August 20 – August 26
What a week: a cow beauty pageant, a state-sponsored list of China’s happiest cities (Lhasa was No. 1), and a public sculpture of pigs having sex. You read that right: it was our most-read post of the week, linked by Boing Boing and Dave Barry. If you haven’t yet, check out the follow-ups: a video from the scene, and the revelation that the sculpture was modeled off a statuette of pigs having sex.
A drunk, speeding 19-year-old killed a construction worker, then made out with his girlfriend afterwards… who then really did something unbelievable. A boy publicly proposed to his girlfriend in Xidan on Chinese Valentine’s Day eve, and his efforts were rewarded with kicks to the side. In Beijing, a man was accidentally jabbed with a syringe hidden in a taxi; for some reason, the syringe was filled with a fluid that contained the HIV virus. The story that might have beaten all these, however, may have been the one about a woman who was wrestled off the ledge of a rooftop, only to then admit to throwing her four-year-old nephew off that ledge earlier that day.
There were several notable protests this week. People absolutely lost their collective minds over Diaoyu Islands, leading to bikini-clad protesters to urge “civilized patriotism.” Meanwhile in Beijing, one environmentalist decided: who needs a bikini? She went topless to protest ginseng extraction. Oh yeah, Gu Kailai was given a suspended death sentence. Even though everyone expected it, someone really ought to protest the fact that she may serve as few as 15 years for murdering a British businessman.
We leaked a questionnaire aimed at overseas foreigners for the upcoming National Congress of the CPC. A Chinese news show used Frogger and Mario to discourage jaywalking. We found a section on People’s Daily’s website called “Eyes on DPRK,” featuring “A tour of DPRK’s beauties,” and this homemade Lamborghini is China’s “most awesome sports car ever.”
A highway collapse in Harbin killed three people, and a bus collided with a tanker carrying methanol in Shaanxi, resulting in at least 36 dead. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were both in China this week, and Beijing’s Residence A gave one hell of a musical performance last Saturday.
Comment of the week:
https://twitter.com/raykwong/status/238472757220896770
