August 21, 2006 – Danwei Noon Report, a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China, from Chinese and English sources.
Dr Li Yinhe and double bed sales
Bokee (Blogchina) has an article that examines a massive spike in sales of extra large double beds in China. The article theorizes that shortly after Dr Li Yinhe (李银河) gave a speech in Nanjing on July 21 about one night stands, homosexual sex and S&M , demand for double beds and super size double beds rose dramatically. (Link – in Chinese; the image of Dr Li above is from Ce.cn; Dr Li’s blog is here)
Miss Earth hostess scandal
Miss Earth beauty pageant contestants staying at a Nanjing hotel were pressed into service as drinking companions for hotel guests. The China Daily report leaves out the juciest details, however. In the Modern Express expose reprinted in yesterday’s The Beijing News, a 17-year-old Ms. Wang describes the episode:
“When I entered the VIP room, there were already three contestants sitting there. The guests were five men and two women. Apart from me, the other contestants were each stuck between two men. Not long after, director Zhang came in. Then a guest said why aren’t these girls drinking? Director Zhang said to us, if you can drink, then drink. Then we said we were all under-age, so we couldn’t drink. But one contestant had a little bit of alcohol.
But the hotel explains it was all done out of concern for the girls’ welfare:
The ‘Miss Earth’ girls did accompany guests in their VIP room; they originally came to the hotel to prepare food for the guests, and then we brought the food they had cooked to frequent visitors. Eventually, after some guests had eaten the food prepared by the ‘Miss Earth’ girls, they suggested that the girls had worked too hard in the kitchen on a hot day, so why not ask them to come to the VIP room to sit for a while and rest. So it was only then that we invited the girls into the guests’ VIP rooms. (China Daily link,
The Beijing News link– Chinese).
When Japan Is Involved, Even Pornography Loses Professionalism
ESWN has posted a translation of a BBS post by Li Ming. Excerpt:
Pornography has no borders. Erotic photographs and movies of foreign girls are disseminated in China. The foreigners do not say that their girls are selling out their countries, and the foreign male chauvinists are not angry. Erotic photographs and movies of Chinese girls appear on foreign websites. The Chinese male chauvinists know that and they do not seem to be upset on any large scale. The dirty-minded masses of the world are sharing their resources. They seem to have reached a tacit understanding on this common enterprise, and they have swept aside nationalism and regionalism. But near the date of August 15 (victory day for the war of resistance), a group of Chinese people became angry. They were angry because somehow Japan is involved. (Link)
WPP heart China and Internet
The Daily Telegraph reports:
The growth in internet advertising and the emergence of China as the world’s new economic powerhouse have put media groups in a “very good” position as their strategic advice is sought after more than ever, WPP said this morning.
The media giant said it was poised to benefit from the “complexity” of the new advertising market, as more spending is diverted online and directed at the Far East. (Link)
China in Africa
The Musing Under the Tenement Palm blog has a comprehensive roundup of recent media stories about China’s growing business and political involvement in Africa (link).
China’s new digital TV standard
From Xinhua:
China will soon announce its own national terrestrial digital TV standard and those that fail to comply with the new standard will be ousted from the market, an official said…
…Digital TV broadcasting can be conducted by satellite, cable and terrestrial television, which increase the efficiency of operators and provide better quality pictures for viewers…
…Terrestrial digital television is designed to replace the existing analog system through which the majority of viewers in China watch the TV networks…
…The number of households with digital broadcasting [they mean reception] facilities rose from one million in 2004 to 4.13 million in 2005. (Link)
China’s first oil and commodities market opens
From Xinhua:
Shanghai Petroleum Exchange, China’s first commodity and futures exchange for oil products, reported robust trade on Friday, its first formal business day.
Friday’s transactions of gasoline, which is among the first products to be traded on the exchange, totaled 72,120 tons and were valued at 253 million yuan (31.6 million U.S. dollars), the bourse’s general manager Chen Zhenping told Xinhua. (Link)
China recognizes and deals with AIDS
China used to deny it had an AIDS / HIV problem. This changed in 2003: the first sign was a visit to China by Bill Clinton. The former U.S. president came to Beijing and participated in various AIDS related events; the top story of the first issue of The Beijing News (November 11 2003) had a photo of Clinton hugging an HUV positive boy on the front page (see Danwei story). Since then, the government has both acknowledged the problem, and implemented measures to deal with it. The government’s recognition of the AIDS problem is shown by the increased coverage given to HIV issues by Xinhua news agency; below are links to several relevant stories from Xinhua published in the last few days. The stories about the AIDS vaccine reek of propaganda, but then again, if the Chinese government really sets its sights on solving the problem of AIDS, they might just be able to do it.
• Circumcision: HIV prevention tool?
• Chinese AIDS vaccine safe, possibly effective: official
• Substantial funds allocated for free AIDS treatment
• “Inspiring” breakthrough made with AIDS vaccine
• UK backs China’s anti-AIDS fight
Chinese people’s heads becoming smaller
From Xinhua:
Dr. Wu Xue Jie from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology said experts in the research team tested, analyzed and compared 718 skulls belonging to Chinese adult males who lived during the New Stone Age, the Bronze Age and modern times. They discovered that Chinese people’s craniums and viscerocraniums are getting smaller; their noses and eye sockets are becoming narrower; and their skulls are becoming more rounded. (Link)
Potemkin political parties enjoy Jiang’s works
China is not a single party state: aside from the Communist Party, there are several other organizations that are formally recognized by the Chinese government.
From Xinhua:
China’s non-communist parties have vowed to improve their competence in political participation and raise theoretical level by strenuously studying the Selected Works of Jiang Zemin, former chief of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The country’s non-communist parties have organized group studies, symposiums and lectures on Jiang’s Selected Works since it was published last week. (Link)
This is how Wikipedia, the lazy blogger’s reference website of choice (blocked in China — use the Gollum browser to access it in China) defines Potemkin vilages:
Potemkin villages were, purportedly, fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Conventional wisdom has it that Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress’s eyes.