Beijing became strangely quiet this afternoon. Businesses shut down early and workers left to find their viewing spots for the Olympic opening ceremony. The streets, on which the authorities had struggled since July to reduce traffic, were finally almost empty. If they had …
Like any other major city in China, Hong Kong has dutifully supported and contributed to the Beijing Games, and nationalist sentiment has not been wanting. We’ve been screening the immigration lines for dodgy looking Tibetans and their grad school Western friends (sorry fellas, but you can’t rock an orange t-shirt with skin that …
Only one day before the opening ceremonies and we are aswim in a murky soup of grey mist so familiar to Beijingers. It’s definitely not just the weather either. After breaching 100, the API has been stuck mysteriously just below the 100 line (see here for our previous examination of the strange stickiness of the API index at that level …
Below is a brief video of the site of the Aug. 4 attack on Chinese border police in the city of Kashgar in China’s western Xinjiang region. The clip starts at the border police station, then about 150m up the road you see a hotel with reflective windows and a tarp-covered entryway. That hotel, the Yijin, is where Chinese authorities say …
Bad news for Beijing and arriving athletes. The haze is back. The Air Pollution Index is now in its second day around the 100 mark, above which is considered unhealthy. I’d bet that the responsible departments as we say in China are having some pretty agitated meetings about whether or not (or when, actually) to implement Plan B, which …
As we and many others have written, the bright light of Olympic publicity draws groups to it like moths to the proverbial flame, so the below isn’t surprising. The number of deaths is though. Presumably these are the guys training with Al Qaeda linked groups across the border in Pakistan we wrote about earlier. Hard to judge how much of …
This subject seems to get a lot of people fired up and the inimitable, multitalented Kaiser Kuo (once and future rock god and currently digital maven at a giant PR company) goes uncorporate and lets his considerable locks down with some zingers aimed at my colleagues parachuting in for the Games. His advice on everything from bogus …
Forgot to mention that you can see our take on the whole internet access for reporters during the Olympics brouhaha here.
From the Asia Society, an interesting site on air pollution in Beijing featuring an interview with (my former prof.) Orville Schell, a look at the stats, links to news stories and some amazing photos.
So I have just been to register at the Main Press Center and in the process was handed a nifty backpack with a bunch of useful stuff like media guides, bus routes etc. During these sort of jamborees reporters usually get given bits and piece by corporate sponsors and governments, most of it fairly disposable. One of the best things in …
Last night, as I was enjoying a couple of glasses of Moët & Chandon 1959—and let us pause here, to briefly admire the smugness of that opening remark—the full extent of Hong Kong’s oenological journey (indeed my personal one) was made clear. Twenty years ago, “a drink with dinner” meant, to me as it did to many a Hong Konger, …
