By Justin Mitchell Here we are daily witnesses, viral voyeurs and readers to how cheap, meaningless and callous life can often be. Drivers willfully plowing over pedestrians, sometimes two or three times to ensure the dirty work is done; infants and children abandoned or even worse; beggars, protestors, petitioners and migrant workers treated like so... Read more »
Via China Daily: “Garbage fills the street at the Baishixia community in Bao’an district, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Wednesday. Because a landfill was blocked by nearby residents out of environmental concerns, a lot of trash cannot be sent to the landfill and has accumulated on the street since Monday. The district is trying to clean... Read more »
Who doesn’t hate congested subways, right? But who would be shameless enough to wear a backpack full of red spikes that poke anyone who dares get close? On Sunday on Beijing Subway Line 5, according to Beijing Morning Post, a man was spotted wearing the above. The journalist says judging by the picture, even though... Read more »
I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything quite like this produced in China. The video, a "Kung Fu FAQ" created by the digital marketing agency Flow Creative Studios follows a Walter Mitty-type martial artist who fields questions such as "Can you break bricks?" and "Can you fly?" while repulsing unruly diners, a scornful girlfriend, and a band of thieving strongmen in the hutongs of Beijing.
Venerable Shaolin Monastery, known worldwide as a pilgrimage destination for kung-fu devotees and something or other involving Wu-Tang Clan, helped ring in the 9th Zhengzhou International Shaolin Wushu Festival in Hunan Henan province yesterday with an opening ceremony featuring kids in gold paint and performers in various martial artsy poses. You can watch clips from the... Read more »
On Saturday night in Taichung, Taiwan, a drunk man surnamed Zhang wandered onto a busy road, sat down, and passed out. We've seen drunk people on the highways before, but not what happens next. After about four minutes -- a dozen or so cars had zipped by without stopping to help, with only a couple slowing down -- a vehicle ran him over. You can see all of this in the surveillance footage, above. The car that hit him ended up flipping onto its side, though the driver suffered only minor injuries.
Liao Yiwu won the 2012 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, causing Global Times columnist Shan Renping to act like a baby, a baby in sore need of being bashed against a tree.
The media went balls-to-the wall, calling Liao insane for, perhaps overzealously, shouting at his acceptance speech, saying China was an “ever-expanding garbage dump” and “an inhumane empire with bloody hands” (note: true, but who hasn’t been to a bachelor party like that). At the end, he shouted “the empire must break apart” six times.
A Chinese cargo ship, the Ming Yang, caught fire last Saturday about 150 kilometers southeast of Okinawa and required assistance from rescue boats. Japanese rescue boats. All 64 seamen on board were rescued before 4 am, with only three suffering minor injuries, the coast guard said, according to South China Morning Post. China and Japan, of... Read more »
By TAR Nation and RFH
Ed's note: TAR and RFH have diametrically opposed opinions about Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, starring Jeff Daniels as a news anchor who, in one lapse of honesty, sees his world turned upside-down. Characters sing "arias of facts," as the New Yorker's review put it, which sounds a lot like what news organizations closer to home -- in China -- do. So, TAR and RFH set aside their disagreements about The Newsroom to write a pitch for a show called Chinese Newsroom. TV producers out there: pick this up!
