everywhere. When spring comes, male wolves smell female wolves and begin to bark excitedly. People, as high-level animals, have mastered the most basic form of speech: "I'm hungry." Infants cry when they are hungry – that's the language of infants. Even infants can express when they are hungry, but about 50 years ago, or around 1960 to 1962 for about 3 years, a full 600 million people on this planet somehow could not say they were hungry. You feel hungry instinctively, but you can't say you are hungry…because that would be disgraceful for a socialist country. With high production, and the ever-correct red sun, we must tighten our belts and give our crops to our brothers; we can't say that we are hungry. During the Great Famine, the whole nation lost its language. Not only did they lie to their family and friends in political struggles, but they also lied to their own stomachs." [Li Chengpeng, translated by Liz Carter, A Big Enough Forest] Wen Jiabao has a sentimental streak. "In a recent speech to members of the Chinese community in Thailand, footage of which was posted to the website thaicn.com on Wednesday, Mr. Wen gave what sounded like farewell speech, despite having another four months at the helm of the world's second-largest economy. // What was remarkable about the speech was not so much its content as the way it ended. // 'In the pursuit of truth, I would die nine times without regret. If I'm going to die, I want to die with honesty and integrity,' he said as he was wrapping up, a paraphrase of his favorite poet, Qu Yuan. To that he added: 'I hope everyone will forget me – that includes Chinese people and overseas Chinese. Forget me.'" [WSJ] Could Guangdong go undefeated this year? "If you're a seven-time champ, you apparently go out and acquire three former NBA lottery picks. No longer a desired player in the NBA, Yi Jianlian turned away from offers in Europe to return to his old romping grounds in Guangdong. He'll form a trio with Terrence Williams and Ike Diogu, the former of which has the potential to be a walking triple-double on this level. Registerd as a Chinese, Yi will be under no restrictions and should absolutely dominate given the fact that he'll be matched up against a Chinese on most nights. The same National Team guys are still here: Chen Jianghua, Wang Shipeng, Zhu Fangyu, Zhou Peng, etc. etc. Boasting their best roster ever, will the Southern Tigers go undefeated? Unlikely, but they're certainly a shoe-in for the Finals and arguably the favorite to lift the trophy in April." [Jon Pastuszek, NiuBBall] What won't parents do for children? "A Chinese couple have uprooted their family from a comfortable lifestyle in the countryside to take up residence in a cramped toilet block in a sprawling city. // Liao Xiaoming, and wife Wang Xuanna took the extreme decision to move to the city of Guangzhou in China's Guangdong region in order to give their only son a better education. // By becoming public toilet cleaners the dedicated pair are entitled to benefit from nine years free schooling for their child." [Daily Mail] After all, graveyards just store the dead, not food. "Though China has a vast expanse of land, it has nonetheless limited arable land, combined with a huge population. Faced with this contradiction, funeral reform was unavoidable. However, the recent tomb-flattening policy has taken on a vast scale. The huge resentment it has sparked is worth further consideration." [World News Australia] From our music contributor: "my little airport are a hong kong indie band. ah p plays keyboard and guitar and nicole sings. sometimes she also picks up the slide guitar, glockenspiel, and other instruments. they met while studying journalism in university and write songs in a mixture of cantonese and hong kong english. their lyrics are playful and romantic, and sometimes subversive. for example, they wrote a song called 'donald tsang, please die' in 2009 after the politician implied that the 1989 tiananmen incident is less significant than mainland china's current economic power. but no matter how saucy or charged the lyrics are, they are cloaked in sultry harmonies and melodic tradeoffs between nicole (for the most part) and ah p (always welcome). think belle & sebastian before they were belle & sebastian and just stuart murdoch and isobel campbell singing in a heathery glen or on the banks of some scottish loch. // the duo enjoy a rabid following in the mainland, and organise their own tours. this latest one, in support of their new record 'lonely friday' has already seen them play in chengdu, wuhan and shanghai with friday's gig at mao livehouse the second-to-last stop of their 2012 'romantic' tour. judging by the photos from the other shows on the tour, the over-under on superfans showing up with the panda / raccoon makeup prominently featured on the new record is at least 8." [Ami Li] Historical site remade from flour interlude: Finally… "Why Does China Still Use Fax Machines and Internet Explorer 6?" [Eveline Chao, Motherboard] "Desensitized in China." [Sinostand] Five myths of Chinese censorship. [Eveline Chao, Foreign Policy] Drogba tries to leave Shanghai Shenhua on loan; denied. [Shanghaiist] Sany, the company that's suing the US government, is moving from Changsha to Beijing. [China Daily] Finally, finally… Reactions to PSY's performance at the American Music Awards were
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| Sex tape of Chongqing official and 18-year-old mistress leaked (UPDATE: Official sacked) Posted: 23 Nov 2012 03:30 AM PST  Images have emerged in the last few days purporting to be of Chongqing Beibei District boss Lei Zhengfu having sex with his 18-year-old mistress. (Images after the jump, mildly NSFW). [ more › ] |
| China to replace prisoners with volunteers in organ donor program Posted: 23 Nov 2012 03:00 AM PST  On Thursday November 22, Chinese officials announced that they plan to roll out a volunteer-based organ donor system to completely replace reliance on prisoner organs by 2014. The announcement comes after Guangdong province ran a trial voluntary donation project that was met with success. [ more › ] |
| To Survive Upcoming Apocalypse, Man Builds Boat That May Or May Not Float Posted: 23 Nov 2012 03:57 AM PST
First, I'm not sure what makes this boat something that can survive the apocalypse; is it the railing up there? Second, I'm not sure this boat can float. But in defense of Lu Zhenghai, a man in Urumqi, Xinjiang who spent his life savings of 1 million yuan building this vessel, it's not exactly done. Quoting Global Times:
Equipment might be an understatement. Right now, it looks like he's spent 1 million to build a barn with unstable supports. One more million and he'll still be a few screws short of Noah's Ark, I think. Lu said he built this thing because he was afraid of the 2012 apocalypse.
He's running out of time, considering December is just around the corner. The good news, however: China already has a Noah's Ark. Several, in fact, thanks to inventor Yang Zongfu, and they only cost 1.5 million yuan. Or Lu could do the sensible thing: throw up his feet, crack open a Yanjing, and watch the splendor that is a solar flare ripping through life, limb, and earth. The Yanjing is cold and delicious. (H/T Alicia) |
| That sinking feeling? It's Shanghai Posted: 23 Nov 2012 02:00 AM PST |
| Shanghai to enforce total smoking ban in all public places Posted: 23 Nov 2012 01:00 AM PST  The Shanghai government has announced plans to extend an existing smoking ban to cover all indoor public venues and office buildings, as well as raise fines for those who violate the regulation. [ more › ] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2012 01:00 AM PST |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2012 07:40 AM PST 
Kashgar, in Xinjiang, is China's Westernmost city. A traditional stop on the Northern silk road, with a strong Central Asian flavour – Kashgar replaced Kabul as setting for the shooting of 'The Kite Runner' – it remains an exotic place for city dwellers of the eastern seaboard. Today's post offers an insight into the way Han visitors may experience Kashgar through two different narratives. Although both acknowledge the beauty of the place and Uyghur hospitality, the tone differs. Ji Shuoming's 'Experiencing a different Kashgar' proposes the vision of an integrated, developing and Mandarin-embracing Kashgar, whereas Wang Zhongwei's piece, 'Impressions of Kashgar', gives a stronger sense of distance and alienation, in particular around the status of women. Impressions of Kashgar Wang Zhongwei, philosophy teacher at Guanxi university, recently went on a trip to Kashgar. The trip was motivated by her curiosity to get a direct experience of Kashgar, rather than rely just on book knowledge and media reports to understand that part of China. Wang Zhongwei spends three days in the village of Jiashi. There, she notices numerous brick buildings in construction, bearing signs of thanks to the party. These types of buildings are subsidised by the government, but depart from the local style. She experiences a strong sense of alienation in Jiashi. Numerous people ask when she approaches: "Is she Han, or Uyghur?" And her appearance – pants, hair down and sunglasses – sets her apart from the local women, all of whom wear the traditional long skirts and headscarves, in line with their traditional customs and their faith. Later, she visits a Khirgiz village in the same district. There, she learns about a recent tragedy which the media silenced: local public servants of Uyghur origin were killed by a gang of other Uyghurs. The reasons for the murder are unclear, though some say they were accused of betraying the faith. There, she also meets an elderly man who weaves textile according to Uyghur tradition. He explains in official language how this weaving technique is part of local intangible cultural heritage, and must be preserved, but is unable to describe more in details what this label covers. The end of her narrative focuses more closely on gender division and the condition of women. Parents are stricter on their daughters than boys, and although things are slowly changing, a woman still has to receive her parents' consent before marrying, and needs to have stricter codes of conduct, especially in her relationship with other men. One sign of this, she notices, is the total absence of women in local internet cafes. Marco Polo translation: Impressions of Kashgar Experiencing a different Kashgar In this piece, written shortly after the maiden flight of the new 'aerial silk road' Hong Kong to Kashgar flight, Ji Shuoming, senior journalist for Asia week (亞洲週刊), paints a picture of Kashgar as an urban and dynamic place, insisting on the consequences of recent changes. With its new status as Special Economic Zone, Kashgar is hoping to become 'the Shenzhen of the West'. Representatives of the local government recently went on a trip around Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, to learn from their successes. The vision of the local government leaders – Han leaders with a solid understanding of Uyghur language and culture – is to benefit from Kashgar's proximity to Central Asian countries to make it into a major trade and logistics centre – and through the newly opened air-route, to also benefit from Hong Kong's dynamism. Marco Polo translation: Experiencing a different Kashgar All articles in this digest and a large range of other Chinese readings are accessible at Marcopoloproject.org. Some are available in English, French and Spanish translation. (You can join the project if you'd like to help with translations.) Danwei is an affiliate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University. This posting is a result of one project that is part of that on-going collaboration. The China Story, China Heritage Quarterly and East Asian History are publications of the Australian Centre on China in the World.  |
| “Is There Anyone Against?” Reuters’s Chief Photographer Takes Us Inside The Great Hall Of The People Posted: 23 Nov 2012 12:30 AM PST Petar Kujundzic – Pedja has just posted the only video we've seen that shows the anteroom of the main auditorium inside the Great Hall of the People. As chief photographer of Thomson Reuters, he and his team captured several other images as well, providing unique looks at an event — the 18th National Congress — most often described as boring. "Our team did very well, all angles were covered better than planned," he writes. "During the week-long congress we moved hundreds of images to our global clients ensuring everybody would have what they needed. Everything worked well, no drama – better than expected." Youku video for those in China after the jump. |
| Taiwan hurts the Dalai Lama's feelings for a change Posted: 23 Nov 2012 12:00 AM PST  Tibetan spiritual leader and perpetual hurter of Chinese feelings the Dalai Lama has been denied entry to Taiwan, sparking uproar from supporters on the island. [ more › ] |
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