China

How to eat a fish alive

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:29:48 +0100

This video has been viewed over 120,000 times in the past week, drawing attention from animal rights activists and the food-curious alike. The fish is supposedly fried just to the point when it can remain alive, and until served, has its head wrapped in a wet cloth so that it can breathe. The video was filmed in a restaurant in China and posted to YouTube.

Not all Chinese Web users like Obama

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:57:56 +0100

US President Barack Obama was treated to a grandiose welcome in Beijing, where he met his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on Tuesday. The pair agreed to strengthen ties between the two countries. But on the Web, feelings were not so warm.

Forty-six percent of Chinese Web users say that they "do not like" Obama. Looking at online forums however, the extent of this dislike appears to be much stronger. For Lin20000xin, "This meeting with the American is stupid and pointless".

Contributor Wugu Shenlong says that "There's not one good thing about those American fiends". ‘Map' suggests that "The Senate has passed a law that means Americans have to kneel in front of a statue of Barack Obama when they get up and go to bed". There are also racist comments, like the following one from Milkman 007: The nigger is a cross-breed trying to conquer the world and mankind".

Source: hecaitou.net

Oubama from china-files on Vimeo.

China scaring kids out of fast food chains

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:59:44 +0100

Look carefully at this picture. If you weren't scared of feeding a burger to your six-year-old, you might be now. The ad is part of an awareness campaign launched by the Chinese authorities, who are dealing with an ever-widening population. At the same time however, Beijing city centre is just about to open its first ever Burger King.

While the city of Shanghai is abuzz with preparations for the 2010 World Expo, Beijingers have another thing on their minds: Burger King. Although other fast-food chains exist in the capital, aside from the one rather inconvenient station at the airport, Beijing proper is currently not home to Burger King's whopper. A much-anticipated first outlet of the fast food chain however, is supposed to debut soon in the commercial area of Xidan. Major restaurant review website Dianpin has already devoted an entire page to the new Burger King, on which eager meat-eating minions are readily expressing their enthusiasm for its huangbao, or "emperor burger".

Although true to its name, this Chinese version of the whopper may be fit for a modern day emperor, but after eating the huangbao, will the emperor still fit into his clothes? Before Burger King even opens, the Chinese are already facing an obesity problem, with one in six, or 215 million people, overweight or obese. This still remains relatively low compared with Western countries however - even in France, almost one in three people are classed as overweight.

Precarious river crossing claims sixth victim

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:50:24 +0100

As there is no bridge for pedestrians to cross this point of the Xunsi River in south-west Wuhan, local residents have to chance using a pipeline to reach the other side. On October 17, it claimed its sixth victim in a decade.

The supporting structure of the pipe spans the river at ten metres above water. Situated in the centre of a south-west district of the city of Wuhan, the perilous overpass is used by around 300 people every day.

Prostitute’s online AIDS confession – one big joke for the Chinese

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:05:54 +0200

The Chinese blogosphere was very excited last week after an alleged prostitute and HIV carrier published a blog post with the telephone numbers of 279 of her former clients, telling them "If your number is included, then congratulations, you've got AIDS". Instead of being appalled however, the Chinese blogosphere thought the whole thing rather amusing - a worrying indication of China's naive attitude towards the lethal virus.

Accompanied by numerous photos and videos, the self confessional and sordid tale of 29-old Yan Deli from Rongcheng County, Hubei Province, appeared online early last week. Before denouncing and exposing her alleged clients, the young woman explained that she had been sexually abused by her ‘old bastard' stepfather since the age of 15, and ended up doing odd jobs in Beijing before turning to prostitution. She goes into unmerited detail describing the sexually transmitted diseases she contracted through not using condoms, and about her various pregnancies, along with an ultrasound scan to prove it (see image below). The bitter story finishes with a list if 279 telephone numbers, and an invitation: "Beijing and Hubei friends, take a look, is your number listed?" (You can read an English translation in full here).

Images posted on the blog, along with the infamous list of numbers. Blurring by FRANCE 24.

By Thursday, the blog had been blocked by the authorities, and on Sunday (October 18), the police told newspaper China Daily that the tale was in fact an extreme case of revenge, concocted by the girl's ex-lover. But not before it had caught the attention of the national blogosphere. The reaction was unexpectedly jovial. Amongst comments posted on the Mop forum, one contributor jokes about being on the list, another about the declining professionalism of prostitution, and another about the poor quality of modern condoms. A few comments translated by ChinaSMACK:

"Satisfying ha ha! They can all die! Who told you guys to be shameless and go whoring!"

"Those who are on the list of phone numbers must have all fainted, he he."

"Will reading this thread infect me?"

Sarkozy nepotism row viewed from abroad: “a return to monarchy”

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:43:49 +0200

The prospect of Nicolas Sarkozy's 23 year-old undergraduate son being catapulted to the head of a major public agency has sparked widespread accusations of favouritism both at home and abroad.

Jean Sarkozy is a regional councillor in the rich Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where his father himself acted as mayor between 1983 and 2002. Still, he doesn't have any substantial business experience and is yet to complete his degree in law, leaving him considerably under qualified to run EPAD, a public agency in charge of overseeing development in the La Défense business district just outside central Paris. Except for a few hear-hears from conservative politicians in the country, the majority of French people find the idea outrageous. Our Observers in Gabon and China give their views on Sarkozy's latest imperial move.

Chinese migrants in Algeria – cohabitation "impossible"?

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:09:28 +0200

On August 3 violent clashes broke out between local residents and Chinese immigrants in a suburb of Alger. Our Observer in Blida, 50km from the capital, explains that reasons behind the conflict are economic as well as cultural.

Perfect skies for Beijing celebrations

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:58:34 +0200

The following photos show the gradual and perfectly timed improvement in weather conditions in the run up to the Chinese Republic's 60th anniversary on October 1.

Pure luck? Not so, says one of our Observers in the city. An American expat who lives in Bejing, Roseann Lake gives her reaction to the event.

Mao Zedong and Mary Poppins seem to have few things in common aside from rosy cheeks and the fact that the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China coincides with Julie Andrews's 74th birthday. As if to honour both, after days of smog as thick as a mudslide, the winds changed on the morning of October 1 to reveal impeccably blue Beijing skies.

The authorities seem to have struck just the right balance of silver iodide and dry ice.

This is a series of four photos taken by my flatmate on the three days leading up to the Chinese National Holiday, and the last one, on the day itself.

Photos: Felix Lettau

“Charmed and petrified as Hu Jintao rolled down to Tiananmen”

The streets were alive with the sound of military music as 8,000 smartly suited soldiers marched at a precise 116 steps a minute, and Tiananmen Square swelled with enough tanks and missile power to make the North Koreans look like wet-nurses.

As an American more accustomed to parades of the three-story-tall-Sponge-Bob variety, I watched both charmed and petrified as the average-height President Hu Jintao rolled down to Tiananmen in a Hongqi, a Chinese-made limousine with a striking resemblance to a Cold War cruiser. Waving out of the roof in a slim-fitting gray Mao suit, he solemnly saluted soldiers with alternating expressions of "Tongzhimen hao" ("Greetings, comrades") and "Tongzhimen xinkule" ("Comrades, you've worked so hard!").

Although Chang'an Avenue looked decidedly majestic flanked with tanks and soldiers, the only witnesses to the event were the freshly scrubbed high-rises on either side of the avenue and the snipers dutifully surveilling the parade from their rooftops. The ordinary Chinese of the People's Republic were nowhere to be seen, aside from the 30,000 officially invited guests of the government permitted onto Tiananmen Square. The first half of the parade displayed the best the Communist Party and its military assets could offer, including a fleet of stone-faced females marching in miniskirts and white go-go boots.

According to Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, these girls were not real soldiers, but a troop of village officials, teachers, doctors, white-collar workers and mothers united especially for the occasion. Oops. We won't tell Hu, who cracked his one and only smile during the parade as they marched by.

Residents of Beijing, blocked from getting anywhere near the event, were instead encouraged to stay home where they could be dazzled by the festivities on television and where the aerial views of the square allowed them to read the huge red-and-white signs formed by thousands of performers simultaneously flipping large coloured placards. "Do as the party says," flashed one, followed shortly after by, "Socialism is good" and "Long live China."

As a westerner living in the capital, I have mixed feelings about the 60th anniversary. I was initially vexed to learn that Beijingers couldn't attend their own country's parade and that all other cities were forbidden from having their own celebrations because so much security had been deployed to Beijing that there wasn't enough left to secure against riots elsewhere. But I quickly remembered that this is China, the country that can control its own weather and block Facebook for 1.3 billion people. Certain things happen here that don't elsewhere, but this doesn't mean that everything is bad, backwards, or militantly communist. Most of the time, it just appears that way.

A parade of exactly 60 exuberant floats followed the military, showcasing China's advancements in agriculture, aeronautics, athletics, education, health care, technology and other fields. Kitsch in a Chinese New Year sort of way and very reminiscent of the Olympic hullabaloo that still thrives in Beijing, the celebration ended with thousands of schoolchildren releasing balloons into the sky.

Of course, a few balloons haven't made me forget that China is still governed by a party that occasionally does silly, contradictory, or even reprehensible things (see Tibet, Xinjiang, Burma and select parts of the African continent), but any country with big aspirations often does. The point is, because of and despite its 60 years of communism, China is poised to surpass Japan as the world's second largest economy, and who knows what else.

So bring on the parade, the pandas, the fireworks, and the new subway line. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

The People’s Republic (nearly) perfect 60th anniversary ceremony

Team Observers — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:21:47 +0200

As expected, the parade organised to celebrate the People’s Republic of China’s 60th anniversary went extremely smoothly — thanks in part to the massive security lock-down weeks ahead of the show. There was one small hitch, however, as Chinese Web users were quick to see.

Seven thousand men paraded on Chang Avenue up to Tiananmen Square, along with an armada of tanks and missiles, military jets and 200,000 students. Only 400,000 people were authorised to attend the show. Even cats were banned from the parade’s perimeter.

So when a huge commercial for the Japanese brand Toshiba appeared behind the parade and was filmed at length for the millions of Chinese watching the ceremony on TV, patriotic viewers were quick to react.

Chinese Web users print-screened the commercial and promptly denounced the incompetence of state television CCTV online. According to them, Toshiba was the only brand visible during the entire ceremony.

Photo posted by "ken_tcheng". Written on the image: "Toshiba? They should have hidden that! What is CCTV doing?"

Here are just a few examples of reactions posted on the forum MOP.

"Why didn’t anyone check this sort of detail before the ceremony was broadcast live?"

"I demand that the person at CCTV in charge of broadcasting the ceremony resign and that Toshiba pay for the extra advertisement"

"I noticed it too, it's really awful!"

"They obviously didn’t film the brand on purpose. There are so many brands in China, they weren’t going to destroy the billboards just for the ceremony."

Chinese students to parade in cheerleading, military style

Team Observers — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:24:08 +0200

No, this isn't a soldier-turned-pom-pom girl rally, just a rehearsal parade of Chinese students ahead of the country's national holiday, on October 1.

The photos were taken on September 27 and posted on the blog EastSouthWestNorth.

The sign reads : "From now on, the people of China are standing up"

The sign reads: "Long live de Mao Zedong's thoughts!"