Wenzhou’s Italian Uncles

By Ilaria Maria Sala on October 30, 2012

0039 Ristorante Italia sits in the middle of West Jiangbin Street, one of many long and large stretches of concrete that cross Wenzhou east to west, parallel to the Oujiang River, running next to some of the city’s visible wealth—in the form of glitzy malls—and its noticeable lack of architectural beauty. The restaurant is at street level, announced by a large window shaded by a lace curtain, a blackboard on a tripod with the menu scribbled in colored chalk, the statue of a smiling chef next to it, and an Italian flag fluttering above it all.

Chinese Blogging Superstar’s Strange But Effective Rant Against Over-Construction

By Liz Carter and David Wertime on October 29, 2012

Although Chinese authorities have since said they would back down from the proposed project, Li’s angry and vivid description of Chinese government remains relevant–and, for that matter, unblocked by Chinese censors. Weaving political commentary, personal experience, and powerful (if conflicting) metaphors, it is a classic example of viral political speech in China’s blogosphere. 

Media
Li Chengpeng, Blogging, Social Media

Protests in China Get a Boost From Social Media

By Christina Larson on October 29, 2012

The city of Ningbo—a prosperous port of 3.4 million people, near Shanghai—is hardly one of China’s cancer villages, of the kind contributing to the thousands of pollution-related protests that happen each year in China. And the mostly middle-class protestors were not rising up because of past harms, but for fear of the future—and because, through social media, smartphones, and the Internet, they had gained information about the government’s plans and also about the potential health risks should the planned facility to manufacture the chemical paraxylene, or PX (used in the making of polyester), leak toxins into surrounding rivers and coastal waters.

 

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Social Media, Sina Weibo

Clubs and Cameras: Stability Preservation in the Age of Weibo

By David Bandurski on October 29, 2012

Many images and video posted to Chinese social media from the scene in Ningbo have already been deleted — and some users reported Sunday that Ningbo-based users were unable to post content. But Sina Weibo and other platforms remain the primary source of information on this story. In a further illustration of how the propaganda game is shifting in China, Chinese authorities have found themselves levering the strength of social media to attack the reliability of social media — even as they choke off all reliable information not of government origin, thereby further fueling demand for “rumors” (true or not).

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Sina Weibo, Social Stability

Hollywood Film Summit Draws Chinese Movie Moguls

By Jonathan Landreth on October 29, 2012

LOS ANGELES—Hollywood and Chinese movie makers and industry hangers-on will gather Tuesday at the third annual Asia Society U.S.-China Film Summit on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles.

At a gala dinner Tuesday night, organizers Peter Shiao of ORB Media and John Windler, managing director of the Asia Society of Southern California, will present honors to Lew Coleman, president of DreamWorks, and Han Sanping, president of the China Film Group, considered by many to be the godfather of the booming Chinese film industry.

New York Times Wen Exposé Makes Waves

By Samuel Wade on October 29, 2012

David Barboza’s investigation of the wealth built by Wen Jiabao’s extended family has dominated China news since its publication by The New York Times early on Friday. While the basic fact that wealth and power go hand in hand may surprise few—China Daily Show joked that anthropologists had discovered one man in a remote Chinese village who was shocked by the revelation—the sheer scale of the family’s business dealings has taken some aback. Besides, as Bloomberg’s Mike Forsythe tweeted, “there is a HUGE difference between ‘knowing’ and DOCUMENTING which NYT did!“

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Wen Jiabao, The New York Times, Censorship

Me and My Censor

By Eveline Chao on October 29, 2012

Like any editor in the United States, I tweaked articles, butted heads with the sales department, and tried to extract interesting quotes out of boring people. Unlike my American counterparts, however, I was offered red envelopes stuffed with cash at press junkets, sometimes discovered footprints on the toilet seats at work, and had to explain to the Chinese assistants more than once that they could not turn in articles copied word for word from existing pieces they found online. I also liaised with our government censor.

Media
Censorship, Publishing, Magazines