Via @sanverde
Hope you’re enjoying the Beijing Auto Show links.
The latest big investigation. “His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects. // In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.” (NY Times)
Will these disputes ever end? “A dispute between mainland Chinese tourists and locals over a toddler urinating in a Hong Kong street has once again become a flash point in already tense cross-border relations. // This time, the dispute ended in a scuffle that led to the arrest of a mainland couple, the parents of the toddler, and a massive online uproar in both Hong Kong and the mainland.” (SCMP)
This story ends in a somewhat happy ending. (Note: ugh, not really.) “On the evening of April 19, Mr Pan was out celebrating with his family at a restaurant located on Minfeng Road in the Longhua District of Shenzhen. As Pan left the driver’s seat to grab his bag from the trunk of the car, his wife Li exited the front passenger seat to walk around to the driver’s side. // Before Li could get in, a man suddenly jumped into the driver’s seat and started to drive away. Especially alarmed as the car was still occupied by their two and-a-half year old child and its grandmother sitting in the back seat, the parents were determined not to allow their single-most treasured commodity to be kidnapped.” (The Nanfang)
Oh, rich people. “The familiar image of international surrogacy until now has mainly involved Americans and Europeans crossing the world to find women to birth their children.Now, wealthy Chinese couples are seeking surrogates in the US. The practice — a new version of Chinese ‘birth tourism’ — offers a solution to rising infertility in China, a way around Chinese population controls, and even the added bonus of US citizenship for babies born in the States.” (Quartz)
Response to Oliver Stone. “Mr. Ning, who was on the judging panel at the festival, said Mr. Stone was just trying to ‘finding fault’ with the Chinese film industry. // ‘If we want to go to America to shoot “9/11,” I expect they would say no as well,’ Mr. Ning said in an interview during the festival with the state-run Global Times that was posted online on Tuesday. // ‘You cannot judge from a ‘finding-fault’ perspective on topics that are sensitive,’ he said. ‘China’s issues aren’t that simple.’” (WSJ)
Fucking parents. “’Olympic Babies are Coming,’ read a headline in Beijing News on Wednesday. With about 10,000 more children than usual born in Beijing in 2008, a year considered by many to be lucky both for the number eight and for being the year that China hosted the Olympic Games, the state is scrambling to find enough school spaces for 6-year-olds as they head to first grade this fall.” (Sinosphere)
Uighur Web. “This is the Uighur web. The space can be defined as the Internet as it exists within the borders of China’s far western autonomous region of Xinjiang, the homeland of the Turkic-language-speaking, mostly Muslim Uighur minority. It can also be seen as the Uighur-focused Internet perused by Uighurs across China. In both cases, content and access are tightly controlled.” (Tea Leaf Nation)
Don’t drink soil water! “Nearly 60 percent of monitored areas of China had ‘very poor’ or ‘relatively poor’ underground water quality last year, a new report showed on Tuesday.” (Xinhua)
What if she also has liver cancer? “A woman’s liver cancer diagnosis instead turned out to have been a fish bone that sliced through her stomach lining and lodged in her liver some 18 months ago, chinanews.com reported.” (Shanghai Daily)
Oliver Stone’s punishment for speaking out on China’s film industry? Appearing on Yang Rui’s Dialogue show http://t.co/OsVNonumEu
— Gady Epstein (@gadyepstein) April 22, 2014
I’ve been applying for Chinese visas since 1983, and this year I’m being forced to jump through more hoops than ever before.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) April 21, 2014
Aircraft carrier tribute interlude, via Sinosphere:
Finally…
“The Specter of June Fourth.” (ChinaFile)
Shuangjing block party, April 26, 1-7 pm. (the Beijinger)
“North Korea: the new generation losing faith in the regime.” (The Guardian)
“Your One Stop Guide to the 2014 Music Festival Season.” (the Beijinger)
“’Starting from Scratch’ – a new AMWF rom-com movie about love, taxes and breakups.” (Speaking of China)
“China to Allow the Blind to Take College Entrance Exams.” (Sinosphere)
“Li Na and Peng Shuai launch a tennis craze and a new government policy in China.” (ESPN)
“Guard Chris Tang commits to NCAA D1 U.C. Riverside.” (Asian Athletes Blog)
“10 strange things on Taobao.” (BBC)
“For young women in China, slash fanfiction is a dangerous hobby.” (Daily Dot)
“‘nuestra misión es divertir y educar’: entrevista a Anthony Tao, bloguero.” (China-Files)
Finally, finally…
Harbin hosted a No Pants Subway Ride for World Earth Day, via China Daily:
One more…
Ha! Via Bridgers’ Finds, “Take a chill pill, Chinese state media. This is not the Oxford Dictionary”:
