It's all over but the crying for the Chinese basketball team at the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship after a shocking 18-point defeat at the hands of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals today. With Yi Jianlian scoring the first bucket and Zhu Fangyu and Wang Shipeng hitting shots from the outside, China jumped out to an 8-3, then 13-5 lead, and at one point in the 2nd quarter was up by 17. CCTV-5 commentators, openly rooting for China, said Taiwan ("Chinese Taipei") looked like "little brother playing big brother."
The "emergence" of punk, in 2008, was a social interest story, as international media arrived in Beijing for Olympics coverage but "discovered" Chinese rock.
It's different now, as Nevin Domer, COO of Maybe Mars and founder of Genjing Records, explains in our latest episode of The Creamcast.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on... you, I guess. Fool me four times, shame all around. Fool me five times, does your mother know you're doing this? Fool me... I've lost count. Stop fooling me!
A smart person once told me that the feeling she gets when certain people enter the room is the same feeling she gets when she encounters the dank scent of mildew on damp, bath towels. It’s a livable smell, that palpable acrid taste in the air, but for her it also brings with it a constant grating and discomfort. Even worse, people who project this feeling on others with condescending smiles and cheerful helping hands are often “true believers” with the very best of intentions. They move and talk as though under an ideological spell. Their hope is that when they enter the atmosphere of a situation the positive vibes, the affect, or “wisdom of the body,” they emit will radiate like an emotional contagion.
Think you're the fastest beer-chugger in Beijing? Prove it. Sign up for the inaugural Beijing Cream Chug-off for Charity on Saturday, August 24 at 2 pm at the new Great Leap Brewing (between Sun City and Chunxiu Lu). All proceeds will go to Magic Hospital, a local charity that "strives to help in the healing of sick, abused, neglected and orphaned children by restoring an element of fun in their day." It's absolutely a good cause, which we'll tell you more about in the coming days. Great Leap is very generously donating all the beer that will be used at the event.
It's been a while since our friends at Xinhua have done something truly absurd, but today, China's official state-run news agency has really outdone itself. The culprit this time is not Xinhua's English-language slideshow, but a Chinese edition, which recently published 40 pictures that appear to be screenshots from a fetish porno.
A friend of ours, Neil from Hong Kong, had quite the interesting post office experience in Mong Kok this morning.
He was standing in line, minding his own business, when a woman approached him and said, “Fucking white man is pig, you steal and you need to return the loot to its original owner.”
Utterly flabbergasted, Neil -- who is, by the way, one of the coolest, nicest people we know -- pulled out his camera phone and began recording. “Return the loot to its original owner,” the woman says, followed by:
On August 3 at 2:50 pm, the influential political blogger and journalist Michael Anti tweeted that Wall Street Journal's Chinese website, cn.wsj.com, had been blocked within China. That afternoon, after testing on multiple browsers, we emailed WSJ for a comment, then posted a story announcing WSJ Chinese had been harmonized, i.e. could only be accessible in China with a VPN.
Two hours ago, Kathy from Dow Jones's Hong Kong office emailed back:
The first time you watch this, you'll likely not catch what exactly happens. Youku user Wanku, who posted the above video, certainly didn't.
But after returning home and studying the footage, Wanku realized something: he/she saw a robbery happen in broad daylight, and in front of the city hall in Binhu district of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, no less.
Chinese appreciation for savage beatings was on stage again Friday night when World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) rolled through Shanghai for another series of smackdowns. Unfortunately, apart from standout performances by Daniel Bryan and John Cena, WWE appears to have backed off on the marketing push. Friday's event was untelevised, fine, but it was also short on pompous speechmaking and video support, so those in the nosebleeds had to invade the lower levels just to see.
