For the second straight year and the third time overall since 2010, the Hong Kong-based China Institute of City Competitiveness (CICC) has ranked Qingdao, Shandong province No. 1 on its China Urban Competitiveness Ranking, essentially calling it the happiest city in China.
The largest factory I ever visited was an automobile tire-manufacturing complex with more than 10,000 workers. At the time, I was working with a professor on a project to calculate the environmental impact of tire recycling. My colleague – let’s call her Kate – and I were dispatched to take a tour of the complex and see tire manufacturing firsthand. That was the ostensible reason, anyway. The real reason we were there was to schmooze with the plant managers in the hopes of obtaining one of their environmental audit reports.
You could be forgiven for thinking that, entering its third and final match in the East Asian Cup on Sunday in Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul, China had already exceeded expectations. Its toughest tests came in the first two games of this four-team tournament, and it passed -- "won," one might say, in the way that soccer teams can win draws. It mustered a furious late rally to erase a 3-1 deficit against Japan last Sunday, then summoned an intense defensive effort to keep a fesity South Korean squad out of the net on Wednesday -- this from a team that gave its weary fans no reason to expect these results, having convincingly lost its three previous contests.
Today we meet Daikaiju. If you haven't come across them yet, here's the deal: Daikaiju is a four-piece surf rock band from Huntsville, Alabama, USA that wears Peking Opera masks while playing, and pretends to be a gigantic Japanese B-movie monster in interviews. When I asked them why they wear Peking Opera masks, they responded, "Daikaiju wear Peeking Operation masks when executing peeking operations!!!" Awesome.
Today, barbarians of the unruly and unruled Internet are less dangerous. Today, your sleep will be sounder, your dreams more colorful, your future freer. For today, Britain, you are one step closer to achieving China's harmony-promoting, children-protecting Net filtration system, which we lovingly refer to as the Great Firewall. And how great it is: no porn, because it can be eradicated like rats; no discussion of historical events, so as not to offend the sensibilities of certain mothers who would prefer to forget those things ever happened; no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, New York Times, or Bloomberg, because screw 'em; and no dissent (and why would there be dissent?). Hadrian's Firewall, we'll call it. You'll love it, as we do.
Boarding an airplane can put you through the rawest five minutes of judgement you'll ever face, especially if you're a foreigner. Like a slow, awkward fashion show, you amble down the aisle in fits and starts while everyone already seated simply stare.
On my recent Guilin-bound Chengdu plane, I was generally spared of any finger-pointing or comments before I slid into my middle seat, wedged between A and C.
But then the 20-year-old boys came.
What you are looking at is Beijing Subway's Line 13 on the morning of Thursday, July 18, around 7:30. It's likely the Xierqi station -- a picture of which, tweeted out by Joe Xu, we linked to on Friday -- which is a transfer station and one of the cleaner, better-looking ones in the system. It has, like other stations in Beijing's vast underground transportation network, built-in artificial bottlenecks intended to relieve congestion in the form of gates and narrow staircases. On some occasions, however, those fail. For you see, in China, sometimes there are simply too many goddamn people.
Ji Zhongxin, a 34-year-old petitioner born in Heze, Shandong province, blew himself up on Saturday in Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport. Watch how he did it, above, in a video that's been viewed 2.6 million times on Tencent.
Something a bit different this week. Movie trailer instead of music video. This is the trailer to Dinosaur Rider, a movie "adapted from real events" about Beijing's "most hardcore punk band," Bedstars. The grand opening night, film screening, launch, debut, gala party, whatever-it-is, is tonight at 9 pm at XP. No entry fee. You should check this movie out. Greasy degenerate punk rockers on the big screen. Beijing pride.
