Category Archives: Trends and Buzz

Democracy in America, and intellectual imperialism

Posted on 2006-05-22 by Joel Martinsen

Two satirical essays: ‘Why implementing democracy is not appropriate for America’ and a criticism of Michael Jensen’s plagiarism accusations agains Renmin University’s Yang Ruilong, translated from a 新语丝 post.

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Talk Talk China celebrates birthday, praises freedom in China

Posted on 2006-05-22 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Talk Talk China, the blog for foreigners who like to bitch about life in the People’s Republic, is one year old. And the three anonymous D’s who run the joint have marked the special occasion with an unusually positive post: … Continue reading →

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Herzog and de Meuron’s excellent adventure in China

Posted on 2006-05-21 by Jeremy Goldkorn

The New York Times has published a lengthy feature story about new architecture in China, focusing on the trials and tribulations of Swiss architectural firm Herzog and de Meuron that designed the ‘Bird’s Nest’,

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China’s 50 most beautiful people – 2006

Posted on 2006-05-20 by Joel Martinsen

The Beijing News picks the most beautiful singers and actors in China for 2006.

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The “textbook problem” – Ye Yonglie on Cultural Revolution education

Posted on 2006-05-16 by Joel Martinsen

Chinese writer Ye Yonglie (叶永烈) on the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命).

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IKEA fatigue hits Beijing

Posted on 2006-05-16 by Joel Martinsen

IKEA’s homogeneity turns off some of its Chinese fans.

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Yo ayi: get to the back of the bus!

Posted on 2006-05-15 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Now in Shanghai? This is from the New York Times obituary for Rosa Parks: On Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus … Continue reading →

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Science fiction for summer reading: translations and criticism

Posted on 2006-05-12 by Joel Martinsen

Isaac Asimov’s Empire novels (帝国系列) and Stephen King’s Dark Tower (黑暗塔) series come to mainland China. Also, a new Chinese science fiction criticism journal, Edge Review (边缘).

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Bilingual brands: Love in the time of IKEA

Posted on 2006-05-09 by Dror Poleg

Is IKEA china playing love games with its local competitor? IKEA opened its first store in China in 1998. AIKA, one of its biggest local competitors, uses a brand name that is disturbingly similar to that of the Swedish giant. … Continue reading →

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Technorati undercorrects, Sina to blame

Posted on 2006-05-05 by Joel Martinsen

After various sources pointed out that Technorati was seriously undercounting Chinese-language blogs (among other non-English pages), the blog indexing service quickly took action to make sure that China’s most popular blog, written by celebrity Xu Jinglei, was included. Xu Jinglei’s … Continue reading →

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