Stories about China from October, 2009
China: Bridging the gap? Interviewing bridge bloggers
The Chinese blogosphere, as we all know, is booming. As one of the largest on the planet, it is constantly evolving and simultaneously being set back by the all-too-famous governmental censorship. According to Li Datong, the country’s civil society is being reborn online through the intense cyber-dissent and the breaching...
China: The death of an overseas returnee
China Hush has a translation of a report from Southern Metropolis Daily on the suicide of Tu Xuxin, a civil engineering PhD who returned from the U.S.A to China to develop his career in a local university.
China: Painted plagiarism of a push-up photograph
Joel Martinsen from DANWEI highlighted a recent painted plagiarism scandal by an artist named Li Yueliang.
Egypt: Egyptian Male Blogger Orders Artificial Hymen
So much was said and written about the artificial virginity hymen kit - that Egyptian male blogger Mohamed Al Rahhal just had to buy one. Marwa Rakha brings us the story.
China: Why Western Media Mistakes Matter
C. Custer from Chinageeks discussed the issue on why western media mistakes matter.
China's Dark Satanic Mills
On Oct. 14th, Chinese photographer Lu Guang won this year's $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his photos on China’s environment. The Fund’s website posts the following paragraph describing Lu Guang’s project: Lu Guang has been documenting the ecological disasters in China resulting from the rapid growth...
China: Shanghai schoolgirl beating & human flesh search
Fauna from ChinaSMACK translated a local report from Netease on a school bully incident and netizens’ action in disclosing the girl's identity via human flesh search.
Germany and China: Berlin Twitter Wall
berlintwitterwall is a project organized by the city of Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin wall. The wall is now filled up with messages from Chinese twitterers against the Chinese Great Fire Wall which blocks Chinese Internet user from connecting with the outside world.
China: Relics of the Old Summer Palace
Back in the news again is Beijing’s Old Summer Palace, whose destruction still remains a sensitive topic in China. Built during the Qing Dynasty, it was later sacked by British and French troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War. Countless works of art were also looted from the palace...
Adoption: Securing the Rights of Mothers and Children
Women speak out from all sides of the issue: adoptees, natural mothers and adoptive mothers try to make sense of the legal, reproductive and human rights issues behind adoptions.
Activism and Motherhood in Asia
What does a woman sacrifice for the cause she fights for? How are her children affected by persecution taken against her? This post explores briefly the lives of women activists in Asia who are also mothers.
China: A foreigner’s life in a Beijing jail
A foreign man who spent the last seven months in the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center sent DANWEI a detailed account of his daily life in Jail.
China: Nobel Dream
This month, the Chinese press and online forums are saturated with coverage of Charles Kao’s winning of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Yet another overseas Chinese scientist has snatched the prestigious prize, this temporary moment of shared glory is quickly turned into a more profound question: when would China produce its first indigenous Nobel Prize winner?
China: Fanfou is coming back?
Fanfou is a micro-blogging tool similar to twitter which has been closed down for more than 100 days in China. However, many still have hope that it will be back. Chinageeks translated a blog post by He Caitou discussing fanfou users’ loyalty towards the platform.
China: Best and worse countries for journalists
Joyceyland comments on the Reporter without borders‘ release on press freedom index. The blogger is surprised by the ranking of mainland China #168.
China: Girl protester lifted away
ESWN translated a story about a girl protester being lifted away by police officers on the national day in Shanghai when she showed a banner telling the story of forced demolition that cost her mother's life.
China: The Power of Symbolic Appropriation in Chinese Cyberspace
The China beat has posted an adapted article of Guobin Yang's recent talk at a conference on New Media and Global Transformations early this month. The talk was about Chinese netizens’ appropriation of an online anonymous post “Jia Junpeng, your mother wants you to go home to eat”.
China and U.S: Oba Mao
A new icon combining Chairman Mao Zedong and U.S President Obama is on the rise in China. Check this out: Serving the people T-shirt and Oba Mao bag.
China: From heroic to ignorant masses, and then…
The Chinese communist ideology has been eroding rapidly in the past two decades due to economic development. Traces of its revolutionary belief can still be found in political propaganda pieces published in the state owned media. Words like “the masses” marks the past ideological imprint. However, in recent years, the...
China: Fisherman buys newspaper Ad to thank government
ESWN translated an interesting local news story about Chongqi fish farmers having spent 100,000 yuan in thanking the local government's anti corruption campaign. The story is both a praise and a parody of the government as fighting against corruption has become a credit rather than a duty.
China: Does Internet matter?
Li Huafang discusses the relation between the Internet and politics with reference to Yang Guobin's paper, the Internet and Civil Society in China: a preliminary assessment, and Hu Yong's book, the Rising Cacophony: Personal expression and Public Discussion in the Internet Age.
About our China coverage
Oi wan Lam is the North East Asia editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.
