In Chengdu yesterday, a man with a knife reportedly kidnapped a child in Jinniu District. Cops quickly arrived on the scene -- specifically, Weng Hailin and Lu Mingjian -- setting up a dramatic confrontation, part of which you can watch above.
According to the Jinniu Public Security Bureau, Weng was stabbed in the left arm, severing artery. The knife-wielder was eventually subdued with the help of surrounding residents.
"Things may be bad, but at least our streets don't burp mystery goo," says Jon Stewart, referring to the ooze that randomly appeared one day out of a street crack in Nanjing.
We asked you to come up with guesses for what it can be. "Bird shit and Bisquick," Stewart says. "Corn starch and Foxocnn worker tears."
The audience was slightly aghast at that last suggestion.
Ma Qiang, a 39-year-old businessman, was among the earliest volunteers for the Mars One project, a one-way trip to the Red Planet with no scheduled return. He sparked a wave of Chinese applicants, to the point that only the US has more willing volunteers for this Netherlands project, and that, in turn, has authorities worried.
Ai Weiwei's 81 days in detention in 2011 is the inspiration for his latest work, "Dumbass," a song he wrote with music by rocker/artist Zuoxiao Zuzhou. The accompanying video was released minutes ago, in which he recreates scenes from his imprisonment. "He also portrays fantasies he imagines flitting through the guards’ minds," reports the NY Times. The cinematography is by Christopher Doyle, who has worked with the likes of Wong Kar-wai.
Fun fact: three of the stories we’ve posted in the past two days have been from Shenzhen. It’s where Alicia and I happened to be this weekend (for Ultimate Frisbee), and on Sunday we attempted to fly back.
Attempted and succeeded — but barely. A separate Shenzhen-to-Beijing airline ended up being delayed until 2 am, while our flight was only set back two hours, to 11 pm. (To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t because of bomb threats.)
Yes, we too are beginning to suffer from scat fatigue, but... meh. We sort of have a theme going, and it'd be a shame to neglect it.
This one comes via The Nanfang:
A picture of a woman pooping on a platform in a station along Shenzhen’s Luobao Line has already been forwarded by three respected, Shenzhen-based microblogs: Shenzhen’s Big and Small Issues, Shenzhen Metropolitan Round-up, and Baoan Life.
Ignore the 2010 timestamp. This video just appeared yesterday on Youku, titled, "Most insane motorcycle driver in history," and not only is that true, but this guy makes a good case for being history's funniest.
A big hole formed in Shenzhen Longgang District's Henggang Road yesterday at around 9 pm, killing three people. The road collapse is under investigation.
Sinkholes are particularly deadly in Shenzhen, apparently. On March 26, surveillance cameras caught footage of a five-by-eight-meter sinkhole killing a man.
Murong Xuecun has seen all his microblogs deleted (May 11), reinstated (May 17), and deleted again (May 18). Anyone who gets jerked around like this has reason to be upset; Murong, more so, considering he had millions of followers and thousands of entries accumulated over three years, and because, as he himself puts it, "to a writer, the words he writes are more important to him than his life."
The problem with gringo lit about the gringo experience in China is it inevitably and unsubtlety reinforces the foreigner's sense of Otherness while feeding his inflated sense of importance. In doses this is not necessarily bad – it can be therapeutic to read, even for lesser voyeurs – but in bulk it becomes obnoxious, not least of which because it is both disingenuous and vapid to pretend that foreigners don't relish, if not secretly rejoice at, their entitled status as Other.
“From the moment we step foot in the Middle Kingdom,” editor Tom Carter writes in his introduction on the opening page of Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China, “foreigners are subjected to an extraordinary range of alien experiences, ranging from appalling to exquisite.” The use of passive voice – are subjected to – places the emphasis strictly on “foreigners,” who are subjects protraying themselves as objects, assailed. The next sentence begins – emphasis mine – “We contend with seething masses of humanity,” and it becomes abundantly clear who are the looked-upon They.
