Family and friends have begun to mourn the loss of 16-year-olds Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia of Jiangshan, Zhejiang province, the only two fatalities in the Asiana Airlines 214 crash on Saturday in San Francisco.
The New York Times and Associated Press both have stories worth reading on this matter. Read more »
It happens every year, but the algal bloom in the Yellow Sea near Qingdao, Shandong province has been historically large this year, according to the Guardian. "This year's incident has swathed 28,900 sq km (11,158 sq miles), twice as much as the previous biggest bloom in 2008," in fact, leading officials to use bulldozers to remove 7,335 tons of this green stuff from beaches. Read more »
An incomplete statue of Soong Ching Ling, a.k.a. Madame Sun Yat-sen, which appeared in November 2011 in Zhengzhou, Henan province, was "quietly removed" recently, state media reported on July 4. How does one quietly remove an eight-story statue from a downtown area? Perhaps one should ask how one quietly commissions the building of an eight-story statue in the first place. Read more »
Fred Hayes was plane-watching at San Francisco airport when Asiana Flight 214 came in much too low, and the video he captured is the only one so far that shows the plane's moment of impact with the ground. It skidded to a stop before bursting into flames while Hayes could only say, over and over, "Oh my God." Read more »
If you have the special misfortune of being photographed or filmed pooping in public, you're basically guaranteed to make the news. That we would see, once again, someone pooping on public transportation is not at all surprising or noteworthy.
Sina English's write-up, however, is exceptional. Read more »
The summer heat -- and it's been damn hot in Beijing -- is getting to people. Here, two female passengers on Bus 680 get into a bit of an entanglement. We commend the conductress who tries to break things up, and even picks up a dropped item (pearls?) and asks who it belongs to.
And the guy filming -- good job to you as well. Your video has 203,000 views on Youku. Read more »
Thunderstorms in Shanghai on Friday caused massive flight delays and more than 100 cancellations in the city's two major airports, Hongqiao and Pudong, and as you might expect, tempers boiled over. We don't know how many dozens of arguments broke out in terminals around the city, and how many of those turned into fights, but at least one was caught on camera. It involved -- yes, once again -- China Eastern Airlines. Read more »
Okay, this looks bad -- replacing an L with an R in a story about a flight from Asia in which two Chinese teenagers died. But no editor could have possibly done this intentionally, right? Make an L-R confusion joke amid a tragedy, I mean. Spoonerisms really aren't even very clever. Read more »
It's only five minutes and the acting is notional, but Verax is officially the first dramatization featuring NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The film, made by Hong Kong-based videographer Edwin Lee and friends, isn't completely about Snowden -- it's as much a paean to Hong Kong -- but it's received ample media attention nonetheless. Read more »
