REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Chinese Police Quash Protest Over Land Rights

A crowd gathers on the street with heavy police present in Suijiang Tuesday. Thousands of villagers in Southwest China are protesting against a hydroelectric dam on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river.

BEIJING—Chinese paramilitary police crushed a five-day protest by as many as 2,000 Chinese villagers who complained that they weren't being paid enough to relocate for one of China's largest hydroelectric power projects, according to local officials.

The villagers set up roadblocks, physically harassed officials and damaged government vehicles in Suijiang County in the southwestern province of Yunnan before being dispersed by paramilitary police on Tuesday afternoon, the officials said.

More than a dozen police were injured, they said. No demonstrators were hurt, said a local-government spokeswoman, who would only be identified by her surname, Wu.

The protest was one of the latest examples of civil unrest triggered by land disputes in China, where farmers increasingly are being forced to relocate to make way for housing, golf courses or large infrastructure projects.

Suijiang is on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan province. It is near the Jinsha River site of the Xiangjiaba Hydroelectric Station, which is designed to be one of China's largest.

Ms. Wu said that 60,000 of Suijiang's 160,000 residents were being forced to relocate and the protesters said the compensation was too low.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

 

 

Farmers, Mao, and Discontent in China

From the Great Leap Forward to the Present
Dongping Han

There are widespread misconceptions about numerous aspects of the Chinese revolution. These include a misreading of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the “reforms” of the post-Mao era, and the reaction of the overwhelming mass of the peasantry to these movements. Although the revolutionary programs/movements resulted in significant hardships — on the rural population (the Great Leap Forward, 1958-61) or the intellectuals (the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76) — they both produced concrete achievements in the countryside that led to impressive gains in agricultural production and in people’s lives. In contrast, the post-Mao era “reforms” have resulted so far in a huge growth of inequality in China, with the rural population suffering greatly by the dismantling of public support for health and education. In addition, local and regional officials have sold farmland for development purposes, usually lining their own pockets, with inadequate compensation for the farmers. This has resulted in the current massive unrest in rural areas, involving literally hundreds of thousands of incidents with protesting farmers.1

The Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward, the second five-year plan of the Chinese revolution, was an attempt to develop rapidly both industry and agriculture. This was the period during which the communes were formed and some 600,000 “backyard,” small-scale steel furnaces were built to supply local needs all over the country. This was also the era of massive irrigation projects — local, regional, and national in scope — that were to result in impressive gains in crop yields in subsequent years. However, the extra work burden that necessitated increased food consumption by the rural population was not accompanied by sufficient enhanced calorie intake.

The current widespread rural, as well as urban, discontent in China is in sharp contrast to the relative absence of unrest during the Great Leap Forward, when grain shortages led to severe hunger in some parts of rural China as a result of harsh weather conditions and mismanagement by various governmental levels. There is considerable disagreement as to whether or not mass starvation occurred and, if it did, how many people died. Nevertheless, it is clear that significant hardships were created by grain shortages induced, at least partially, by the policies of the Great Leap Forward. However, during my research in rural China over the past twenty-five years — including extensive interviews with farmers in Jimo County in Shandong Province — I have not come across a single farmer who believed that Mao lost popularity because of the Great Leap Forward. Nor have I encountered any farmer who contemplated rising up against the government during the Great Leap Forward, or any literature mentioning that there were serious peasant protests during this period. (However, a significant number of farmers, particularly younger ones, express their willingness to join a rebellion now if there was one against the government.) And, as difficult as conditions may have been during the Great Leap Forward, farmers were apparently not too emaciated or too weak to build a large number of national, provincial, regional, and local irrigation projects.

Read more at The Monthly Review

Ctrip Presents: Shanghai in 48 Hours (Part I)

More at China Travel

 

Hilarious Chinese to English translations – A time sex thing, currency recycle system and don’t touch yourself!

With more foreigners traveling in China, it is only natural to have bilingual signs with English subtitles. The Chinese are famous for their zeal of learning English, yet not everyone is willing to invest in professional translation when it comes to business, and sadly, translation softwares are not always reliable, either.  Below are some pictures of hilarious Chinese to English translation

Horny care

(not sure what it’s for)

Many more at Offbeat China

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to work from Berlin

Ai Weiwei,

perhaps China’s best-known artist, plans on moving to Berlin to escape growing repression in his home country, a media report said Tuesday.

• Prost! Weekend set for beer garden weather (30 Mar 11)
• The Local's English-language movie listings for Germany (30 Mar 11)
• Berlin's techno scene shows its feminine side (30 Mar 11)

The artist, architect and activist, who helped conceive Beijing's iconic “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium, has been among the sharpest critics of China's regime, making him a target for authorities. Chinese police beat him so severely in 2009 that he later had emergency brain surgery during a stay in Munich to relieve a haematoma on the side of his skull.

But now preparations are underway for what daily Berliner Zeitung called a “partial move” with his team to the German capital’s Schöneweide district, where he has purchased a studio.

"I want to be in the position to do my daily work, art and exhibitions from Berlin too," Ai told the paper. "The preparations have been going on for three months, but because creating the necessary infrastructure isn’t that easy in Germany, we still need some time before we can get started."

But the 53-year-old said he did not view the move as a flight because he would still maintain a studio in Beijing. Still, his work as an online activist for young Chinese has meant increasing pressure on Ai and his employees.

Widely considered one of China’s most influential contemporary artists, Ai has compiled the names of more than 5,000 school children killed in the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 in his own investigation of alleged building corruption.

The situation culminated in house arrest in November 2010 and his subsequent search for alternative situations, the paper said.

In January, Chinese authorities razed his newly constructed studio in Shanghai. In February they hindered the first large exhibition of his work in the country.

The decision was “not a voluntary choice,” he said. “I am simply at a loss as to how I can go on working here.”

Ai has long travelled between China and Europe for his work, and lived in New York City in the 1980s.

“Due to the current situation, I should probably increase my presence in Europe,” he said.

THE LOCAL

 

History of the Educational System of China

It shall be convenient, for the purpose of the present essay, to divide the history of the educational system of China into five major periods:

• Pre-1840 (Imperial Education)
• 1840-1949 (Opium War - P.R.C.)
• 1949-1966 (P.R.C. - Cultural Revolution)
• 1966-1976 (Cultural Revolution)
• 1976-present (Post-Mao Reforms)

Pre-1840. The roots of a system of formal education in China can be traced back at least as far as the 16th century B.C. later Shang Dynasty (1523-1027 B.C.) Throughout this period education was the privilege of the elite few, and for the most part existed for no other purpose than to produce government officials. Early on, the curriculum centered on the so-called “Six Arts”: Rites, Music, Archery, Chairot-Riding, History, and Mathematics However, based on the teachings of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221 B.C.), the curriculum gradually gave way one based on The Four Books and The Five Classics These works outlined the principles of society and government, as well as codes for personal conduct, and collectively define Confucian philosophy, which exerted a fundamental influence on virtually all aspects of life, and certainly on education, at least until the Liberation and ascent to power by the Communists in 1949.

A system that educated an elite class was established and steadfastly maintained, perpetuating subsequent generations of an educated elite resting incongruously on a base of mass illiteracy. This is not to say that the government actively provided for any form of “public education.” Instead, the imperial government had an active hand in education only inasmuch as it administered the various levels of the imperial or civil service examinations, which were used for the selection of imperial officers. The exams themselved consisted of essay questions that tested the candidate's understanding of Confucius' teachings. The students could prepare for these examinations by enrolling in the private instutions of higher education of the say, the shuyuan, which existed for no other reason than to prepare students for the civil service examinations.

1840-1949. Throughout the thousands of years of imperial rule, even as one dynasty gave way to the next, the Chinese were steadfast in their belief that socially and intellectually they had no peers, especially as compared with Western cultures. They had a highly developed culture, and with the “four inventions” (gunpower, the compass, movable type and paper), they felt also that they had a rich technological tradition. However, with the humiliating defeat at the hands of the British in the Opium War (1840-1842), the Chinese were forced to grudgingly re-evaluate their dominance, at least in the area of science and technology. Following the defeat in the Opium War and the ensuing cessation of Hong Kong to Great Britian, Western education gradually began to take root in China, for the most part through schools founded by Christian missionaries. While the majority of Chinese gentry looked upon these developments with a sense of humiliation and extreme suspicion, a few more pragmatic and liberal-minded officials saw the opportunity for a balanced approach to education, where Confucian classics would continue to form the core, augmented by a component of Western technology.

Against a backdrop of massive illiteracy, the system of civil service examinations continued to be the only route to officialdom. However, with the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Chinese finally became convinced that their own future would rest, at least in part, on the acceptance of certain aspects of Western-style education. (Indeed, Japan had already been successful in adapting Western education to a non-Western society.) In 1905 the civil service examination system was dismantled, and a series of reform measures were issued by the Qing Dynasty court calling for the old academies to be reorganized into a modern system of primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education, to be based on Western models.

Read more at CHINA DETAIL

Nussbaum Critiques the Educational Models of China and Singapore

American leaders, impressed by the economic success of Singapore and China, frequently sound envious when talking about those countries’ educational systems. President Obama, for example, invoked Singapore in a March 2009 speech, saying that educators there “are spending less time teaching things that don’t matter, and more time teaching things that do. They are preparing their students not only for high school or college, but for a career. We are not.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof regularly praises China, writing (on the eve of the Beijing Olympics) that “today, it’s the athletic surge that dazzles us, but China will leave a similar outsize footprint in the arts, in business, in science, in education”—implying his strong approval of China’s educational practices, even in an article in which he decries the Chinese government’s ferocious opposition to political dissent. But Obama and Kristof and all the other U.S. proponents of Singapore and China’s educational systems apparently aren’t thinking very hard about the relationship of those policies to democratic debate and democratic autonomy. Indeed, they are glorifying that which does not deserve praise.

What do educators in Singapore and China do? By their own internal accounts, they do a great deal of rote learning and “teaching to the test.” Even if our sole goal was to produce students who would contribute maximally to national economic growth—the primary, avowed goal of education in Singapore and China—we should reject their strategies, just as they themselves have rejected them. In recent years, both nations have conducted major educational reforms, concluding that a successful economy requires nourishing analytical abilities, active problem-solving, and the imagination required for innovation. In other words, neither country has adopted a broader conception of education's goal, but both have realized that even that narrow goal of economic enrichment is not well served by a system focused on rote learning. In 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Education proposed a “New Curriculum” that is supposed to “[c]hange the overemphasis on … rote memorization and mechanical drill. Promote instead students’ active participation, their desire to investigate, and eagerness … to analyze and solve problems.”

Read more at The Unniversity of Chicago (The Law School)

From the inbox: Is it okay to love China?

I just got this email from a reader, and I wanted to share it, as well as my response.

Dear Richard,

This will seem like a strange email, but if you could answer my questions, then I would be extremely grateful.

How do you find a balance between liking China, for the good things you can find there, and hating China, for all the wrong things that are happening there?

I’m Chinese American. I was born in America, and grew up hearing toned-down, child-friendly, good, nice stories about China. So when I finally realized what was happening over there, I was shocked, and extremely conflicted between pride and disgust. On one hand, it’s where my family and culture came from. On the other hand, everything that happens over there conflicts with my values. I now read blogs about China, hoping to keep up to date about the country, to know everything about it, condemn it for what it does, hope for it’s future…but it seems there’s never anything good. China’s always getting worse, and by now, I’ve pretty much lost hope for the China.

It’s tempting to just hate the country and cut all my ties to it. Go to an extreme and wish for Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and maybe even Hong Kong and Macau to go independent when it can, and the blood of all its communist leaders. Call myself American and the only thing Chinese about me would be the cultural and traditional aspects of it. But I can’t do that, because that’s not really want I want or believe.

I’ve been reading your blog over two years now. You are disappointed at China, yet still happy whatever something positive happens. (Well, happy’s not the right word, but I can’t think of an appropriate word…) How do you do that? Keep hope that maybe one day, something would change, but for now, bear to watch the humiliation and horrible things China is going through and doing? (is it because you’re not Chinese, and if something happens, well, it’s not your country/group of people/identity that’s doing it? Forgive me if I’m wrong)

Thank you for your time. I eagerly await your reply.

[Name]

Read more at the PEKING DUCK  (also read the comments)

The next 48 hours

By George Chen
The opinions expressed are the author’s own.

What might you do in the next 48 hours in China? A number of things — how about rushing to nearby supermarkets to stock up on soap and shampoo if you are a price-sensitive consumer?

No kidding!

Retail prices for those products are set to rise sharply in China from next month. At least two industry leaders — Procter & Gamble and Unilever — were reported by Chinese media to have decided to lift detergent and soap prices by up to 15 percent next month.

State television on Monday showed images of empty store shelves in some cities as residents raced to hoard P&G and Unilever products before the price rises went into effect.

However, officials and statisticians in Beijing seemed less worried about rising inflation. Last month, we heard that the spokesman of powerful economic the planner, National Development and Reform Commission, said inflation should peak in February. Then Yi Gang, deputy governor of People’s Bank of China, the central bank, assured investors that the government was confident that inflation would not to exceed the 4 percent target for the year.

It’s easy to speak but difficult to act. We know your target but the question is, of course, how will you make it happen? I mean in the market, for Chinese consumers, and not just for the sake of the statistics that are rapidly losing credibility among ordinary Chinese people as real life fails to improve.

In Hong Kong, things are no easier.

Read more at REUTERS

Sina Ends Google Search-Engine Deal for China Online Users

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Sina Corp., owner of China’s third- most-visited website, dropped Google Inc.’s search engine a year after the U.S. company moved its Chinese service offshore to avoid local censorship rules.

Sina stopped using Google’s search service after the expiry of a contract, Liu Qi, a spokesman at Chinese Web portal operator, said in an e-mail today. The Shanghai-based company will instead use its own proprietary technology, he said.

The move comes a week after Google said China blocked its Gmail service, a claim China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman described as “unacceptable.” The government, which bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party, blocks Google’s YouTube site as well as social- networking websites run by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

Read more at BusinessWeek

China's Ambivalent Tiger Moms: When in Rome...

There is a lot of truth in Amy Chua's self-congratulatory Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chinese moms, today and in the past, will stop at practically nothing to ensure their children are armed with weapons required to defeat kiddie competition and obliterate barriers of future financial success. That said, in the People's Republic, contemporary mothers, flooded with information that promote a more liberal model of modern parenting, are conflicted: on one hand, they exert tremendous pressure on their (single) kids to excel academically; on the other, they feel guilty for imposing so much stress on cherished dumplings. There is increasing awareness a monomaniacal focus on grades can, in the long run, put young adults at a disadvantage.

Brands have begun to capitalize on this new truth.

The Middle Kingdom: Changes Afoot.

Despite ancient cultural imperatives, China is not static. Several contemporary influences buck against traditional definitions of proper child rearing: a) the rise of the coddled -- i.e., pampered -- single child, b) international media that promote alternative values (e.g., individualism), and c) an expanding economic pie fueled by entrepreneurialism and availability of higher education. Regarding the latter, the sky looks broader than ever before. Booming economic growth has been turbocharged by broadened availability of advanced degrees. In 2000, approximately 1.5 million college graduates entered the labor force. Today, the stream has become a flood, with six million university students, each dreaming of riches, beginning the hunt for professional gold. While Party positions are still rated for stability and proximity to the corridors of power, the most cherished positions are within multinational companies such as Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, investment banks and consultancies. It is understood these companies value initiative and independent thinking, characteristics at odds with traditional childhood "obedience."

But Traditional Values Endure.

As China hurtles towards 21st century superpower status, however, the gravitation pull of traditionalism, however, is felt everywhere. Therefore, it is unsurprising pedagogical practices have not evolved since economic reform began after the Cultural Revolution. Pupils never -- absolutely never -- question, let alone challenge, their instructors. Father-knows-best patriarchy, the modus operandi of both imperial China and the Modern Middle Kingdom, is alive and well within the Ministry of Education. The gao kao, the nation's all-or-nothing university entrance exam, rewards regurgitation of facts, not critical reasoning or originality. Individuals' ranking vis-à-vis peers are compiled starting in kindergarten. Children do not compose essays, outlets of self-expression in Europe and America, until the seventh grade. China's curriculum is nationalized. Uniforms are de rigeur. Beyond soccer, school-sponsored after school activities do not exist. And pre-graduation dating is still a bit shocking, a signal of corrupted ambition.

Read more at Huffington Post

Report: U.S. falls behind China, Germany in clean energy

The United States slipped one spot to third place in clean-energy investment last year despite President Obama's push to promote non-p0lluting sources of power, says a report Tuesday.

Until 2008, the U.S. had held the top spot, but it has since been eclipsed by China, which ranks no. 1, and Germany, which has taken over the no. 2 spot, according to the report "Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race" by the Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent, nonprofit group.

"The United States' position as a leading destination for clean energy investment is declining because its policy framework is weak and uncertain," Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew's Clean Energy Program, said in announcing the findings. She warns the U.S. could fall further behind as competitors adopt renewable energy standard and incentives for investing in solar, wind and other forms of clean energy.

Read more at USA TODAY

Profiting From Piracy: Robin Li’s Problem Is China’s Problem

One dirty if open secret to the turbocharged growth of Chinese Internet services is that they have been convenient portals to piracy. Youku and Tudou became famous for their troves of pirated movies and television shows on their way to leading the Chinese online video sector. Taobao became the go-to Web marketplace in China for counterfeit goods while becoming the go-to Web marketplace in China, period (see my story in this issue of Forbes on Taobao’s creator, Jack Ma). And Baidu’s reputation for full service in enabling users’ quests for pirated content — such as larding search results with mp3 links for one-stop downloading — helped the Chinese search engine to its dominant perch.

Baidu’s billionaire co-founder and CEO Robin Li, the richest man in China with $9.4 billion, is viewed by some as the Chinese Internet’s pirate king. In recent days, Li has faced a swell of criticism that he built his fortune in part by stealing from the poor, or more precisely, by allowing others to steal from the poor — in this case, Chinese authors whose works have been pirated en masse via user uploads to Baidu’s Wenku (Library) service. It is like a Napster for books, only if Napster were owned by Google (Google Books operates under a different, if also controversial, model, the most important difference being it does not allow users to download the entire text of copyright-protected books).

Read more at Forbes

China Denies Knowledge of Missing Dissidents - Voice of America

Stephanie Ho | Beijing  March 29, 201

Photo: AP

Geng He, wife of disappeared Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, seen on poster at rear, is interviewed before a news conference with Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 18, 2011, where he called attention to human rights issues in China on the occasion of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit hosted by President Barack Obama.

China denies knowledge of several cases of dissidents who have recently disappeared.   These include an ethnic Chinese-Australian man who was an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, online, and a lawyer who was the focus of a report by a United Nations human rights group. 

Reporters asked about two specific cases at Tuesday’s Foreign Ministry briefing.

One involved Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun, who disappeared in China a few days ago.  The other case is that of Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer who disappeared into police custody, nearly a year ago.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu says she has not heard of Yang Hengjun.   She also says she does not know about Gao Zhisheng’s specific case, but notes a report issued by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calling for Gao’s release.

Read more at  VOA

The 15 Most Notorious Sweatshops of All Time

Olympic Sweatshops, 2007, China

Image Source

As China prepared to put on its best public face to the world with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, reports arose of sweatshop factories being used for Olympics-related merchandise in at least four different places. Twelve-year-olds worked in double shifts, workers were docked a full day’s pay for spending more then 15 minutes in the toilet, and no protection from paint vapors or dust was provided. Beijing authorities responded, per usual, by not doing anything and just getting on with business.

14 more notorious sweatshops at Business Pundit

Death penalty statistics, country by country

The latest capital punishment statistics are out. Find out who uses the death penalty today

Death penalty statistics around the world. Click image for full graphic. Illustration: Mark McCormick for the Guardian

Despite fewer countries executing prisoners than ever before, the death penalty is still alive and well around the world.

The latest statistics show that China executes thousands, said Amnesty International in its report on the death penalty worldwide. Amnesty does not provide a precise figure of executions in China as Beijing keeps such figures secret.

China, together with Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US carried out the most executions last year, the report says:

• Whilst 67 countries handed down sentences in 2010, only 23 countries actually carried out executions – just over a third
• The number of official executions reported fell from at least 714 people in 2009 to at least 527 in 2010, excluding China.
• We have also seen fresh steps towards abolition in countries including Belarus and Mongolia.

Read more at The Guardian

Nuclear or Coal?

HONG KONG — Twenty five years ago a million people here signed a petition opposing a plan to build a nuclear power station with two reactors a few miles across the China border to provide power for Hong Kong and Guangdong Province. Some eminent citizens promised to emigrate if the plant was built.

But built it was and they had to eat their words. Operating since 1993, it has since attracted little attention from the Hong Kong people even though it sits by the sea, close to a fault line.

In fact, many people today wish that much more of the territory’s power would come from nuclear sources, which currently account for only about 15 percent of local consumption, rather than from the coal-fired stations, which contribute a great deal to Hong Kong’s serious air-pollution problem.

Premature deaths in Hong Kong caused by air pollution are now estimated at around 2,800 a year, and the air causes 90,000 hospitalizations a year. Air pollution has also driven away businesses to cleaner cities like Singapore, Sydney and, indeed, Tokyo.

Read more at The New York Times

China on course to overtake U.S. as world's leading scientific superpower

Britain maintains its scientific position in third place

China is fast becoming a scientific superpower and now ranks second only to the U.S. in its share of published research, it was revealed today.

A decade ago the country was number six in the league table of authorship in recognised scientific journals.

Today it has ousted Japan as the second most prolific scientific nation and could overtake the long-dominant U.S. as soon as 2013, according to a report by the Royal Society.

Britain, meanwhile, has maintained its position in third place.

Fast rising: China has ousted Japan as the second most prolific scientific nation and could overtake the long-dominant U.S. as soon as 2013

Science is also flourishing in Brazil, India and several countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, which until recently made little or no contribution to global research.

One of the big surprises in the report, entitled Knowledge, Networks And Nations: Global Scientific Collaboration In The 21st Century, is what has happened in Iran.

The Islamic nation has the fastest growth in scientific output in the world. Between 1996 and 2008, the number of research publications produced in Iran shot up from 736 to 13,238.

Iran has said it is committed to a 'comprehensive plan for science' which will see research and development investment increased from less than 1 per cent to 4 per cent of its gross domestic product by 2030.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371044/China-course-overtake-U-S-worlds-leading-scientific-superpower.html#ixzz1Hzh8Mfvo

Behind the 'Great Firewall': China's 'first blogger' speaks out

This week News Stream on CNN International focuses on the world's largest internet market: China. Follow online or watch News Stream every week day at 8 p.m. in Hong Kong, 1 p.m. in London and 8 a.m. in New York.

Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- The battle of Chinese censors to block political commentary on the internet is akin to "a snake swallowing its own tail," said Isaac Mao, an influential Chinese blogger.

"I think the problem to the whole country is that if we censor more and more keywords, we will be stopping the country from more and more innovations," said Mao, considered China's "first blogger" and outspoken critic of his country's online censorship. "I described it as a snake swallowing its own tail because the snake is trying to find the food and attack, but eventually he found his own tail."

Mao runs Isaac Technology Venture Corp. and is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He started blogging in 2002 and is followed closely as an influential figure who works behind the constraints of China's so-called 'Great Firewall', which closely monitors and restricts online content. The state policy on online media led to a public fight last year with Google when the company decided to side-step Chinese censor laws by moving its search engine functions to servers outside the mainland.

Read more at CNN

Shanghai begins construction of China's first Sino-American university ‎

SHANGHAI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese economic hub of Shanghai began construction of the New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai) on Monday, the first university jointly operated by China and the United States.

NYU Shanghai is an independent entity authorized to grant degrees. New York University and the Shanghai-based East China Normal University (ECNU) will operate the institution.

The two universities will strive to develop the joint venture into one of the world's finest comprehensive universities, said NYU President John Sexton during an interview before he attended the ground-breaking ceremony Monday afternoon.

"In the era of globalization, we and our American partner hope to cultivate innovative international talents by providing opportunities to share global educational resources and experience different cultures," said Yu Lizhong, president of the ECNU.

The campus, located in the Lujiazui financial and trade zone in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, is expected to greet the first group of undergraduates, most of whom are Chinese, in 2013, Yu said.

Sexton estimated that the university would accommodate about 3,000 Chinese and international students in the future, two thirds of whom would be undergraduates.

The syllabuses and curricula of NYU Shanghai would follow the examples of world-leading universities, and the new university would feature all-around education, English lectures and small classes that encourage open discussions, Yu said.

Read more at Xinhuanet

132-Pound Toddler In China Gains Weight Inexplicably

A toddler that weighs 132 pounds? It's true. Lu Hao, a 3-year-old boy from China, weighs five times the size of a normal child his age, Britain's The Sun reports.

Incidentally, Lu Hao was born underweight, at 5.7 pounds. And while doctors are baffled by the toddler's insatiable hunger and rapid weight gain, they suspect his low birthweight might have something to do with it.

Lu Hao's parents have attempted to curb their child's diet and encourage physical activity. But such attempts have been rebuked by the 3-year-old, who prefers to ride on his mother's motorcycle rather than walk to kindergarten and throws temper tantrums when his parents attempt to lighten his food intake.

Lu Hao's father, Lu Yuncheng, told The Sun that the toddler can eat three big bowls of rice at a sitting and "cries nonstop" if denied what he wants.

Read more at the Huffington Post

History of China

Table of Contents

• Historical Setting
• The Ancient Dynasties
  • Dawn of History
  • Zhou Period
  • Hundred Schools of Thought
• The Imperial Era
  • First Imperial Period
  • Era of Disunity
  • Restoration of Empire
  • Mongolian Interlude
  • Chinese Regain Power
  • Rise of the Manchus
• Emergence Of Modern China
  • Western Powers Arrive First Modern Period
  • Opium War, 1839-42 Era of Disunity
  • Taiping Rebellion, 1851-64
  • Self-Strengthening Movement
  • Hundred Days' Reform and Aftermath
  • Republican Revolution of 1911
• Republican China
  • Nationalism and Communism
    • Opposing the Warlords
    • Consolidation under the Guomindang
    • Rise of the Communists
  • Anti-Japanese War
  • Return to Civil War
• People's Republic Of China
  • Transition to Socialism, 1953-57
  • Great Leap Forward, 1958-60
  • Readjustment and Recovery, 1961-65
  • Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76
    • Militant Phase, 1966-68
    • Ninth National Party Congress
      to the Demise of Lin Biao, 1969-71
    • End of the Era of Mao Zedong, 1972-76
  • Post-Mao Period, 1976-78
  • China and the Four Modernizations, 1979-82
  • Reforms, 1980-88
• References for History of China

http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/toc.html

Rice Terraces of Yunnan

Walk On The Wild Side

Google Translate: Nothing short of magic

A Brief Disclaimer

I’m fully aware that many of my reviews come across as a bit effusive. For me, it’s far easier to review apps that I love rather than type out scathing critiques of the crapware that junks up most of the App Store’s virtual shelves. To be fair, witty criticism has its place in tech reviews and can certainly be as enjoyable to read as it is to write; however, I usually prefer writing on topics I feel passionate about, and I’m simply more inspired by apps that wow than by those that disappoint. All of that to say, the following review is another that could easily be filed under the heading: Glowing Reviews the Developer’s Marketing Team Will Love. In my defense, Google Translate deserves every ounce of praise it receives. And here’s why…

 

Bridging the Cultural Divide

Since July of 2010 I have been living in Kunming, China, a beautiful city in the southern province of Yunnan. As you might guess, Mandarin is not my native language, and although I’m currently studying Chinese, the language barrier often becomes a frustrating obstacle during my day-to-day life. I hoped my iPhone would be a useful tool in overcoming this obstacle when I first moved to Kunming, and I purchased several apps that promised to help with translation and language learning during my transition into a new culture. I tried Pleco, Jibbigo, a Lonely Planet app and several others, but none of them turned out to be as useful or convenient as the Google Translate app. What’s more, several of these apps cost between ten and twenty dollars, while Google’s app is—you guessed it—free. When an app is significantly better than its competitors and significantly cheaper (or in this case free), deciding which to use becomes ridiculously easy.

Since installing it a few hours after its debut in the App Store, Google Translate has not only carved itself a permanent spot on my home screen, but it has also become one of the most useful pieces of software that I own. Sure it does the easy stuff like translate individual words from English to Chinese and vice versa, but it also translates long paragraphs of text in an instant with stunning reliability. It allows queries to be input via speech or text and spits out results in both Chinese characters and Pinyin (the English alphabet’s phonetic equivalent for Chinese characters), and provides an option to play the result as an audio file spoken by a native Chinese speaker. Since Chinese is a tonal language, this last feature is actually indispensable. In a language where the only difference between saying mother and horse is the rise or fall of your voice, you don’t want to have to guess at proper pronunciation. The amount of functionality Google has crammed into this app, packaged within a remarkably simple and usable interface, is impressive to say the least. And did I mention all this goodness comes at the unbelievable price of free?

Read more at MACGASM