Those who don't know history are doomed to destroy it. In Chaoyang, Liaoning province, two officials have been fired for embarking on a "restoration" project that painted over centuries-old Buddhist frescos with bright and gaudy blues, yellows, and reds, resulting in tawdry Taoist figures who belong on a coloring book cover.
On October 21, a truck towing nine of the same tow trucks in Kaili, Guizhou province careened into the side of a bridge on the Shanghai-Kunming Expressway and teetered on the brink of plummeting to the valley below. China Daily and Daily Mail both have pictures, with DM reporting that the driver had swerved to avoid a car that had cut him off.
Jimmy Kimmel hosted a "kid's table" discussion on the US government shutdown last week, eliciting the usual spate of "kids say the darndest things" chuckles from the audience. But one sound bite in particular stood out. Let's roll the tape.
Here are some folks that jumped straight into the "anger" portion of the grieving process. A 22-year-old man died of kidney failure in a Shanghai hospital's intensive care unit on October 17, and his family responded by trashing equipment, etc.
While Harbin continues to wheeze under a blanket of pollution, Beijing's municipal government announced measures yesterday to combat smog should when it returns to the nation's capital.
By now you surely know: Harbin in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, a city of 11 million, is blanketed in cancer-gray, toxic-smelling, blindingly thick smog. The AQI is over 500 and the PM2.5 measurement hit one thousand -- higher than it ever was during the worst of times in Beijing. Everything has closed down, from highways to airports to schools. Sinosphere and the Atlantic both have pictures and anecdotes. And AFP has this bit of funny:
Those ever-vigilant consumer-rights watchdogs over at China Central Television were at it again this week, directing the full fury of their state-backed bite against Starbucks in a seven-minute hit piece on October 20. What got CCTV's proverbial underpants in such a bunch?
