Archive for July 14th, 2010
Coal Mining in China- Like Real Men
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Posted in China Fact, Cultural oddities | 1 Comment »
China Montage
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Just a bunch of pictures, they are (you can guess the order) regular China, CCTV building in Beijing, CCTV building looking vulgar, annoying Chinese motorcycle man, other |
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Posted in Photos | 1 Comment »
Rare Sighting- Chinese Lining up Properly
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
The Chinese are not known for their patience while waiting in line, but this photo captures a beautiful and rare sight. Chinese queuing up and being patient!!!
{I was told that they were waiting for bus) |
Posted in Photos | Leave a Comment »
Working in China- Time to Relax
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Photo by SOHO in Beijing, these guys are typical migrant workers, probably make less than 100U$ per month, if their bosses don’t cheat them out of their wages. |
Posted in Working and Living in China | Leave a Comment »
Hierarchy in China
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
In China, and Asia I believe, hierarchy is important. Thus, in Chinese, the word for older brother and sister are younger than the word for younger brother and sister. Also, your moms older sister is your aunt, but this name is different from the name you would call yuour mom’s younger sister, who is also your aunt. Thus in China, it is difficult to merely tell one that you have a brother and sister. You must state their age rank relative to your own. |
Posted in China Fact, Cultural oddities | Leave a Comment »
Chinese Police Open up Propaganda Hotline – I mean Public Relations Department
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Beijing is opening up a public relations department, nowadays it is just a good practice. Also, when you consistently beat the shit out of people and deprive them of their hu-man rgghts and dignity, a little goes a long way, or is it just me?
excerpt china daily: “Netizens will be able to communicate with the Beijing police through microblogs in the near future, with the founding of the Beijing police’s first public relations branch. The public relations branch, officially established on Tuesday, is part of the Beijing police’s plan to better their relationship with residents. Fu Zhenghua, director of the bureau, said at a press conference that the police are facing more challenges and pressure when trying to influence public opinion on police-related news. Beijing has a population of 20 million residents, 10 million of which are Internet users. ” |
Posted in Big brother... | 1 Comment »
China Fact- Big Brother in China, Effecting the Media
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
The Chinese communist party likes to act as if their is freedom of the press, but in reality this is an untruth. The following are the facts site: China’s State Secrecy Bureau [国家保密局] chills freedom of expression by exploiting China’s state secrets laws and designating practically all information relating to China’s government, economy, diplomacy, technology, and military as potentially a state secret, and making China’s citizens, and not the government, responsible for maintaining these secrets The Central Propaganda Department [中共中央宣传部] is the Communist Party’s counterpart to the government’s GAPP and SARFT. Whereas the GAPP and SARFT exercise their censorship powers through their authority to license (and rescind the licenses of) publishers, the CPD is the organization primarily responsible for monitoring content to ensure that China’s publishers, in particular its news publishers, do not print anything that is inconsistent with the Communist Party’s political dogma. It does this by:
For an example of how the GAPP and the CPD work together to ensure that China’s people are not able to print criticisms of their own leaders, see the Regulations Regarding Strengthening the Administration of Publications Describing Major Party and National Leaders:
The CPD also works closely with the SARFT. See, for example, the Notice Regarding Strengthening the Administration Work of Provincial Level Television Satellite Program Channels:
The General Administration of Press and Publication [新闻出版总署] is the government’s administrative agency responsible for drafting and enforcing China’s prior restraint regulations, as well as for screening books discussing “important topics.” Specifically, the GAPP’s responsibilities include:
The GAPP has the legal authority to screen, censor, and ban any print, electronic, or Internet publication in China. Because all publishers (including Internet publishers) in China are required to be licensed by the GAPP, that agency also has the power to deny people the right to publish, and completely shut down any publisher who fails to follow its dictates. For an example of how the GAPP exercises its authority, see the Notice Regarding Resolutely Clamping Down on Illegal Publishing Activities:
More recently, in December, 2003 the GAPP announced that it was kicking off a year-long program to increase scrutiny of publications by banning 19 dictionaries. China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television [广播电影电视总局] controls the content of all radio, television, satellite, and Internet broadcasts in China (including, where it is able, foreign satellite broadcasts).
While China’s courts do not engage in actual censorship themselves, it is China’s judges, perhaps more than any other group, who chill freedom of expression in China by imprisoning people who are guilty of nothing other than expressing opinions inconsistent with those of the Communist Party. Judges in China encourage self-censorship in the following ways:
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Posted in China Fact | 1 Comment »
China’s History of Land Ownership
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Below is an interesting piece of history on Chinese land ownership from this article. This is important as from 1950 until the past eith years, China did not recognize the right of private ownership of property, it all belonged to the collective.
” In 1950, the government passed the Agrarian Reform Law, which officially ended land ownership in China. All land and agricultural tools were to be evenly distributed among the landlords, rich peasants, and poor peasants. In reality, though, the enforcement of the law led to bitter trials in local rural communities. Poor peasants denounced the predatory practices of landlords and rich peasants. Most lost everything and many were executed. In 1953, the Chinese government entered a new stage of agrarian reform by collectivizing farms. In the first stage, peasants were required to help one another on their various plots of land. In the second stage, peasants were required to pool their tools, labor, and land, though they still retained rights over individual plots. In the third stage, completed in 1956, farms were completely collectivized under cooperative communities of farmers. By 1957, there were some 800,000 collective farms in China, each consisting of some six to seven hundred individual persons. Finally, in 1958, the social life of the country was transformed into communes. ” |
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Kung Fu Granny, or Simply Airing out the ol….
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
This is downtown Beijing and that is a woman, a really old woman, probably 70 or so. but pretty flexible by the looks of it.
ps. You cannot see it, but this is directly across the street from the silk market which sells every fake good known to mankind. |
Posted in Photos | Leave a Comment »
Voting in China
Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 14, 2010
Chinese life- “In 1953, voting rights were extended to all citizens over the age of eighteen except landlords and counterrevolutionaries.” This is funny for a few reasons. Firstly, the landowners under Mao were stripped of their land and it was subsequently redistributed to the collective. Those people were also stripped of their right to vote. Today, it must be ironic to be a Chinese and see how the land was stolen from the wealthy not 50 years ago, and those one time uneducated peasant farmers are now the ruling elite. Under Mao, it is said, that the uneducated were the soul of China, thus the educated were scorned, beaten and at times offed. The other reason that this is humorous is that in China your vote doesnt matter, which is quite ironic in and of itself. |
Posted in China Fact, Cultural oddities | 1 Comment »