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February 2007 - Posts

Sinister commie robot pigeon bombs on the wing!

Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007 7:38 PM by will
If there is anything more sinister than a grubby urban pigeon, it must be a grubby urban pigeon under remote control ! That's right, first the testing of an anti-satellite weapon, and now we get wind of China's plans to create a devastating army of drone Read More...
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China stockmarkets: Casino Spoyale

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 10:19 PM by will
OK, anybody who didn't see this coming , go bang your head against the wall until your brain falls out: BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese shares slumped sharply on profit-taking on Tuesday, with the major Shanghai index down 8.84 percent, the biggest Read More...
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Wednesday PR blog: Sport of capitalist lackeys under fire

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 9:50 PM by will
Imagethief is not a golf fan, for several reasons. First, I had a bad early experience in high school when I signed up for archery and flag football for PE and was instead assigned to tennis and golf. My resentment over this enforced sissification (weapons Read More...
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Welcome back, Kaiser

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 8:41 PM by will
Well, no one is going to confuse him with Gabe Kaplan, and as far as I know he doesn't have any Sweathogs, but he does have a blog again, after a long hiatus, and it's here . Read More...
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Why Chinese television sucks (number 893 in a series)

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 6:07 AM by will
Because its priorities are entirely screwed up, as is clear from this article in today's Washington Post : "In foreign countries, televisions are privately owned and you can broadcast whatever you want," Wang Weiping, deputy head of the series division Read More...
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CNET 58: All Internet bets are off

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 6:05 AM by will
All Internet bets are off 27/02/2007 The runup to March's dual government extravaganzas, the meeting of the full National People's Congress and the (take a breath) national committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, is always a Read More...
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Tuesday PR blog: Reputation warfare against Singapore

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:16 AM by will
Having just returned from a week's vacation in Singapore, Imagethief can report that the city-state's image in much of Southeast Asia is, not to put too fine a point on it, crappy. Singapore has a reputation for arrogance, part of which is justified and Read More...
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2006 best-of-Imagethief and statistics

Posted Sunday, February 25, 2007 10:25 PM by will
Another year gone, and time to reflect back on a turbulent 2006. Every year seems to bring a different flavor to Imagethief. If 2004 was the wide-eyed beginnings and 2005 was hitting its stride, 2006 was the year it settled into some kind of maturity. Read More...
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Happy new year! 新年快乐！

Posted Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:07 PM by will
Imagethief wishes all readers a happy new year, and a prosperous year of the pig. I am in Singapore on vacation this week, but will try to drop by from time to time. -Will Read More...
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And for the fake ant breeder...death!

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 9:23 PM by will
Death for an ant-selling pyramid scheme. Only in China : BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for conning people out of 3 billion yuan ($387 million) in a giant scam to breed ants, local media said on Thursday. Wang Zhendong, Read More...
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Apologies for inconsistent service

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 9:15 PM by will
You may have notice Imagethief being inaccessible for short periods over the past couple of days. The friend who hosts my blog is migrating his servers so there are likely to be more brief interruptions over the next couple of days as the technical issues Read More...
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CNET 57: 3G is coming to China! Sort of...

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 9:03 AM by will
3G is coming to China! Sort of... February 15, 2007 China Tech News reports that TD-SCDMA networks will be rolled out by October of 2007. Does this mean that the Ministry of Information Infrastructure (MII) is living up to its pledge to roll out TD-SCDMA, Read More...
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How green was my mountain

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 7:16 AM by will
Bad PR : Villagers in southwestern China are puzzled by a county government's decision to paint an entire barren mountainside green. Workers who began spraying Laoshou mountain in August told villagers that they were doing so on orders of the county government Read More...
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A funny thing happened to me on the way to political re-education...

Posted Saturday, February 10, 2007 11:44 PM by will
Imagethief was morbidly fascinated to find a Reuters article over the weekend that explains how the Chinese Propaganda Ministry has launched a point-based "demerit" system to try to encourage proper behavior from the print media: CHINA'S Communist Party Read More...
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CNET 56: Baidu news and gossip site now in English

Posted Saturday, February 10, 2007 11:28 PM by will
Baidu news and gossip site now in English February 11, 2007 Via the indispensable China Web 2.0 Review , I see that Baidu news and gossip site Baiduer has launched an English version . Love or hate Baidu, they are one of the most interesting and influential Read More...
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What do the kids think of Starbucks in the Forbidden City?

Posted Saturday, February 10, 2007 10:25 PM by will
Over the weekend an eighth-grade English teacher at the Suzhou International School named Eric MacKnight dropped me an e-mail. Eric wanted to let me know that he had used an article I wrote a couple of weeks ago , suggesting that Starbucks' was not the Read More...
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CNET 55: Internet imperils Chinese civilization yet again

Posted Thursday, February 08, 2007 6:40 AM by will
Internet imperils Chinese civilization yet again February 8th, 2007 Those crazy Internet kids are ruining the Chinese language. Or so you would think from a cute pair of Xinhua stories that ran today. (I realize that "cute" and "Xinhua" aren't words that Read More...
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CNET 54: Early warning signs of danger for MySpace China

Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:25 AM by will
Early warning signs of danger for MySpace China February 6th, 2007 Last October News Corp media baron Rupert Murdoch, the proud owner of social networking gorilla MySpace, announced that he was planning to develop MySpace China. Anyone who has studied Read More...
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Apartmental, a part mental

Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007 7:49 AM by will
As regular readers will know, Imagethief has been on cross-assignment to his company's Shanghai office in recent weeks. The company is, meanwhile, attempting to persuade me to consider semi-permanent reassignment to Shanghai. I have not yet made a decision Read More...
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An anus too far

Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:22 AM by will
As long as we are going with the toilet humor (see the previous post). Chinglish is to be stamped out. Really. We mean it this time. Via Peking Duck , here is Mei Fong's article in from the Wall Street Journal (quoting my buddies Jeremy Goldkorn and Josh Read More...
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We have met the bathroom enemy and they are us

Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007 3:43 AM by will
Imagethief's office in Shanghai is in the middling-swank K. Wah Center on the middling-swank (and appropriately named) Huaihai Middle Road. Here we work in splendid isolation from the rest of our WPP brethren, based just up the road in The Center. We Read More...
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Saturday PR blog: I'm sorry, the government has killed your story

Posted Saturday, February 03, 2007 4:20 AM by will
Colleagues from American and European offices often ask Imagethief how PR in China is different from PR in the west. Usually I give a two-part answer. First I tell them that were they to step into our offices in China they would see many things that they Read More...
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Localization backlash: Not just for Internet firms any more

Posted Saturday, February 03, 2007 3:19 AM by will
It can happen to foreign retailers as well. Read More...
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