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January 2006 - Posts

恭喜发财 to all Imagethief readers!

Posted Friday, January 27, 2006 5:25 AM by will
Imagethief is off to Singapore tomorrow morning for two weeks of warm, moist air and aromatic food. It is likely that some blogging will occur during my vacation, but perhaps not at the most furious pace. Meanwhile, Imagethief wishes all readers a happy Read More...
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In praise of Google in China

Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 8:52 PM by will
BBC's website is blocked but many international apartment buildings get BBC World. My colleague was watching BBC in her Beijing apartment this morning when a report on Google's agreement to censor key words and sites via its upcoming google.com.cn service Read More...
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Imagethief turns the mighty Thought-O-Tronic on Bush and Hu

Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:34 AM by will
On a day when China's official English language news sites featured no more than the normal heaping dose of state gobbledygook about this or that with Chinese characteristics, I was interested to stumble across a China Daily article lauding the warm relationship Read More...
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Another one bites the dust

Posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:05 PM by will
No time to comment in any detail, but an article worth a look from the Washington Post's Philip Pan: Leading Publication Shut Down In China Government Move Part Of Wider Crackdown By Philip P. Pan BEIJING, Jan. 24 -- China's ruling Communist Party on Read More...
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The savage buffet-line

Posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:16 AM by will
Mac Daddy Imagethief and a colleague at his company retreat in Sanya, before the onset of crippling illness. Girls love the bling. You can learn almost all of the basic truths about human nature in a buffet line. It's all there: dominance, brutality, Read More...
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Imagethief is back...sort of...

Posted Monday, January 23, 2006 9:14 PM by will
Back from Sanya, at any rate. He now has the pre-vacation week from hell, with two mighty deadlines careening toward him. So, while there at least two posts on the boil in his fevered mind (literally fevered; I was comatose with food poisoning yesterday, Read More...
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Thursday PR blog: Karen's memo

Posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:25 PM by will
Since I have no time to write today --again-- I will continue yesterday's practice of sponging, like some kind of grotesque, digital housefly, off of other good blogs. Via ESWN's recommended reading, an interesting article from The Nation . This is not Read More...
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China as FRPG

Posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 1:23 AM by will
Since I have no time to write, I'll point to someone else today. As an ex RPG writer (I had to put myself through grad school somehow, and radio alone didn't pay enough), this really grabbed me. All my old RPG buddies --I won't identify you, you know Read More...
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Blog-lite this week

Posted Monday, January 16, 2006 3:01 AM by will
In a bit of a panic right now, and heading off to Sanya for work for four days on Thursday morning, so this week is liable to be short on posts. Plus, I am sure we could all use a break after the blogospheric convulsion around the whole Internet/censorship Read More...
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Sunday PR blog: Pimp my Chinese ride

Posted Saturday, January 14, 2006 11:52 AM by will
The Chinese caused quite the media storm at the Detroit Auto Show last week. Apparently, there are big ambitions to crack the huge American automobile market open and start flooding US highway s with cheap, Chinese cars. This is a concept that should Read More...
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Saturday PR blog: Congress to grill US net firms on China

Posted Saturday, January 14, 2006 3:55 AM by will
The US government has begun to take note of what American Internet firms are doing in China. A report in CNET's News.com from technology policy journalist Declan McCullagh (also now picked up by Rebecca MacKinnon , Asiapundit , etc.) says that two congressional Read More...
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Winter fun is where you make it

Posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 8:49 PM by will
The lack of snow this year has disappointed me a bit. Last year, after the first major snow of the year, it took about ten minutes for the security guards in my building to populate the entire courtyard with snowmen. Coming back from work that day, I Read More...
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Journey to the mucoverse

Posted Wednesday, January 11, 2006 12:44 AM by will
Today is the first measurable snow we've had in Beijing. Which is to say, it's not much --just a dusting-- but at least there is a veneer of white upon the lawns and parked cars. That's better than the normal veneer of dust. Arid Beijing doesn't get much Read More...
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We'll give you two shiny pandas for your beat-up democracy

Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:54 AM by will
Imagethief has been fascinated by the unfolding of China's cross-straits "panda diplomacy". If you've not been following this, the leaders of Taiwan's relatively pro-China KMT (currently the opposition party) paid a visit to Beijing recently, during which Read More...
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Haircut

Posted Sunday, January 08, 2006 2:36 AM by will
I decided to try out a new hair place in my building this weekend. Back when I was in my glorious, long-haired hippy phase ('89 - '99 roughly), I only had to worry about getting a haircut once every year and a half or so. Now that I'm 38 and keep my hair Read More...
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猫肉串 and other Shanghai nastiness

Posted Friday, January 06, 2006 5:56 AM by will
China is the land of the food scandal, which makes any trip to a cheap restaurant an exercise in random cuisine. After all, it might say 猪肉 (pork), 牛肉 (beef) or 羊肉 (mutton) on the menu, but take your average hunk of mystery meat, double-fry it in a white-hot Read More...
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The martyrdom of Michael Anti: analyzing Microsoft's motivations - Updated

Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 9:24 PM by will
The nice thing about being a China blogger is that, at any given moment, there is nearly a 100% chance that some phenomenal scandal or catastrophe will be providing the grist for endless soapboxing. We're seldom short of material and, even when we are, Read More...
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Retail vultures feast on my carcass

Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:29 AM by will
The linguistic contradictions of China sometimes come at you from wierd directions. I was reminded of this as I was strolling through the youthful, 77th Street mall at Xidan while on a hat shopping expedition with my wife a couple of days ago. The PA Read More...
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MSN censorship of Anti creeps into US mainstream

Posted Wednesday, January 04, 2006 9:41 PM by will
MSN is starting to encounter the reputational consequences of its censorship of Michael Anti's blog. MSNs move is reported today in technology site CNET, taking the lead from Rebecca Mackinnon . In the CNET article, Microsoft invokes the now-cliche "obeying Read More...
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Internet censorship for commercial reasons...in the USA

Posted Wednesday, January 04, 2006 4:18 AM by will
I really want to discuss Michael Anti, MSN and Beijing News , but that will take more time than I have now, and, in the meantime, it has been well documented elsewhere . Meanwhile, I was interested to see this New York Times article , via CNET, explaining Read More...
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Q: What do Beijing's Third Ring Road and Harbin have in common?

Posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:35 PM by will
That question is answered later. First, background. To understand traffic in Beijing, you need to come to grips with a few basic facts: There are approximately 2.3 million cars in the city, most driven by people with the motoring experience of your average, Read More...
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2005 Imagethief Statistics and Greatest Hits

Posted Monday, January 02, 2006 4:44 AM by will
That was the year that was. And I suppose that this is the year that will be. Until we reach 2007, in which case it will become the year that has been. Speaking of has-been (and how's that for circular), I wanted to take advantage of the new-year to link Read More...
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