Tai Shan the panda more commonly known as Butterstick is being deported to China. His parents will be joining him at the end of 2010.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Dec 10, 2009 - 16 comments

Cheng Chui Ping came to the US like many others from the Fujian province in China. Through hard work and determination, she rose in the ranks of New York City's Chinatown business community. But, "Sister Ping" was not one to follow laws if it didn't suit her. Among the snakeheads who engaged in human trafficking, none were better than her. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Dec 2, 2009 - 15 comments

Chairman Mao's Underground City is a pictorial travelogue of a small part of the tunnels that Chairman Mao had built under Beijing to serve as a nuclear fallout shelter. The intrepid urban explorers come across some surprising things. The complex, which was built by hand, could house three hundred thousand people for up to four months and had amenities such as restaurants, cinemas and roller rinks. Here's a short Travel Channel feature on the Underground City.
posted by Kattullus on Nov 29, 2009 - 38 comments

Soros lectures
You can slog through the video, but I preferred the transcripts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Nov 21, 2009 - 13 comments

Patrick Chovanec, associate professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, has written an interesting map of "The Nine Nations of China". It's a little bit "Libya is a land of contrasts", but nonetheless an interesting primer.
posted by smoke on Nov 19, 2009 - 20 comments

Ethnic groups of China – that is, the officially recognized ones, in their respective finery. (Photo essay, text mostly in Chinese. Via.)
posted by joeclark on Nov 18, 2009 - 47 comments

Envisioning Chinese Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Words and Images from the Dianshizhai Pictorial Very nice online presentation of translated content from the famed nineteenth century Shanghai pictorial journal (China's first); Dianshizhai (点石斋画报) was modelled on Britain's Punch and produced as a supplement for Shen Bao subscribers. Flash is used so elements in the cartoons can be clicked for further information: a young woman repels a thief with martial derring-do; a customer bilks on the bill in a street eatery in Hangzhou; small-town society and politics with the muddle-headed magistrate; a non-performing temple bell offers a chance for sceptical commentary on religion; the gentlemanly pastime of cricket-fighting.
posted by Abiezer on Nov 17, 2009 - 4 comments

It's snowing in China. Who's responsible? [more inside]
posted by up in the old hotel on Nov 14, 2009 - 25 comments

In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 14, 2009 - 60 comments

Lou Jing was your average 20 year old woman from Shanghai, until being on Go! Oriental Angel, an American Idol like singing competition show, had to point out the obvious. Lou Jing is half Chinese, half African- America, something China apparently wasn't ready for.
posted by djduckie on Nov 11, 2009 - 80 comments

Tianmen Shan (天门山, Heaven's Gate Mountain) is an incredible cave natural arch eroded through a karst syncline. And yes, someone had the bright idea to fly stunt planes though it - an opening only 30m high, 70m deep, and 30m wide - it's a great video, though. [more inside]
posted by HopperFan on Nov 3, 2009 - 17 comments

Widely regarded as the greatest Chinese writer of the twentieth century, Lu Xun was so deeply unimpressed by the Chinese character-based writing system that he is reported to have said "if Chinese characters do not fade away, China will perish!". In his 1934 "An outsider's chats about written language" (menwai wentan）, he discussed the matter using the pseudonym Hua Yu, which means both "China's Prison" and "China's Language". [more inside]
posted by moorooka on Oct 31, 2009 - 36 comments

Lu Guang, a freelance photographer, took disturbing photos of the effects of pollution in China. [more inside]
posted by movicont on Oct 23, 2009 - 54 comments

"Chinatown" communities across the United States (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco) are undergoing a shift in linguistic identity, as recent immigrants are more likely to natively speak Mandarin (the official spoken language of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,) instead of Cantonese. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 22, 2009 - 56 comments

It's armageddon all over again. Chinese have created a black hole.
posted by strangeguitars on Oct 19, 2009 - 66 comments

"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English. [more inside]
posted by escabeche on Oct 18, 2009 - 25 comments

34 industries, 62,000 stalls, 320,000 commodities for sale, 4 million square meters of selling space: welcome to the world-famous Yiwu Wholesale Market in the Zhejiang Province of China, "where Santa Claus comes to shop." [more inside]
posted by DarlingBri on Oct 16, 2009 - 8 comments

Infernal Landscapes. [more inside]
posted by WPW on Oct 16, 2009 - 17 comments

Why the Chinese support the Communist party Interviews with four elderly Chinese. Among the answers: "We used to live in a tiny house, over ten people all together, just a place of over ten square metres. Now I often say to my husband that life has been totally different for our grandchildren, not only from ours, but from their parents too. They have nothing to worry about, no need to worry about food, clothes."
posted by shetterly on Oct 4, 2009 - 52 comments

Ai Weiwei, one of the leading Chinese artists of his generation, has undergone emergency brain surgery after being beaten by police. [more inside]
posted by WPW on Sep 28, 2009 - 13 comments

Doing Business in China - "the first step toward sanity in dealing with 'China' is to recognize that there are dozens, hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands of separate realities all lumped together under that one label." [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Sep 18, 2009 - 7 comments

Chinese news site dispense with user anonymity. Includes an updated list of sites China actively blocks, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (?!? - both links work only outside of China). prev
posted by allkindsoftime on Sep 9, 2009 - 40 comments

China's latest Internet obsession began with an anonymous post on a computer gaming forum: "Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to come home and eat." [more inside]
posted by tapeguy on Sep 6, 2009 - 34 comments

Beijing loves IKEA - but not for shopping. "Every weekend, thousands of looky-loos pour into the massive showroom to use the displays. Some hop into bed, slide under the covers and sneak a nap; others bring cameras and pose with the decor. Families while away the afternoon in the store for no other reason than to enjoy the air conditioning."
posted by geoff. on Aug 26, 2009 - 78 comments

China’s wild west Considered journalism on the historical and political background to the recent inter-ethnic violence in Xinjiang.
posted by Abiezer on Aug 12, 2009 - 9 comments

Peter Guo was held by Chinese police for 16 days, but managed to get himself released. Peter's Twitter profile, blog.

But what lesson can be learned from my experience? I think the most important factor is strong command of the use of Internet, especially Twitter and modern tools for communications.

Multi - polarity in Eurasia. Pepe Escobar on Iran, China and the New Silk Road 1 & 2
Iran and China just signed a $3 bn. deal for China to help develop Iran's refinery capacity in Abadan and the Gulf. ( previous )
posted by adamvasco on Aug 10, 2009 - 16 comments

The Guardian ran a series of articles looking at the state of high-speed rail travel today. France intends to double its length of track over the next decade, and China is planning a massive rail-building programme, including a high-speed line which will halve the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to 4 hours. In Germany, domestic air travel is rapidly going extinct, and Spain's network has made day trips between Madrid and Barcelona a possibility. The USA, which has long neglected its rail network, is planning up to 10 high-speed lines. Meanwhile, Britain's only high-speed line goes to France, but there is talk of a 250mph line from London to Birmingham and beyond, possibly by the early 2020s. Meanwhile, the CEO of France's rail operator, SNCF, weighs in on what the UK should do.
posted by acb on Aug 7, 2009 - 49 comments

With a forecast of 20 percent growth in sales throughout 2009, China is a fascinating example of a society grappling with the effects that the automobile brings. Personally, I'd stick with bikes for the city, guys - it seems more fun.
posted by concreteforest on Aug 3, 2009 - 23 comments

Guy takes a picture of himself every day... as he walks across China. (slyt)
posted by shii on Aug 1, 2009 - 39 comments

Imagine you're living in China, trying to work your way out of the family date farming business (which garners approximately $450 annually). You do all the right things. You apply for (and receive) Communist Party membership. You study literally to the point of collapse, and despite coming from coal-town origins, you score high on your gao kao ("high test," more-or-less the only thing that matters in getting into a Chinese university). Your already-poor family goes deep into debt to send you to college, and you even manage to come out with a degree. Classic rise-up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale, right? However, finally, when you go to apply for a job—your state-sanctioned educational, occupational, and political records are inexplicably, awfully gone. What has happened to that plain manila folder (!) that serves as your only legitimate, official history in Chinese society? Probably stolen and sold so a party official's child can get everything you worked so hard for. And then, of course, your family is detained by party officials when your parents demand to know where the hell your life went. Of course. [more inside]
posted by Keter on Jul 27, 2009 - 47 comments

Caijing (财经) is an independent, Beijing-based magazine devoted to reporting on business in China. The publication's title means "Finance and Economics." [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu on Jul 26, 2009 - 6 comments

Beijing's underground: "Five years ago, none of my students at Tsinghua or Beida had any interest in what we would call countercultural stuff," says Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Beida's -- that is, Peking University's -- Guanghua School of Management who owns D-22 and the Maybe Mars label. Today Mr. Pettis estimates that a quarter of his students have been to rock clubs and maybe 5% to 10% "are really knowledgeable and sophisticated."
posted by kliuless on Jul 26, 2009 - 27 comments

There's no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. A Chinese employee of Foxconn, entrusted with fourteen (maybe sixteen) prototype iPhones misplaced one before they could be shipped; what followed was his detainment and torture at the hands of company police, and his eventual suicide. Shanghaiist has confirmed the story. Fake Steve weighs in.
posted by littlerobothead on Jul 22, 2009 - 124 comments

"On the evening of July 5th, several hundred Uighur youths went on a bloody rampage [in Urumqi, Xinjiang] following a peaceful demonstration over a separate incident of ethnic violence at a Guangdong toy factory. . . . In the days that followed, bands of roving Han vigilantes armed with kitchen knives, hammers, metal pipes and other improvised weapons sought to mete out revenge in the Uighur suburbs of the city. . . . Caught in-between these increasingly polarized and agitated ethnic communities is the Chinese state, which, rather than orchestrating the brutal oppression of the non-Han minorities, finds itself increasingly powerless to stop the spiralling circle of ethnic hatred which its policies helped to foster in the first place." [more inside]
posted by Kirth Gerson on Jul 18, 2009 - 45 comments

China's Marlboro Country: The strange, underground world of counterfeit cigarettes.
posted by chunking express on Jun 30, 2009 - 35 comments

Preserved in the cave excavations of Mogao and listing 1,339 stars the Dunhuang Star Chart is the oldest graphical star atlas known to exist. Dated to between 649 and 684 AD, it features two sections. The first consists of 26 diagrams of asterisms (including a recognizable Big Dipper and Orion) and the second contains 12 star maps each showing a 30 degree east-west section of sky in cylindrical projection plus an azimuthal projection circumpolar map. Star positions are accurate to within 1.5 degrees and it includes some stars in the southern sky. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral on Jun 28, 2009 - 10 comments

FRONTLINE: Ghana - Digital Dumping Ground On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the biggest fallouts? Identity Theft.
posted by Christ, what an asshole on Jun 26, 2009 - 16 comments

Canadian War Poster Collection at McGill University. And if that doesn't strike your fancy, the list of digital collections include such time-honoured favourites as Expo '67, and the award-winner for unexpected collection, Gynaecology in Traditional Chinese Medicine. (previously)
posted by flibbertigibbet on Jun 26, 2009 - 7 comments

"At 1am on June 19, police and funeral cars arrived at the hotel, wanting to take the body away. 2,000 Shishou residents blocked the hotel entrance to protect Xu's corpse."
posted by sswiller on Jun 21, 2009 - 38 comments

GITMO's 17 Uighurs - a dissident Chinese religious group - sent to Palau. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk on Jun 10, 2009 - 59 comments

"The Musical Cliché Figure Signifying The Far East", a.k.a. The Oriental Riff
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 7, 2009 - 39 comments

On the square, it was a total carnival. It was around 11pm, a beautiful, warm Beijing evening. Student groups surged up and down in front of the Tiananmen Gate with banners and chants. Jim took copious notes as I translated for him. A squad of students passed us by with a banner that declared themselves to be the "Dare to Die Brigade". Everyone was animated and alive. In the midst of the madness, there was a sense of safety.

With the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Thursday, China's ever-vigilant censors have stepped up the reach of the "Great Firewall," blocking Western sites like Twitter, Flickr, and (just one day after its launch) Microsoft's Bing. via [more inside]
posted by infini on Jun 3, 2009 - 54 comments

Bizarre and Unusual [NSF Weak Stomachs] is a section of Imagine China, a Chinese stock photography site. It includes images of China's first face transplant, for a rabbit, a one-horned man, how to wash 4.2 meter long hair, and many, many images of tumors and growth. Aside from the unusual, it has sections on Current Events and News, sports, and other topics. [via APhotoEditor
posted by michswiss on May 28, 2009 - 41 comments

The aircraft carrier, a majestic and grand symbol of American naval might... susceptible to swarming small-boat assault and weak against ballistic missiles, nevermind an anti-ship ballistic missile. Is it time to reevaluate the role of the aircraft carrier in a modern naval strategy?
posted by Keter on May 27, 2009 - 58 comments

Lai Jiansheng was fed up with a suicide jumper in the Chinese provence of Guangzhou that was blocking traffic, so he climbed up to where Chen Fuchao was and gave him a push onto an air mattress. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla on May 24, 2009 - 63 comments

[Ezra Pound] worked on and for poetry as others might work on a major scientific discovery or a drawn-out military mission. Thus, as Sieburth reminds us in his introduction to The Pisan Cantos, when, on May 3, 1945, Pound was arrested at his home in the hills above Rapallo, he immediately put a small Chinese dictionary and a copy of the Confucian classics in his pocket. Working as he then was on his Confucian translations, he knew that, wherever the military police were taking him, he would need these books.

The new monetary standard: Copper.
posted by bigmusic on Apr 19, 2009 - 51 comments

The Curious Case of Alex Latifi. "We don’t care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business." Feds knock; a business is lost: all charges dropped years after the company was charged with violating U.S. export law by sending to China classified drawings of an Army Black Hawk helicopter part and falsifying related tests. "It appears that the principal offense committed by the defendant, Alex Latifi, was breathing while being of Middle Eastern extraction.” [more inside]
posted by Non Prosequitur on Apr 1, 2009 - 17 comments