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From Asia Times Online:

In an apparent move to forestall similar criticism in Laos, China has worked hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Communication and Transport to establish a new Lao National Internet Center, which will come on-line in 2011. The center’s Lao staff have undergone extensive training in China, including members of a newly created “security emergency response” team,…

Continue readingExporting the GFW

Local security bureaus within Xinjiang and Jiangsu have started offering money, real or virtual (QQ coins), to netizens who can provide information regarding certain cases.

Not only is it notable because small-time officials are monetizing and harnessing the human flesh search engine, they are also implicitly legitimizing a virtual currency.

A sign of the future?

(See…

Continue readingMonetizing the human flesh search engine

Two brothers looking for work in Tangjialing, a slum on the outskirts of Beijing:

It’s a place where flats are equipped with broadband, but not washing machines:

Photos by Mark Leong, from Newsweek’s great feature on China’s New Underclass: White-Collar Workers.

Images from

• http://club.cat898.com/newbbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=1&id=2827189

News source

• http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200905c.brief.htm

Apologies for the dated nature of this post (2009!).

From Jiang Xueqin’s post over at the Diplomat:

Now that I’m in Beijing I often wonder if it’s possible to build a strong educational programme in the imperial capital of guanxi. To counter guanxi, which is essentially about leveraging one’s personal network, I thought it best at Peking University High School to emphasize process over people.…

Continue readingAn educator’s attempt at fighting guanxi

Translated from Helen Fang’s diary, originally titled “我们是中国乐队?“:

In Europe:

This tour has taken us to many places, including Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg. Touring abroad, we’re often interviewed by the foreign press. These interviews make me feel that the outside world really doesn’t understand China.

Every journalist will ask me, do you encounter obstacles…

Continue readingAre we a Chinese band?

Check out City Weekend’s writeup on organic farms around Beijing here and Pangbianr’s map of spots, which we’ve replicated in small-form below:

Via the pangbianr newsletter.

From CNN:

Five years later, when her son discussed his sexuality on local television in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, Wu made another groundbreaking decision. She became what state media calls the first Chinese parent to go on television in support of her gay child.

Original article here.

From the China IWOM Blog:

On September 9^th, Mercedes-Benz Smart launched a flash sales tuan gou on Taobao that generated sales of 205 cars in three and a half hours. The impact of the buzz can be seen in the fact that 18% of all tuan gou buzz on that day was about this event.…

Continue readingGroup shopping craze: 200 cars sold in 3.5 hours