Blogger's block, we all get it sometimes. Ruthless readers, our editors, don't have time for excuses. So what's a blogger to do? Lists! Here are few from the last few days of the Chinese blogsphere, ordered with a certain amount of thematic continuity:
This is Old Mao‘s granddaughter; she's inherited Old Mao's mole on his chin. Because she's female, according to the ancient tenet that men are left and women are right, the mole on her chin has moved to the right.
From genetic makeup to corporate framework, a post from IT blogger Keso: [zh]
-The internet is now becoming a game between giants;
-The days of fighting the good fight are over, cooperation is competition's necessity;
-Search engines and ads have become the key to establishing cooperative relationships;
-In central operations, there is no cooperation between Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, only competition;
-Google has the largest number of cooperation partners;
-That eBay can simultaneously cooperate with both Yahoo! and Google goes to show that the threat of competition doesn't come near the important benefits that cooperation brings;
-In near future following today, search engines and advertisements will continue to advance the cooperation between internet companies, and domination of these cooperations will be divided between Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.
One huge story from the Chinese blogsphere this week has been that of a lawsuit filed against two Shanghai-based reporters by Shenzhen-based Taiwanese company FoxConn following the pair's exposé of working conditions in the company's factories. Amidst the resulting discussion was questioning of the Shenzhen court's motivations, a city known for its lawlessness, in a country where relationships between court officials and government bodies are often quite snug.
The compensation sought in the lawsuit has since been reduced from thirty million RMB to just one RMB, signalling a victory for the largely web-based backlash, and Guangdong-based blogger/Yangcheng Evening News [zh] web editor Wen Yunchao has some particular insight [zh] into why that might have been:
A bit of insider information about FoxConn China Times [zh] says the main reason FoxConn changed their former hardline stance is because the political atmosphere on the mainland right now is especially tricky. The Guangdong parties don't want Shanghai to mistakenly think that Guangdong kicks people while they're down. After news of the compensation suit hit mainland media, Provincial Committee Secretary Zhang De@Jiang sent down an order dispatching a large group of national security personnel to thoroughly investigate all the details at FoxConn, which in the end led to FoxConn's change of tune.
To keep the Southern China theme flowing smoothly, here's a post from Guangzhou-based blogger/South China Morning Post reporter Ivan Zhai in which he lists his most hardcore media worker friends’ blogs:
Ivan recently moved his blog from MSN Spaces to Netease [zh], the design of whose not-yet-released blogs look not-so-subtly familiar.
More from the South, a few days ago, Director General of the Guangdong Province Public Security Department Liang Guoju was quoted in the media claiming the provincial capitol Guangzhou to be one of the safest cities in the country. Guangzhou residents scoffed at the thought and A-list Chinese blogger Wang Xiaofeng, visiting the Southern China metropolis this week, asked in a post [zh], “if Guangzhou is safe, are there still dangerous places left on this planet?” In the same post he lists some comments netizens left in response to news portal Sina.com coverage:
-Of the three cities Guangzhou, Baghdad and Beirut, Guangzhou is the safest.
-The title [of the news report] should be: ‘Gangsters Unanimously Agree: Guangzhou Is One Of The Safest Cities’. Please make this correction, thank you!!
-The most dangerous places is definitely the safest place. This department head has definitely read one too many Gu Long novels.
-Strongly support Director General Liang Guoju! He meant of all the provincial capitols in Guangdong province, Guangzhou city is the safest. It's not like he made a mistake, right???
-The department head has been judged as winner of the 2006 Outstanding Individual Contribution to Chinese Entertainment Award.
-If Guangzhou is the safest city, then you can see just how bad public security is in the rest of the country!
-Anywhere the department head goes is bound to be the safest. But the common folk?
-Ha ha ha, this joke is really funny. My first time to see an official with so much sense of humor.
-The Director General made no mistake. I've lived near the provincial government building for years and there haven't been any problems whatsoever.
-I'd rather believe that China's Men's Football Team will win the World Cup championships!
-Public Security Departments of other provinces and cities, you need to learn from Guangzhou. Even Guangzhou of all places has become the safest.
Whether Guangzhou deserves its reputation as wildest (or safest) place in China is a discussion which divides most residents, but the city definitely does provide its bloggers with lots of juicy blogworthy stories. Here's one, in listed detail [zh], from Guangzhou-based blogger/advertising professional Bu Chong [“Supplement”]:
1. At the gate of the complex in which I live there's a police Wanted poster offering a reward of sixty thousand RMB, part of the search for the suspect in a robbery killing, wanted for suspected connection to six homicide cases.
2. My wife's good friend from her high school days A's boyfriend is a policeman in Guangzhou's Tian He district. One recent evening, A went out to party with some of her classmates, and her policeman boyfriend was unusually nervous, before 11pm had already phoned her numerous times, urging his girlfriend to go home. Asked why, he said tonight is exceptionally unsafe, that the police were currently on a city-wide manhunt for a violent criminal wanted in relation to many homicide cases. He wasn't willing to reveal any more information……but if the police are that concerned about their own family, how could I be expected not to believe him?
3. From having seen a series of stories from the reporters at the renowned New Express [zh], of people being drugged on public busses, of cell phones being snatched in public……many people take these reports to be fake news……but they've created a storm, leaving the whole city ready to jump at the slightest sound.
4. If Guangzhou's public security is so great, why the need for 16,000 more cameras?
Expanding on the state surveillance mentioned in that last point brings us to Zeng Jinyan, whose blog long ago became a guide to coping with life under state oppression. She has just posted a list of survival tips for China's politically-involved, prefaced by:
Ouyang Xiaorong (欧阳小戎) has disappeared, allegedly along with the people having disappeared with him is [Shanghai-based writer] Xiao Qiao. They've been missing for several days already. I've never met Ouyang Xiaorong; I've read his sincere and brimming with enthusiasm poems online. Style like his can't be wrong. He had also disappeared this spring. After he came back we came in contact online. Recently I keep hearing about people disappearing, maybe someone needs to keep a list: who disappeared and when, when they came back, when they disappeared again. Because once one disappears, it's very easy for there to be a second time. Citizens far from the capitol, citizens living in Beijing's unknown alleys, young unmarried people, non-civil rights activists, well-known people and those with just the best intentions in saying a few words, for how many days will they be missing before someone notices?
-In a healthy and level-headed time, write out your will and give it to several intimate friends for safekeeping.
-Write down emergency contact information for your family and friends and give it to people you live with and often see.
-Tell your most intimate friends: if there comes one day you can't get ahold of me, please get in touch with M, and make public information about my disappearance.
-Develop a habit of meditating alone, to prevent mental breakdown during time in prison.
-Foster a moderate and tolerant state of mind; when they beat interrogate and torture you, your mental state won't be agitated.
-Before all is lost, don't use your body as a weapon of resistance; do your best to keep your body in good health.
-Trying to speak rationally with them doesn't compare with calmly conserving your energy to keep yourself sharp.
-Silence is the best choice for those imprisoned; anything you carelessly say can become a tool for framing you as well as your family and friends. For example: Question: What were you doing on August 1? Answer: I didn't do anything illegal, I only ate dinner with my friend S, discussed Y's poems. Then, your friend S and Y's poems will be implicated, harassed, even charged.