“The Ningbo City Managaers Welcome You!”

The ongoing experimentation in online governance and bureaucratic transparency continues. It would be interesting to do a comparison between municipal management department websites in China and elsewhere, to see what the categories of information are.  Ningbo’s site has news such as the prosecution of an illegal construction project, or the announcement of…

Continue readingChinese urban life: city management online

A retrospective look at the Anti-Dog law protests, through the eyes of the participants:

And the journalists:

The difference is subtle: the professional journalist stands away from the action, snapping a photograph; the citizen journalist stands in the crowd, snapping away while being jostled around.

Photos via ESWN & BBC…

Continue readingCitizen VS Professional Photography

QQ号为什么值钱？“Why are QQ numbers worth money?” is the title of a December 4 article in the Fan Group’s Computer Fans《电脑爱好者》 .  What kinds of QQ numbers are considered the best? How is the value of numbers calculated?  The anonymous author sheds some light on these and other questions, with the caveat…

Continue readingmarket value of virtual QQ assets

MaryAnn O’Donnell continues her clear-eyed thinking about the land and people of Shenzhen and Guangdong province, at her blog Shenzhen Fieldnotes.

If you want to know how Chinese addresses work and how to parse China’s various administrative naming practices–if you want to know more about the kinds of places that drive the southern China manufacturing miracle–read her post “emplacements…

Continue readingon Chinese addresses and what a township is

Scans of a pamphlet dated 1965, titled 怎样打飞机 (“How to Shoot an Airplane”).

Link to original post on 白板报, with scans of instruction manual. Via PostShow.

Link. It’s a great collection.  Most of the photos speak for themselves, but a few riff on Chinese political or religious images, or college student experiences such as mandatory military camp (see third photo below).

The IT news site cnbeta has this clip on it today, from China Daily: “Purifying National Culture: Iran Shuts Down Popular Websites”. The Guardian reports on the story here: Iranian government has blocked access to a wide range of sites, from the New York Times to Amazon, Youtube to Wikipedia and the BBC’s Farsi service.  The China Daily…

Continue readingChinese on Iranian web censorship

From a strip entitled 豌豆笑傳 (The Peaboy Chronicles).

As always, translations in maroon:

Link to original strip on Sina, link to comic’s website.

What are Chinese video viewers watching?  “Her First Time”
她第一次做鸡 can currently be found on Youtube-esque sites across Virtual China.  Since being posted on Nov. 12 it’s been viewed over 444,444 times on Mofile, one of the top sites, for instance. 

It opens with a young couple and a voice-over in a high-pitched…

Continue readingChinese adolescent humor: “Her First Time” video clip

Lyn pointed me to a BusinessWeek interview of Anshe Chung. (She’s based in Germany.) Here’s an excerpt I found particularly interesting:

“What do you do on a typical day?
I usually get up very early in morning, then get in touch with the sales team to finish transactions they prepared. After this is done and information…

Continue readingA Day in the Life of a Second Life Millinonaire & MORE!