blog 5
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A: 你知道昨天的天气怎么样？
B: 我相信天气暖融融的。这是一个每年的这个时候美好的变化。
A:真的吗？
B: 是，我花了一整天在外面!
A: 我希望今天是一样的。
12 years ago
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'
The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
China regulator bans TV advertisements during dramas
Monday, November 21, 2011
How China Can Defeat America
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/how-china-can-defeat-america.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=allThe fragmentation of the pre-Qin era resembles the global divisions of our times, and the prescriptions provided by political theorists from that era are directly relevant today — namely that states relying on military or economic power without concern for morally informed leadership are bound to fail.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
China Conundrum
China Conundrum
DOZENS of new students crowded into a lobby of the University of Delaware’s student center at the start of the school year. Many were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers; half tapped away silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however, would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin. That’s because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from Colombia, all the students were from China.
DOZENS of new students crowded into a lobby of the University of Delaware’s student center at the start of the school year. Many were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers; half tapped away silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however, would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin. That’s because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from Colombia, all the students were from China.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Midwest China Airhub links
http://www.bnd.com/2011/09/04/1846489/taxpayers-foot-bill-to-tout-airport.html
MASCOUTAH -- St. Clair County taxpayers have spent more than $1.6 million between January 2008 and July 2011 on consultant fees, travel and lodging costs, in addition to advertising and marketing expenses -- all to promote the struggling MidAmerica St. Louis Airport.
The county Public Building Commission, which oversees the airport, has spent most of these consultant dollars to promote MidAmerica as an air cargo hub with direct flights to and from China.
So far, county taxpayers are awaiting the first fruits from their investment of time and treasure on the China strategy for the airport, which in 2009 needed a subsidy of nearly $7 million in cash and in-kind costs from the county to keep running.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/article_be77ea40-90d3-5ce2-98e2-af05d0ce5a3f.html
http://www.aircargonews.com/0611/FT110614.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest-China_Hub_Commission
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Aerotropolis-Economic-boon-or-boondoggle-2154324.php
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/26/idUS141219+26-Jan-2009+BW20090126
What's also critical for Americans to understand is the Chinese word "guanxi," (pronounced gwan-shee), which means a network of relationships based on shared obligations and reciprocal duties that, over time, create a powerful sense of trust.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Conditions of Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei’s Detention Emerge
Conditions of Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei’s Detention Emerge
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — Ai Weiwei, a prominent Chinese artist and dissident, said on Friday that he had been kept in a tiny room throughout his nearly three-month detention last spring and watched 24 hours a day by shifts of two uniformed military police sergeants who never left his side.
During a brief telephone interview, Mr. Ai confirmed and elaborated on a description of his captivity provided by an associate. The sergeants were never more than 30 inches from his side, and sometimes just four inches away, and stayed there as he slept, showered and used the bathroom, Mr. Ai said.
“It is designed as a kind of mental torture, and it works well,” he added.
Mr. Ai, 54, was detained at Beijing’s main airport on April 3 when he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong, and was taken away by the police. In the preceding months, he had emerged in Twitter postings as a forceful critic of the arbitrary exercise of power by Chinese officials and an advocate for greater democracy.
Mr. Ai’s associate, who insisted on anonymity because of the risk of official retaliation, said that from the very beginning of his detention the police made it clear that it would be a difficult experience. “He told me that when he was taken from the airport, the police told him: ‘You always give us trouble, now it’s time for us to give you trouble’,” the associate said.
Mr. Ai was released on June 22, after he signed what the authorities described as a confession of tax evasion at his art business. But the associate said that the police had not taken an interest in his tax matters when they interrogated him.
“He said he was questioned by police for more than 50 times, and none of those was about the tax issue of the company, but mostly about his blog,” the associate said, adding that the police had vehemently criticized Mr. Ai for his postings. “‘How dare you say those things, you are too defiant, disobedient,’ they would say.”
Mr. Ai said on Friday that the accusation of tax violations was being used by the authorities as a way to punish him for his activism.
It is rare for anyone to be arrested on tax charges in China, he said. And any such arrests would normally be conducted by the tax police, not military police sergeants, he added.
One condition of his release was that he stop making public statements. But he did call in a Twitter posting on Tuesday for the release of four colleagues and, in a separate posting, for the release of two other activists. One of the two activists, Ran Yunfei, 43, a blogger, was released hours later.
The other activist, Wang Lihong, 56, went on trial Friday in a Beijing suburb on a charge of “creating a disturbance,” The Associated Press reported. Ms. Wang pleaded not guilty to the charge, which stems from her participation in a demonstration in support of three bloggers accused of slander, The A.P. said. Mr. Ai’s associate said that one aspect of the artist’s recent detention had not bothered him, though the police might not have thought that they were doing him a favor.
“He told me that he was made to wash his own clothes by hand, which was his favorite, happiest thing to do, because he felt like that was the only thing he could do with his own hands,” the associate said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/asia/13artist.html?_r=1&ref=world
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Foxconn's iPad Factory in Chengdu
Apple investors brush off China blast impact
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/23/us-honhai-blast-idUSTRE74M0I320110523
China urges greater attention to safety at iPad factory blast
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/us-china-foxconn-idUSTRE74O0XI20110525
Explosion at China iPad factory highlights lax safety
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/us-china-foxconn-labour-idUSTRE74N3TO20110524
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Amid Shortages, a Surplus of Hope
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Amid Shortages, a Surplus of Hope
By RYU MURAKAMI
Published: March 16, 2011
I SET out from my home in the port city of Yokohama early in the afternoon last Friday, and shortly before 3 p.m. I checked into my hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo. I usually spend three or four days a week there to write, gather material and take care of other business.
The earthquake hit just as I entered my room. Thinking I might end up trapped beneath rubble, I grabbed a container of water, a carton of cookies and a bottle of brandy and dived beneath the sturdily built writing desk. Now that I think about it, I don’t suppose there would have been time to savor a last taste of brandy if the 30-story hotel had fallen down around me. But taking even this much of a countermeasure kept sheer panic at bay.
Before long an emergency announcement came over the P.A. system: “This hotel is constructed to be absolutely earthquake-proof. There is no danger of the building collapsing. Please do not attempt to leave the hotel.” This was repeated several times. At first I wondered if it was true. Wasn’t the management merely trying to keep people calm?
And it was then that, without really thinking about it, I adopted my fundamental stance toward this disaster: For the present, at least, I would trust the words of people and organizations with better information and more knowledge of the situation than I. I decided to believe the building wouldn’t fall. And it didn’t.
The Japanese are often said to abide faithfully by the rules of the “group” and to be adept at forming cooperative systems in the face of great adversity. That would be hard to deny today. Valiant rescue and relief efforts continue nonstop, and no looting has been reported.
Away from the eyes of the group, however, we also have a tendency to behave egoistically — almost as if in rebellion. And we are experiencing that too: Necessities like rice and water and bread have disappeared from supermarkets and convenience stores. Gas stations are out of fuel. There is panic buying and hoarding. Loyalty to the group is being tested.
At present, though, our greatest concern is the crisis at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. There is a mass of confused and conflicting information. Some say the situation is worse than Three Mile Island, but not as bad as Chernobyl; others say that winds carrying radioactive iodine are headed for Tokyo, and that everyone should remain indoors and eat lots of kelp, which contains plenty of safe iodine, which helps prevent the absorbtion of the radioactive element. An American friend advised me to flee to western Japan.
Some people are leaving Tokyo, but most remain. “I have to work,” some say. “I have my friends here, and my pets.” Others reason, “Even if it becomes a Chernobyl-class catastrophe, Fukushima is 170 miles from Tokyo.”
My parents are in western Japan, in Kyushu, but I don’t plan to flee there. I want to remain here, side by side with my family and friends and all the victims of the disaster. I want to somehow lend them courage, just as they are lending courage to me.
And, for now, I want to continue the stance I took in my hotel room: I will trust the words of better-informed people and organizations, especially scientists, doctors and engineers whom I read online. Their opinions and judgments do not receive wide news coverage. But the information is objective and accurate, and I trust it more than anything else I hear.
Ten years ago I wrote a novel in which a middle-school student, delivering a speech before Parliament, says: “This country has everything. You can find whatever you want here. The only thing you can’t find is hope.”
One might say the opposite today: evacuation centers are facing serious shortages of food, water and medicine; there are shortages of goods and power in the Tokyo area as well. Our way of life is threatened, and the government and utility companies have not responded adequately.
But for all we’ve lost, hope is in fact one thing we Japanese have regained. The great earthquake and tsunami have robbed us of many lives and resources. But we who were so intoxicated with our own prosperity have once again planted the seed of hope. So I choose to believe.
Ryu Murakami is the author of “Popular Hits of the Showa Era.” This article was translated by Ralph F. McCarthy from the Japanese.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/opinion/17Murakami.html?_r=2
Amid Shortages, a Surplus of Hope
By RYU MURAKAMI
Published: March 16, 2011
I SET out from my home in the port city of Yokohama early in the afternoon last Friday, and shortly before 3 p.m. I checked into my hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo. I usually spend three or four days a week there to write, gather material and take care of other business.
The earthquake hit just as I entered my room. Thinking I might end up trapped beneath rubble, I grabbed a container of water, a carton of cookies and a bottle of brandy and dived beneath the sturdily built writing desk. Now that I think about it, I don’t suppose there would have been time to savor a last taste of brandy if the 30-story hotel had fallen down around me. But taking even this much of a countermeasure kept sheer panic at bay.
Before long an emergency announcement came over the P.A. system: “This hotel is constructed to be absolutely earthquake-proof. There is no danger of the building collapsing. Please do not attempt to leave the hotel.” This was repeated several times. At first I wondered if it was true. Wasn’t the management merely trying to keep people calm?
And it was then that, without really thinking about it, I adopted my fundamental stance toward this disaster: For the present, at least, I would trust the words of people and organizations with better information and more knowledge of the situation than I. I decided to believe the building wouldn’t fall. And it didn’t.
The Japanese are often said to abide faithfully by the rules of the “group” and to be adept at forming cooperative systems in the face of great adversity. That would be hard to deny today. Valiant rescue and relief efforts continue nonstop, and no looting has been reported.
Away from the eyes of the group, however, we also have a tendency to behave egoistically — almost as if in rebellion. And we are experiencing that too: Necessities like rice and water and bread have disappeared from supermarkets and convenience stores. Gas stations are out of fuel. There is panic buying and hoarding. Loyalty to the group is being tested.
At present, though, our greatest concern is the crisis at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. There is a mass of confused and conflicting information. Some say the situation is worse than Three Mile Island, but not as bad as Chernobyl; others say that winds carrying radioactive iodine are headed for Tokyo, and that everyone should remain indoors and eat lots of kelp, which contains plenty of safe iodine, which helps prevent the absorbtion of the radioactive element. An American friend advised me to flee to western Japan.
Some people are leaving Tokyo, but most remain. “I have to work,” some say. “I have my friends here, and my pets.” Others reason, “Even if it becomes a Chernobyl-class catastrophe, Fukushima is 170 miles from Tokyo.”
My parents are in western Japan, in Kyushu, but I don’t plan to flee there. I want to remain here, side by side with my family and friends and all the victims of the disaster. I want to somehow lend them courage, just as they are lending courage to me.
And, for now, I want to continue the stance I took in my hotel room: I will trust the words of better-informed people and organizations, especially scientists, doctors and engineers whom I read online. Their opinions and judgments do not receive wide news coverage. But the information is objective and accurate, and I trust it more than anything else I hear.
Ten years ago I wrote a novel in which a middle-school student, delivering a speech before Parliament, says: “This country has everything. You can find whatever you want here. The only thing you can’t find is hope.”
One might say the opposite today: evacuation centers are facing serious shortages of food, water and medicine; there are shortages of goods and power in the Tokyo area as well. Our way of life is threatened, and the government and utility companies have not responded adequately.
But for all we’ve lost, hope is in fact one thing we Japanese have regained. The great earthquake and tsunami have robbed us of many lives and resources. But we who were so intoxicated with our own prosperity have once again planted the seed of hope. So I choose to believe.
Ryu Murakami is the author of “Popular Hits of the Showa Era.” This article was translated by Ralph F. McCarthy from the Japanese.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/opinion/17Murakami.html?_r=2
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
CPPCC annual session opens
BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China opposes the intervention by foreign forces in the unrest in the Middle East and relevant missions should be led by the United Nations, a Chinese spokesman said Saturday.
A similar unrest in China is "preposterous and unrealistic", said Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for China's top advisory body which is convening its annual session in Beijing.
There would not be such a situation in China, added Zhao, former head of the Information Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet.
He made the remarks at a press conference for the Fourth Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
He had told a group of foreign journalists last month that many of China's problems, such as income and regional gaps, surfaced in the process of rapid economic development. However, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government were trying to resolve them.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/special/2011lh/
A similar unrest in China is "preposterous and unrealistic", said Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for China's top advisory body which is convening its annual session in Beijing.
There would not be such a situation in China, added Zhao, former head of the Information Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet.
He made the remarks at a press conference for the Fourth Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
He had told a group of foreign journalists last month that many of China's problems, such as income and regional gaps, surfaced in the process of rapid economic development. However, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government were trying to resolve them.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/special/2011lh/
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A collection of links to story about recently sacked rail chief
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Censorship of "埃及" in China
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Capsule rooms appear in Shanghai
Jan 15 - China's first capsule hotel ready to open its doors in Shanghai, aims to capture slice of booming leisure budget travel market.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=177654907&videoChannel=2602
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
China's 2020 Plan links to news articles about environment
http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2010/11/chinas-new-national-plan-green.html
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90862/7076933.html
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/07/renewable-energy-policy-update-for-china
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/09/china-green-energy-solar-wind
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