From Vimeo user zweizwei |motion timelapse|, here's one of the better China videos you'll see anywhere. Here's what Random Wire had to say about it: "Living inside one of China’s behemoth cities is a humbling experience, such is the enormity of their size and the human endeavours taking place there... [zweizwei's video] captures everyday life in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai extremely well – sunshine and smog included. Despite the endless sea of people streaming in from all over the country for the opportunities they provide, these cities can be strangely impersonal and isolating…"
Xinhua via People’s Daily (h/t Alex Wang) We’ve been waiting for this. Caption: “Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli, who have been elected members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), arrive to meet... Read more »
[WHICH NEWS ORGANIZATION WILL BE FIRST TO PUBLISH A PHOTO OF THE NEW SEVEN? WE'RE STILL WAITING. Reuters at 3 to 1 odds, I think. Rolling updates after jump.] (UPDATE, 12:41 pm: Mark MacKinnon wins! We’re tired of waiting for an official photo though. The image above has been appended.) (UPDATE, 12:55 pm: Xinhua wins,... Read more »
Twenty minutes past time, and no sign of Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, et al. But don’t freak out: join in on the fun. Twitter is at #WhyXiJinpingIsLate, and it’s lively. Featuring… Andrea Yu Mikhail Gorbachev The ghost of Mao Zedong The ghost of Jiang Zemin — even though he isn’t dead George W. Bush Clint Eastwood... Read more »
The Party Congress is, mercifully, over. For those of us here in Beijing, it feels good, like a massive cold-water colon cleanse. Now with the brown-nosers out of the city, we can reflect.
Now that it’s over, I mourn the loss of the banners.
The propaganda rags had a few different roles to play during the Congress. 1) Don’t report bad news. 2) Make sure everyone loves the Congress. 3) Love our dear leaders. 4) Publish editorial rimjobs about the Party Congress. 5) Convince people that change will happen gradually, after they die. 6) Hate the US and their pussy-ass elections. 7) Bang on about the Party Congress, no matter how boring and un-news-like, until you kill yourself, go on, do it, just kill yourself. Do it. You pansy. Go on. You don’t have the balls, do you? Do it. DO IT!
This story just gets more interesting by the minute. Via @fightcensorship, we've learned that Andrea Yu will be appearing on the cover of the November 16 issue of Oriental BQ Weekly Magazine. The red letters read: "Australia watches the 18th National Congress," and on the second line, "Andi," which is the Chinese rendering of Andrea. "Hodgkinson" is Yu's real (given?) surname.
Yesterday, while writing about an Australian reporter who had become somewhat of a Chinese Internet star because of her Mandarin-speaking ability, I was most struck by something she said in English. At a press conference inside the Great Hall of the People, she mentioned she was representing "Global CAMG Media International." I googled that phrase and found no results on the first page. The closest match was "CAMH," which is completely different. That should've sent up a red flag, instead of a yellow one. But this was still the early stages of the story, and the news seemed to be the question itself, not the identity of the questioner, so I went ahead with the post.
Via Xinhua, of course One more day. One more day and the 18th Party Congress will be over, and we can celebrate our Internet speeds returning to normal. Bear with us through links.
