PandaPassport.com – China Blog

Ok. So I’m at a bar a few weeks ago, and I meet what we call “an old China hand.” This guy was from Canada too, and had been in China for about 10 years. We got to talking, and of course – as us laowais often do – we started comparing China vs “back home.”

He professed that he loved China: “If I want to drive down the street at 100 clicks, no problem. I’m free to do so. There’s no cop hiding around a corner with a radar gun, looking to slap a fine on you for speeding. You tell me which country has more freedom?” (I’m paraphrasing of course, because this conversation involved too many beers to get it verbatim).

While I don’t know if I agree with his viewpoint totally (i.e. living in China is way better than living in Canada), I had to admit he was making some interesting points. I’d certainly like to be able to run some red lights at 4 in the morning when there are no other cars to be seen.

Now, just recently I started thinking about another cool thing about living in China. That being, it’s a really really safe place to be. Here in Dalian, people tend to get off the streets and go home before 10 or 11pm. And if there’s anyone not at home, they’re likely in a net bar or selling meat-on-a-stick. Walking down a dark street at night is not something I worry about here.

There’s no place like home?

Now Canada is, or at least used to be, thought of as one of the world’s safest countries, and one of the best places to live. But apparently that might not be the case anymore, if what happened to my cousin a few days ago is any indication. I’m not gonna go into too much details, but suffice it to say that a guy was trying to break into his car in the middle of the night, and my cousin did succeed in stopping him. The would-be-theif got the shit-knocking he deserved from my cousin, but apparently retalliated with some box cutters during the scuffle. My cousin got the Xmas turkey treatment, but didn’t even realize it until he went back in the house:

Not that I haven’t heard of such a thing happening in China before, because I have. But I guess I was being a little bit optimistic when I thought that our little safe corner of the world (i.e. Newfoundland was exempt from such tom-fuckery.

It seems that the world is indeed changing.

Both sides of it.

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day

The family sends our best wishes to my cousin, and we all hope that he heals up quickly.

And on a totally unrelated note, here is my China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day, The Godfather.

Well it seems I’ve been tagged in the latest internet meme (i.e. online tag/sars) floating around the blogomasphere. Chris over at Eyes East has apparently gotten himself drunk of his titties and tagged me as one of his favorite 5 Thinking Bloggers. If any of you have yet to check out Chris’s blog, please do so. And for those of you who already know of Chris, please be sure to change your bookmarks, because he just moved over to wordpress.

My turn

So now I get to tag 5 bloggers that I deem to be “thinking bloggers.” The first one that comes to mind Ryan, but it seems Chris got him tagged already. Dezza is a no-brainer as well, and I think everyone is aware of him. But there are lots of great thinkers out there, and here are a few that stand out:

1. China Web 2.0 Review: I don’t know what it is about this site. They don’t post all that often, but it’s one of the few sites that when I see something new on there, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be good. Lyn and Jason are great resources of what’s happening on the net in China, and there aren’t too many solid English-language resources for that. But this is one.

2. YouMeiti ???: Another good source of Chinese net news. I’ve forgotten about this one for a while, but it’s a keeper. “Youmeiti” literally translated is “Have Media,” and Tricia, like Lyn and Jason, is definitely doing a good job of keeping tabs on a very mysterious little niche.

3. Coolcode.cn: I thought I’d include a Chinese site as well, because this is one that kinda surprised me. I’ve been using wordpress software on this site, and until I found Coolcode by Xenium and Andot, I had no idea what kind of developments Chinese people were making with wordpress. These two guys know a shitload about web development, and they’ve been representin’ east-side making some cool wordpress plugins — a couple of which I’ve been using on my Chinese blog. One is a Chinese Social Bookmark Plugin and the other is for installing some retarded bbs-style emoticons just above your comments box.

4. Sinosplice – Has no one else tagged John yet? There is no bigger-thinking white boy in this country than John, it seems (Screw you Dashan! You and your wacky Chinese coat and bleepy dictionaries!). While the rest of us are bitching and complaining John has managed to keep a positive voice on his blog, one of the longest running in the China blogomasphere. Oh yeah, and he helped build Chinesepod.
Note: John, if am I’m the second person to tag you, I challenge you to name 5 Chinese Thinking Blogs!

5. Nomadic Marketing Library Project: While technically not a blog, this one deserves a mention. Tom recently started one phase of this non-profit project in here in Dalian, successfully starting a makeshift library for poor Chinese kids. He’s in Vietnam right now, but this project is still going and could use a small donation if you can spare some change. If for some reason you can’t, the least you can do is put a tiny link on your site promoting this project:

The Library Project

Ok guys. So now it’s your turn to tag. I’m not sure how many of you five are going to see this one, but I hope some of you do take the time to reward those who are doing good work/thinking out there.

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Get Smart

In keeping with this theme of “Thinking,” here’s on oldie for ya — Get Smart. I’m not sure why this has made it onto the Chinese internet. Who knows? Maybe the Shoephone is a already a fixture in Zhongnanhai?

My Weekly China Links

Here are some China-related links that stand out from this week:

Ur-ine Big Trouble Now!

From Hangzhou: Some Chinese reporters, in an effort to expose how some hospitals over-diagnose for profit, submitted tea instead of urine samples. Diagnosis? Six out of ten hospitals visited diagnosed the patients as having infected urinal tracts. Wow. (Source, yahoo via Dezza)

Mr. T Pities the Foo’ who leaves any Poo

Salvador’s Coffee in Kunming displays this poster: An angry-looking Mr. T with a speech ballon reading, “This is an old building with old plumbing, poop and paper won’t go down! There is a public toilet across the street. If we have to clean up after you there is a 50 RMB charge” (Source and photo: Weird Asia News)

New China Bounder Post

Like him or hate him, he does write some interesting stuff. (via The Hao Hao Report)
Note: If you can’t access the link (due to the Chinese internet filters), try here. Pkblogs.com is a good tool for accessing any blogspot sites from inside China.

For Chinese Study: Practice Tones

Here’s an interesting site I found which has a neat tool for practicing tones, and even has a test to see if you can recognize them properly. This one comes compliments of PinyinPractice.com. They even got a wacky Atari-like Space Invaders game, where you blast flying pinyin sounds. Nuts…

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Spiderman

Continuing my intentions of posting media pirated by Chinese websites, here is the first Spiderman Movie, with Toby Macguire and Kirstin Dunst.

Looking forward to the third one when in comes along. Stay tuned for more tv and movies at the bottom of every post!

Well it looks like the youtube wars are heating up, with the team of bullies NBC, U-NewsCorp, FOX, MySpace, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL teaming up to fight the youtube/google threat.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that I can’t get to see a single episode of the Daily Show on youtube anymore (only tiny bullshit clips) — Chinese video sites like tudou, youku, 56.com, 6rooms all can get away with hosting what appears to be full seasons of Prison Break and other shows:
Prison Break on tudou, Prison Break on youku, Prison Break on 56.com, Prison Break on 6rooms

If youtube wants to win the war of online videos, they should just relocate to China, where they’d enjoy apparent immunity like the sites I’ve listed above.

Does this remind you of the mp3 wars a few years ago? Remember when the RIAA subpoenaed those students at Georgia Tech for illegal downloads?

Meanwhile Baidu had, and continues to have, an mp3 section on it’s site. Just some food for thought, I guess…

Are all these Chinese sites untouchable?
Or do all these companies just enjoy picking on the little guys?
Maybe youtube just needs to re-locate to China to solve all their problems?

In any case, as usual, here’s your:

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day

The entire first season of Lost, courtesy of youku. My friend Casper introduced me to this one, and I got addicted to it right away. It’s one of those shows that you know is kinda stupid, but you just can’t help from watching the next episode anyhow. Anyway, you’ve been warned. I’ll post links the second and third seasons for ya later on.

Well, with the rise of video sites like youtube and all the rest of ‘em, it’s becoming easier and easier for the everyday Joe/Zhou to create his own makeshift TV program. It’s not surprising that we’ve seen a few very well made Video productions spring up in the China Blogosphere. So just in case you haven’t seen them already, here are a few that I like.

Danwei.tv

This show has all the trimmings of professional news show, aside from the fact that our host Jeremy can’t seem to get rid of that friggin’ big yellow hardhat. Still waiting for the rest of the Village People to discover China I imagine. Check out danwei.tv here, or go here to check it out on youtube.
Danwei Highlights to date:
Wang Xiaofeng Sticks it to the Man
Muzimei: Chinese Sex Blogger
Meat-on-a-Stick

Ron Sims: Black Man in China

Ron Sims Black Man in China site gets top marks from me. It’s a very sharp-looking design, and the videos on site are funny and well-edited. My only complaint is that the site doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed. But all his videos are available on youtube, so that’s alright. He’s a talented man, and I encourage you to check out his stuff.
Black Man in China Highlights:

Fuzhou Nights
No Size Fits All
The Haircut

Ryan’s Humanaught V-blog

Well, since Ryan (aka The Humanaught) fucked off and left all off us in Dalian moved on to Suzhou, he’s done a lot of really cool work, including starting up the Hao Hao Report and the team project Lost Laowai. But what you may not have seen are some of his video blog entries (also on youtube). There are only a few of ‘em, but they’re all pretty cool. Are there any more to come, Ryan? You lazy fucker…
Humanaught Vblog Highlights:
The Road to Suzhou
Chuanr! (w/ special guest, ME)
A Chinese Wedding

Now those are just some of the ones one that I’m aware of.

Am I missing anyone?

by the way…

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Ghostbusters

I mean, c’mon… Who doesn’t love this movie? I’m glad that it’s finally catching on in China. The entire Ghostbusters Movie is available for viewing here courtesy of our Piracy-pals over at tudou! And in case you need it in your Chinese vocabulary, Ghostbusters in Chinese is ?????.

Ok. Even though I don’t make a hell of a lot from having google adsense on my website, it does cover the hosting costs — so why not, right?

Now there are referrals for firefox, adsense, and adwords available to anyone with an adsense account. But Google just announced it’s new Beta Referrals Programs, and they’ve explained in detail on their Inside Adsense blog:

With our new referrals beta, you can select products and services from our base of AdWords advertisers. This is good news for those of you who have wanted to use referrals in the past, but couldn’t find a product to match your site’s content. With the referrals beta, you can search for products that match up directly with your site’s content. And you can customize your referral units to match the look and feel of your site, making it easier than ever to find a referral ad that fits in seamlessly with your site’s design and content.

What’s more, Google can help make sure you find and display the most relevant, best-performing referral ads on your site. Simply provide a few keywords to describe your site and your users’ interests, and you’ll see ads automatically displayed that perform best for your site. No more constant updating, rotating products, or guesswork.

By the way, it seems as though blogspot blogs are blocked once again, at the whim of the Chinese firewall demons. If you have trouble accessing them – like you might with Inside Adsense, as it is a blogspot blog – I recommend you subscribe to it using bloglines. It’s a newsreader, and you can use it as a way to bypass the firewall — and well, it’s just way more convenient than regular internet surfing.

Anyway, for anyone who’s blogging in China, and using Google Adsense on their site, you may want to consider applying for this Beta program. China related ads seem to fall into the category of “chump-change ads,” and your only consolation for low revenue is that it’s not paid in Chinese RMB.

Having the ability to choose the product that you refer might make a small difference to your income. Because every little bit helps, doesn’t it?

China Stolen Media of the Day

I spoke of this show before, but I think it deserves another mention. I think it’s showing on CBC back in Canada, and I highly recommend it. It’s called Hustle, and it’s a really neato show from the BBC. Check out the entire first season of Hustle via tudou.

Here’s the latest installment of my Weekly China Links:

Cricket in China?

With the Cricket World Cup now going on (or so an Indian friend of mine informs me), it seems China has even caught the Cricket bug. They’ve announced they’ll have a credible team by the year 2020. I always thought this sport would die out if these guys ever discovered what a canoe was.

Flickr in Chinese

It looks as though yahoo will be rolling out a Chinese version in the not so distant future.

Exploding Cars Forbidden

Boingboing has been an unlikely source of strange China news lately.

Time > Money?

Marc has an interesting post about waiting in line for free coffee. More interesting though is his take on how in China, time just might not equal money.

China Stolen Media

This is a new feature that I’ve started adding to the bottom of every post. Free movies and TV shows on Chinese websites. Just look for the swash-buckling pirate picture. My featured Stolen Media for today is The Devil Wears Prada or as it’s known locally, ?PRADA???. The offender this time is 6rooms.