Say what you will about the national census, but I was a little miffed when I realized I’d be missing out — i.e., not counted — in the once-a-decade ritual by moving to China. But China also has this once-a-decade tradition. And lucky for me, this time around — its sixth ever — it will […]
And Google has left China. After finding hackers had violated some of their users’ Gmail accounts last December and threatening to pull out, Google had kept mum about what it’s final decision will be. It shut down its google.cn site yesterday and is redirecting all traffic to its uncensored Hong Kong site in a final […]
It’s impossible to escape the World Expo here in China. Billboards everywhere remind you it’s happening this summer. Its scary mascot, Haibao, pops up suddenly when you least expect it. New government regulations remind locals to behave themselves. There is a swell of national pride that makes any foreigner scratch his head in wonder of […]
I don’t have a lot of faith in the Chinese: They have bad tastes, they’re generally disgusting and I may not have witnessed a bigger herd of sheep ever in my life or a group of people so unwilling to take the lead on and responsibility for anything. But every so often, I am reminded […]
Stanley Fish has a good blog post at the Times, where he discusses two approaches to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election commission. Basically, the SC ruled 5-4 to overturn bans on corporate political spending, including McCain-Feingold. The case […]
Two things of interest today: There’s a Google-CCP battle brewing. Google will no longer censor itself to appease the Chinese government after discovering hackers from somewhere in China accessed the Gmail accounts of some human rights activists. It’s good to see a major company giving the finger to China. Working together is great and all, […]
Nothing like a good op-ed piece and a national birthday to reawaken my pro-China inclinations. The Grand Parade was certainly magnificent (you can always count on China to put on an over-the-top spectacle), but still super dry and hella boring. The only highlights were: When, during the flag-raising ceremony, the soldier threw the flag into […]
According to American media ethics, good journalists will never accept gifts, money or other sorts of compensation for their work in an attempt to remain unbiased. Thus, I thought it was really qiguai (weird) when my roommate was given 100 yuan for covering a story on kids of government officials. Then a few weeks later, […]
First, comparisons to last year’s riots (“protests”) in Tibet focused on the media’s bias in naming the incidents, which led to speculation that discrepencies in reporting may be because Tibetans are peaceful Buddhists and Uyghurs are Muslims. Now, Glenn Greenwald is lamenting that if only Uyghurs were Christian, the Chinese government would be much more easily […]
After blocking Twitter yesterday, China seems to have blocked access to Facebook and AIM, as well. At least, I can’t get on them. I can’t find any reports of problems with AIM, but I have no idea why I can’t get on it (Chinese people use MSN Messenger, anyway). It went down around the same […]