Asia

More on the “goons and thugs” remarks by CNN commentator Jack Cafferty. He gave a rambling, semi-coherent populist rant preceding the remark (see here for a transcript), which included something about exporting jobs to a Shangri-la-ish place where workers are paid ‘a dollar a month.’ Anyway, for the record, on April 14, on the same …

So the Dalai Lama is in the U.S. and is going to meet US President George W. Bush’s special envoy, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky. The timing is, to put it mildly, unfortunate. There’s already so much sound and fury out there that it’s hard to think constructively. Beijing is already steaming mad and no doubt the internet will …

I attended the just completed weekend conference in Boao, at a nice, tropical waterfront resort here on Hainan Island. Boao is China’s Davos—or wishes to be, anyway—and this year President Hu Jintao attended, along with (among others) the Presidents or Prime Ministers from Sweden, Mongolia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Tonga …

Among other attractions (it is famous all over China for its white jade), Hetian, a small city in remote Xinjiang province, also makes carpets. I visited the factory where the workers get about 15 renminbi (about two dollars and change) an hour. It takes them about two months to make a medium-sized carpet. It’s hard, eye destroying (see …

……, somewhat belated, for a story on Olympics and terror by my colleague Lin Yang here.

Some comments about what Tonikenese, who correctly spotted that the video below was from Hotan, might want as a prize. I thought this was a pretty funny exchange. Nice to have a bit of humor after so much angst.

If he is a nationalistic Chinese , he might want you to portray China as a benign rising power that welcomes the world to

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TONKINESE. Grand work. Nailed in half an hour. It was indeed Hotan/Khotan (Hetian) jade market. Very strange atmosphere. Nothing but men of course. All muttering and circulating, proffering bits of jade on their palms. Muted and reverential like a church. We’ll go into the sociology/politics etc another time. And I will definitely post …

Greetings:

I am on the road and have been unable to post for some days now. However I am back within internet uploading range and offer a video. Mystery prize to whoever can nail the location and say what these guys are up to:

Given the recent growth of our Chinese readership, we plan to begin offering the occasional Chinese-language translations of our recent stories. This first piece, “Will the Olympic Torch Burn China?”, is by Simon …

At the risk of turning this into the TIME: China and Self-Congratulations Blog, I am compelled to announce that I have reached a journalistic milestone. Is it the Pulitzer? Alas, no. To win one of those you have to work at a U.S.-based newspaper. And be really good. (On that point, congratulations to Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of the …

Hillary Clinton has called on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. The odds of Bush heeding Clinton are about the same as him listening to Nancy Pelosi on this subject, which is to say nil. Clinton’s call has little to do with Sino-U.S. relations or even the Games themselves and everything to do with …

The Olympic Torch arrived in London yesterday. Here’s what the People’s Daily had to say (full story here):

Olympic flame crosses London amid snow
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08:39, April 07, 2008

The heavy snow in London exerted slim effect on people’s passion of seeing Beijing Olympic flame as large crowds lined along the street to greet the relay of torch

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