Posted two days ago to Youku (embedded after the jump for those in China), this video currently has 785,000 views. Tang Zhenping, according to the description, is a 55-year-old farmer from Beijing’s Tangzhou Wangji Yongle Town who spent 10,000 yuan to build an electric car that can travel 140 kilometers per charge. Apparently at high speeds, the fan attached to the front of the car begins generating electricity that powers the vehicle in addition to the generator in the back -- however unlikely, it must be said, this seems. Everything about the car is nonetheless impressive, and it reportedly only took three months to design and build.
As to be expected from the invariably weird National Art Museum of China, the exhibition design for “Pneuma, Enlightenment, Harmonious: Sculpture Exhibition of Zhao Chengmin” was really freakin’ weird. First there were the dingy maroon walls — apart from the feeling of being in a ’70s smoking lounge, they wouldn’t be so bad except that... Read more »
By now, multiple angles of American David Potter traversing the Enshi Grand Canyon in Hubei province are online, but no matter how you look at it -- even knowing he successfully crossed the 40-meter canyon that's 1,800 meters above sea level without falling to his death (because he was wearing no safety harness or parachute) -- it's still harrowing. A slackline, for those who aren't familiar, is different from a tightrope in that there's more stretching, like "a long and narrow trampoline," says Wikipedia.
This video has absolutely no redeemable value. In fact, the Chinese woman chirping Harper’s middle name — Seven – in two languages isn’t even all that interesting. And Victoria Beckham herself? I can think of precisely nothing to say, except maybe the almost-kind-of-newsworthy fact that she was in Beijing over the weekend to promote her new... Read more »
I used to write the blog Heart of Beijing from behind the Great Firewall. Every sporadically, we’ll take a blast to the past. The following was first published on January 4, 2012. This latest from the New York Times is about President Hu Jintao’s comments regarding soft culture. Apparently China is losing the battle to the U.S.... Read more »
My name is Natsun. My friend's name is Lee [Ed's note: name has been changed to protect his identity]. Anthony Tao recently published a blog post about our chance meeting at El Nido, a Beijing bar (with an absolutely impressive beer selection -- you should check it out). I liked Tao's article, but was very disappointed to read some of the reactions to it in the comments section. It’s not my habit to respond to rabble-rousers, but I think I'd be doing the Internet a disservice to turn down Tao's very reasonable offer to respond to the visceral nature of many of the comments posted about my friend.
Strict Party governance vitally needed Global Times | April 16, 2012 19:48 By Shan Renping
Since we had a pop at the laughably insane Hu Xijin last week, this week’s propaganda piñata will be Shan Renping. Now, Shan is by no means as high profile as Hu Xijin, but he makes up for it by being more hateful and intellectually repulsive. Unfortunately, Shan is a rather difficult party proselytizer to find, much in line with the traditional problem propagandists face (i.e. hiding so that people don’t beat them to death with sticks). So in lieu of a picture, I have provided a dramatization of what he looks like:
