Li Na the Great

Posted on 2011-01-28 by Joel Martinsen
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Daily Sunshine, January 28, 2011

Li Na has advanced to the finals of the Australia Open and will become the first Chinese player to appear in a Grand Slam final. The Daily Sunshine demonstrates that it is able to find inspiration from even the most tired of online memes with the headline “‘Geili Na’ Makes History.” Geili (给力, rendered into English as “gelivable”) originated as a netspeak term used to describe something impressive or powerful, but it has been run into the ground by the mainstream media in recent months.

The paper’s top headline was also featured in many of today’s newspapers and announces that property taxes will soon launch in Shanghai and Chongqing as part of an effort to curb runaway housing prices.

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Journalism masters degree at ground zero of the new media wars

Posted on 2011-01-28 by Jeremy Goldkorn
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Disclaimer:

This is a shout out to our current advertiser, the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.

Whereas we have no control over Google text ads (which Google warns us explicitly not to encourage you to click on), other space in our website including partner links and editorial space is only given to advertisers of whom we wholeheartedly approve, such as this one:

You’ve got only a three days left to apply for a Masters program at Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre.

If you’re interested in Chinese media and journalism in Asia, Hong Kong University (HKU) is a superb place to study:

China media junkies are all familiar with the excellent work done by the China Media Project, a project of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre that showcases the talent and scholarship of leading journalists and academics.

The Master degree gives students the opportunity to study journalism and media from the front lines of the new media wars that China Media Project covers. The student body and faculty are international, the campus is in Hong Kong’s free media environment but with access to the Mainland’s most cutting edge publications and journalists.

The Master of Journalism course is a one year full-time or a two year part-time course. Students address the core skills of journalism – reporting and writing, television and video production, media law and ethics and multiple-media online journalism. They also have the opportunity to take elective courses in a broad range of subjects from business and finance to public health to digital media and to undergo short-term internships.

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Property purchase regulations updated; first down payment rises

Posted on 2011-01-27 by Alice Xin Liu
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Dongguan Times, January 27, 2011

The Dongguan Times today shows a picture from the Dongguan Spring Festival gala put on on the day of “Little New Year.” The event took place at the Dongguan Yulan Theater (玉兰大剧院), guests included rock star Cui Jian (崔建).

The latest regulations are out to control housing prices: A second property purchase requires first down payment to be 60% of the total price, and third property purchases has been forbidden altogether.

In a separate development, Reuters’ Trading China Twitter account just announced the following:

BREAKING NEWS: MAYOR OF CHINA’S CHONGQING CITY WILL ANNOUNCE PROPERTY TAX PLAN ON THURS EVENING – OFFICIAL TELLS REUTERS

Finally, more news on chunyun (春运) or the Spring Festival Rush. At Dongguan East Station, tickets for going home can no longer be bought. Open dates for the hotline for a return ticket from a place like Hunan has been extended to the 31st, but they are running out fast too. The paper gives numbers for travelers to call in order to book their ticket.

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Introducing: Hermes Man!

Posted on 2011-01-27 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Sexy Beijing‘s new video: Fashionista.

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Seized contraband means an early fireworks show

Posted on 2011-01-26 by Joel Martinsen
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Peninsula Metropolis Daily, January 26, 2011

Out of all of China’s campaigns against unregistered and black-market goods, the annual roundup of illegal fireworks might offer the most excitement.

Sure, watching drugs get consumed by flames and DVDs get flattened under bulldozers can be entertaining for a few minutes, but illegal fireworks are disposed of just like their legal counterparts: they get blown up. Today’s Peninsula Metropolis Daily features a great photo of one controlled destruction taking place on a beach outside of Qingdao. Three thousand boxes of illegal fireworks seized since December went out with a bang.

The top headline features today’s big real estate news: new rules set to go into effect on April 1 will further regulate the country’s real estate brokers. The headline highlights a rule prohibiting agencies from keeping two separate contracts and making money off the price difference.

Today’s front page offers stories on a variety of other interesting topics:

  • Scalping: The Spring Festival ticket crunch continues as scalpers find new ways to rip off the general public. Here, they’ll help you get a ticket as soon as they are released, but first you’ve got to spend the night in their hotel.
  • Falling Metal: A dumbbell dropped out of the sky and severely injured a sanitation worker. The sixty-year-old man was sweeping streets to pay for his grandson’s education. Time for more collective punishment?
  • Petitioners: Wen Jiabao visited petitioners in Beijing on January 24. The inside headline, “Face to face, Premier Wen listened to me talk about my problems,” (面对面，温总理听俺说困难) employs the first-person pronoun 俺 that usually indicates a rural lack of sophistication (no petitioners are quoted in the article itself).
  • Gala: The paper sends a reporter to investigate the playlist for this year’s Spring Festival Gala.
  • Miraculous Escape: A woman jumped off of the top of a 23-storey building but survived her fall. The article inside notes that the incident took place in Argentina.
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Celebrating “Little New Year” tomorrow

Posted on 2011-01-25 by Alice Xin Liu
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Sanjing City News, January 25, 2011

Tomorrow will be the traditional beginning of Chinese New Year, the “Little New Year” (小年), which is celebrated on the 23rd day of the 12th month of the Lunar calendar (腊八二十三). Traditional festivities include paying respects to the Kitchen God (祭灶). The Sanjing City News from Shanxi puts the “Little New Year” warning on its front page, showing a child offering sweets to the Kitchen Gods.

The 5th Plenary Session of the 11th Shanxi People’s Congress (山西十一届人大五次会议) was also declared victoriously closed.

A sub-headline from the front page is to do the rise of marriage counseling in China. The article claims that as the post-80s stress a more romantic basis for marriage and have a lower tolerance level, marriage break-ups are more frequent. It’s estimated that the number of counselors that could be in demand has reached 1 million (for 3.7 hundred million couples in China today). To respond to this demand, at the end of 2010, Shanxi alone saw 59 trainees attend examinations for a Marriage Counselor certificate.

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Guangzhou’s traffic jam problem

Posted on 2011-01-24 by Jeremy Goldkorn
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Southern Metropolis Daily, January 24, 2011

Today’s Southern Metropolis Daily headline story is “Solving traffic jams: don’t restrict cars from outside the city, restrict official vehicles”. The article looks at new draft regulations aiming to solve Guangzhou’s traffic woes.

An earlier draft of the new regulations placed restrictions on cars from outside Guangzhou. The new version removes those restrictions but limits government organizations from adding vehicles. The draft includes plans for new public transport and for new congestion and parking fees.

The large picture on the front page shows champion diver Guo Jingjing who has announced her retirement: she will not compete in next year’s Olympic Games in London.

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Rabbit rampage

Posted on 2011-01-24 by Jeremy Goldkorn

A rather brutal satirical video for Chinese New Year featuring “My dad is Li Gang”, toxic milk and forced demolition (no subtitles). See also the creators’ website ; translation on Chinageeks and article about the director on WJS.

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“China on the Way”

Posted on 2011-01-24 by Joel Martinsen

This 17-minute-long “national image film” features a string of uplifting facts and inspiring pronouncements about modern-day China: “Chinese people have never cherished their cultural heritage more than today, nor felt more its lingering charm, which is why, after so many generations, we are still here.”

Internet users have been complaining about the cost, length, and content of the sixty-second video now showing in New York City’s Times Square (see the Ministry of Tofu). This video is certainly longer.

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Lang Lang and Herbie Hancock

Posted on 2011-01-22 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Lang Lang and Herbie Hancock performing four hands on piano at Hu Jintao Obama state dinner.

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