World’s largest graffiti wall in Beijing? Via the official website of the Beijing government
The good and the bad, all in one links edition.
Suggested bribes for officials, leaked. “How do you get a ‘license to pollute’ in China? Start by giving a RMB2,000 (approximately US$330) gift card to the local environmental protection agency’s director. // That is, according to a list that was circulated on China’s social media that allegedly shows 47 government officials as recipients of gifts from a real estate developer in Yinchuan, the provincial capital of Ningxia province. While the authenticity of the list cannot be verified, journalists in China have confirmed that the officials named on the list do indeed exist.” (Tea Leaf Nation)
How the Snowden affair could help US-China relations. “With the world’s only superpower—to which China has long looked with a complex mix of admiration and envy mixed with resentment and animosity—now unexpectedly forced to eat a super-sized portion of humble pie, and the Chinese enjoying a rare moment of schadenfreude, the playing field may have suddenly leveled a bit. That’s important because, even though there is a real difference between the motives for and the kinds of surveillance that each country engages in, if there has been one thing that has galled Chinese in their relations with the West and Japan, it is the enduring presumption of their inequality, an imbalance that has deep roots growing out of their history of decline while being imperialized and exploited by foreigners.” (ChinaFile)
Concerns about Christian aspects of US summer programs brought to light by Asiana crash. “Parents of Chinese students who planned to attend a U.S. summer camp before their jetliner crashed last week said Tuesday they were troubled to learn a Christian church was a primary host for a program they understood was for English immersion. // The death of two 16-year-old girls in the San Francisco plane crash Saturday has sparked scrutiny of the kind of education program they joined and that increasingly attracts young Chinese students to the U.S.” (WSJ)
Horrible pictures herein. “Baby stabbed 90 times with scissors by his Chinese mother after he bit her as she was breastfeeding him.” (Daily Mail)
Jesus, Daily Mail. “Girl, 12, raped by three of her teachers gives birth to child fathered by 74-year-old who ‘was forced to confess to the sex attack by corrupt police.’” (Daily Mail)
Hu Xijin. “The latter headline – by far the most vitriolic – has run on the front page of Global Times’ English website for two days. The editorial, which was overseen by China’s controversial Hu Xijin, states: ‘The hysteria of some Japanese politicians is a result of their country’s anxiety and fear,’ and ‘Japanese officials take turns to show their toughness on China, and they use the white paper to provoke us.’” (Tyler Roney, The Diplomat)
Bad weather recently. “A landslide has buried between 30 and 40 people in China’s Sichuan province following heavy rain, state media say. // Rescue workers with search dogs are at the scene in the city of Dujiangyan, Xinhua news agency reports.” (BBC)
People want to be monks. “The abbot of Ci’en Temple in Zhejiang province never thought the chance to live as a Buddhist monk would attract so many people. // The temple in Taizhou city published a notice on its website, offering people the experience of living as a monk or nun, starting July 15. As of Tuesday, more than 1,000 people had applied, far beyond the capacity of the temple.” (China Daily)
Today's weird fact: serial killer Ted Bundy once studied Chinese at the University of Washington.
— Matt Schiavenza (@MattSchiavenza) July 10, 2013
I've produced a tentative translation of the Liangzhu stone axe-head inscription. (http://t.co/saU8IdvylH) pic.twitter.com/Ykpx5TQHlF
— Brendan O'Kane (@bokane) July 11, 2013
"so many contemporary economists are really just (drug-less) hippies" http://t.co/3yqiaw7Br4
— Jeremy Goldkorn 金玉米 (@goldkorn) July 11, 2013
Win @stevevai tickets for his BJ show! Enter our phto contest! Its easy, see this blog for details http://t.co/2UDMK8UdDM @beijingcream
— That's Beijing (@Thats_Beijing) July 12, 2013
Victoria Beckham in Beijing interlude:
Finally…
“Why isn’t LinkedIn Blocked in China?” (Tech in Asia)
Another Chinese golfer wants to be Tiger Woods. (NY Times)
“An elderly Chinese man’s take on the new filial piety law: ‘Those who are still single at the age of 30 should be sentenced.’” (Offbeat China)
“Car horns used 40 times more often in China than in Europe.” (SCMP)
China and US: “hypocritical superpowers.” (China Elections and Governance)
“Hidden History: Shanghai’s Russian Roots.” (City Weekend Shanghai)
The religious school thing pulls my heart strings, because that was similar to how I was indoctrinated into Christianity, I grew up believing my parents were the only fools who let people who knew they couldn’t speak English take advantage of them but when I grew up I met other people’s who immigrant parents thought they were going to math camp. So that experience forever ruined the abrahamic religions for me, sorry guys.
Good for you! While we should all defend the repressed Christians in China, as the government does harrass them and imprison them regularly (add in routine torture too), that doesn’t make the many scummy christianist (or x-tian) organizations around the world any less evil.
There was a big nationwide revival in the US from the 80s on, the evangelical movement, and it has spawned so much shit. Finally it seems to be running its course, I sort of expect the faithful to turn away from politics to some extent in the future as being too secular. They have failed in their goals and sullied themselves (with mainstream evangelical figures cheering on the Iraq war back in 2002-2003), and are in disarray at this point.
Plus their political goal, a wide ban on abortion, is too aggressive and controlling, ignores reality, and caused them to ignore other problems where they could have done more good. For example, they could have fought for more services to the poor and used that to influence people, and this probably would have “saved babies”. But instead they sat on their couches and paid scumbags like Randall Terry.