First, let’s make clear that it could be a suicide. It’s certainly possible that someone would go to the riverbank, bind his feet, then hands, then tie a manhole cover onto his body and jump in. But if you were the police, would you really rush to that conclusion in less than two days? Read more »
You don’t have to brand yourself, of course, because that would be racist. But this is very interesting, via Vancouver’s Straight.com via Reddit: On the ICBC website, the public auto insurer notes its official “L and N signs let other motorists know you’re a new driver or motorcycle rider”. Apparently, some drivers are going one step... Read more »Read more »
Unsatisfied with “hogwash,” “bay of pigs,” and “bacon” — all perfectly good and scurvy ways of describing the deathcarts of pig carcasses dredged out of the upper regions of Shanghai’s Shuangpu River this week — we now have “pigfestation,” courtesy of Bloomberg Businessweek: Read more »
Cell phones are a vital possession, no doubt, but how to choose one in China, where the selection seems endless? Real, fake, cheap, smart, new, stolen, mixture of several previous phones, one SIM card or three, etc. With such a large market, companies in and out of China are vying for a piece of the... Read more »Read more »
A man surnamed Chen, who was wanted for keeping a girl in a dog cage as a sex slave for a week, was arrested in Guiyang, Guangdong province, Southern Metropolis Daily reported Tuesday. Authorities identified the victim as a 17-year-old from Hunan province. Chen, believed to be a 40-something from Shenyang, Liaoning province, met Ms.... Read more »Read more »
Li Tianyi, who was arrested last month for allegedly participating in a gang rape with four other people in a Beijing hotel, may have used his famous parents’ connections to falsify records to make himself seem younger than he actually is, according to a blockbuster exclusive from the South China Morning Post. Li’s parents, father... Read more »Read more »
I ran across this piece on a blog for the Heritage Foundation in which the author tries to connect the recent accusations from Mandiant about hacking from China (still without conclusive evidence) and TOM1-Skype’s censoring: Chinese hackers have infiltrated the popular Internet messaging service Skype. The hackers have modified the operation of Skype so that the... Read more »Read more »
In many ways, it’s a story that combines everything that makes the Chinese media gush: pandas, tea, X-thousand years of culture, little children wearing cute costumes… And poop. Panda poop. That’s the recipe behind what some are calling the most expensive tea ever created. Selling for an eye-popping 440,000 RMB per kilogram (about $32,000 per... Read more »Read more »
Found on Sina Weibo, the above picture supposedly depicts a thug beating a petitioner in broad daylight on the streets of Xi’an in Shaanxi province. The man on the left is a goon allegedly hired by a demolish-and-relocate (chai-qian) gang, perhaps a real estate company or a local official. (Think the government wouldn’t get involved?... Read more »Read more »
The General Administration of Press and Publication, or GAPP, and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, are China’s two principal ministries of propaganda, tasked with tweaking, managing, and bowlderizing creative, edgy, realistic, and otherwise inspiring work into a mushy, digestible pap for mainstream consumption. It’s an unpleasant job, but someone has to... Read more »Read more »
