Great Link to a Chinese Site with Pandas playing

Chinese parents pressure their kids much more than ours. The kids typically learn some type of musical instrument as well as languages in their free time. They hate it but the parents demand it. They know western HS rocks, but they are stuck here.

Panda Bears are not really a gift from China, they actually just loan them to you- kind of like Indian giving. The Panda’s given to the USA in the 70’s were the only time that China actually gave the bears to a foreign country, all the rest are merely loaners.

The director of China’s International Publishing Group recently told China Daily that measures should be adopted to avoid English invading Chinese, referring to a recent phenomenon in many Chinese publications in which English words — i.e. GDP (gross domestic product) and CPI (consumer price index) — are being interwoven into texts.

“In the long run, Chinese will lose its role as an independent linguistic system for passing on information and expressing human feelings,” said Huang Youyi, China International Publishing Group director and CPPCC National Committee member.

Huang Youyi made a three-point proposal at the recent annual session of the CPPCC: (1) All government speeches should only be in pure Chinese with absolutely no English, (2) guidelines should be in place for how English can be used in publications, and (3) a committee should be formed to translate foreign names and words.

After reading both Shanghaiist’s and China Divide’s gripes with Huang’s proposal, including how much more convenient it is to simply say GDP, regardless of what language we’re talking about — for reference GDP in Chinese is six characters — I think we’ve gotten skewed from the obvious. Chinese publications are simply devoting too much ink to these issues.

Let me explain.

Huang is arguing that words like GDP, CPI and WTO (World Trade Organization), which are the only words he mentions in his commentary, are invading Chinese publications. I’d like to see what other words are cutting up the character system, including the most prominent foreign names. But I digress.

For someone to call it an “invasion,” what has to happen? There must be a clear pervasiveness of these words in Chinese publications. They’ve got to be all over the place to the point where one can’t go a single day without seeing a publication that includes any of the aforementioned acronyms. According to Webster’s, invading is defined as entering in large numbers with an intrusive effect.

GDP, CPI and WTO, according to Huang, are intrusive, to the point where they are bothering him when he reads through various publications and government leader’s speeches. The real issue, though, is the over-saturation of gross domestic product, consumer price index and World Trade Organization in Chinese publications.

News channels, magazines and newspapers are rife with daily stories on the previously mentioned topics. It is as if China’s GDP has its own beat reporter, like he or she were covering a Lakers game. If I were an individual who had never set foot in China yet read its newspapers daily, I’d be under the impression the Chinese were some of the most well-versed economists on the planet. They’ve got acres of paper devoted to financial, securities, stocks and other economically-oriented stories splashed across the pages.

The truth, which Huang probably doesn’t want to hear, is that all these newscasts relating to GDP and the WTO don’t need to be publicized on a daily basis. Where are stories about fires, crime, obituaries, elections and other news-related items that typically dominate the front pages and breaking news updates of western media outlets?

I wonder, if China were allowed the press freedom that journalists enjoy in the United States, would a comparison with a previous newspaper when press freedom was not around yield two widely different pictures? Would it be like night and day? Would it be like searching Google images for Tiananmen Square, where tank man pops up, and then searching Google China images, where the results are filtered, and seeing pretty tourist images?

The real issue is China clearly puts too much emphasis on GDP, eight percent growth and other economic-related articles, while turning a blind eye to other news. The subject does not need to be discussed on a daily basis. Economics has many internationally recognized acronyms to keep the reading simpler. Other news stories relating to issues such as crime do not.

If Huang wants publications to stop using English acronyms, there is a simple solution: Print news that does not relate to economics.

Chi Zijian's novel (额尔古纳河右岸), winner of the Mao Dun Literary Award (2008) is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of an aging Evenki woman in the last years of the 20th century. She chooses to stay behind when her tribe abandons the forested mountains of Northeast China for “civilized” life among town dwellers, where their beloved reindeer will be cooped up like cattle...

"According to Huang Youyi, CPCC member and director of the China International Publishing Group, the Chinese language is facing a new invasion: by the English language. Huang feels that no good can come of the popular use of English words and acronyms (such as GDP and CEO) in published Chinese articles and everyday conversations."

"Good luck" red ribbons next to ancient tree, Pingle, Sichuan

平乐古镇四川

The new BMW S 1000R is allegedly the most powerful liter bike in the world. If you dont believe it, check out the viral video made to stake that claim.

We asked notable Beijingers: "What's on your bookshelf?" Here's what Ian Johnson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Beijing correspondent for the Wall Street Journal said:

My favorite childhood book is House at Pooh Corner.

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See the largest collection of paintings in the world on an after-hours private VIP tour with expert curators.Fine Art Cruise toSt. Petersburg, RussiaAugust 7-14Only $4,995Limited to 100 participantsCLICK VIDEO TO VIEWFor information or to reserve ...

© xiquinhosilvaGambling in Macau has been around probably since the invention of the chop sticks, but it became legal under the Portuguese in the 1850. Portugal promoted it as the "Monte Carlo of the Orient." Most people don't know that only Chinese games were played until the 20th Century. But Western-style casinos were finally introduced in the late 1930's, and sports betting was not far behind. While gambling is also around in Hong Kong and doesn't look much different, ni Macau gambling is ...

The worst trend I have noticed over the last few years is the lack of appreciation for the editor and proofreader. I frequent freelance job boards and see a preponderance of job posts that pay less than minimum wage for editing, proofreading, and writing. These are no longer viewed as skilled positions. Businesses believe that anyone can do these jobs and are starting to outsource the work to non-native English speakers. These businesses end up with text that reads like gibberish.

The other day I started looking at the descriptive tags for wines in Jersey City. Here's one that I found:

Delicate notes of mature fruit and floral emerge, while the sapore is fresh thanks to one balanced acidity, very supported from one good wealth of body and structure. For its fragrance the wine is ready to the commercialization and to it since drinks the successive spring to the grape harvest.

 Does this make any sense to anyone? The copywriter for that winery should be ashamed and unemployed. And there were other tags and labels that were almost as disgraceful as that one.

“The interview is conducted at the Great Hall of the People’s Eastern Gate, and Wu Guanghui (吴光辉) considerately asks me: “Are you feeling cold?” As I thank him for getting out of the Great Hall of the People to grant me the interview, he says: “Your persistence was moving.” As there had been so many [...]

It has been 50 years since the scientist turned eco-evangelist began her seminal work with chimpanzees in Africa. But, writes Stephen Moss, her work is far from finished.

Jane Goodall, grey in complexion but resplendent in a red shawl, is sitting on the sofa in a dimly lit room in west London. The scientist-turned-environmentalist has just arrived from Bournemouth on England’s south coast, had a rotten journey, has a hacking cough, but accepts it all stoically, rejecting the suggestion that the heating be turned up.

She is here with her talisman, a stuffed monkey called Mr H, given to her by the blind magician Gary Haun (“the Amazing Haundini”), who thought it was a chimp. Goodall, who has a childlike quality, sees a metaphorical significance in a blind magician who is able to pull the wool over the eyes of the sighted. The letter H, standing for Hope, also attracts her.

The world seems to divide into people who are besotted with Goodall and people who have barely heard of her. She is more prominent in the United States, where the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) is headquartered, than in the United Kingdom, despite being born here in 1934; after half a lifetime spent documenting the lives of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park overlooking Lake Tanganyika in the far west of Tanzania, she is now living with her sister Judy in their old family home in Bournemouth.

Our meeting takes place at a flat that belongs to Mary Lewis, a JGI employee with a cut-glass English accent who appears to run Goodall’s life as if it were a military operation. The trigger is a book Goodall has written with two fellow environmentalists: a collection of stories of survival called Hope for Animals and Their World, the written-by-committee feel of which must of course be forgiven because of its subject matter.

Even I, an intermittent eco-worrier, was moved by the battle to save the California condor, and I feel doubly guilty for criticising the book because at the end of the interview she insists on signing it for me: “For Stephen. ­Together we can make this a better world for all. Thank you for helping.” Can is underlined, all is both underlined and capitalised.

These days, in her mid-70s, Goodall is more shaman than scientist. She has set aside a planned companion volume to her seminal study The Chimpanzees of Gombe, and instead tours the world preaching the need for sustainability, harmony and respect for the natural world (this makes me worry about the size of her carbon footprint).

It was in 1986 that, at a conference on chimps, she realised the extent of the crisis affecting them across Africa and determined, overnight it seems, on a life as an environmental evangelist. One journalist who has followed her career likens her to a “peripatetic Mother Teresa”, and it’s a good description: she combines stateliness with a kind of holiness, her religion a predominantly green one.

The message of her new book, with its stories about black-footed ferrets, American crocodiles and whooping cranes, is surprisingly upbeat. “My job seems to have increasingly become giving people hope, so that instead of doing nothing and sinking into depression, they take action,” she tells me. “It’s very clear to me that unless we get a critical mass of people involved in trying to create a better world for our great-grandchildren, we’d better stop having children altogether.”

Goodall has chosen to focus on the heroes fighting – and occasionally winning – individual battles, in the hope of attracting others to participate in a war she does not yet accept is lost. “I’ve seen areas totally despoiled that have been brought back to life. Animals that were almost gone have, with captive breeding or protection in the wild, been given another chance. If we stop now, everything’s going to go. So we have to keep on doing our best for as long as we can, and if we’re going to die, let’s die fighting.” The apocalypse is conjured up in a croaky and curiously detached monotone.

Do governments understand the scale of the crisis? Goodall argues that many are still in hock to “dark forces” – vested interests such as the fossil-fuel industry and agribusiness. Politicians, she says, should stop parroting the myth of limitless expansion. “Unlimited economic growth on a planet of finite resources is not possible; it doesn’t make sense. I thought this financial ­crisis would help people realise that, but it seems very much like, ‘Oh, let's get back to business as usual.’ ”

Much of her evangelising is directed at the young. Her institute – set up to protect chimps and their habitats ­almost 10 years before that Damascene moment in 1986 – has a dynamic youth wing called Roots and Shoots, which started in 1991 when 16 young Tanzanians met on the porch of her home in Dar es Salaam to discuss environmental issues affecting their lives.

Twenty years later, there are groups in 114 countries, with hundreds of thousands of youngsters involved in community projects. After a slow start, it has taken off in the United Kingdom in the past couple of years, with 700 groups now participating.

But apart from the headquarters in the US city of Arlington, Virginia -- which has 20-plus staff -- most of the JGIs that coordinate these projects are shoestring operations, and the institute has been hit hard by the credit crunch. “We’re in a financial hole in the US because of the downturn,” Goodall admits. “Money that should have come in has been cut.”

The organisation had just held a meeting in Belgium to discuss how to dig itself out, and one priority is to recruit an executive director. Is that recognition of a time when someone will need to take over from her? “Of course,” Goodall says. “It will probably be a collection of four people taking over from me.” Despite the holiness, she is not guilty of false modesty.

The institute today is not just concerned with her beloved chimps. “To me, it was obvious to grow from wild chimps to saving their forest to seeing about their conditions in captivity to working with local people and kids,” she says. “You can kill yourself saving forests and chimps, but if new generations aren’t going to be better stewards there’s no point. That’s why I’m so passionate about Roots & Shoots.”

Until the 1986 conference on chimpanzees, she had assumed she would spend her life studying chimps. “It was wonderful out in the forest collecting data and ­analysing it, giving a few lectures, writing books.” In her 1999 book, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, she says that as a Bible-reading teenager, she “fantasised about becoming a martyr”. In a way, she has achieved that ambition, sacrificing the paradise of Gombe for a succession of airport lounges.

When I ask if she is still a Christian, she gives a somewhat ­ambiguous ­answer. “I suppose so; I was raised as a Christian.” She says she sees no contradiction between evolution and a belief in God. Nor does she blame the Bible and the idea in Genesis that man has dominion over plants and animals for our exploitation of the natural world (she says “dominion” is a mistranslation; what is meant is “stewardship”). These might seem academic points, but perhaps they are a key to understanding her transition from scientist to eco-evangelist – and the resonance of her message in the more spiritually aware US.

“I realised that my experience in the forest, my understanding of the chimpanzees, had given me a new perspective,” she writes in Reason for Hope. “I was ­utterly convinced there was a great spiritual power that we call God, Allah or Brahma, although I knew, equally ­certainly, that my finite mind could never comprehend its form or nature.”

This year is significant for Goodall and her institute, marking 50 years since she began studying chimps at Gombe. As well as the new book, there will be a BBC documentary in the spring and a German-made film, Jane’s Journey, to be premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, in which Angelina Jolie has a walk-on part. It is indeed a remarkable journey, from a middle-class home in Bournemouth to secretarial work in London and then, thanks to the patronage of paleontologist Louis Leakey, to Gombe and beyond.

“I loved animals as a child, read the Tarzan books, and decided at the age of 11 that I would go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them,” she says. “Everybody laughed at me except my amazing mother, who said, ‘If you work hard and really want something and never give up, you will find a way.’ ”

In 1957, after earning the money for the boat fare by working as a waitress and a secretary, Goodall went on an extended visit to a school friend in Kenya. Someone suggested she get in touch with Leakey, a formidable figure who was then curator of the Coryndon museum of natural history in Nairobi. He barked at her down the telephone when she called, but she kept her nerve, got an appointment to see him, was given an administrative job and, in 1960, was given the chance to move to Gombe to start collecting data on chimps.

Leakey also dispatched Dian Fossey to Rwanda to study gorillas and Birute Galdikas to Borneo to observe orangutans; the three women were patronisingly known as Leakey’s angels or Leakey’s trimates, but each made significant contributions to primatology.

What did Leakey see in Goodall that made him choose her for Gombe? “I think he was amazed that a young girl straight out from England with no university degree knew so much,” she says. “I'd spent hours in the Natural History Museum in London, and could answer most of his questions.”

Goodall had planned to spend only a year in Africa but was there more than 30. She still has a home in Dar es Salaam, and makes the long trek to ­Gombe when she can. She learned her science in the field, but Leakey was keen for her to get academic training and, in the mid-60s, she did a PhD at Cambridge in ethology, the study of animal behavior. She needed the qualification to counter critics who attacked her approach as unscientific and anthropomorphic – she gave the chimps she studied names, and prided herself on getting to know them as individuals.

“I was told at Cambridge I shouldn’t have named the chimps and that they should have had numbers,” she says. “I wasn’t allowed to talk about them having personalities, and certainly not about them thinking or having ­emotions. But then I thought back to my childhood teacher who taught me that this wasn’t true – my dog.”

The scale of Goodall’s observational data eventually silenced her critics. She was the first scientist to observe an animal, her favourite chimp David Greybeard, not just using a tool (a stem of grass poked into a termites’ nest to dig out the insects) but fashioning it for that purpose. When she telegraphed a report of what she had seen to Leakey, he replied: “Ah! Now we must redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human.”

We haven’t quite accepted chimps as human, but the work showed that the distance from one to the other was far less than previously thought. In his introduction to a revised edition of Goodall’s most famous book, In the Shadow of Man, the biologist Stephen Jay Gould called her work “one of the western world’s great scientific achievements”.

In 1964, she married the Dutch-born wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick, and their son (also called Hugo, but known as Grub) was born three years later. In her books there are several sweet pictures of Grub growing up at Gombe, but the relationship of mother and son has not always been smooth. At one point he was engaged in commercial fishing, of which she as a committed vegetarian disapproved, but is now developing an eco-tourist project in Tanzania and they are getting on much better. Goodall and van Lawick divorced in 1974 and she married Derek Bryceson, director of national parks in Tanzania, who died of cancer in 1980.

Is she one of those naturalists, as Fossey supposedly was in her dark ­final years, who prefers animals to ­people? “I’m not one of those people who says let me go and live with chimps forever or dogs forever,” she says. “I certainly prefer a lot of animals to a lot of people, but then I prefer some people to some animals too.”

And does she miss the chimps? “All the chimps I knew so well have gone now,” she says sadly. “Fifi, the last of the real old-timers, died four years ago. It’s not the same as it was.” But she still enjoys returning to Gombe. “When I get up on to my peak where I sat for so long, I can get back into the skin I had and remember just what it felt like – the excitement of never quite knowing what you’d see and what you'd find.”

Hope for Animals and Their World is published by Icon Books.

www.guardian.co.uk/

Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
 
Homepage image from Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees

African pastoralism has been dismissed as outdated and inefficient. But awareness of its social and environmental benefits is growing, says Ced Hesse.

In many parts of dryland Africa, national governments are beginning to value pastoralism and the importance of mobility for productivity. Innovative policies now recognise and reflect pastoralism’s crucial role within local, national and regional economies, and new activities put these policies into practice.

Recognising that pastoralism frequently needs to cross international borders, and that regional trade needs support, several international institutions are formalising cross-border pastoral mobility. This provides nation states with a benchmark to design their own policy and legislation. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has led the way, providing an institutional framework to facilitate cross-border livestock mobility. Cross-border movement is authorised by granting a certificate that controls the departure of pastoralists from their home countries and assures the health of local herds.

Over the past 15 years, the pace of policy reform in west Africa has been considerable. The governments of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Niger have all passed specific pastoral laws to protect pastoral land and to facilitate livestock mobility both within countries and across international borders. In eastern Africa, too, there is some progress. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania all recognise pastoralism as a livelihood system deserving of support. East Africa has also established influential pastoral parliamentary groups that offer oversight of government policy. Pastoralists’ Day in Ethiopia and Pastoralists’ Week in Kenya are now regular features on these countries’ political calendars.

Decentralisation throughout the Sahel has introduced a radical new agenda involving civil society in areas traditionally controlled by government. The devolution of authority for the management of local affairs including land and the provision of key services such as water, health and education through local government reforms, decentralisation and regionalisation in Mali, Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Burkina Faso offer hope for the more active involvement of pastoral communities in the implementation of policies that affect their lives in many countries. These reforms vindicate pastoral indigenous knowledge and practice, as well as the scientific research that confirms the critical role of livestock mobility in maximising productivity and preserving the environment from degradation.

In west Africa the Wodaabe (Fulani) of Niger are increasingly internet-aware. These groups develop their own websites in French and English and, more recently, Spanish to reach out to a wider public, to defend their way of life and to explain the key role of mobility. The Wodaabe have adapted their traditional gathering of clans and created an internationally-renowned General Assembly. Donors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and tourists are all invited to attend what has become a cultural festival, further raising the political visibility of these emerging new forms of social organisation.

These innovations are assisted by new thinking among development agencies, who, after decades of development failure, now facilitate more holistic interventions in pastoral areas. Projects that focussed solely on water development, animal health or range management have been replaced with concern about social, institutional and governance issues. Peace building is on the increase, as are experiments with ways to protect key pastoral assets in the event of drought or disease. And the importance of markets has finally been recognised with innovations ranging from pastoral credit provision to drought insurance.

Much attention is paid to addressing land tenure and establishing appropriate institutional mechanisms at the outset to reconcile the competing interests over resources often found in Africa’s rangelands. These rangelands are part of what is broadly called the “commons” – natural resources that are owned, managed and used collectively by different users, either simultaneously or sequentially often under different tenure arrangements. Through experience, projects now acknowledge that rules for the management of these areas must recognise and secure these multiple interests.

Millions and millions of US dollars have been spent in pastoral-drought relief in dryland Africa since the 1970s. Nearly all of this money has gone on buying food aid, which while saving pastoral lives has failed to save their livelihoods. For many pastoral communities, the return of the rains after the drought has not allowed them to return to mobile-livestock keeping. Having lost their animals during the drought, they either remain in or around the towns from which they received the food aid that saved their lives, sometimes succeeding in a new livelihood, or they try their hand at agriculture, charcoal making or, in extreme cases, adopting a violent lifestyle.

Groundbreaking work by a consortium of agencies including Save the Children in eastern Africa has been experimenting with market-based approaches to protect the key livelihood assets of pastoral communities. By providing cash for work, as opposed to food for work, or by facilitating controlled de-stocking of pastoral livestock through the market with private traders, pastoralists in Ethiopia and Kenya managed to save their core breeding herd though the drought of 2006. These initiatives take a livelihoods approach to emergency response, which not only helps to harmonise relief and development interventions, so often contradictory, but also strengthens pastoralists’ resilience to drought.

Global challenges

Unlike other land uses, pastoralism is uniquely capable of adapting to climate change. Although climatic variability is the norm in Africa’s drylands, human-induced climate change is beginning to pose a serious challenge. Climate is becoming more variable and less predictable. Successive poor rains, shifts in the beginning and end of the rainy seasons, increased rainfall intensity – which often runs off in floods and damages crops and infrastructure – increases and decreases in rainfall in varying parts of the continent and increases in drought-related shocks, are all current trends observed across the continent. These trends are likely to continue over the short to medium term.

Pastoralists that are mobile are in a better position to quickly and successfully adapt to a changing climate than those tied to sedentary land uses. For 7,000 years pastoralists have used mobility to respond quickly to variations in the drylands’ climate, and used specialist risk-spreading strategies as an insurance against the potential loss of their stock. Whether pastoralists will successfully adapt to the current climate change will depend on how the environmental and developmental challenges are tackled and whether mobility is secured. To continue to adapt, pastoralist communities need to be informed of changes to come and be involved in planning for the future.

The livestock sector, and by implication pastoralism, has been accused of contributing to global warming through methane emissions. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’s high-profile report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, found livestock to be responsible for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, a higher share than transport. When the data is unravelled, however, it becomes clear that livestock have been globally aggregated, with European intensive-milk production, south-east Asian high-intensity pig farming, US beef burger feedlots and ranching and African pastoralism all lumped together. Until we have a better understanding of the environmental impacts of the different livestock sectors, it is a mistake to conclude that mobile-livestock keeping in Africa’s drylands does more harm through its contribution to global warming than good through its contribution to national food security, economic growth and carbon sequestration.

There is now increasing interest in exploring the value of pastoralism in mitigating the impact of climate change, with the carbon sequestration capability of Africa’s pastures emerging as a real opportunity for the drylands. Thirteen million square kilometres of grasslands are found in Africa. Grasslands store approximately 34% of the global stock of carbon dioxide – a service worth US$7 (47.8 yuan) for every 10,000 square metres, according to research by Robert Constanza, director of the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics, and others. What is important to note is that grasslands’ capacity to store carbon is significantly reduced in heavily degraded areas, or where rangelands are converted to croplands.

Rangelands, and pastoralism in general, are increasingly seen as having positive environmental impacts. The grazing action of livestock is recognised as having helped maintain healthy populations of wildlife – the cornerstone of much of Africa’s tourism industry. East African savannah landscapes have been largely shaped over the course of the past 3,000 to 4,000 years by pastoralist land-management practices. Well-managed grazing opens up pastures, stimulates vegetation growth, contributes to seed dispersal and pasture diversity and enhances nutrient cycling through the ecosystem. Where mobility is reduced and pastoralists are confined to limited spaces, evidence of overgrazing becomes apparent.

Where mobility is secured, pastoralism has massive environmental benefits, can adapt to climate change, and presents African governments with the very real possibility of grasslands generating revenues as carbon sinks. When their livelihoods are secure, pastoralists freely patrol inhospitable and remote border regions and can help reduce conflict. And when their herding strategies and practices are secured, pastoralism allows the economic independence of millions of people in the drylands, who would otherwise have little alternative but to fuel urban poverty and undesired social dynamics.

Future policy decisions need to take into account the many valuable benefits and services provided by pastoralism. If the pastoral system is allowed to flip into irreversible destitution, there is a real danger that all these benefits and services will be lost. Losing pastoralism is not in the public interest.

Ced Hesse is principal researcher in the climate-change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Co-authors of this piece were Saverio Kratli, Izzy Birch and Magda Nassef.

An

Homepage image by Andy Catley

A billboard that can identify the age and gender of passers-by, then offer custom advertising according to their demographic, is already up and running in Japan. NEC Japan has been testing the digital billboard technology in major shopping centers over the past year. The American arm of NEC is preparing to bring them to the U.S. this year.

The people watching billboards have had mixed reactions. Many allude to a scene in the film, Minority Report in which Tom Cruise’s character is scanned by ad generating billboards as he walks through a futuristic mall, pretty amazing isnt it....

I haven't bought a Balenciaga bag in AGES.

Well, okay. There was that Balenciaga Arena Saddle satchel bag that I bought back in December, but it was a different design (not the 'First' style that I was obsessed with). I do love it because it's so soft and buttery, but I reaaaalllllyyyy wanted another First bag.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Well, it's not really a secret if you're a close friend/family or if you've been reading my blog for awhile. I am mildy fanatical about my Balenciaga magenta First that I bought more than 3 years ago. Even though I've bought many other Balenciagas since, none come close to my Magenta. There's something intoxicating about the SMELL of the leather, and the FEEL of it. Sadly, it's so old and dirty it freaks people out... so now it's retired for "home use". Every night, as I sit on the couch and surf the internet and watch TV, Miss Magenta bag sits on my lap and I stroke it and play with the tassels - because it feels and smells so good. I know, I know, I sound completely insane. Don't laugh!!

Anyway, I decided I wanted a new Balenciaga and this season, they released the 'papeete' colour - a stunning soft aqua!!!!! It's very similiar to Tiffany & Co colours, which was why I was smitten. Took ages to hunt one down but I found one in the USA and got it shipped to me, arriving a mere 3 days later.

I'm in love with the colour and how amazing the bag smells. This is why it's impossible to fake a Balenciaga. I've looked, and nowhere can come close to matching the quality and detail, the smell and feel of an authentic Balenciaga. Unlike other fake bags, even the best Balenciaga fake can be spotted from far away. This is why out of all the luxury brands, I think Balenciaga is one of the brands where it's worth buying the original. Once you've seen, touched and smelled an authentic Balenciaga, you'll see why! :)

It's not as soft as my Magenta because it hasn't had years & years of wear & tear, but I massaged it so it's already quite slouchy. Plus, it'll keep softening as I use it. I can't wait for the day it becomes all slouchy and old and used!

Balenciaga 'papeete' lambskin First bag (from 2010 collection)

The scrummy backside

Mmm... slouchy....

The winner for this week's lightning round giveaway for tickets to tomorrow's two events at the Bookworm International Literary Festival is registered GoChengdoo user olivias.

Congratulations to our winner and thanks to everyone who played. Keep an eye out GoChengdoo.com for more Literary Festival tickets this month!

Chinese Minister of Supervision Ma Wen was recently quoted as saying that public servants will soon be required to disclose "detailed information about income, property owned and investments, and jobs held by their spouses and children." Li Fei, who holds an equally important -sounding position in the NPC Standing Commitee, has refused to comment on precisely when, where and how this might be implemented, stating that measures "[will] proceed only after conditions are ripe." Typical.

If you want to experience the decadency of Italy….please go to Issimo, located inside the boutique hotel JIA. Great interior, Great food and of course Great prices. But oh, what an experience food-wise!

We had the foie gras (awesome awesome awesome), tuna, calve, vegetables, dessert, etc. Just have a look at the pictures and be amazed! Only Sundays!

"Chinese companies still copy a lot of foreign design. The most important thing for China is that its businesses learn the importance of design and start designing for themselves." Read the whole article 'Brand Politics', in which yours truly was interviewed by Adam Smith for World Trademark Review here (pdf).

The British Centre for Literary Translation is holding its Summer School 18-24 July 2010 and registration is now open. Bursaries are available for students translating from Chinese to English. Our resident author this year is Yan Geling, and I'll be leading the group. Here's the link: BCLT

Love my Jorya wedges!

Photo: [Eddie Awad's Photostream]

• We don't know what's worse: listening to one of China's richest women bitch about the impending burst of the bubble who made her that way, or her escalating her hustle of overvalued real estate the midst of said burst. Actually, we're voting for the picture of her smiling and standing like Shirley Temple next to statue of a cartoon Deng Xiaoping.[Forbes]
• The USA's annual Human Rights Report has, as expected, taken aim at China's admittedly less-than-stellar record in the arena. But we were more taken by the eighth line of the report: "Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people. [The Wall Street Journal's China RealTime Report]

• Not only is free media (generally) not allowed or recommended in China, it isn't tolerated! Hubei's provincial governor obviously wasn't having a good day last week when he literally threatened a reporter for asking him what appeared to be a harmless question. [Global Voices Online]
• It's been revealed that China make actually be substantially helping impoverished African nations reduce their poverty - as a means of helping itself. Seem underhanded? Maybe. But consider that our nation has decreased it's poverty rate from over 50 to under ten percent in just twenty years. Where there's a will, and all that jazz. [The China Beat]
• The Chinese government is so shady that it doesn't even directly reform its new recruits of their recruitment. Among other cases, a Peking University professor recently learned he'd been tapped to sit on one of the nation's "top political advisory body" learned of this while watching a television news report. [Global Times]
• Shanghai may have provided refuges to Jews fleeing Europe during World War II, but that doesn't mean China's got Israel's back. As Israeli develops unveil plans to build more than 100 Jewish apartments in East Jerusalem and 1000 homes in the West Bank, our government's stance couldn't be clearer: "China urges the Israeli side to immediately stop building the Jewish settlements and make real efforts to revive the talks." [People's Daily Online]
• What's the best way to sidestep being corralled into the reporter's area at your next press event? Well, having a vagina seems to be a good start. In addition to the benefits provided by being female and at least somewhat attractive, it's apparently also adviseable that you grope the man you'd like to interview as he walks by. [Global Times]

Photo: [Eddie Awad's Photostream]

Submitted by Dan Wu on March 12, 2010 - 17:41

randomwire.com has an article by David.

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Huashang Morning Post, March 12, 2009

Shenyang's Huashang Morning Post reports the death of 11 Siberian tigers: "The cause for death are mostly heart failure, kidney failure, haemorrhagic enteritis, experts say that main cause of death was malnutrition."

The wildlife park has since stopped operating, the newspaper reports.

The front page lists the deaths and cause of deaths:

11 Siberian tigers

Date of death and cause

November 11, 2009, 1 dead, lung abscess

November 26, 2009, 1 dead, heart failure

December 24, 2009, 1 dead, kidney failure

December 28, 2009, 1 dead, kidney failure

January 5, 2010, 1 dead, haemorrhagic enteritis

January 23, 2010, 1 dead, haemorrhagic enteritis

January 30, 2010, 1 dead, heart failure

January 31, 2010, 1 dead, nephritis and kidney failure

February 8, 2010, 1 dead, myocarditis

February 14, 2010, 1 dead, extreme malnutrition

February 27, 2010, 1 dead, septicaemia

(Note: On November 13, 2009, the two tigers who were killed during their attacks on people were not included)

Nowadays there are still around 30 tigers in the wildlife park, we are worried that...

Entry continues on Danwei.

Tags: death, Huashang Morning Post, Shenyang Bingchuan Wildlife Park, Siberian tigers

This article is from Danwei.org

Anonymous asks:I am an American female and began an international graduate program this January here in the US. Most of my classmates are foreign and I’ve gotten the attention from a Chinese...

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Every Friday, Weekendist brings you our picks of the best of what's coming in the next three days.

This weekend is the weekend for bookworms and art buffs, as both the Shanghai International Literary Festival and the JUE Art + Music Festival will be vying for your attention. For the night owls, though, the weekend's evenings are particularly packed with some amazing live music sets. Be sure to check our Calendar for more info.

FRIDAY

Today is the start of the JUE festival, a showcase of music and art in Beijing and Shanghai in full swing 'til 29th March. There are over seventy events to choose from, Click here for the full JUE schedule.

The Shelter is spoiling us again: the legendary 'John Coltrane of hip hop' DJ Vadim is bringing his mood shifting, universal sounds to the club tonight. He'll be sharing the stage with street-sassy MC Yarah Bravo. Expect a big one.
50RMB cover.
The Shelter, 5 Yongfu Lu near Fuxing Xi Lu, 永福路5号

A new club, Node Lounge, soft opens at Red Town tonight. Chic atmosphere and free booze between 9pm and midnight? Sign us up!
A2-101, 570 Huaihai Xi Lu, near Hongqiao Lu, 请带我去淮海西路570号A2-101, 近虹桥路

SATURDAY

As we wrote earlier this week, the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Shanghai is the (free!) pinnacle of Irish Week. Get in the festive mood and join at Fuxing Park. We can only hope today's sunshine will follow us there.
10:30am to 1pm Fuxing Park and Yandang Lu, Luwan District （复兴公园进雁荡路）

The Lit Fest will be continuing its successful run this weekend. The following are a couple of sessions not to be missed:

If you enjoyed Paul French's slides of the dirty decadence of old Shanghai, then Andrew Field's discussion of cabarets, nightclubs and ballrooms will surely please. Field will also look at how, and why, Shanghai society adopted this westernized entertainment to suit themselves in an era when Chinese national identity was being forged.
RMB 65, tickets available from www.mypiao.com
11am - 12pm, The Glamour Bar, 6/F, Five on the Bund, 20 Guangdong Lu,near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. 广东路20号，外滩五号6楼，近中山东一路.

At 3pm, Tess Johnston will be discussing her memoir, From Berlin to Shanghai in Half a Century. Be prepared for a ride through the Cold War in East and West Berlin, Vietnam, Laos, Tehran between revolutions, and finally, nearly three tranquil decades in Shanghai.
RMB 65, tickets available from www.mypiao.com
3pm - 4pm, The Glamour Bar, 6/F, Five on the Bund, 20 Guangdong Lu,near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. 广东路20号，外滩五号6楼，近中山东一路

2009 Man Asia Literary Prize winner Su Tong explores the themes of inspiration, memory and childhood in this afternoon session. Moderated by Didi Kirsten Tatlow with interpretation by Tina Chou.
RMB 65, tickets available from www.mypiao.com
5pm - 6pm, The Glamour Bar, 6/F, Five on the Bund, 20 Guangdong Lu,near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. 广东路20号，外滩五号6楼，近中山东一路

One JUE event that caught our eye was 'The Light of Day', Beijing-based Han Lei's first solo exhibition in Shanghai since 2004. Expect new works and pieces from his acclaimed Portraits and Pagodas series.
m97 Gallery, 2/F, 97 Moganshan Lu. 请带我去莫干山路97号2楼 （中文版请看下面）

SUNDAY

Not sick of the Lit Fest? Then check out 'Why You’ve Probably Never Heard of Me (and other Filipino Writers)', a talk by leading Filipino author Jose Dalisay. Dalisay will explore why the Philippines remains a literary blur to most readers around the world.
RMB 65, tickets available from www.mypiao.com
3pm - 4pm, The Glamour Bar, 6/F, Five on the Bund, 20 Guangdong Lu,near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. 广东路20号，外滩五号6楼，近中山东一路

For the curious art buffs, JUE will be hosting a workshop entitled 'The Art of Seeing: Decoding Chinese Contemporary Art' at OV Gallery. There are three art appreciation classes, each costing 300 RMB, or 850 RMB for all three. The price includes dinner at a nearby eatery from 7-9pm.
Workshops: 5-7pm. Workshops + Dinner: 5-9pm.
19C Shaoxing Lu, 请带我去绍兴路19号 近陕西南路

If JUE and Lit Fest don't sway you, tonight is the last chance to see Jin Xing Dance Theater's modern dance show entitled Made in China - Return of the Soul.
Email jinxingdancetheatre@yahoo.com or the Shanghai Grand Theatre box office for tickets and more information. Tickets range from 50RMB to 380RMB
7.15pm - 9.45pm. Shanghai Grand Theatre, 300 Renmin Da Dao, People's Square, near Huangpi Bei Lu, 人民大道300号 近黄陂北路

Back in January we reported on the Show of Peace, announced with much fanfare (with the support of rock legend Jimmy Page), and supposedly scheduled for April 17 this year.  Aside from a “clarification” issued by the organizers when theBeijinger.com and China Music Radar reported that one of the “confirmed” acts was actually playing in Japan the night of the concert, the promoters have been suspiciously quiet in recent weeks. So it was no surprise when we received a notice today stating the Show of Peace has been postponed until October.

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On Wednesday, March 17, AmCham China Offices, Beijing, in conjunction with AmCham-China’s Manufacturing and Sourcing Forum and IT Forum, will be hosting a seminar on the current trends in technology...

You’d think a wine named “Karl Marx” would be a red, but not so with this one I found haunting the shelves of Jinkelong supermarket in downtown Beijing during the Chinese New Year. The label says it is a semi-dry sparkling, though I have yet to confirm it with a taste test. It might be [...]

The snow on Monday, I don’t know what’s that all about, it’s March already. Don't know how it's been affecting the festival season (which is spring, in case you haven't seen it's coming), but the Beijing leg of JUE Festival is well under its way. Presented by Split Works, the festival consists of art, cinema and music events across Beijing and Shanghai (see our interview with the organizers here and full event schedule here). On Friday night, JUE sees the appearances of American indie singer/instrumentalist St. Vincent at Yugong Yishan and Danish rockabilly group Dead Elvis & His One Man Grave at D-22. On the local side, things get more hardcore at Mao Livehouse, where TOOKOO, Bigger Bang! and The Reason rock on the northern end of Nanluogu Xiang - maybe you can hear them in YGYS, since St. Vincent's music is relatively quiet, maybe.

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It was awfully cold in Kunming on Wednesday, the day I left. Figured these pictures, taken from around the city, sum up my mood.

I have been asked by loSpremiagrumi to write a series of short posts about my life here in China ( two years ago I also wrote this ). So here what i came up with ( see original post ):Chinese daily gemsWe say too much about China, knowing too little. For once we will let [...]

Forget about real madrid the true galacticos are the green beijiners which served a smooth 1-3 away against Kawasaki Frontale. Now look at this:SEOGNAM 6BEIJING 6MELBOURNE 0KAWASAKI 0next two games against Seongnam look no easy….

Chris Barnes has departed Oxbow. Barnes, whose job title was Sales Manager, Calcining, was one of the team transitioned from Great Lakes Carbon when Oxbow took that company over a couple of years ago.

Chris in the team when I met Oxbow at TMS a couple of weeks ago.

Asked for a comment, Gord McIntosh told me the Chris’ “valuable input will be missed”. Apart from that however, Oxbow says it will refrain from further comment until a time of its own choosing.

JES was prompted by my mention of Hugh MacLeod at the start of the week to honour the man with a post of his own (apparently JES had discovered him quite some time ago, but had lapsed from being a regular follower for a while). This has provoked a lively discussion about the nature of art and being an artist (JES may perhaps not have very many more readers than me, but they're all writers, and so they comment!). I tried to offer my two penn'orth last night, but the comment went astray somehow (I'm sure it will be salvaged shortly; poor old JES has been having some gremlin troubles this week on the blog), so I thought I'd recycle it below. Mr MacLeod, you see - in this interview that I linked to earlier - disdains the use of the term 'artist', while not being above sometimes describing his output as 'art', an apparent contradiction or incongruity that troubled JES and a number of his commenters.

I don't think there's anything necessarily incompatible or disingenuous about disowning the term 'artist', but wanting to think of your output as 'art'.

There's something altogether more precious - and more obtrusive, more wheedling - about the use of the term 'artist'. I think it is possible to describe your work as 'art' without necessarily implying/demanding that the rest of the world must see it that way; but people who label themselves as 'artists' are usually trying to convince others - and maybe themselves - that everything they produce must therefore be acknowledged as art.

That seems to me to be getting the whole thing backwards. If enough people, now and in the future, accept your self-definition of your work as 'art', then it can be generally recognised as such and you earn the title of 'artist' - it is an accolade that should only really be conferred by broad consensus over time, not your own self-assertion here and now.

I don't think any of the artists I've ever met or read about who really impressed me typically referred to themselves as 'artists' - because they realised it sounded poncey, conceited, perhaps even overcompensating for some insecurity about their work. They almost always just say "I paint", "I make photographs", "I do installations", "I write".

Works of 'art', I feel, should be humbly submitted to the world, to see if anyone else will accept and appreciate them as valid art - not launched amid a narcissistic fanfare of "I'm an artist! Look what I've done now!"

All sense of self gone;
Only the headache remains,
And the rattling lungs.

Too many spirits,
Danger of an umbrella;
Cowboy's derision.

P.S. I'm excited I was finally able to work in a Jim Carrey picture on this blog.  I'm proud of myself.

Among the top ten World Steel producers in 2009, five are coming from China, according to the latest stats. Arcelor Mittal, the steel group based in Luxemberg, is the largest steel producer in 08 and 09, though their production was sharply down by 30% in 2009. To follow is China's Heibei I&S, Bao Steel, Posco (Korea) and Wuhan I&S. China's total production of steel is by far the largest in the world.中国有五家钢厂位列全球10大钢铁企业。目前世界上最大的钢铁企业是总部位于卢森堡的Arcelor Mittal，然而其09年产量比08年下降了30%强。接下来的是中国的河北钢铁公司，宝钢，韩国的POSCO，以及武钢。中国的鞍山-本溪和砂钢也位列前十。

It only takes a few weeks of being back in your hometown to feel like everything you’ve done prior—all that time spent fighting for the attention of hungry Chinese students—never happened. Or it did happen, but everything you thought you learned from the experience… well… never happened. Or it did happen, but… nah, I think I’m done with that joke.

Your time as a teacher is easily justified as wasted, especially during those final evaluations when only one or two of the students can repeat a concept you spent the whole semester drilling. But most teaching positions in China are very impersonal, anyway, and your job isn’t so much about teaching a specified amount of content as it is just giving the kids a chance to have a teacher who isn’t Chinese. In a way, foreign teachers are there to break cultural boundaries, not necessarily teach, but if a little English is learned along the way, more power to you!

Some of my students still stay in touch with me, though, so I didn’t walk away with nothing. And as a young fish out of water standing in front of a class of 50 restless Chinese kids four times a day, your comfort zone naturally grows. Maybe you find you’ve only become comfortable addressing non-native English speakers, but progress is progress! When you tell people you taught in China, they’re just impressed by the word “teach,” if they’re impressed at all, but to you, it’s not that. To you, it was a lesson in confidence and endurance and resisting the urge to crap your pants and run home crying when things go bad.

Things go bad all the time.

As much as I liked my ILP classes (the first teaching I ever did in China), those kids were awful. Class time with the foreigners was “release hours of pent up energy that our Chinese teachers would beat us for” time. They would fight each other. They would pull their pants down. They would yell and throw things at the teacher. They would literally tear the desks apart. But through all that, I finally learned to just be patient and focus on creating a better lesson instead of trying to create better students. That comes later, and it’s pretty much an uphill battle, anyway.

If there’s one thing you learn as an English teacher in China, it’s patience. There’s patience, because the kids’ English is bad, and there’s patience, because their behavior is bad. It was different, though, trying to be patient with my primary classes of 50 students as opposed to the ILP classes of eight. I’ll admit, I lost my temper sometimes. Things were said. Books were thrown out the window. Nonetheless, I’m a much better person now than I was five years ago, and China has played a big part in making me that way.

One would think this was a serious aerobic class in full throttle. And I guess it was. But not for everyone:

Apparently, the aerobic class, with bom-ba-da-bom-tunes blasting from the speakers, was also a perfect place for reading a book! Who would have guessed?! Not me, anyway. 

China's CPI in Feb went up 2.7% y-o-y, according to the latest release from Bureau of Statistics (See Article from Xinhuanet). CPI is a gauge of inflation commonly used by most countries. Since Nov 09, China's CPI has turned positive and started to creep up ever since. At the same time, PPI was up 5.4% in Feb, a new high since Nov 08.中国二月份消费者物价指数比上年同期增长2.7%。同一时期的生产者物价指数比上年同期增长5.4%。自去年11月份以来，两个指数相继从负增长转为正增长，由此引发许多人对通胀的担忧。

Chinese party and state chairman Hu Jintao’s (胡锦涛) son Hu Haifeng (胡海峰) is reportedly scheduled to visit Taiwan to attend an academic conference, Radio Australia and other media report. According to Taiwan’s Next Magazine (壹周刊), Hu Haifeng will attend a conference held by a Taiwanese foundation, Asia-Pacific Peace Studies (台湾亚太和平研究基金会, APS), in his capacity as [...]

A professor recently boasted that he spent anywhere from 6,000 to 9,000 RMB — or $900 USD to $1,300 USD — in a single year for reading materials. He’d be doing this for nearly two decades, purchasing books related to his field of study, sometimes only buying them for two or three pages of relevant information. The reason he could spend this much every year on reading materials: the average cost of a book was about 25 RMB.

When you purchase textbooks in the United States — even normal reading books for that matter — you buy the official edition that was licensed by the publisher. This often means spending hundreds of US dollars every semester, but you get the official book. In China, it is completely different.

It is harder to find official editions of textbooks and reading materials for classes. In fact, most of the time, the official edition isn’t even offered. In university settings you’re offered two choices: the “Chinese version” and the fake version.

The Chinese textbooks are the B-rate versions of the real editions that American universities force students to use. They don’t contain glossy paper or colored graphs, and do little more than reprinting all the information on low-grade paper. I don’t know if this is technically legal, but I do know it cheapens the price of the book. My macroeconomics book photographed above was 60 RMB — or about $8 USD. The price I would have to pay if I wanted to purchase the real version would be closer to $100 USD.

The average Chinese student cannot afford $100 USD per textbook. It’s part of the reason university education in this country is nowhere near the astronomical prices in the United States. What has been created is a secondary market of books, where the student buys the low-grade book and pays only a fraction of the real price. The problem I find with this is the business seems unregulated. I can walk to three separate bookstores within two blocks of Fudan University and find several different versions of the same textbook, all of different quality and all different prices. The secondary market seems to have no standard.

That leads me into the other way to purchase books in China, which is definitely unregulated. Just outside my school are push-cart book dealers, people who make a living selling bootleg school books out of the back of a large cart. In addition to popular titles such as Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” or Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” I found two of my required textbooks for the semester also for sale. The price tag for these books: 10 RMB, or about $1.50 USD. I realized later the avid book-buying professor was practically goading me to get my books off the street vendors.

I can’t imagine what the textbook market in the United States would look like if college science students could spend about $1.50 per textbook each semester instead of the hundreds of dollars the drop on those books. But for $1.50 USD you find pages that are printed on an angle, many that clearly look as if they’ve been photocopied and graphs that are completely unintelligible.

For the average Chinese student this might be a blessing; a way to purchase school books with minimal dent on the wallet. Coming from the American educational system, I feel guilty buying fake books. I even feel disappointed in myself for buying the B-grade textbooks. Should I feel this way, or should I enjoy the fact that textbooks are more affordable?

© madtptLife in Shanghai is what you make it. Most big cities are like that. If you let it, a job in most cities will eat your life. If you can set clear boundaries between what's professional and what's personal you can maintain the balance in your life - do a job well and still have time for some sort of private existence. Sometimes your professional life and personal life do manage to overlap, though. And that can be okay. I recently needed ...

So, last week DJ Chunky and I headed to 12sqm, Ned’s, and Mao Mao Chong, three bars at least partly owned by Aussies, a mere boomerang’s throw from each other, and perhaps deserving a special designation — The Beijing Billabong? The Vegemite Triangle? Other? In any case, I recommend doing this mini pub crawl.We started [...]

I had a conversation the other day with a leading journalist on how both of us are always right about our predictions. I joked that the beauty of writing is that all we need to do show how right we are is to highlight the predictions on which we were right and to let cognitive dissonance wash away all the other ones.

Damn, but I was right to predict 2010 would be the year of increased taxation/regulation of foreign business in China. And I have third party proof in the form of this article over at Shanghaiist, where I made the following as two of my five predictions on "business law trends of 2010."

China will increase its efforts to root out and shut down illegal and unregistered foreign businesses. I have seen ample evidence of this already happening in the last 3-6 months and I have no doubt this will continue. Providing jobs to Chinese citizens does not let you off the hook.

China will increase its tax collection efforts. This has been going on at a rapidly accelerating pace over the last six months or so. If your China operations are not making a healthy profit, do not be surprised if the government imputes healthy profits to it. In particular, the government will look very closely at your transfer pricing and in many cases it will not like what it sees.

Both of these two things have been happening in obscene numbers over the last two months. My firm is receiving at least triple the usual number of inquiries from companies who are being told to register their businesses and pay past taxes and fines or get out. And how is it that these companies were caught? Knocks on the door by tax inspectors who, by all indications, are simply going door to door in office buildings and areas where foreign companies tend to locate/congregate. One of these companies is a client for whom we have actually completed about 98% of their registration. The others are all companies that wrongly believed they would be able to operate under the radar for a while.

The highly regarded China Magazine, Economic Observer, just came out with an article, entitled, "China Launches Second round of Taxation Inspections in Bid to Boost Revenue." The article notes how China's tax authorities have been told to collect "additional taxes" this year by targeting "key industries."

Now I know that my perspective is heavily slanted, since none of our Chinese clients would be calling us with an internal Chinese matter, but it sure "feels" to me that the key "industries" being targeted are those which consist of foreigners.

What are you seeing out there?

Rich Brubaker of All Roads Lead To China is out with an über-helpful post, entitled,A Few Rules for Succeeding in China, setting out the following eight rules to follow to succeed in China:

1. Show up with reasonable expectations. Rich notes how many come to China with "unrealistic expectations… or at least have yet to fully put into context the amount of investment it will take in time, money, and capacity to achieve those goals." A classic example of where I see this as a lawyer is when our client emails us a lease it needs to sign for it to be able to register as a WFOE and asks us to review it and get it back to them in a few days. We respond by telling them that, at minimum, we need to make sure of the following items separate and apart from the lease itself:
a) Is the landlord on the lease really authorized to lease the premises? I would estimate that about 20% of the time (even higher outside the major cities) it is not.
b) Is the property zoned for that which you are planning to use it? I would estimate that about 10% of the time it is not.
c) Does this property/lease qualify for a WFOE? Nearly always it does, but one needs to make sure.

2. Develop a high tolerance for pain. Yup.

3. Have lines (moral and economic) that cannot be moved. This is a great one and one that I too often have seen violated. In fact, I met with someone just the other day who told me that he had left China after building up a successful business there when he realized that what he was doing to keep it up had turned him into someone he did not want to be.

4. Understand the motivating factors of the parties sitting across the table. Stop negotiating and begin collaborating. "If you are walking into a meeting preparing for a heated pissing contest why bother? There are no deals of the century in China, no deal has to be done today, and there are options." Right on all counts.

5. Plan ahead, speak up, and move quickly when things do go wrong. Right again.

6. Pay the full real costs up front. Rich does such a great job here, I will merely quote:

Factoring in the costs of negative externalities is a must. Regulations and consumer expectations are only getting tighter, and firms who caught on the wrong side of a moving regulation are going to pay more to bring themselves into compliance. Want to use a supplier who abuses line workers. You will pay the cost. Don’t care if your supplier dumps chemicals into the river. Someone else will. Think that hongbao is the “key” to a relationship? What happens when they go to jail? Price in the cost of choosing suppliers, partners, and channels that follow global standards because local standards are only going that way, and anything local will require upgrading at some point at a cost that is far more uncertain than if you build your platform on it now.

Absolutely. China Hearsay has been writing lately on how Chinese consumers are coming to expect foreign companies to provide them with the same things these foreign companies are providing to consumers elsewhere in the world. Stan's did a post on this today, entitled, "Is HP the New Toyota?"

7. If something goes wrong, look internally first. "It is not always the supplier's fault or a nationalistic regulation. When things fail it is typically no more than the byproduct of a failed process or system. Identify that, work with it, and move on." Again, I completely agree. I cannot tell you how many times companies have come to me after having failed to abide by a Chinese law and seeking my confirmation that the Chinese law they violated was stupid. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of China's laws make sense, but whether they are sensible or not, it is sensible for you to know what they are and to follow them.

8. Shut up and get to work. Yes.

What else?

Well, the "impending death" alluded to in my Alessandro post turned out to be an indefinite suspension, as Global Times's Jacob Li tells us in today's issue:

The most frightening piece of writing I've read recently is a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) blog about my colleague Alessandro. He, together with our newspaper, was accused of projecting a vulgar voice by discussing vaginas amid the Chinese ambition of gaining a bigger voice among foreign audiences.

You, sir, are a pussy. No, not pussy... vagina. You are a big fat vagina dripping with vagina juice and you deserve to be stuffed back into the vagina from whence you came, you stupid vagina.

Admittedly, the joke is sophomoric and perhaps should have been killed with better judgment...

Vagina.

...Oddly enough, I feel more frightened than ashamed after reading the blog titled A Vulgar Turn in China's International Media Ambitions...

...written by a humorless vagina...

...and its more fearsome Chinese translation Chinese Media's Vulgar Voice Irks Reader...

...written by vaginas who take humorless vaginas way too seriously...

...thanks to last year's anti-vulgarity crusade during which...

Vagina, vagina, vagina.

The joke was just about the vagina, not about China. It was not even about Chinese vaginas – the one who raised the question was a foreign woman.

[Vagina joke.]

Still, I would like to apologize to those who have been offended by Alessandro's occasional vulgar language during the last three months.

Have I mentioned how much of a vagina you are?

I decided to discipline the foul-mouthed Italian...

You HAVE to understand that by keeping up the ruse that Alessandro is 1) real, and 2) actually Italian, you're undercutting your message, right? Or is that your point?

If you're really apologizing, why not out "Alessandro"? Grand plans for the future? If that's the case, ignore the rest of what I have to say. Email me off-blog and explain how a creative, free-spirited, subversive, hilarious voice was able to get a job at your publication, because by God, the writer of Alessandro was actually good.

...by canceling his advice column until he realizes how wrong he is and how he has jeopardized Metro Beijing, the first daily English language local news provider in town.

So let me get this straight: you're canceling the column because some prude working for the Wall Street Journal hates humor and has, with the might of all that is holy in the name of the Western press, derided it in a fucking blog post, and as a result you think your action -- this cancellation -- will save Metro Beijing? VAGINA, how chicken-hearted are you? The equivalent of this would be MSNBC issuing an apology for everything Keith Olbermann has said in the past three years because Rush Limbaugh called him "offensive." Apparently, however, hell has no wrath like a vagina in the Western press scorned.

As I read more of the blog, I did start to feel ashamed of being incompetent, particularly when I saw the appellations Miss Canaves of the WSJ gives us: An arm of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece and the "government-run" epithet, and calling us on our so-called great ambition of gaining a voice abroad.

Oh, Ms. Canaves, spank me harder, I've been a bad boy, I've been real incompetent, oh please shame me, Ms. Canaves, oh please give it to me, tell me I'm an arm of the People's Daily, oh yes! yes I'm a mouthpiece, oh yes I'm a mouthpiece, oh yes the mouthpiece! the mouthpiece! yes! yes! yes!!

Is the "fake" Italian a spy who has sneaked into the "government-run" newspaper, trying to sabotage our mission of making the official voice roar in the West? Have I been trapped in his well-designed snare?

I'm a bit confused. Your mission is to make the official voice roar in the West? Are you being sarcastic here? Are you saying you believe you DO represent the "official voice," i.e. you ARE a mouthpiece of the government? And furthermore, that you want that voice to "roar"?

If you are being sarcastic, shouldn't you be, um, PROMOTING Alessandro? Maybe you are promoting Alessandro. Maybe this is all a joke, and I've fallen for it. Maybe you are much wiser than I've given you credit for. Maybe I've failed to read between the lines. Maybe I will be retracting everything I've said in two months when Alessandro makes his glorious return.

Then again, maybe you're just milquetoast.

And yes, you have been trapped, you vaginisitc vagina.

All the anger and doubts, however, disappear when I recall the statement we made in our launch issue: We simply aim to provide reliable and fast news and become a communication platform for expats living in this country.

I'm confused again. Fill in this blank: My anger and doubts disappear because ___.

I think you would say -- and forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm not practiced in reading the minds of namby-pamby vaginas -- that your anger and doubts have disappeared because you've realized you're a vagina whose diet consists of high-energy, high-fiber, low-fat vaginas.

The column was becoming a communication platform for expats, which means on top of being a vagina, you are a vaginaing vuhgina vagina.

We're clear about who we are. This is simply an English language newspaper run by Chinese people, with the help of some foreigners.

You're a fucking China Daily wannabe.

But if objectivity and plurality happen to build up our country's soft power, everyone who is involved should feel proud.

You're a milksop.

Anyway, we should thank Miss Canaves for pointing out the inappropriateness of some of Alessandro's advice.

You're a douchebag and a groveling idiot.

It helps us, a fledgling English language newspaper, to find the boundary.

Define your own fucking boundary and find your own fucking voice, you conforming vagina.

But the spirit of Alessandro will live on, in a good way.

If by "spirit" you mean as the 17th century poets meant it -- cum -- and if by "a good way" you mean "in my vagina," then yes, good sir, you have redeemed yourself and your column was a worthwhile use of our time which we shall never want back even if we would eat maggot-flecked goat testicles to get it back.

Well done, Global Times. Vive le Western media!

p.s. Fuck you, Sky Canaves.

I figure this may be all for the good, though. There's been quite a shake-up in the 'cocktail scene' here lately, with a couple of my listed candidates being not much over a year old, and four or five of the others having arrived only within the last few months. It would probably be better to wait a few months more, until some of these newcomers have had a proper chance to establish a clientele.

Perhaps I will try this poll idea again in the summer....

For now, if you really want to play, you can try visiting the poll on the Quibblo website.

And feel free to add your own comments/reviews of the Beijing cocktail scene (or 'write-in' nominations for any worthwhile venues I may have overlooked) in the comments below.

With it’s rich natural resource deposits and close proximity to both China and Russia, It comes as a surprise that Mongolia has not been tapped for its resources during the recent worldwide mining bo...

The theme of St. Patrick’s Day this year seems to be who can provide Guinness draft the cheapest. Here is the info I have so far for next Wednesday, March 17, including details on a near full week of debauchery planned at Paddy O’Shea’s. Will update as I get more info…Molly Malone’s: A free pint of [...]

The popular Chinese newsweekly Sanlian Lifeweek in February ran a cover story gushing about 100 new creative dishes that are being served in five major Chinese cities. The feature ran no less than 123 pages and was accompanied by colorful photographs that were appealing to the eye, if not to the stomach.

Take for example,  the creation of one restaurant in Chengdu, which places bite-sized pieces of fish on a porcelain tea set on a bed of shredded radish. The dish, which looks like a bonzai plant, is garnished with mint leaves, and has a carnation and bamboo plant sprouting into the air. This masterpiece is given a mystical look by the mist that rises from the dried ice that is added just before serving.

Or consider the Hong Kong eatery that serves up a half lobster topped with cheddar cheese and abalone, with sides of angel hair pasta, papaya and mango salad. Hot and sour soup comes in a coffee mug on the side of the plate.

And finally, a Beijing restaurant has a dish that it’s intriguingly dubbed “The Lost Duck.” In this dish, the duck is buried underneath a pile of glutinous rice. The head sits outside the dish, as if it had been excavated. A compass is placed beside the dish just in case you didn’t get the idea about being lost.

It is undeniable that China has made a great culinary leap forward in the past two decades. However, some food experts fear that new trends in the industry may be pushing Chinese cuisine into a great leap backward.

Some of the popular culinary trends over the past decade include fads such as Contemporary, Nouveau, Modern Chinese, Fusion, Freehand brushstroke (xieyi)  and Fashion (shishang).

One of Beijing’s more astute Chinese chefs recently confided that the utmost concern among Chinese chefs in establishing restaurants is chuanyi [穿衣], or dressing up, and atmosphere.

“Food quality is not a factor,” he said with no sense of irony. “Eating culture is the main selling point.” To put it bluntly, eating culture, or chi wenhua [吃文化], puts the focus on gimmicks.

The trend of dressing up is spreading like a virus: the dinner ware is getting larger and larger, cluttering the table and making it impossible to fit more than two dishes at the same time. The menus are as big as a children’s picture books, thicker and thicker with pages of elaborate art work and color photographs. They’re difficult to hold in one’s hands and navigate and almost too big to open on the table. And pages of dishes with new exotic names makes ordering too intimidating and puzzling.

No matter what you call it, the dishes have one or more of the following characteristics: ostentatious dinnerware, excessive presentation with flowers and plants, dishes arranged in ways that bare little or no resemblance to Chinese food, and the use of foreign ingredients to shock your palate, regardless of its compatibility. The result, however, is often mediocre taste.

In other words, taste is fast taking a back seat to visual appearance. Restaurateurs and chefs—in a panic over the plethora of new eateries opening up every day, and the resulting fierce competition—are paying big bucks for daring French interior designers, astronomically expensive crystal chandeliers, peculiar toilets and expensive impressionist paintings hung upside down from the ceiling.

The sad thing—which I find incomprehensible–is that this strategy appears to be a huge success.

“You can hardly blame the restaurants for not serving good food,” said Li Qigong 李其功, author of Bian Chi Bian Liao 边吃边聊. “Diners keep coming despite the poor quality.”

Another trend has some restaurants feverishly serving dishes using the most expensive ingredients so they can jack up prices. These include bird’s nest, shark’s fin, sea cucumber, and abalone. For example, one restaurant began to top its custard tarts with pricey bird’s nest; another adds shark’s fin to its bean curd thread soup or substitutes shark’s fin for glass noodles in “ants climbing the tree,” a popular Sichuan dish.

To be fair, the Sanlian Lifeweekly story also expressed some concerns about these trends.

“The restaurants are eager to make a quick profit,” it quoted Ran Yunfei, a Sichuan writer, as saying. “So inventing rough and slipshod creative dishes is inevitable.”

Ji Kenan, a businessman who dines regularly at Tong He Ju 同和居 for simple dishes such as jiangbao jiding [酱爆鸡丁] and mushu pork [木须肉], summed up the situation well. “Every restaurant serves abalone, bird’s nest, sea cucumber, and shark’s fin,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be good.  As long as it’s expensive, it gives you a lot of face.” Dining in China is more like a business affair.

A recent conversation with a young chef friend reaffirmed my growing concern about the downward direction of Chinese cuisine. Once caught up in the creative and presentation craze himself, he recently surprised me by confiding that things may have gone too far.

“I think it’s time for us to turn around,” he told me, for the first time expressing his disapproval of recent culinary trends in China. “The only way out is for chefs and restaurants to return to the old way of doing things.”

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