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- Marc van der Chijs spends the weekend watching sailing races at Dianshanhu, a lake about 50 km outside Shanghai, and recommends it as a great weekend greataway. Membership at the sailing club starts at just RMB2500/year (gawd, that's cheaper than our gym membership), and you can rent boats there by the hour, if you're not bringing your own boat along, that is. Driving on the way to the lake, Marc catches sight of a fake Chinese aircraft carrier made out of concrete and with fighter jets parked on the runway. Of all the weird things he's seen in China so far, Marc says this ranks in the Top 10.
- In the meanwhile, Wang Jianshuo (yes, the most Shanghai of all Shanghai bloggers) reports from another lake — the Dishui Lake (滴水湖). He says that Jinjiang Inn, China's answer to Holiday Inn, which is always "brave enough to open the first hotel in a newly developed area" has opened a new outlet at the lake. He takes a few pictures, and yes, the hotel does look like it is in the middle of nowhere.
- The Shanghai Show is back in action after the Youtube block (yay for Shanghai) and shows us their fancy new camera (maybe they decided putting together a daily video was too time-consuming). We have an unfulfilled childhood dream of becoming a pornstar and wonder if their former-Playboy-photographer neighbour can help us in any way. Also, we tried looking at their new videos (for some reason they've chosen to host with imeem.com instead of some mainland Chinese alternative) and gave up halfway. It just took FOREVER to load for this busy blogger.
- Shanghaiist's own subway fetishist Micah Sittig gets us wet with pictures of the new Baoshan Lu subway station, where Line 3 splits off from Line 4. He also marvels that the Metro City (Xujiahui) globe is "now covered with LEDs and flashing psychedelic patterns" (haha) and reveals that the that the Line 4 Nanpu Bridge Station has "a unique layout, with opposite-direction trains on two different levels directly above/below each other". Hot stuff.
- Meanwhile, at another subway station, Longyang Lu to be precise, Swiss James of ISpyShanghai took this picture that you see up there.
Photo from Swiss James of ISpyShanghai.com
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 We told you about the lavish homecoming party that was thrown by Pizhou (邳州) in our neighbouring Jiangsu province for its party secretary Li Lianyu (李连玉). John Kennedy of Global Voices Online informs us that Chinese netizens have reacted strongly to the series of pictures we showed you. On one particular forum, 800 comments were received on one single afternoon. Here's a kickass selection of comments that he picked up, followed with his translations:
太牛的场面 让我呕吐了好久
It was too much to watch something like this, kept me vomiting for a long time
21世纪的中国竟如此落后，这些欢迎群众的自主人格在哪里？！
21st century China could actually be this backwards; don't these crowds of welcomers have any independent personality at all?
嗨，终于知道当官有多好，我想当官！！！！！！！！！
Hey, finally I see how good it is to be a civil servant, I want to be one too!!!!!!!!!
一看就知道这SB是个作威作福的“土皇帝”，绝对不会亲民！！
One look and you can see this SOB is a “mud emperor” who rules roughly over his people; you won't see him kissing anyone!!
胡总看看吧！我们的公仆、我们的人民就是这样？！丢人！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！
President Hu, are you seeing this? Is this how our civil servants, our people, really are? So embarrassing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
这些人肯定是下级组织的,可见巴结拍马在那个地方已经相当流行!!
这些人肯定是下级组织的,可见巴结拍马在那个地方已经相当流行!!
还拿五星红旗!还有军队~~~~~~~~~靠!
一定要温总理看看~这个大书记!!
These people must be of lower rank in the Party organization, you can see how popular ass-kissing is in that place!!
These people must be of lower rank in the Party organization, you can see how popular ass-kissing is in that place!!
They even brought the five-star red flag! And there are soldiers there~~~~~~~~damn!
Premier Wen must see this, this great Party secretary!!
浪费国家资源,该杀!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wasting the nation's resources, […] deserves to be killed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
李书记，人民的好书记，我太感动了！上海的习书记上调中央，我代表1800万上海市民欢迎李书记来上海当书记！
Secretary Li, the people's good secretary, I'm so moved! Shanghai's Xi Jinping has been transferred to the Central Government, so I represent the 18 million residents of Shanghai in welcoming Secretary Li to come be Shanghai's Party Secretary!
李书记，怎么看着你就像金正日呢？人民的好书记啊好书记！！！
Secretary Li, why is it that I think you look like Kim Jong-il? The People's Good Secretary aaahh Good Secretary!!!
书记，你是谁啊？
这待遇和小平同志、江主席、胡主席差不多吧？
胡主席去你们县也不会这样吧？
如有疑问请亲自问主席！
Secretary, who are you?!
This is about the same treatment that Comrade Xiaoping, Chairmans Jiang and Hu receive, right?
If Chairman Hu goes to your town, he'd get the same treatment, right?
If you have doubts you can ask the Chairman yourself!
李书记在邳州这么小的一块地方都有这架势
到了中央那还不直接压倒江书记？
他不是一个人的书记！他不是一个县的书记！他不是一个省的书记！
他是一个国家的书记！他是全世界人民的书记！他是银河系的书记！
支持李书记竞选宇宙书记！
If Secretary Li has such muster in such a small place as this
If he went to the Central Government, wouldn't he just push Secretary Jiang Zemin straight out?
He's not a People's Secretary! He's not a township Secretary! He's not a Provincial Secretary!
He's a National Secretary! He's Secretary for all people of the world! He's Secretary of the Milky Way!
I support Secretary Li in running for Secretary of the Universe!
李书记，北京人民欢迎你
快来领导我们吧
Secretary Li, the people of Beijing welcome you
Hurry, come lead us!
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- Like we told you before, Chinese state media are beginning to get the hang of the art of spin. CDT informs us that People's Daily Online ran an article about President Hu's wonderful skills in the traditional Chinese art of paper-cutting and this has spawned yet another wave of satirical commentaries from Chinese bloggers, read here, here and here (in Chinese). Really, Shanghaiist would love to lay his hands on a pic or video of Mr Hu in action, not the final product.
- Tim Johnson, Beijing bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, and author of the China Rises blog, was invited to a pre-17th Party Congress press conference for foreign correspondents. The final question came from a Singapore reporter who asked, "Pollution and land disputes in China are getting worse. Social conflicts appear to be escalating. Could you release the latest figures regarding these social conflicts?" The spokesperson chose not to answer the question, but closed the conference with “Now in China, the economy grows, there is social progress and the people enjoy higher and higher living standards. The people are satisfied. Thank you.”
- Victor Shih who is a Chinese politics expert at Northwestern University, fills us in with the latest political gossip and various predictions of the new party lineup, here, here , here, here and here.
- Rebecca MacKinnon pays a visit to Liu Xiaoyan, a lawyer who is suing Sohu.com for censoring his blog posts. His case was thrown out by the Haidian district court, but he is appealing to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court. Shanghaiist wishes him luck.
And in Shanghai... - John Pasden talks about his (Chinese) wife freaking out over his fever.
- Swiss James of ISpyShanghai recommends the Ganzhi Blindman Massage on the corner of Beijing Lu and Shaanxi Lu.
- Marc van der Chijs (of Tudou fame) shares with us the inconveniences that the cancellation of a recent China Eastern flight brought him and how he was handled.
Picture from People's Daily: President Hu's paper-cutting skills has the tongues of Chinese bloggers wagging.
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 We had a good laugh when we saw this "patriotic" banner by Chinese blogger Xiucai ("秀才") which reads: "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. Xiucai is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features." [h/t to Rebecca Mackinnon]
The truth is, as the 17th Party Congress looms closer, Chinese bloggers have been having anything but a party. MacKinnon also points us to an excellent post by John Kennedy of Global Voices which paints a really gloomy picture of the trials and tribulations that have come upon blog service providers and bloggers here lately:
* The latest self-discipline pledge for blog service providers and reactions to it.
* How the plugs have been pulled on Internet Data Centers (IDC's) all across China and how bloggers are reacting.
* Reports that more than 18,000 websites have been shut down in the past few months, with less than half of them for porn.
* Via memedia, one blogger describes the shut down of "three whole floors of fully-certified IDCs in one building in Shanghai."
* How a blogger who wrote critically of the Olympics had his blog shut down and was visited by police.
* How one social networking site yo2.cn has become a "ghost town."
* How four Chinese journalists who blog have been facing heavy censorship, and how one abandoned his blog and the other shut down his blog to protest constant deletion of their posts.
* The posting by one blogger of "the full list of requirements passed to their company by the Public Security Bureau, namely an order for the real-name registration and immediate closure of all non-compliant blogs, BBSes, message boards and any other interactive spaces they host which remains effective until the Seventeenth National Congress wraps up in late October." Read John's translation of the key sections of that order.
And while we're still trying to figure out what to think of Tom Doctoroff's (remember that JWT guy who wrote that really confusing book about the Confucian consumer?) latest comments that China's "middle class, perhaps 10% of the total population, is not itching for democratic reform", we do know of some bloggers in town who are itching to just read other blogs. After failing to get his feeds to work again on his blog, LostLaowai decided to write to Feedburner (which has been GFW'ed lately), and this was the response he got:
Hello,
Unfortunately, at this time we don’t have any new information to share and any blocks you noticed a week or two ago are likely to still be in place. We’re working with Google China staff to see if any possible resolution might be available, but the only ‘workaround’ to try at this point would be something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2864 (gladder) for potential subscribers.
We will be sure to post something in the Known Issues and Workarounds section of FeedBurner Forums should a significant update become available. If you need to get publishing now, however, we suggest you seek other alternatives.
Thanks for your persistence,
–
Matt Shobe
Google Support - FeedBurner
http://www.feedburner.com
Hah! Well, if it's any consolation, Shanghaiist thinks Feedburner may miraculously start working immediately after the party ends at the 17th Party Congress, but if not, people, please start using Google Reader. We are a recent convert and our experience has just been simply amazing.
"Patriotic" banner from Xiucai
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Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere:
Imagethief is glad to hear via the China Daily that CCP members are taking public-relations courses to better equip them in their relations with the media. He imagines what one of these PR training tools, a role-played interview, might look like with senior party officials. Looks like he doesn't have much faith that things will change overnight.
Beijing Newspeak writes on the difficulties facing Xinhua reporters trying to investigate accidents, which is a surprise given the news agency's perception as the government's official mouthpiece. However, sources are afraid of getting those dreaded black marks on their records since blame inevitably has to be placed on someone. Good reporters thus have to find ways to get info they need, either through cunning or the "I'll tell on you" tactic. We suggest giving free Xinhua t-shirts and hosting awesome happy hours; always works for us.
Looking to buy a new place in Shanghai? Catshanghai recently did, and has summarized the entire process in 13 easy-to-follow steps. One tip we'd like to add from our own personal home-buying experience: if the sellers start throwing out "V" signs and high-fiving each other behind your back after you agree on the sales price, go back and start negotiating again.
The TIME China Blog notes that no government officials have been punished or charged with anything in the Shanxi slavery scandal, and quotes a former senior party cadre who believes that by not cracking down more aggressively, the government is missing an opportunity to demonstrate their progressiveness and responsiveness to citizens' concerns. "They can't bring themselves to lift the cover off the box for fear of what they might discover inside."
Ogilvy China Digital Watch wonders if the Chinese web companies that are copycatting Western business models and designs can, due to the necessity of building their own Chinese-based infrastructure, drive longer term innovation. The author writes: "As Web 2.0 applications become more and more popular in China and a growing legion of Chinese developers familiarize themselves with the latest tools, we believe that China’s oft-disparaged 'clones' will in fact make real contributions, and give back to the development communities they’ve borrowed from." We hope to see the same happen with Chinese reality shows.
Picture by monkeyking via Shanghaiist Contribute Page.
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Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere:
Angry Chinese Blogger takes a look at a draft copy of a coming report from the World Bank regarding the cost of pollution in China, and finds that recent reports of Beijing using its global influence to have certain pieces of information excised from the publication are apparently true. Looks like we can start chalking up China's famed "for the good of society" censorship as an export good now.
U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney being confused for sticky rice? It just might happen, if you believe politicians and journalists too lazy to understand the concept of Chinese-English transliterations. Bokane.org does a splendid job of explaining how there just couldn't be a way for people to confuse the transliterations of candidate names with actual non-candidate items. Still, Shanghaiist sees how easy it would be to confuse the current U.S president with vegetation of some sort.
Onemanbandwidth visits Shanghai, but has some trouble finding a toothbrush and anything else worth enjoying on his first night. From his general description it sounds like the professor was staying close to People's Square. If there is one thing to take away from this post, it is that Taco Bell is NOT the place to go in Shanghai for Mexican food. Actually, there IS no place in Shanghai to go for Mexican food. Let us pause for a second while we choke down our tears.
Lou Dobbs wants you to be scared of Chinese imports. All Roads Lead to China wants you to be scared of Lou Dobbs, whose fear-mongering about all things foreign fails to address any of the problem's fundamental root issues. Check out the embedded video and links that the author has in his post to see other examples of foreign media scare-stories.
Positive Solutions has a crappy day and realizes that China is slowly killing him. Which means that it's killing all of us.
Picture by Russdog
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Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere:
The TIME China Blog can't help but think of the beyond-terrific HBO series "The Wire" after hearing about the Chinese government's decision to shut down 180 food production centers. Will this decision signal real change in food quality and safety, or is it just akin to the authorities trying to put some "dope on the table for the 6 o'clock news?"
So Yi Jianlin wanted to be drafted by a big market NBA team, huh? Positive Solutions assesses his options now that he has officially been drafted by the not-so-big-market Milwaukee Bucks. We know what we'd do if we really wanted to get out of playing there: gorge on bratwurst and beer until they pay us to leave.
 Richard Spencer shares his thoughts on a recent report regarding how Chinese students studying abroad in the U.K. perceive British culture. Turns out some of them are shocked (shocked!) at seeing girls dancing on tables without any underwear and inebriated youths out on the streets. I'm guessing those surveyed haven't observed the bar streets here in Shanghai on the weekends, or they'd realize they're a lot closer to home than they think.
Beijing Newspeak thinks that the foreign media may have let a great opportunity slide for role-modeling strong, in-depth journalism in the wake of the Shanxi slavery scandal. Instead, they are relying on Xinhua and China Daily to provide key follow-up, and thus the story is losing attention and momentum on the international stage while so many questions remain unanswered.
Lost Laowai believes there's a bit of an overreaction regarding Cameron Diaz and her Mao propaganda gear. I'll let the author Ryan use is own words to sum up his thoughts: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but old Maoist slogans written in Chinese and carrying Cameron Diaz’ tampons will never hurt me.” Depends on how big those tampons are, we suppose.
On Sinocidal you can read about and watch a dude playing with his balls. 'Nuff said.
Photo by w1ll14m09
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Watch this video clip of the poor receptionist girl working at Google China getting harrassed by a guy, Zola Zhou, (once) billed as "China's first citizen reporter". Zola first gained widespread attention for his blog reports on the Chongqing nailhouse. Hungry for more success, he also went to Xiamen to report on demonstrations against Haicang PX. Hell, he even got interviewed by NBC.
In his latest reincarnation, Zola pays Google China a visit to complain about click fraud on the Adsense programme and to ask for his money back. The way he did it though has gotten him lambasted by Chinese netizens who say he's "crazy about fame" and "worse than Furong Jiejie" (read comments to the video here in Chinese).
In a lengthy post entitled Nobody said media-whoring would be easy, Imagethief, who happens to be a public relations specialist, dishes out some really excellent advice to all would-be media whores citizen reporters like Zola, and even threw in some bonus advice for Google China.
In the meanwhile, Zola's blog, Zuola.com appears to have been GFW-ed, and so is his Picasa album (which, the last time we checked, consisted mostly of pictures of himself at "troubled spots"). He says on his new blog, Alouz.com:
这是周曙光的国内镜像网站，老子的官方网站被GFW追杀，换一个IP还是被屏蔽了，火大了！有种就明的来打来杀，给老子一个行政处罚通知给我一个痛快，我建立一个国内镜像，我的电话是13467668333，要删除哪篇文章尽管来电话，有什么与事实不符的内容尽管给我一个诽谤罪，别像GOOGLE一样惩罚老子却列一个罪名表让我对号入座！ 我操！没人比我更恨那些拥有不透明权力的机构和组织！操！操！操！
This is Zola Zhou's mirror website in China. My official blog has been GFW-ed, and it still doesn't work even after I've pointed it at another IP! I'm fuming mad! If you've got the guts, come beat me, kill me, or take me to court. I'm establishing a mirror website in China and my number is 13467668333. If there's anything you'd like to see taken off just call me. If there's anything untrue in my posts, just sue me for libel. Don't punish me like Google did. F*ck! Nobody hates those who hide behind unseen powers and organisations more than me! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!
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The blog Lost Laowai has started a group writing project called "If I Knew Then What I Know Now." The general idea is for other bloggers to write about what they thought about China before actually moving out here and how different the reality actually is. Once the writer has finished the post, he/she can notify Lost Laowai and have it put up on the consolidated submission list for everyone's reading pleasure. 
For a while now I’ve wanted to find a topic to launch group writing projects here on Lost Laowai in an effort to bring together fellow Sinosphere bloggers in a creative and constructive manner. Well, in true Chinese form, why come up with something new when you can just copy the brilliance of others? :-)
A group writing project is a good way for bloggers in the ’sphere to come together and get to know other semi-related blogs and possibly make some new friends while doing so.
We checked out some of the submissions and they all make for a good read. Some of us here at Shanghaiist confess that we probably knew more about lots of other things before we came out here (real quote:"China has made me dumber"), but we like the concept and the cyber-togetherness of this project, so we encourage all of you to take a look at the site and make your submission before next Monday's deadline (once you've recovered from Happy Hour, of course).
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Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere:
 With all the recent talk about scary Chinese-made toothpaste, do we have a reason to be worried? Black and White Cat does a number on a test tube and unscientifically concludes: yes, if you eat it. Shanghaiist doesn't even brush, so we think we're OK.
Ben Ross finishes up his one month experience working at a Fuzhou hair salon with some closing thoughts, particularly on how everyone at the salon, including the owner, wants to get out of the hair business. Ben had the luxury of leaving, albeit with some bittersweet emotions.
Eyes East discovers that it's not so much that there are things people aren't allowed to talk about, it's more that 18 years after the fact, people don't really know enough to talk.
The hyper-competitiveness surrounding the gao kao is not so much rooted in Confucian principle as it is the Way of Bling, writes The Useless Tree. It's not Taoist, either, as the author shows by whipping out this quote: "If you give up learning, troubles end..(Tao Te Ching)." Thankfully for us, we stopped learning anything new years ago.
Wild Wild East wonders what the Chinese perspective is on American pop culture, and conducts some street interviews on such important topics as Donald Trump's hair.
Lost Laowai finally finds some honest advertising in China after seeing posters and billboards posted everywhere in Nanjing touting a new apartment complex called "Muma," which translates into English as "Trojan Horse." As the author writes: "Think about what a Trojan Horse is: a huge structure used to bedazzle townsmen so that they throw open their gates unarmed, resulting in being plundered and overtaken." At 17,900 RMB per square meter, "Muma" is definitely doing some major plundering.
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