· August, 2007

Stories about East Asia from August, 2007

All out war in southern Philippines

  31 August 2007

War is raging in the island of Basilan, located in the southernmost part of the Philippines. An all-out war was recently declared by the government against the Abu Sayyaf bandit group accused of beheading 14 Marines last month. The military offensives have displaced thousands of families and imperiled the peace negotiations between the government and other Muslim rebel forces.

China: A social Reporter's Internal Notes

  31 August 2007

ESWN translated a BBS post on a Southern Metropolis Daily reporter's experience in dealing with the police, migrant workers, security guards and village officials in Shenzhen.

Japan: Robot cat

  31 August 2007

James from Japan Probe reported on the a T.V commercial on the sale of robot cat in Japan. There are three youtube videos to demonstrate the robot cat's emotion.

Japan: Living in the Internet Cafe

  31 August 2007

Mari summarized a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare concerning the social status of people who linger in the the Internet cafe: The reason why people stay in such cafes is “to use the Internet”(52.8%), “miss the last train to home”(27.8%), and then 7.8% replied “I have...

Korea: Korean Beef VS Non-Korean Beef

  31 August 2007

The Moon Festival, one of the biggest festivals, is coming soon in Korea. One of the customs is to send gifts to relatives or people to whom you would like to show your appreciation. The most popular and fancy gift box is beef. Not just beef… the best is Korean...

Singapore: Unlikely Allies

  30 August 2007

Little Bridge finds African students taking the side of Chinese students in a campus fight with Mongolian students.

Japan: Life out of a Manga Kissa

  30 August 2007

Results of a survey just released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has found that thousands of people across Japan bordering on poverty live their lives out of Internet cafes or "manga kissa". Bloggers this week reflected on the significance of the results.

South Korea: E.Land Workers Strike

  30 August 2007

Workers from a local supermarket E.Land has been on strike for two months against the employer's termination of non-regular workers contract. Jamie from Two Koreas has some updates on the latest development.

Japan: Soy Sauce for Ice-cream

  30 August 2007

Edo from Pink Tentacle introduced a new popular food product, a type of Tamari soy sauce specially designed for use on ice cream.

China: Feedburner Blocked Again

  30 August 2007

William Long reported: Feedburner, the most popular and powerful worldwide RSS service provider, is blocked by Chinese authorities. Last year, Feedburner had also been blocked temporarily.

China: Exploitation in Summer Holiday

  30 August 2007

Tan Weishan reported the exploitation of student workers by a shoe factory in Dongguan. More than a hundred secondary school kids spent their summer holiday working 12 hours a day with RMB$3 (US$0.4) per hour (zh).

Hong Kong: An Old Man Wishing To Live In Jail

  30 August 2007

Luqui Luwei commented on a recent news about an 78 years old man who committed a minor crime in order to go to the jail so that he could at least fill up his stomach. As the income disparity is becoming more and more serious, the blogger felt that the...

China: Actor Not Martyr

  30 August 2007

Ge da-xia from Yaoblog commented on Zoula's citizen reporting practice and argued that citizen reporter should be social actor, not martyr; and that report should be about the incident to a tool for defending citizen interest (zh).

China: Websites Forced To Close By Police

  30 August 2007

Vapano from a data company D2EX reported that many Internet Data Centers have received notices from Gong-an (Police department) which forced them to close down thousands of websites. To prevent other clients service being affected, his company has to close down all BBS data storage (zh). The police's policy is...

Chinese cartoon cops patrolling websites

  29 August 2007

From September, 1st, Beijing’s new virtual cops will be active on 13 of China’s portals, including China’s biggest blog-hosting services, Sohu.com and Sina.com. By the end of the year, the virtual police’s patrols are expected to cover all websites registered with Beijing servers.

About our East Asia coverage

Oiwan Lam
Oiwan Lam is the North East Asia editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.

Mong Palatino
Mong Palatino is the South East Asia editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.