This spoof from the satirical site The Onion (www.theonion.com) requires some knowledge of American television, which used t feature (or maybe he’s still on; I haven’t seen the show in years) the avuncular Andy Rooney doing an ‘aw shucks, ain’t life strange’ set at the close of episodes of the legendary newsmagazine show 60 Minutes …

From Jyoti Thottam, here are a few more pieces about the meeting of Tibetan exiles in northern India that concluded over the weekend. She examines a young relative of the Dalai Lama who now backs full independence, preparations for succession after the Dalai Lama and the tougher message that emerged out of the summit.

Our colleague Jyoti Thottam reports from northern India where Tibetans are meeting to discuss the future of their movement:

The process may sound as worthy and bureaucratic as a conclave of some obscure United Nations agency. But as with any gathering of this size, the real action is happening informally, in the courtyards and coffee

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The Sichuan government is backtracking on an earlier announcement about the total number of students who died in the May earthquake. Previously the government had said that 19,065 students were killed. Now, as AP reports, a local official is clarifying that that number is the total number of dead who have been identified:

(BEIJING) — A

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Austin first noted the marvelous cache of LIFE photos now accessible through Google image search. (Link here, but be warned, once you start looking through the collection you’ll be there for hours) Spare indulgence for a few more, taken in Peking, as it was then, in the late 1940s as history, or at least the People’s Liberation Army, was …

Here’s a report from the current issue of the magazine that Lin Yang and I put together after a trip to Sichuan in October. We examine how a handful of survivors of the May 12 earthquake are now faring. A gallery of Ian Teh’s photos is forthcoming, and I’ll add a link when it’s posted.

On Friday Sichuan authorities finally revealed the …

The wires report today that China’s social security minister admitted unemployment is a critical problem (AFP report here). That this is being acknowledged publicly so soon says to me that the government is aware the situation is much worse already than has been reported, are trying to spin things a bit and lower expectations. That’s …

Here’s a postcard I wrote about the problems recyclers in Beijing are facing due to the falling value of scrap metal, paper, plastic and so on. When I ask the junk men in my neighborhood how business is these days, they all complain about low prices and the blame the U.S. financial crisis. Yet another unexpected repercussion of globalization.

For anyone looking for amusement in the Big Dumpling (alternatives happily accepted on this one: Big Steamed Bun definitely doesn’t do it; if it has to be fruit related –Bangkok is the Big Durian–I guess it could be the Big Peach, but that doesn’t fly either), please click through to my somewhat whimsical take here.

Because the China Blog will never tire in our dogged pursuit of this story, here’s a link to a video imploring China Central Television to embrace the “inelegant” nickname of its new headquarters, “Big Underpants.” (Or, if you’re easily offended, “Big Shorts.”) The song, sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells,” is frankly terrible; it’s the …

Amidst the gathering gloom and snowballing conventional wisdom idea that China is going to have a hard landing (which is not neccessarily untrue; all I’m saying is that, as per the previous post about protests, some people now seem to be looking for evidence to back up the idea rather than examinging the fact and forming a hypothesis), …

Casino mogul Steve Wynn has often said that the only way to make money in a casino is to own one. Well, in this economy, that might not even be true. Last week, Wynn’s nemesis, Las Vegas Sands’ Sheldon Adelson, announced that he would halt construction on the company’s $12 billion Cotai Strip project in Macau–the company was in danger …

The last few days have been particularly busy ones for China’s security personnel. No less than three cities including huge metropolises Chongqing and Shenzhen suffered strikes by taxi drivers. And many other places suffered demonstrations and protests. One particularly huge incident was in Gansu province, where thousands, perhaps as …