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Jonathan Ansfield
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Jul 16, 2008 08:27 PM
Depends on whom you ask. On the one hand, we’ve been presented in recent days with the work of ad makers TBWA Worldwide, who have ruffled feathers in China with an abortive series of sports ads. Or perhaps the word is bloodsports. Ordered up by Amnesty...
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Melinda Liu
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Jul 15, 2008 07:32 PM
Preparations for the Games are bringing all kinds of changes to Beijing. Earlier this year, the Beijing Cultural
Heritage Protection Center, a China-based NGO, raised concerns about an
unexpected threat to the Forbidden City's historical integrity:
wheelchair ramps. Jennifer Conrad explains:
Additions to the 600-year-old Forbidden City complex, home of Ming
and Qing dynasty emperors and the the centerpiece of old Beijing, would
help visitors arriving for September's Paralympic Games to maneuver around the
site.
On its website, the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center expressed
concern that the plan to smooth over the paving of the Forbidden City
to make it easier for wheelchairs, to lay wooden ramps across high
entrance thresholds, and to install elevators to provide access for
those with disabilities to the major raised halls "no doubt...all stem
from a well-intentioned concern for the rights of disabled people and a
desire for China to be a good host for the Paralympics, but we feel
that these proposals, if implemented, may damage the Forbidden City
structurally, and will certainly detract from the historical
authenticity."
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Jonathan Ansfield
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Jul 14, 2008 05:49 AM
The Chinese street slang for hooker, by virtue of a homophone, is “chicken” (hence the male equivalent, “duck”). Beijing’s best-known spot for “chicken”, as far as Westerners are generally concerned, is a “lady bar” named Maggie’s. Maggie’s’ infamous...
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Melinda Liu
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Jul 13, 2008 07:08 PM
In the run up to the Games, China’s bare-foot spin doctors are again reminding people to be vigilant, as Fergus Naughton explains: The head of Urumqi’s Public Security Bureau last week announced that China’s police force had cracked five terrorist groups...
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Quindlen Krovatin
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Jul 12, 2008 06:49 PM
In the past, an assortment of ethnic minorities and communist leaders adorned China’s renminbi (RMB) or “people’s currency”, whose principal unit is the yuan . However, in 1999 a new series of banknotes was progressively introduced, all of which featured...
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Manuela Zoninsein
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Jul 11, 2008 06:04 PM
Wednesday, July 9th was the launch of a student-led national conservation campaign called the Green Long March, referring to the epic journey by Chinese communist stalwarts retreating from Kuomintang adversaries in the 1930's. Conversations with student...
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Melinda Liu
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Jul 10, 2008 10:47 PM
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Quindlen Krovatin
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Jul 9, 2008 07:14 PM
As promised in my last post , here's a profile of tennis player Zheng Jie, who stunned spectators at Wimbledon on July 1 when she became the first Chinese player ever to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament: Name: Zheng Jie ( 郑洁 ) Age: 25...
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Jonathan Ansfield
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Jul 8, 2008 04:43 AM
If Premier Wen Jiabao is China’s chief crisis manager, then Hu Jintao’s the architect of crisis aversion. From the Taiwan anti-secession bill to the Great Firewall of China , the Chinese leader has been a frequent practitioner of the tao of pre-emption....
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Quindlen Krovatin
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Jul 7, 2008 08:00 PM
Flying back to Beijing from Hong Kong last Wednesday, I decided to peruse everyone's favorite English-language propaganda periodical, China Daily , to familiarize myself with any state-sanctioned stories I'd missed while traveling outside of the mainland....
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Melinda Liu
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Jul 6, 2008 01:18 PM
Despite Beijing’s torrential downpours recently, and more storms forecast ahead, local drivers may be headed for a bit of a dry spell. Fergus Naughton reports on what happens when Beijing police decide to start testing blood-alcohol levels for all and...
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Melinda Liu
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Jul 4, 2008 08:23 AM
Security clampdowns and traffic restrictions make Beijing's Games sound like a hassle, but you don't really have to sweat the small stuff. If you thought "Green Olympics" meant the color of money, we have a $20,000-dollar-a-day, August-only deal just...
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Jonathan Ansfield
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Jul 2, 2008 07:01 PM
Say somewhere in China, during the Olympics, mobs of citizens go spastic over some case of official malfeasance, or mishandled public concerns thereof. Not some quibble over sovereignty or state security (like Tibet or terrorism) which turns public opinion...
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Quindlen Krovatin
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Jul 1, 2008 01:38 AM
Although the Chinese excel in certain sports, many of the Middle Kingdom’s best athletes are notorious choke artists who disappoint almost as often as they impress. Maybe their inconsistency has something to do with China’s system of athletic development.
Whatever the case, conventional wisdom held that in ’08 a hometown
crowd would drive Chinese athletes to overcome their performance
anxiety and shine as brightly as the five stars on the country’s
national flag. Yet some of China’s most high-profile athletes have
delivered underwhelming performances in the last couple of months,
revealing cracks in the country’s veneer of invincibility that could
prove portentous in August.
The first ill omen came when Guo Jinging
stumbled during the women’s 3m springboard preliminary at the FINA
Diving World Series in Nanjing on May 30 and failed to advance to the
finals. Unsubstantiated pregnancy rumors may have contributed to her subpar performance. Or maybe an explanation can be found at the bottom of a baijiu bottle. I have it on good authority that Guo drank too much, then threw up at a party in mid-May.
In fact, China’s entire diving team has been looking less than stellar as of late.
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