Even while bashing the institution of urban management and enforcement -- so neatly summed up in one word, chengguan -- we acknowledge that the officers tasked with urban bureaucracy -- keeping street peddlers X meters away from the curb, making sure businesses have proper licenses, etc. -- do unenviable and difficult work. Keeping in mind that every time we see a video of chengguan beating the snot out of someone, the chengguan have their side of the story, too (and their side of the story probably has another side as well), let's examine one particular case from a few weeks ago in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, featuring a chengguan jumping on the face of a bike shop owner who was wrestled to the ground. Read more »
Back in October, a woman in Portland found a letter written in English by someone claiming to be a labor camp inmate in Shenyang. “If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization," so it went. "Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The veracity was initially unverifiable. Read more »
We're launching a podcast! On the occassion of Episode 1, featuring Frank Yu, The Creamcast hosts John Artman and The Good Doctor are here to answer some questions. Read more »
Look at the above and see how many incongruences you notice.
1. "Yes we can" -- wasn't that Obama's thing?
2. Chinese?
3. Why yes, that does say "in memory of US Army." Read more »
Rupert Murdoch, 82, is reportedly divorcing his wife of 14 years, the 44-year-old Chinese-born American Wendi Deng Murdoch. (Did you know Wendi's given Chinese name was "Cultural Revolution" [邓文革], before she changed it? Thanks, Wikipedia!)
The News Corp chairman and CEO filed for divorce -- his third -- at New York State Supreme Court on Thursday. The couple has two daughters, Grace and Chloe. Read more »
Last May, lawyer-activist Chen Guangcheng was a media darling and international hero. His dramatic escape from the village of Dongshigu, where he was held under house arrest, made headlines around the wrold. After the US granted him asylum, one magazine recognized him as "rebel of the year." He was later honored with the Lantos Human Rights Prize.
But as time went on, something changed. Or rather, Chen failed to. With each video, each interview, we heard more of the same, the same not-so-subtle name-drops, the same message, with phrases such as "the red terror envelops the nation." Read more »
Astrill wants its users to know it was the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack yesterday, and that they "are experiencing technical issues with our API servers," and are investigating, and "apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."
Unfortunately, if you are in China and only use Astrill, it's unlikely you've gotten this message (unless you happened to see it on Reddit). Astrill's been tweeting, beginning with this 13 hours ago: Read more »
Edward Snowden sat down with the South China Morning Post yesterday, causing the editors of that Hong Kong-based paper to somewhat lose their minds with SCOOP FEVER. (Which article do I link to? The 3:31 am one that has EXCLUSIVE splashed across the headline -- even though Snowden's spoken with several media outlets already -- or the one from 19 minutes later, or the one from 7:37 am on the same subject? There's another version from earlier, 12:52 am.) Read more »
Laowai Comics is a biweekly webcomic. Our intrepid artist is taking a leave of absence for the summer months, but will return in the fall. Until then, perhaps you'd like to check out the full archives. Read more »
