Blogs » Society » Pencil This In: Dec 31 - Jan 3, New Year's Eve parties and more!

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• Pencil This In: Dec 31 - Jan 3, New Year's Eve parties and more!
• The Xi Jinping Diet: Lose weight and boost political legitimacy
• Join the Spinning Crew at SpinShanghai
• Shanghai's Best Chinese Restaurants (A-Z)
• China's Top 10 Internet Memes of 2012: Aircraft Carrier Style | Qie Gao
• Guangxi teacher gives students condoms for Christmas
• Presented By:
• Woman injects sulphuric acid into ex-husband's new wife, nearly kills her
• We've Found Shanghai's Best Baozi
• Blogging The Bloggers: Another New Year, Same Old Mug’s Game
• Melinda Liu on Xi Jinping and the “China Dream”
• The LA Times profiles Shen Jianzhong, China’s modern-day Bruce Lee, whose son is still in jail for fighting in self-defense
• M Wine Talk: Australian Terroir (and other food/drink events)
• Red Cross forgets Sichuan earthquake donations for 4 years, money grows mouldy
• Pro-establishment march draws thousands in Hong Kong
• Furious online criticism of rich woman who abused migrant worker
• The Situation Is Excellent: The Week That Was At Beijing Cream
• Downtown Shanghai building collapses overnight
• Beijing ambulance used to taxi hospital staff to dinner
• Shanghai Shenhua again linked to David Beckham after losing both Drogba and Anelka

Pencil This In: Dec 31 - Jan 3, New Year's Eve parties and more! Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:00 PM PST The last Pencil This In of 2012 happens to be the first one of 2013 as well. If you've read our NYE special, you're already well-informed about what's going on on Monday. If not, you'll find a convenient link so you can rectify that mistake in this post. If you still have energy after the New Year's Eve parties, you may test your might at the 8 ball competition at Shanghai Brewery, enjoy a concert with music by Johann Strauss II, or get wasted while learning usefull crafting skills at the ladies night at Virgo. Yeah, it's an educational event, gals! Read on for all the details, or check out our calendar for more! [ more › ]

The Xi Jinping Diet: Lose weight and boost political legitimacy Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:00 PM PST Over-indulged over Christmas? Need to boost your un-elected political standing? Try the Xi Jinping diet now and see how quickly the results come. [ more › ]

Join the Spinning Crew at SpinShanghai Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:27 PM PST Date: Dec 15th 2012 3:27p.m. Contributed by: katvelayo

Shanghai's Best Chinese Restaurants (A-Z) Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:16 PM PST Date: Dec 26th 2012 2:16p.m. Contributed by: cityweekend_sh

China's Top 10 Internet Memes of 2012: Aircraft Carrier Style | Qie Gao Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:46 PM PST Date: Dec 18th 2012 2:47p.m. Contributed by: cityweekend_sh

Guangxi teacher gives students condoms for Christmas Posted: 30 Dec 2012 06:00 PM PST Students at one Guangxi university got an unusual and unexpected Christmas present from their teacher last week: condoms. [ more › ]

Presented By: Posted: 30 Dec 2012 06:00 PM PST

Woman injects sulphuric acid into ex-husband's new wife, nearly kills her Posted: 30 Dec 2012 05:00 PM PST Nothing is scarier than a jealous, crazy woman. A woman in Xiayi, Henan province, was arrested for illegally entering a home and attempting to kill her ex-husband's new wife via corrosive injection. A number of people believed to be the woman's accomplices were also arrested. [ more › ]

We've Found Shanghai's Best Baozi Posted: 30 Dec 2012 05:00 PM PST Date: Dec 15th 2012 1:25p.m. Contributed by: mengsta

Blogging The Bloggers: Another New Year, Same Old Mug’s Game Posted: 30 Dec 2012 04:00 PM PST Peeping weekly at the best (and worst) that was, is, and will be on the China blogosphere. Aside from family animosities, hangovers and relief in seeing in another year relatively unscathed, there is little worth celebrating in the Sino-English gulag. Drawing up lists of the best and worst sites is a fool's errand. Ditto content. It is as if this digital corner has been leached of enthusiasm and experiment. Site lords and their communities are sticking to their respective mission statements like grim death. Quite a lot of shared content with different top and bottom commentary. All in all, a pretty depressing picture. I also suspect that many folk simply overestimate the importance of the China English digital world. You could mount a strong argument that it runs a poor second, when compared to the Farsi (Iranian/Persian) English inter-tubes which are bursting with health, despite the best efforts by Ahmadinajad and his turbaned pals. Why so? Content fatigue. Or more likely, you can write the commentary and then wait for the right news report to present itself. Also, expat folk marry, return home and get a life. Chinese contributors enter the SOE world of work, and also get a life (marriage and mortgage). Whatever. The above situation cannot be explained away as a technical issue. WordPress is ever-expanding as a publishing platform, free to use and, as a multimedia median, has its best years in front of it. It requires few technical skills, and you get a major high after hitting the launch button, i.e. being able to see your misguided opinions and obsessions in instant print. And this optimism about online scribbling comes from a digital immigrant. If there are any new, interesting or quirky sites lurking in the background, please advise. BTW. Hating on African music and black folk generally is despicable, and for the initiated, there is another side to Japanese culture. Having mentioned two of the Amigoes, let's focus on the third, namely Stan at China Hearsay who has been writing on China Law, Business and Economics for eons, and from a neo-liberal and legalistic framework. He dissects corporate behaviour with the skill of a mortuary technician, and is not above a bit of jeering, having described the HH posse as "chemically imbalanced." Surprised to note that Stan wished his readers Merry Christmas. This is a bit rich, coming from a guy who prides himself on being a militant atheist who positively enjoys kicking the Christers. However, Stan's attention to the legal niceties is beyond the point when you get reads like this from Spiegel Online. If you have a strong constitution and the ability to digest a continuous diet of official ChiCom moral uplift, Just Recently's Weblog should be a mainstay. JR, aficiando of shortwave radio, cold war warrior and gentleman farmer, provides diverse translations of various official Chinese media as well as discussions dealing with its pre-Commie past, all of which are beyond my pay scale. Up there with China Media Watch, but marred by his secret agenda of wanting to attract followers to his crazed Kat Kult. Bizarre stuff from a serious voice on China's domestic political affairs. Another schizophrenic site is SinoMondiale and its little brother site Sino-NK, run by Adam Cathcart, an academic who abuses his sabbatical leave arrangements to play cello in various classical formulas around the world including China. SinoMondiale is an eclectic mix of comment on diplomatic policy, sorties into deep Cold War history and comprehensive lists of academic references for those folk seeking to complete PhDs with the minimum of effort. Tremendous photography and examples of poster art. These sites obviously attract the erudite. How else would one become aware of North Korean Economy Watch, a dedicated site which should assist you in organizing your pension plan? Similarly, there is china Avant-garde, where Paul Manfredi focuses on the aesthetics of modern Chinese film, art and poetry and, you guessed it, more on Mo Yan and fatso Ai Weiwei. If you're going AA on tabloid titillation, begin with the above. Every now and then one comes across a subject so sensitive that one treads very carefully, and here I refer to the practice of racial miscegenation, which I should add was made respectable by the Portuguese in Brazil and elsewhere. (Not to be outdone in the colonial world, the British offered cricket and sanitary engineering, while the French provided scholarships to their institutes of higher learning.) It is easy over time to work out which of the expat bloglords married locally to Shanghai/Beijing material girls and, reading between the lines, most of these alliances appear to be a success. While this has really pissed off the truly rabid end of the FQ set, aka Mongol Warrior, they shouldn't feel so aggrieved, judging by this list of sites devoted to Western women who took up with Chinese guys. I was about to explore in detail, but that deep tongue wedding photo at the top of the fold was a complete turn off. Living out in the piney woods, I'm totally cut off from all the behind the scenes agendas, perceived slights, jealousies etc. which swirl round the tabloid end of the market. A good guess is that it is probably a mix of Dallas and The Bold and the Beautiful. With this in mind, some belated due diligence on The General was called for. His twitter playground follows a mix of potential news sources, Beijing arty types and serious big cheese weblords, but I couldn't make rhyme or reason out of his tweets. However, if it helps a guy feel crucial, what the heck. His CV is here, and it goes without saying that The General leads a dashing social life. All this frenetic energy, broken I suppose by long bouts in sports bars watching NBA, has to amount to something, so I turned to the unpaid analytics of Alexa.com. BJC is ranked 172,523 globally and 71,318 in China, and surprise, surprise, it is big in Macao (14.5% of its total readership), probably drawing in the croupier-working girl set. Furthermore, Compared with the overall internet population, the site's users are disproportionally college-educated, and they tend to be childless men under the age of 35. Visitors to this site view 2.0 unique pages each day on average. The time spent in a typical visit to this site is approximately three minutes, with 73 seconds spent on each pageview… To translate, BJC has captured a significant market share of under 35 bare branches, who have both very short attention spans and college degrees: the latter simply indicating the fact that they can spell their names correctly. Finally, I come to the Shaun Rein-Joseph Goebbels Award for 2012. Some background. Shaun is a major league "thought leader" with a virtual office staffed by a rotating menagerie of unpaid interns, and author of a heavy tome on Chinese economic and cultural trends. A twitter island unto himself, he only follows Bill Bishop/Sinocism, a hard news site. The rest of you can plain sod off. He is also a great believer in the say-it-loud-and-often-enough school of modern mass communications. The panel didn't even have to form a sub-committee to arrive at a worthy recipient. Godfree Roberts, Amherst PhD, literally blitzed the field. While you have to admire the guy's entrepreneurial vision, he has a second string to his bow, namely that of commenter on Chinese affairs. Sinostand and Seeing Red in China are but a few of the sites which have benefited from his insights. Try this example or the comment he left on this site: The Steering Committee og 8-9 engineers is extremely honest and remarkably honest. They've produced a country that is increasingly prosperous, confident, and supportive (85%, according to Pew, Edelman,,and Harvard) of their government. It's the USA that has the corruption problem, as it's retrogression so clearly demonstrates. What else could explain its failure? Bad luck? Such single-mindedness and dedication. If I could devote a similar time and effort to my card cheating skills, 2013 would be the Year of the Bank Account. |Blogging the Bloggers Archives|

Melinda Liu on Xi Jinping and the “China Dream” Posted: 30 Dec 2012 12:00 PM PST From the start, I've been optimistic about Xi Jinping and his administration. Melinda Liu of the Daily Beast has just outlined many of the reasons why: Then, China's new top graft buster, Wang Qishan, met with a number of anti-corruption experts and interrupted one who addressed him as "dear respected secretary." "Drop the formalities," Wang reportedly told the group. The new message from the top: just get to the point. After less than a month into his job, Xi ushered in a new leadership style that's taken China by surprise. He has exhorted citizens to pursue "national rejuvenation" and a "Great Chinese Dream," while cracking down on graft, trimming official perks, and streamlining bureaucracy. At least in some key areas, Xi seems poised to break with the past decade of stagnation, during which time China's economy slowed and political reforms regressed. If the changes take hold, they could have far-reaching implications both at home and abroad. Many Chinese seem heartened, even inspired, by Xi's down-to-earth style. But many of China's jittery neighbors worry that Beijing's dream could become their nightmare, leading to an increasingly nationalistic and aggressive foreign policy. Reforms will never come fast enough for some people (ahem, Nicholas Kristof wrote about Ai Weiwei the day before Liu's article), but at least we're back in a positon to talk about it realistically. And about that "China Dream": In the eyes of the outside world, however, the big question remains: what exactly is this Chinese Dream? The symbolism is potent but vague on details. The phrase evokes China's past glories, but not any precise period. Rather, says Hu Xingdou, of the Beijing Institute of Technology, China's renaissance refers to achievements related to innovation and creativity—such as the compass, papermaking, movable type, and gunpowder, which are collectively known as the "four great inventions." "The Chinese Dream is different from the American Dream , which focuses on individual success," says Hu. "We mainly stress national power and dignity." But he also cautioned, "If a nation cares only about the dignity of the state and not of the individual… it could turn into a horrible country. The Chinese Dream should mean more power to the citizenry." Maritime tensions and increased Internet restrictions are two issues that dampen our enthusiasm, but we can save these topics for another time. While you're on the Daily Beast website, it may be worth checking out its slideshow, Love on China's Assembly Lines. China's Great Dream (The Daily Beast)

The LA Times profiles Shen Jianzhong, China’s modern-day Bruce Lee, whose son is still in jail for fighting in self-defense Posted: 30 Dec 2012 10:00 AM PST Shen Jianzhong, who fought back a pack of hoodlums in October who broke into his house and assaulted his wife, is making the most out of his 15 minutes of fame — but out of necessity. The LA Times recently caught up with him as he offered a grim update to his situation, specifically all that's happened after he and his son thwarted "30 to 50 men" sent to forcibly evict their family: Shen said his troubles have actually increased since the attack. The next day, he said, nearly 100 men arrived in buses from out of town and surrounded his house. When the police refused to drive off the men on grounds that they were behaving peacefully, Shen fled with his wife to Beijing, hoping that media attention and the central government would help his family. Shen said that in his absence his house has not been demolished, but that shortly after his departure for Beijing, the Bazhou police arrested his son. His son is still in detention as we speak. Shen obviously figured speaking to foreign media would help his situation, however a long shot. Even the article concedes that gangs like the one that attacked Shen are usually in cahoots with local officials, who are shitty enough to not care what you or I or the public thinks. They want their land and their money. The video above, if you haven't already seen it, shows the aftermath of Shen and son's fight, in which they purportedly knocked out seven men. And here's a pretty good recap via the LA Times if you need a refresher in what we're talking about: Shen and his family live in Bazhou, a city in Hebei province 60 miles from central Beijing. Shen says he has trained in Lee's Jeet Kune Do style of kung fu for 20 years. He has also been certified by the Hong Kong-based World Record Assn. for completing the highest number of roller push-ups in a minute. The exercise, which involves folding and unfolding at the waist like an inchworm while propped up with a small wheel, is more than a pastime for Shen. He and his wife run a small business teaching the exercise at home and around Bazhou, and they fear that the loss of their house would damage their livelihood. Shen says he was teaching at a nearby gym on Oct. 29 when a group of more than 30 men assembled outside his house, which a local Communist Party official was planning to redevelop into an apartment complex. The men threatened and verbally abused Shen's wife as she returned home with groceries. Once Shen arrived and confirmed to the leader of the group that his family would not leave before receiving guarantees for housing, the assailants, he said, burst through the front door and began to beat his wife. In response, Shen and his teenage son, a graduate of traditional martial arts schools, entered the fray. If Bruce Lee faced forced eviction in China (LA Times)

M Wine Talk: Australian Terroir (and other food/drink events) Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:45 AM PST M Wine Talk: Want to learn about some of those wines you undoubtedly pounded with reckless abandon this holiday season? On January 11, ASC's wine experts will discuss how certain Australian wines, including Petaluma Cabernet-Merlot and Clare Valley, best represent the geology, geography, and climate in the regions where they were grown. [ more › ]

Red Cross forgets Sichuan earthquake donations for 4 years, money grows mouldy Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:30 AM PST Hundreds of donation boxes set up in Chengdu to aid victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake were left untouched for four years, to the extent that the money actually began to grow mould, according to the Beijing News. [ more › ]

Pro-establishment march draws thousands in Hong Kong Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:00 AM PST Ahead of a New Year's Day anti-China protest, Pro-CY Leung marchers have been out in force in Hong Kong. Chinese and Hong Kong SAR flags were in-hand despite relatively cold weather in the city. [ more › ]

Furious online criticism of rich woman who abused migrant worker Posted: 30 Dec 2012 06:30 AM PST A woman has raised the ire of netizens by verbally abusing a migrant labourer on a public bus. The incident occurred on the 28th December when the two sat next to each other on the 825 bus in the Sichuan city of Chengdu. The labourer, who was around 50 and wearing clothes covered with dust and paint, got on and sat down next to a woman of around 60, described as wearing 'fashionable clothes'. [ more › ]

The Situation Is Excellent: The Week That Was At Beijing Cream Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:59 AM PST December 24 – December 30 We ran a nine-part Christmas special in which expats around China wrote about the holiday experience in their respective cities. A letter decrying "slave labor" was found in a Halloween kit in Portland, Oregon. CCTV ran a documentary on Tibetan self-immolations, which you can watch here. A wealthy young businessman died trying to save a drowning employee. Sina Weibo is experimenting with post delays if there are sensitive words. A road collapses spectacularly in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, creating the impression of two buttocks. Is there really a 127-year-old woman in China? A man plowed down 23 middle school students because he was upset with a court verdict. A woman who appears to scrape hot coals into a manhole blew up, basically. Here's how easily a dog can get stolen. You can now watch, over and over, the shark tank bursting in Shanghai. And the only way Beijing Bellies could've been better is if it was a video and not a slideshow. Look: Asian porn star in America. Art or awful? Lola discusses hickey art. Mandarin version of Cats is in Beijing. And are you being harassed by @chinesetutorbei yet? No? Weird. Comment of the Week: P., on our Christmas Day post about when a small part of Twitter decided to randomly get racist with #IfSantaWasAsian: Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Just one creature was stirring, a kid with a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that Chinese St Nick soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of casual racism danced in their heads. And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's fap. When out on the lot there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The diode screen on the breast of the new-fallen soot Gave the lustre of midday to the Party underfoot. When, what to my bloodshot eyes should appear, But a gas-guzzling sleigh, and eight men to fear. With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be Chinese St Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and spat, and called them by name! "Now Jinping! now, Keqiang! now, Dejiang and Zhengsheng! On, Yunshan! On, Qishan! on, Gaoli and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!" As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of joys, and Chinese St Nick too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney Chinese St Nick came with a bound. He was dressed all in black, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of gizmos he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like hongbao, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the stink of baijiu rose from below The stump of a cig he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a sour face and a little round belly, That shook when he coughed, like a bowlful of jelly! He was chubby and plump, a right rotten old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself! A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had something to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And emptied the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger aside of his nose, And blowing a lot, a snotrocket arose! He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight, "Bam Humbug to all, and to all a rotten night!" |Week in Review Archives|

Downtown Shanghai building collapses overnight Posted: 30 Dec 2012 06:00 AM PST The top floors of an office building in central Shanghai collapsed in the early hours of Sunday morning. The building was the 'Sichuan Building' situated at the junctions of Yan'an East road and Sichuan road, close to the Bund. The collapse spread debris onto the streets, causing traffic problems, but no-one was seriously injured. [ more › ]

Beijing ambulance used to taxi hospital staff to dinner Posted: 30 Dec 2012 05:00 AM PST A netizen has sparked an investigation into the use of a Beijing ambulance to ferry medical professionals to and from a nearby restaurant. [ more › ]

Shanghai Shenhua again linked to David Beckham after losing both Drogba and Anelka Posted: 30 Dec 2012 03:00 AM PST In light of Shanghai Shenhua's severe financial troubles and the fact that both of its major international signings are in the process of jumping ship, it seems ridiculous to talk about the club signing any new big name players. But this is Zhu Jun we're talking about, and the rumours that Zhu may be about to coax David Beckham into joining his floundering club won't go away. [ more › ]

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