Welcome to news.imagethief.com Sign in | Join | Help

August 2006 - Posts

Public nuisance 1: Your placards are harassing me

Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:42 PM by will
An interesting article on Asia Times Online from Singaporean commentator (dare I say dissident?) Alex Au on the state of civil liberties there. Au has his eye firmly on the upcoming World Bank and IMF meetings, and reviews some recent attempts to demonstrate Read More...
0 Comments
Filed under:

Ching Cheong convicted

Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 4:33 AM by will
And sentenced to five years. Xinhua reports : According to the verdict, Ching Cheong is also deprived of political rights for one year and personal property worth 300,000 yuan (about US$37,500) has been confiscated. "The penalty is a mitigated one considering Read More...
3 Comments

Foxconn finale: All's well that ends in retreat?

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:27 PM by will
According to ESWN Foxconn has reduced the damages requested to 1 yuan. Roland is citing a very brief Netease report, and I am not sure how authoritative it is. But if it is true, then it means that Foxconn has taken one of the possible paths I outlined Read More...
8 Comments

Spotty cuffs

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006 12:46 AM by will
In general, I like the rain in the Beijing. In summer it cools the city a bit, and heaven knows, Beijing needs all the moisture it can get. Rainstorms often clear some of the pollution out of the air, which is also nice. What rainstorms don't do is clean Read More...
5 Comments
Filed under:

Thursday PR blog: What was Foxconn thinking?

Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 9:48 PM by will
Every now and then, Roland dangles a PR question in front of me and, like a shark rising predictably to the bait, I pretty much always go for it. In yesterday's post about Foxconn's fit of PR self destruction, Roland asked in a comment: What is the matter Read More...
13 Comments

Wednesday PR blog: Foxconn shoots themselves, Apple in foot

Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 8:46 AM by will
You may recall Foxconn, AKA Honhai Precision Manufacturing, as the company at the center of a recent PR crisis for Apple Computer, when a British newspaper published reports that they were mistreating the workforce responsible for assembling luscious Read More...
6 Comments

Monday PR blog: Don't panic!

Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:13 AM by will
I spent most of Friday evening working on a company project with a colleague, a young American woman, who will be traveling to England soon. As we hacked our way through an awards submission (not my favorite way to spend my Friday evening) she confessed Read More...
5 Comments
Filed under: ,

CNET 25: The Olympics coming to a mobile phone near you, maybe

Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:10 AM by will
The Olympics coming to a mobile phone near you, maybe August 27, 2006 In China, the start of the Olympic Games is the meta-deadline that looms above everything else. The list of things that absolutely, positively must be finished by the Olympics is pretty Read More...
1 Comments
Filed under: , ,

Temporary comment interruption: Updated

Posted Friday, August 25, 2006 6:33 AM by will
There will be a temporary closure of comments due to a sudden, obnoxious epidemic of gay pr0n comment spam. More news over the weekend. Meanwhile, feel free to send comments, rebuttals, abuse etc. through the regular e-mail form. Will Update : Lifted Read More...
5 Comments
Filed under:

Bad goat! No biscuit!

Posted Thursday, August 24, 2006 2:58 AM by will
You couldn't make it up . Unless, of course, someone did make it up, which seems possible, considering that this little gem has been 小道消息 since May : BEIJING: A village cashier in west China lost 12,500 US dollars of public money after it was eaten by Read More...
3 Comments
Filed under:

Further struggles of foreign Internet companies in China

Posted Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:58 AM by will
Jason Dean of the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau has written the latest chapter (subscription) in the annals of foreign Internet companies' bleak histories in China. Jason's article looks into a segment we don't hear too much about in these Web Read More...
1 Comments

Ashes to ashes, bust to bust

Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:04 PM by will
Shocking news from the BBC this morning ( proxy link ): China is cracking down on strippers at funerals. Five people have been detained in China for running striptease send-offs at funerals, state media say. The once-common events are held to boost the Read More...
3 Comments
Filed under:

When the wind blows

Posted Sunday, August 20, 2006 9:22 AM by will
Beijing isn't a pretty town by most standards. The pollution doesn't help. It turns the sky grey and dulls the light, making everything look flat. But every now and then a hard summer wind blows the pollution away completely. When that happens, it's as Read More...
11 Comments
Filed under:

The kid

Posted Sunday, August 20, 2006 1:25 AM by will
The kid had staked out a patch of sidewalk and was working the steady stream of locals and foreigners passing through. The limits of his territory were the entrance to a restaurant popular with foreigners and that of a convenience store ten meters further Read More...
9 Comments
Filed under:

Book review: Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret

Posted Saturday, August 19, 2006 6:11 AM by will
Chinese Lessons: five classmates and the story of the new China By John Pomfret Published by Henry Holt, 336 pages It is a good time to be writing your China memoirs. These days, China looms larger in the western consciousness than it has since the summer Read More...
3 Comments
Filed under:

The question you should really ask is...

Posted Friday, August 18, 2006 3:16 AM by will
I'm in the middle of cleaning up the translations of the questions that Chinese journalists have sent us for a series of interviews coming up with a client. While I am often impressed with the sharpness and insight of Chinese journalists, I am equally Read More...
4 Comments
Filed under: ,

Infernalture

Posted Thursday, August 17, 2006 7:06 AM by will
Apartment prices are down and my lease is up, so Imagethief has been looking for a new, larger apartment to accommodate himself, Mrs. Imagethief, two whiny cats and the various junk that has accumulated in the past two years. I hate looking at apartments. Read More...
14 Comments
Filed under:

CNET 24: Strike hard at web spoofs!

Posted Thursday, August 17, 2006 1:50 AM by will
Strike hard at web spoofs! August 17, 2008 China's regulators have started looking askance at China's bubbling online "spoof" (恶搞 or "egao") scene, and new restrictions are coming. In recent months several high profile parody videos have rocketed to popularity Read More...
0 Comments
Filed under: , ,

Tuesday PR blogette: Economic nationalism

Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 5:55 AM by will
I don't know who "Gizmo" is, but he or she has just started a blog and as just the third post put up a very interesting and relevant piece on the topic of economic nationalism. This is an issue of pressing concern for everyone who does PR or marketing Read More...
1 Comments
Filed under: , ,

Deconstructing HRW's report on China

Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 5:39 AM by will
I have a lot of time for Rebecca MacKinnon . She has worthwhile things to say about China, and she's been an energetic and outspoken advocate for a more open media and Internet environment in China and a greater degree of accountability from the foreign Read More...
2 Comments

Postus interruptus

Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 1:26 AM by will
I was working on an Imagethief post yesterday when I got the call to pinch hit on the back page for That's Beijing again this month. Unfortunately, that request came with a 24 hour deadline, so the post you were all going to get yesterday evening you Read More...
1 Comments
Filed under:

CNET 23: Chinese gamers beat government's "fatigue" system

Posted Tuesday, August 15, 2006 1:25 AM by will
Chinese gamers beat government's "fatigue" system 15 August, 2006 Clever Chinese gamers and Chinese game companies are finding creative ways to get around government rules designed to restrict how long people can play for. Massively multiplayer online Read More...
1 Comments
Filed under: , ,

CNET 22: It's no fun if you can't see the fear in his eyes

Posted Sunday, August 13, 2006 7:31 AM by will
It's no fun if you can't see the fear in his eyes 13 August, 2006 To see how popular the game of Chinese chess ( xiangqi ) is in Beijing, all you have to do is take a stroll through town on a summer evening. In the hutongs, on the lakeshores, or any old Read More...
4 Comments

Nanny nixes America's Dems and GOP

Posted Friday, August 11, 2006 3:38 AM by will
Imagethief completely understands why certain websites are blocked by the Chinese government. I don't agree, mind you, but I understand why the Chinese government would want to block them. Amnesty International , Reporters Sans Frontieres , Human Rights Read More...
7 Comments
Filed under: ,

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1997

Posted Thursday, August 10, 2006 10:09 PM by will
Imagethief has often compared the feel of today's China with how Southeast Asia felt when he first moved there in 1995. For those of you who are more recent arrivals to the region, in 1995 the "Asian Tigers" --Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea Read More...
2 Comments
Filed under:

CNET 21: Did the People's Daily get hacked?

Posted Thursday, August 10, 2006 10:34 AM by will
Did the People's Daily get hacked? August 10, 2008 The People's Daily , the official mouthpiece of China's Communist Party, has been called many things: staid, dull, propagandistic, impenetrable, bizarre. One thing it has rarely been called is racy. But Read More...
1 Comments

Thursday China news roundup

Posted Thursday, August 10, 2006 8:05 AM by will
In lieu of having time to actually write anything, today's China news stories of note. So much news to make fun of, so little time. When shooting un-endangered wildlife just isn't enough of a thrill... From the Independent , news that hunters can buy Read More...
1 Comments

CSR Asia on the Dell issue

Posted Wednesday, August 09, 2006 10:11 PM by will
CSR Asia's Stephen Frost has a good analysis of the Dell situation in this week's CSR Asia Newsletter. He also talks about why MNCs sometimes get singled out for extra harsh treatment: This phenomenon of taking companies to task for real or perceived Read More...
1 Comments

Exploding perfume factory and other interesting links

Posted Tuesday, August 08, 2006 7:11 AM by will
A busy day today, so no time for witty exposition. However a few links did catch my eye today: Thank god I'm a commie boy From Danwei, David Moser's fascinating essay on China's schizophrenic media , including the startling revelation that John Denver Read More...
3 Comments

The trouble with English teachers

Posted Monday, August 07, 2006 6:16 AM by will
AP ran an interesting article (via Peking Duck and Paper Tiger ) on the perils of being an English teacher in China. I found it a fascinating read both because it strengthened my own reservations about the seedy Chinese black market for English teachers, Read More...
29 Comments
Filed under:

Official: You may not karaoke to any louche songs

Posted Monday, August 07, 2006 1:39 AM by will
Because karaoke lounges are such flagrant dens of vice, the Chinese government is cracking down on them. Naturally, it is taking the most sensible possible approach to this, by decreeing which songs are acceptable for out-of-tune singing by businessmen Read More...
3 Comments
Filed under:

The "S" is for shame

Posted Monday, August 07, 2006 1:05 AM by will
In another example of unworthy, regressive pique , Singapore has turned the screws on a few high-profile foreign news publications just enough to let them know that they should not, by any means, assume that Singapore will tolerate open discourse when Read More...
0 Comments

Saturday PR blog/CNET 20: Chinese bloggers smack Dell

Posted Saturday, August 05, 2006 1:08 AM by will
Note : As this is a PR blog as well as a CNET blog, it's published in its entirety here. Cross posted on CNET Asia. Dell can't seem to get a break in the blogosphere, be it in China or the United States. Dell's contretemps with uber-blogger Jeff Jarvis Read More...
14 Comments
Filed under: , ,

CNET 19: You got a license for that website, buddy?

Posted Friday, August 04, 2006 12:01 AM by will
You got a license for that Web site, buddy? 2 August, 2006 You a foreign company? You want to have a Web site in China? Well, we have some forms for you to fill out. China is ever eager to maintain a degree of official control over anything media related, Read More...
6 Comments
Filed under: , ,

Fifty fabulous foreigners and one scheming Jew

Posted Thursday, August 03, 2006 1:26 AM by will
The English version of the People's Daily website has published a surreal list of fifty foreigners who have been influential in China's modern history. The list is introduced with the following paragraph, which I felt merited reprinting in its entirety: Read More...
4 Comments
Filed under: ,

Thursday PR blog: Electro-sphere and other photo opps

Posted Wednesday, August 02, 2006 9:50 PM by will
I know what I am good at and what I am not good at. For example, I consider myself a pretty good writer and PR strategist. Both of those convictions are regularly reinforced by the fact that I get invited to write professionally and I continue to be employed Read More...
8 Comments
Filed under:

Welcome back Bingfeng

Posted Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:03 AM by will
Nice to have one of the best Chinese English-language bloggers back in the saddle . I presume this means the baby is now sleeping through the night. Welcome back. Read More...
5 Comments
Filed under: