PandaPassport.com – China Blog

This is astounding.

Microsoft’s new Chinese language microblog service Juku/Club.MSN is a total copy of Plurk. See the image below, and read all the juicy details over on Plurk’s blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Some interesting stories from the China blogosphere this week.

Sorry, We only save dead bodies | chinaSMACK

A tragic story from Hubei about how workers on a fishing boat refused to save drowning students. Initially I thought this was just another case of people not willing to risk getting involved for fear of legal action or some kind of danger to themselves (often the case when someone is knocked down in the street, for example). But here, if the story is accurate, it looks like it just came down to money. Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I’d post this here just in case some of you here in China haven’t seen it yet — or in case you weren’t sure where you could watch it. This one had more fireworks, and McCain did do a decent job on offense.

But as with the other debates, Obama was cool as a cucumber.

Like any story, there are two sides to the whole Tibet/Olympics issue, and I ask for a that people outside of China consider looking at the Chinese point of view for a moment.

There’s an online petition (“>en) floating around on the Chinese internet right now, and if experience serves me correctly, there will be few Chinese people with a registered email address who don’t see this in their inbox by the end of the week:

Petition for Chinese people all over the world to protest the Western media distorted reports of the 3-14 Vandalism/Arson incidents in Lhasa.

In early March in Lhasa, Tibet, there were violent incidents of vandalism and arson which CNN, BBC and other news media in the west published a large number of false and distorted reports. If you strongly protested the Western media distorted and inaccurate reports of this event, please sign your name.

Make no mistake, this petition was not started by some individual blogger, or some group like anti-CNN. It’s on Sina.com, one of China’s major portal websites. Note: If it was not a message with government approval, it would be removed very quickly.

There is a graph on the left showing how many people have signed the petition. It would be futile for me to report the number, because by the time you read this, there will already have been thousands more. Lets just say, it’s an Olympic size number! But my point is, a huge number of people within China feel this way about how the Western media sees their country. And it’s not a big stretch to assume that if you were born here you may very well feel the same way.

So lets look at a Chinese perspective, Carl Pei gives some good insight (h/t to HHR) as to why many in China feel the way they do:

Western coverage (CNN, Fox, BBC, …) hasn’t merely been biased against China, but downright against China. . . For instance, the protests were labeled as “peaceful”, when many Tibetans, even monks, were caught on tape with weapons destroying property or beating Police.

When they found this wasn’t working well for them, they then spread the false news that the Chinese Army (PLA) had set the riots up, dressing as monks. A picture was even provided as evidence, but only hours after the report that picture was also found to be fake.
. . .
I find it funny that Western media outlets, that often speak poorly of China’s state controlled media are responsible for such a catastrophic level of journalism. Clearly, they are at least as bad as their Chinese “propaganda-spreading” counterparts.

On German TV, people saw videos of how Nepalese Police beat monks at the same time as reporting as reporting the Tibet unrest in China. If I was an average German citizen, I sure as hell would hate China after watching the news too. All the false, bad press about China has caused major demonstrations outside the Chinese embassies throughout the entire Western world.
. . .
China unites, and fights back. All over the internet, one could see Chinese citizens posting on English message boards in their best English trying to explain their truth. Not long after, students set up a website, Anti CNN, to show the various “lies” that the Western media used to turn the story against China. If you are interested in learning more about Tibet, or how Chinese people feel about the situation, I strongly urge you to check the website.

Also, it’s funny to note that the Chinese government has noticed that the internet can not only work against them, but in favor of them too. After years of inaccessibility from the Middle Kingdom, the BBC, which was responsible for many of the so called lies, was suddenly unblocked in the midst of chaos so that everyone in China could see how they reported. I was shocked at fist, but now believe it was a very smart move. [Bold is mine]

While I don’t agree with everything Carl says, I think he does raise a lot of points that many people have not yet considered. Both sides can learn something from each other here. It remains to be seen whether or not they will.

h/t to zjjtrans for the link

Further reading: Sina Video page on Lhasa incident

Courtesy of one the most trusted names in news, the onion brings us the story of Yun Mei. She’s a captive zoo panda who’s found herself knocked up and debating whether or not it’s better to have a kid destined for zoo life — or to just off the little fucker before he begins…

Panda Demands Abortion

Fascinating stuff…

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Technorati, on of the best tools on the net for searching and indexing blogs is now accessible in China. This one has been blocked for god knows how long, and it’s good to see that the censors have come around.

Not entirely sure why this one was blocked to begin with.

Just in case you were wondering, some of the top Chinese blogs listed on technorati are Xujinglei’s sina blog, and yanxi’s blog – both indexed on the Top 100.

h/t to Eye of Modok on this one.