September 17 – September 23
The Diaoyu Islands dominated the news this week, and for good reason. Protests and riots that began last week got worse after the weekend, as demonstrations raged across many Chinese cities. Ai Weiwei got video of protesters surrounding Gary Locke’s car outside the US Embassy. A 51-year-old Chinese father got his head smashed in for driving a Japanese car. You still can’t call for democracy at these rallies though.
By Tuesday, the protests were dying down, as this controlled rally in Beijing shows. Meanwhile, Century 21 in Beijing offered a discriminatory special. And this is the best cartoon depicting the Diaoyu row out there.
The founder of Maoist group Utopia, Han Deqiang, was caught slapping an old man for saying disagree things about Mao Zedong. An “automatic sperm extractor” was found in Nanjing and Zhengzhou. And a convenience store cashier was able to talk her way out of a robbery.
The two-day trial of Wang Lijun began and ended. Chengguan in Wuhan are trying a slightly different, wordless tactic. A bull ran roughshod in the streets of Zhejiang province and plowed into an unsuspecting biker. A beauty pageant in Nanning featured some sad-looking women.
Comment of the Week:
There was a lot of chatter about which country owns the Diaoyu Islands on this post. Kai Pan offered these words:
Our justifications and rationalizations for the past will be used to justify our acceptance and rejection of what may transpire in the future. The fact is, we don’t usually have internally consistent rationalizations or principles. We just choose sides based on our current prejudices, on our own self-interest, other people’s claims or rationale be damned.
While Wheel Nut adds:
What transpires in the future, just as in the past, depends on who has more power to enforce their will upon others who will forced to choose between submission and destruction.
