From my colleague Wu Nan, some thoughts on the release of the film “Kung Fu Panda” in China:
Before the American movie “Kung Fu Panda” debuted in China, it seemed destined to set off controversy that foreign filmmakers were appropriating Chinese tradition for profit. Performance artist Zhao Bandi, who uses pandas in his own work, led …
Dissident, dissidents, dissidents complains one reader, Mr. Munir Ming, echoing George III to the historian, “Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh Mr. Gibbon?” Anyway, probably equally exasperated, Mr. Ming suggest we we take a day off and go out and enjoy the best day Beijing has seen this whole summer. I am taking his advice and …
A strong piece by Jill Drew in the Washington Post (here)
about how Beijing is silencing dissidents ahead of the Olympics by arrest and intimidation. Like all good stories of this kind, it’s strength comes from telling the story of one dissident, Fu Pei. He and several others have been raising the “sensitive” issue of the tofu schools …
When my septic tank overflowed and caused a toxic mess in the Beijing courtyard where I live, the last thing I expected was that it would bring a measure of notoriety to my humble neighborhood. So I was a little surprised to walk out of my door the other day to be confronted with this question from my neighbor Feng: “Shuangzhou, we …
Blog commenter Jong has pointed out (on numerous occasions actually, but I suppose he wanted to get his point across; for future reference I wasn’t ignoring you, it just took time to get the fix made) that a caption on a photograph accompanying one of my web stories about the Tibet protests (here) was open to misinterpretation. Actually, …
So. One month to go to the big day. At eight minutes past eight on the eighth day of the eighth month of, yes, ’08, this Olympic Games will finally start. I for one will be hooting with joy. I am thoroughly sick of the build up. Can’t imagine what it’s like for the organizers, tho I suppose the fear of some looming cock up is bracing …
Saw a wonderful documentary the other day. Really moving and funny, but also gives great insight into how China and the Chinese are changing. It’s called My Beijing Birthday and the prime mover (and shaker, quite literally in this case) is Howard Snyder who, apart from being a great guy and living in my compound also speaks just about …
Forgot to mention that we put up our take on the Weng’an protests over the weekend. Link here. I hesitate to call anything in China a turning point, but it is certainly a major milestone. And as we all know, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, grasshopper.
Today is the 73rd birthday of the Dalai Lama. That’s significant as it is now becoming increasingly clear that Beijing’s approach to the Tibet issue is to stall until he dies. The Beijing talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials last week appear to have been dire despite the fact that pretty well the only …
As I mentioned earlier, I ate at the new Beijing outpost in the growing empire of New York-based super chef Daniel Boulud. The food actually exceeded my expectations, which were pretty high, classic, unfussy dishes highlighting the ingredients. Not an atomiser in sight (or molecularizer or whatever it is they use at Bulli, the …
I was going to tell you about an enjoyable exchange of emails between my father-in-law Colin and the BBC World Service over the BBC’s constant mangling of Chinese names. But I can’t improve on Colin’s words (go Dad!), so I’m pasting them in mostly verbatim, with a few edits for space and clarity. Note that the BBC haven’t actually …
Multiple rain delays surely kept millions of Zheng Jie’s Chinese fans up late watching the Wimbledon women’s singles semi-final Thursday. Sichuan native Zheng lost to Serena Williams in straight sets, but made history as the first Chinese tennis player to reach a grand slam singles semi-finals. (An estimated 100 million viewers tuned …
