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May 2005 - Posts

As reported today in the Washington Post , China has detained Singapore Straits Times chief China correspondent Ching Cheong since April 22, when he apparently went to Guangzhou to collect papers relating to secret interviews conducted with denounced Read More...
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From Danwei . The strange and desolate, yet oddly comforting Beijing Friendship Store on Jianwai is apparently slated for the wrecking ball. Read all about it . First Xiushui (the Silk Market), now this. Is no ghastly tourist trap sacred in this town? Read More...
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Here is a bit of free PR advice: When formulating social policy, don't use situation comedies as a proxy for reality. You will look dumb. Six years after the humor was boiled out of what was then Singapore's funniest sitcom by government decree, the “Speak Read More...
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This morning I received my first call from an expat “money manager” since moving to Beijing. This is one of the great curses of being an American overseas. In fact, it afflicts all expatriates, but American's get special treatment due to America's Read More...
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But, then, as I am edging toward forty and “out of the demo”, as they say, I think malls are a relentless evil regardless of where they are. Perhaps my wife, a more energetic shopper, has a different point of view. But this is beside the point. Read More...
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Last week my wife and I were shopping in our local supermarket. We'd seen a vastly improved selection of beef in the market the day before, and we were looking forward to throwing a couple of steaks on the old grill pan. So imagine our surprise when we Read More...
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Neddie Seagoon: “Women, women, women. Is that all you think about?” Major Bloodnok: “To my pride, I do believe it is.” OK, so I paraphrase for the title. Eleven years after I first started doing websites, nothing has changed. My Read More...
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You couldn't make it up. Via journalist Howard French's “ A Glimpse of the World ” blog, an article from the Japan Times , an English language newspaper in Japan, on the breakthrough provided by an 11 year old Japanese girl with a rare diplomatic Read More...
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Everything sends a message. In this case, the message that the US government is sending to Americans with its ill-conceived Real ID plan is twofold: We don't trust you. We think you are idiots. Its always heartwarming to see the regard in which a democratic Read More...
I would. I just got out of the 8:40 PM showing of Star Wars at the aptly named Star City Cinema in Beijing, and there are a few things I have to say. (Caution: very small spoilers below the ***.) First, this was the first movie I’ve been to in China, Read More...
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An article from CNN.com reports on empty theaters for Episode III in Shanghai. More proof of the vast cultural divide. Of course, as the article notes: Now, DVDs are opening the door: Pirated boxed sets of the first five movies can now be bought throughout Read More...
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British tech publication The Register this morning ran an article on Reporters Sans Frontieres (site possibly blocked in China) giving Google the third degree on potential censoring of search results after Google announced plans to open a representative Read More...
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Funny post from Angry Chinese Blogger. Before I moved to China I was warned by someone that I would have the same Chinese conversations hundreds of time. This was true. Every taxi ride is deja vu all over again (apologies to Yogi Berra). ACB has posted Read More...
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Via the Peking Duck . Retired television journalist Bill Moyers (“News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.”) has given a great speech to Bob McChesney's National Conference for Media Reform. It's well worth Read More...
Two of things caught my eye this morning. One is New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's op-ed piece on Hu Jintao and the direction of reform in China. Kristof raises the specter of imprisoned Times researcher Zhao Yan, and also writes something that Read More...
It's a slow week in the PR industry, so the cover story in the Holmes Report , the weekly industry rag, is on a book researched and written by partners from research company Sirota Consulting which reveals (shock!) that motivated employees result in higher Read More...
Danwei just posted a link to Asian Sex Gazette's online version of Playboy Magazine's recent spread on Chinese actress Bai Ling, along with some other recent articles featuring her. Compelled by my baser instincts (I work in PR, after all), I had to have Read More...
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This is a shameless friends-and-family post, and I duly apologize. I just came back from a week in Bali. After a Beijing winter you forget what it is like to be someplace green and popping with wildlife life (yes, even insect life, which my Beijing apartment Read More...
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Beijing isn't the only Asian city busily bulldozing its personality in the name of progress and development. After my recent week in Bali I spent three days in my former home of Singapore, where the long-threatened revamp of the Holland Village neighborhood Read More...
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My wife recently took advantage of one of Beijing's interminable traffic jams to ask her taxi driver about the Beijing government's alleged scheme to push taxi drivers to learn English before the 2008 Olympics. The driver said that the government was, Read More...
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I swear I am getting on a plane today, but some parting shots. An interesting editorial in today's Washington Post discusses Florida's new “shoot-first” law, which makes it legal to defend yourself with violence as a first recourse rather Read More...
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A spooky article by Peter Maass in the New York Times Magazine follows the American-trained and escorted Sunni commando squads that are increasingly the leading-edge of the Iraq counter-insurgency. The article suggests that the future of Iraq is not, Read More...
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