MetaFilter posts tagged with China

music

plexi — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:14:30 -0800

The future of classical music lies in China. Chinese enthusiasm for Western classical music is deep, says New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, but traditional Chinese music is older and more classical than anything in the West.

China Colonizing Africa With Dire Consequences for Africans

MetaMan — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:03:01 -0800

China is making a concerted effort to colonize Africa with dire consequences for Africans. In protest to China's involvement in Darfur's genocide, Steven Spielberg has resigned as Artistic Director of the Beijing Olympics.

A whole new China

wundermint — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:39:11 -0800

A couple recent documentaries have accurately shown how China is changing and developing at lightning speed. The People's Republic of Capitalism speaks mainly of China's all-consuming economic growth and its ramifications. I was riveted by Frontline's Young and Restless in China and Frontline World: Jesus in China. These show the struggles of the Chinese to keep up with the changes, deal with their hypocritical government and define their beliefs in a society still riddled with corruption.

Jumping Through Hoops

adamvasco — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:37:13 -0800

Is Xinjiang Province The Islamic Jihad Battlefront in China? China detains 82 'terrorists' targeting Olympics and police have shot Uighurs dead. Meanwhile people from the Uighur minority call on the international community to boycott the Beijing Olympic games. What side of the Jihad is China on? Previously there was The Al Qaeda - China Tie. The oil and petrochemical sector account for 60% of Xinjiang's local economy.

China's plan to tame Tibet

homunculus — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:56:02 -0800

China's secret plot to tame Tibet. "Internal Communist party documents have revealed that China is planning a programme of harsh political repression in Tibet despite a public show of moderation to win over world opinion before the Olympic Games next month." Meanwhile, the military has sealed off several monasteries in Lhasa, keeping over 1,000 monks locked up. Another 1,000 monks have mysteriously disappeared, and may have been sent to prisons in a neighbouring province to keep them silent through the Olympics.

Historical Photographs of China

peacay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:23:32 -0800

The Sidney D Gamble Photograph Collection at Duke University consists of about 5,000 newly digitised pictures, taken predominantly in China between 1917 and 1932. Browse by subject, category or location tags. Photos taken in 1908 are to be added in the future. [via]

Nature's Creative Destruction

anotherpanacea — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:41:55 -0800

Natural disasters are good for the economy. No, they aren't. Yes, they are. Well, maybe sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. (pdf) It helps if somebody makes a movie or a television show about it. The Broken Window fallacy.

He's right on the money. Wait, um, not anymore...

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:19:34 -0800

For the first time in nearly a decade China is issuing new banknotes without the image of Chairman Mao. Instead there's a picture of, you guessed it, their shiny new Olympic stadium. And a discus thrower on the back. Interested in banknotes? There have been a few MeFi posts on banknote sites over the years. See here, here and here.

The Caves of Dunhuang

homunculus — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:15:47 -0800

Buddhas Caves: The Caves of Dunhuang.

�IZ bird catch fish

mrducts — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:11:04 -0800

For over a thousand years, fishermen all over the world have been using cormorants to help them fish in lakes and rivers. In Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, cormorant fishing on the Nagara river has continued uninterrupted for the past 1,300 years. In Guilin and Yangshuo, China, cormorant birds are famous for fishing on the shallow Lijiang River. The islands of the Beaver Island archipelago in Northern Lake Michigan host what may be the densest concentration of the big, black diving birds on the continent, an estimated 50,000 that eat about 9 million pounds of fish from the surrounding waters from spring through fall. Fishermen and tourism interests want the state and federal governments to cut the number of double-crested cormorants around the Beaver Island group by half, raising the ire of bird lovers and animal-rights activists who say the cormorants aren't at the root of the problem.