Links » Crème » Friday Links: “Spark” for Tibetans who set themselves on fire, doomsday stories, and penguin eats its (holy crap!) own young

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• Friday Links: “Spark” for Tibetans who set themselves on fire, doomsday stories, and penguin eats its (holy crap!) own young
• Papaya, dairy, soy, and massage can increase breast size: Global Times
• Parents in Zhejiang receive text message blast calling their children “a piece of shit”
• Top 10 Fastest-Rising Search Terms of 2012
• Global Times: “People who feel constrained by (the Internet) are those who… use the Internet illegally”
• Is 798 Art Zone Destined To Become A Tourist Wonderland?

Friday Links: “Spark” for Tibetans who set themselves on fire, doomsday stories, and penguin eats its (holy crap!) own young Posted: 21 Dec 2012 06:00 AM PST Spelling with People's Daily characteristics Sigh. The headline reads: "'Spark' for Tibetan self-immolation unwilling to do the same." "Lorang Konchok smiled and greeted a police officer he met in a detention house in Aba, a Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture of southwest China's Sichuan Province. // It's hard to imagine that such a humble monk is a murderer." (Xinhua) Doomsday cult stories: What's with the Chinese Mayan-Doomsday Cult? (Evan Osnos, The New Yorker) Cadres and Evangelists. (Sinostand) "UN denies selling China apocalypse ark tickets." (AFP) Corruption does not discriminate by gender. "A dozen women cadres have expanded the envelope for official corruption on the mainland, becoming entangled in a scandal that involved accepting prepaid cards for spa treatments and hairdressing." (SCMP) Penguin eats its own young in Heilongjiang zoo interlude, via Guardian via Shanghaiist: Finally… Lots of parties tonight and this weekend, Beijingers. (the Beijinger) Infographic comparing China's and America's rich. (Tea Leaf Nation) "Teenage abortion in China." (Ministry of Tofu) China's obsession with cars. (The Guardian) Finally, finally… "Do you have a gun?" is the new China taxi driver "Are you scared of black people?" question when you say "I'm American." #progress — Abe Sauer (@abesauer) December 17, 2012

Papaya, dairy, soy, and massage can increase breast size: Global Times Posted: 21 Dec 2012 01:30 AM PST I don't really have much to say about this story except that there's a typo in the headline: Excerpt: The immediate effects of breast enhancement surgeries has lured many women to go under the knife. However, the steep cost, potential side effects and unnatural-looking results have led other women to seek natural and inexpensive alternatives. "We get a lot of young women between 20 to 35 years old with A or B cups who come to consult us on breast enlargement," said Song Yiyi, a beautician and breast masseuse with the Sanctuary Spa in Chaoyang district. "They are eager to enhance their bust sizes but a lot of them are unable to afford the expensive surgeries." A breast enlargement surgery can start from 10,000 yuan ($1,605). Plastic surgery also comes with risks, Song noted. In the 2011 French implant scandal, more than 300,000 women were given implants with cheaper, industrial-grade silicon rather than medical-grade, causing leakage, ruptures or even cancer. What's more, breast implants may impede the breast-feeding process. Therefore, more women are looking for natural ways, from diet and massage, to acupuncture and exercise. These methods might take longer to work, but can be safer. Titilating TCM (Global Times)

Parents in Zhejiang receive text message blast calling their children “a piece of shit” Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:56 PM PST Hackers probably got into a Wenzhou, Zhejiang school's text-sending platform and fired off a very inappropriate message to 600 parents yesterday. Then again, the message probably contained only the hard truth. I mean, have you seen children? Via SCMP: More than 600 parents in China's eastern Zhejiang province were shocked and furious after receiving a text message from their children's school calling pupils "a piece of s**t," reported China's Wenzhou Metropolis Daily on Thursday. The Wenzhou parents received a text message on Tuesday from Xin Ou primary school that said "this student is basically a stupid piece of s**t, how was he(she) ever born?" …A school spokesperson said the message was the result of a software malfunction. Your child is a piece of s**t': 600 parents receive insulting message from Zhejiang school. (SCMP)

Top 10 Fastest-Rising Search Terms of 2012 Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:03 PM PST Second in our year-end series on the year in search on Baidu. Today, we look at the fastest-rising search terms of the year. 1. 薄谷开来 (BógǔKaīlaí – Bogu Kailai) -  Gu Kailai, wife of fallen Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, was the Lady MacBeth of this dramatic year politically. When she was publicly named on a CCTV1 news broadcast as being "strongly suspected" in the murder of British national Neil Heywood in Chongqing, many found it odd that all references to her included her husband's surname, appended to hers as a kind of double surname. Speculation was that this was a none-too-subtle attempt to tie her husband more closely to her misdeeds. Searches for her peaked again around the time of her trial, when many netizens believed that a body double had been used in court. This has since been generally disproven. Gu (or Bogu if you prefer) is now serving a sentence after her conviction in the murder of Heywood. 2. 蒙牛伊利停售 (Měngniú Yīlì tíngshoù – Mengniu and Yili sales suspended) – After a Weibo user posted in March about the fact that he couldn't find products from China's leading dairy brands Mengniu and Yili in Hong Kong supermarkets like Wellcome and PARKnSHOP, a flurry of searches regarding a possible boycott—was it a melamine scare that Hong Kong knew about but the mainland didn't? Was it some other quality problem? Was it baseless anti-mainland prejudice?—flooded Baidu. Turns out that Wellcome claimed they had discontinued Yili over a year previous. 3. 大娘变少妇 (Dàniáng biàn shaòfù  – "Old Dame" becomes young girl) – People get sensitive about logo changes. We get that. Starbucks and The Gap were both roundly criticized for their choices in logo design. Here in China, people get attached to logos too. So when Danian Dumplings, a popular Shanghai-based chain whose name means something like "old dame" decided to ditch the goofy old lady who'd been on their logo forever in favor of a curvaceous young lass, viewed from behind in silhouette as she carries a bucket, people all over China were curious, and anxious to spout off their opinions. 4. 央视报道刘翔现乌龙脚 (Yāngshì baòdaò Liú Xiáng xiàn wūlóngjiaǒ – CCTV's broadcast of Liu Xiang scores an own goal) When darling Shanghai hurdler Liu Xiang was shown in pictures on CCTV with a cast first on one foot, then on the other, sports fans naturally cried foul, accusing him of faking an injury at the London Summer Games. But then when it was learned that one of the images had simply been reversed, CCTV became the object of indignation. They subsequently apologized to Liu. 5. 少女梦想穿越被骗 (shàonǘ mèngxiáng chuānyuè bèipiàn- girl who dreamed of time travel got conned) – A 19-year-old young woman named Dan became obsessed with the idea of going back in time after watching a hit TV series where the young female protagonist, a college student, goes back in time to hang with the emperor and cavort with handsome Manchu princes in the Qing Dynasty. She met someone online and was told that she could travel back in time after drinking a "miracle wine." The unwitting Dan drank the wine and woke up to find her 1800 kuai cash gone. 6. 温兆伦陷财色门 (Wēn Zhàolún xiàncáisèméng - Wen Zhaolun caught in naked photo scandal) – Wen Zhaolun is a Hong Kong actor who has married three times. One of his ex-girlfriends told reporters that Wen took naked photos of her and stored them in his computer. Some of her naked photos were shown to her by a friend and she was threatened by the publication of the photos. Wen said the accusations were groundless and will take legal actions if necessary. If you ask us, this pales in comparison to the Edison Chan scandal of a few years ago. 7. 赵本山退出春晚 (Zhào Bénshān tuìchūchūnwán – Zhao Benshan absent at the Chinese New Year Gala) – For over a decade, Chinese audiences made it an annual routine to watch Zhao Benshan's comedy sketch on the Chinese New Year Gala. Right before the 2012 Chinese New Year Gala, many were disappointed to hear that Zhao had pulled out of the gala at the last minute due to health reasons. Media reports said the official reason given as not the entire story and that Zhao was asked to revise his comedy sketch as the last round of rehearsal and he refused to do it. 8. 《时代》喂奶照 (shídài zázhì weìnaízhào- Time Magazine cover photo of breast-feeding) – A cover of Time Magazine triggered much controversy in May. The cover featured a 26-year-old woman breast-feeding her 3-year-old son, who was standing on a stool. The editors said the reason they put it on the cover was to attract attention. It looks like they got what they wanted. The cover story has grabbed eyeballs in China, introducing the novel concept of "attachment parenting" to millions of Internet users. 9. 局长儿媳炫富 (júzháng érxí xuànfù - official's daughter-in-law shows off wealth) – In Zhejiang Province, a local drug administration bureau chief's daughter-in-law posted photos of luxury bags and watches online and said her husband basically gets paid for going to work once a week at a local state-owned entity. The photos and comments triggered an investigation into her father-in-law and husband. In a similar case, the wife of a local police in Hainan showed off photos of her visiting hot spring resorts in her husband's patrol car and an investigation was launched against the conduct of her husband. Internet users made fun of these "ignorant women", calling them "death traps" for their men and "big helpers" of the ongoing anti-corruption campaign. 10. 春晚睡觉姐 (chūnwán shuìjiàojié - the sleeping woman at the Chinese New Year Gala) – Every year, the Chinese New Year Gala enjoys an audience of hundreds of millions and creates stars on the stage as well as off the stage. This year, the brightest star off the stage was a woman in the live audience who was captured by the camera sleeping soundly amid all the clapping and laughter. Internet users gave her the nickname of "the sleeping woman." We're sympathetic, as it's proven to be a powerful soporific especially when administered after a huge meal of jiaozi. READ MORE

Global Times: “People who feel constrained by (the Internet) are those who… use the Internet illegally” Posted: 20 Dec 2012 09:18 PM PST TAR Nation is on vacation (don't worry, not the forced kind), so leave it to the rest of us to call buncombe on Global Times. Its latest un-bylined editorial is about the Internet: However, due to the complicated nature of exposure on the Internet, we must strengthen regulations over it. Brace yourself. It's that kind of editorial. China's legislation on the Internet and actual management over it have been moderate so far. Indeed, it hasn't affected my productivity at all or made me angry. The impact of censorship has been far less than the impact of the public's enthusiasm for freedom of expression. In the long-term game between censorship and netizens, the former is the loser. I don't know what this means. Problems caused by the Internet have been accumulating. It advocates individual freedom, but at the same time severely damages it. The above is probably the greatest line I've ever read in a Global Times editorial. The Internet advocates individual freedom, but at the same time (EDIT) causes individuals to be thrown into jail. Opinions on the Internet are always radical and Western views are highly politicized. China's regulations over the Internet should focus on one specific question: Whether these regulations benefit the Internet's long-term development and whether they help promote human rights and democracy. I'll just provide the rest with onomatopoeias. It is time to regulate the Internet. Mmm. Such a view is actually embraced not only by the authorities but also by the public who fear that their privacy may be intruded upon. Hgykhk. This regulation will not affect netizens' activities on the Internet but only provide more security. Blam! People who feel constrained by it are those who create waves online or even use the Internet illegally. There you have it. If you are having Internet problems, it's because you're using the tool illegally. It's your fault. Why can't you be happy with your Baidu and Bing? Internet gives and gives and gives, and all you do is take. You greedy malcontents. Also see: People's Daily: "The Internet is Not Outside the Law." Freedom not at odds with online regulation (Global Times)

Is 798 Art Zone Destined To Become A Tourist Wonderland? Posted: 20 Dec 2012 12:00 PM PST Art has never been the same at 798 Art Zone since the tourists were asked to come. I know it's a cliched, "hipster" thing to say, but it's impossible for any neighborhood to remain the same when daily foot traffic numbers in the thousands and publicists and PR specialists are behind the counter at all the big studios. But are more changes in the future, toward greater commercialization? Wall Street Journal's China Real Time Report thinks so: Beijing wants to turn its famous 798 arts district into a tourism wonderland, with giant water theater and fancy hotels. But the plan faces skepticism from local artists and some in the public over its cost, its impact on the district and the heavy amount of water it will use in a city constantly worried about supplies. Uh-oh. The Beijing government, along with a Hong Kong company, plans to build a new extravagant art center in the 798 area, the former warren of industrial factories that is now home to galleries, studios and some retail. The center would include  with an aquatic theater, a gallery, a stage for laser shows, a luxury hotel and apartments and centers that trade and authenticate work of art. The project will kick off its first phase in early 2013 and finish within two years. "This art center will reply on the talent advantage of the current 798 district," said the Beijing state-owned Culture Assets Supervision and Managing Office in a written statement. "It will incorporate performance, display, communication and trading into an international culture entity with Chinese elements." The piece features your standard quote from Ai Weiwei, described as "a prominent Chinese artist." Go check out the article anyway. Billions for Beijing's 798 (WSJ)

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