Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the “From the Web” links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).
Back to Our Motherland: The Mutant Palm comments on a website that instructs fed-up Chinese Canadians in how to renounce their citizenship and go back to mainland China.
Update (04.27): More at Amoiist and Black and White Cat.
Sweatshop report: Nine Dragons Paper a top exploiter: Interlocals reports on an investigation by Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) into working conditions at Nine Dragons Paper, a major corporation whose chair, Zhang Yin, has been quite vocal in her opposition to the new labor law:
Instead of giving proper response to the criticism, Zhang Yin tried to politicize the issue by saying that SACOM has been receiving European fund for badmouthing Chinese corporations. Zhang claimed that "they are targeting at the Olympic!"
Labour Unions in Guangdong and Dongguan have started to investigate the Nine Dragons paper labour condition, and they confirmed that the corporate had had the policy for fining workers who were victims of industrial accidents. However, they supported Zhang Yin’s claim that SACOM is organized to badmouth Chinese corporate and has been contributing to boycott on China product.
China tries to reassure France: Xinhua’s English website is today full of stories about China’s good intentions to France, such as this Xinhua story titled ‘President Hu: China values ties with France, unwilling to see events hurting Chinese feelings’.
The art of translation: At Artforum, Lee Ambrozy reflects on a debate between author Jiang Rong and translator Howard Goldblatt over perceived imperfections in the English translation of Wolf Totem:
How is it exactly that we go about viewing and interpreting art at an axiomatically global moment? While the appreciation of fine art does not require knowledge of a vocabulary or grammar (two eyes and visual references will do—perhaps one reason why Chinese art has been so much more widely circulated in the West than Chinese fiction), this candid dialogue between the most respected translator in the field and his subject demonstrated that not even professional eminence and the best of intentions can mitigate utter misunderstanding. One wonders how many similar conversations have unfolded between Chinese artists and the foreign curators and critics of their works.
via Sinopop
Interview with a bullish environmentalist: Daniel Beekman has interviewed Wu Dengming, a former PLA officer who has dedicated himself to fighting for China’s forests and rivers for the last 20 years.
China Daily: Nude photos of supermodels: Special thanks to China Daily for offering us free previews of nude photos of Kate Moss and Gisele Bundchen that will be auctioned off for thousands of dollars.