Reflections on a Thunder Emperor
Customized Lady Gaga Barbie dolls, designed by a 29-year-old Beijinger I’ve made no secret of my hatred for Graydon Carter’s society rag Vanity Fair, so guess what happened when I opened its September 2010 issue? I sliced my finger open on a subscription card; not off to a good start. I was only interested in this issue because of the feature story devoted to Lady Gaga, who you may know as an artist of particular interest to me. Vanity... Read More
Inception to Premiere in Mainland China September 21
It’s official! Inception is hitting IMAX screens across the mainland on September 21, nearly 2 months after its release in Hong Kong. There was some back-and-forth about whether the movie would be given one of the 20 slots reserved for foreign films each year but the release date has now been confirmed by the Associated Press and China Radio International. Many believe the film’s release was pushed back to allow Feng Xiaogang’s Aftershock... Read More
Souther Exposure – Part 2: Dress Code
I talked a little bit in my last post about how the Shanghai Expo is definitely not about cultural sensitivity. But if I left any doubt, on day two of my expo adventure, my cousin told me the following story: I was walking through the entrance line like we did yesterday and approached the security check. After passing through the metal detector, an Expo volunteer gave me the usual pat-down. But after I turned around the volunteer noticed several... Read More
Southern Exposure
I knew going into the Shanghai Expo that I would probably hate it. No one—neither the critics who stayed at home nor the people who had actually went—said anything remotely positive to me about it. They complained about the lines, the heat, and, most of all, the sheer number of people. Now having been there, I can safely say that they were telling the truth. But I don’t want to spend these lines complaining—far from it. For me,... Read More
Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone
Picture this. A top official of a powerful state newspaper stands before a room of journalism students and flatly admits that their government has been lying to them, changing facts in the news or omitting them altogether. The hero of a dystopian novel? A whistle-blower who’s had enough? Just the opposite. Xia Lin, the deputy editor-in-chief of Xinhua, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, was giving a lecture entitled “Understanding... Read More
Burying the Lead
In a lecture he gave to a group of journalism students last month, a top official at Xinhua, the state news agency, said that the [Shenzhou 5] mission was not so picture-perfect. The official, Xia Lin, described how a design flaw had exposed the astronaut to excessive G-force pressure during re-entry, splitting his lip and drenching his face in blood. Startled but undaunted by Mr. Yang’s appearance, the workers quickly mopped up the blood,... Read More
Midnight Train to Beijing
“Get the seat,” my friend Michael says as I stand at the ticket counter at the Hung Hom train station in Kowloon. “Come on, get the seat.” For some reason, I’m reminded of the scene in the classic buddy film Rush Hour where Chris Tucker finds himself in a standoff with the villains, who are holding a Chinese schoolgirl hostage by strapping her to explosives. Spurred on by Tucker, the little girl yells, “Push the... Read More
Friends Like These
Kim Jong-il’s unprefaced, unofficial visit to China two weeks ago was the diplomatic equivalent of a drunk dial, with both parties behaving awkwardly, saying things they don’t really mean, and then pretending to forget the incident, or, in the case of North Korea, deliberately misremembering events. Strangely, the the story of Kim’s visit was only reported ex post facto, perhaps at the behest of the hermit kingdom’s king hermit... Read More
Shock Values
March 23: Unemployed community surgeon Zheng Minsheng attacks elementary school students with a knife in Nanping, Fujian, killing eight. April 9: Certified psychiatric patient hacks to death a grandmother and a student outside the gate of a school in Hepu, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. April 28: The same day that Zheng Minsheng is executed, Chen Kangbing, a former teacher, wounds 18 students in an elementary school in Leizhou, Guangdong. April... Read More
There’s No Business Like…
Google’s ultimatum that they’ll leave China rather than continue to censor their search engine is an interesting case, and one in which I feel we haven’t been told the full story. Let’s be honest, not many corporations have qualms about doing business in China from a moral standpoint. The global recession has seen to that. Why Google would throw down the gauntlet in this way baffles my business sense—though there was a brou-ha-ha... Read More
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