china
aardvarchaeology | October 3, 2008
I bought two wooden model kits in Beijing last October. The kids and I finished the Imperial Dragon in late August. Since then, my daughter and I have worked on the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (ç¥å¹´æ®¿) which forms part of the 15th century Temple of Heaven complex in Beijing. Now it's completed, and I shudder to think of what we're gonna do with it when we move house.
revere | September 27, 2008The Chinese food adulteration scandal is spreading. I'm calling it a food adulteration scandal because it's not just milk any more. Products with milk derived ingredients are also suspect:
Seven instant coffee and milk tea products made in China are being recalled in the U.S. because of possible contamination with melamine, as health fears increased worldwide over the safety of Chinese dairy exports.
The Mr. Brown brand mixes are being recalled by King Car Food Industrial Co., based in Taiwan, and were made by China's Shandong Duqing Inc., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today in a…
cevans | September 26, 2008
Maybe it's the upcoming election and the potential change that it portends. Or perhaps it's the Large Hadron Collider, bogged down with electric failures, that has ceded the science-news space to other subjects. In any case, the last week has seen a slew of exciting, weird, and prescient science news too exciting to ignore, and too varied to all discuss in depth.
For one, the impersonal blackness of space welcomed a new nation as the Chinese launched their much-anticipated Shenzhou VII spacecraft, manned with three "taikonauts" trained for the country's first spacewalk. Technologically…
bleimanb | August 28, 2008After a recent heat wave in China's Sichuan province, local cats sprouted strange appendages resembling wings, as reported in the Bill Moyer's Journal of England, the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail claims to have spoken with genetic experts (i.e. Nigel in the mail room) who said that these growths come from "poor grooming, a genetic defect or a hereditary skin condition." Note: They also said that though the wings do contain bones, they do not not interfere with quality of the cats' lives.
"Mutated ally cats are where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
More pics below the fold…
aardvarchaeology | August 25, 2008
Back in October I picked up a couple of wooden model kits in a mall near the Drum Tower in Beijing. Yesterday my daughter and I finished the first one, an Imperial Chinese dragon (count the toes), brought to life by a talented but uncredited kitmaker. I built one of these kits, an apatosaurus, when I was a teen. And now a grand-daughter of the Empire is eager to start building our second kit, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven.
[More blog entries about china, dragons, modelbuilding; kina, drakar, modellbygge.
aardvarchaeology | July 27, 2008
Once in the early 90s two Stockholm girls went to college to major in Chinese. They became friends: one was half-Chinese, the other had spent part of her childhood in China. They would one day become the Architect and the Sculptress. But first they went to China to pursue their studies, and made friends with an expat Chinese Stockholm girl who had come there for the same purpose. She would later become the Journalist.
In China the Architect picked up a local Painter whom she brought along when all three girls returned to Sweden. In the end it didn't work out, but Architect and Painter…
zooillogix | July 25, 2008Oh good God. We are reprinting this article in its entirety from the Orange News because it is just too good. Check it!
Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.
"It's hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.
He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.
Feng's wife said the monkey-faced piglet…
aardvarchaeology | June 21, 2008
Looking closer at this cover of a Chinese pirate edition of Disney's 1937 animated feature Snow White, we find a couple of fine Engrish phrases.
"Latinum Edition" is pretty good. But wouldn't you agree that "Still the Fairest of the Mall" takes the cake?
grrlscientist | June 8, 2008tags: giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, Beijing Zoo, WoLong Panda reserve, mammals, image of the day
A giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, plays at Beijing Zoo on 2 June 2008 in Beijing, China.
Eight giant pandas were relocated to Beijing zoo, after their WoLong nature reserve was damaged by the earthquake on May 24, 2008. They will spend the next six months at the zoo on a special Olympics visit.
Image: Cai Daizheng (ChinaFotoPress & Getty Images) [larger view].
China's panda keepers are using an unusual method of intervention to help their charges -- eight two-year-old giant…
grrlscientist | May 13, 2008tags: foot binding, China, social behavior, fashion psychology, streaming video
A friend sent these images depicting foot-binding in China. To say the least, I knew this practice was painful and caused permanent malformations, but seeing the damage makes my own feet scream in agony. How did such a strange and harmful behavior like this ever become a cultural fashion/fad/fetish?
An elderly Chinese woman who was one of the countless victims of foot-binding. She can barely stand or walk, even with assistance. Gee, I wonder why?
An elderly Chinese woman, one of countless millions of female…
scientificactivist | April 30, 2008Earlier this week, I wrote about the Chinese ship carrying arms bound for Zimbabwe that was turned away thanks primarily to the actions of the South African dockworkers' union. A news story from the Mail & Guardian today gives a pretty good indication of just how those weapons might have been used if they had made it to their intended destination:
Zimbabwe's army is supplying militants with weapons to intimidate voters to ensure that Robert Mugabe wins a possible run-off in the presidential election, Human Rights Watch said.
In a statement released late on Tuesday, it said military…
scientificactivist | April 28, 2008Now that the Chinese ship An Yue Jiang--which was delivering arms from China to Zimbabwe--has been turned away for good, there are two significant aspects of this story upon which we should reflect. The first is that the true heroes of this tale are the unionized dockworkers, who catalyzed this turn of events by their initial refusal to unload the cargo. The second is that there are deep political ties between Zimbabwe and China, which make this picture much less black and white than it would appear to be on the surface.
It was reported on April 16 that a Chinese ship slated to dock in…
aardvarchaeology | March 21, 2008A reader has pointed out that a propaganda website friendly with the Chinese government and hostile to Falun Gong is quoting a recent blog entry of mine. She suggests that this means that I am aiding the government in its harsh persecution of the cult.
I, of course, don't see it that way. Two crooks are wrestling here, and I've made my opinion known that both combatants are crooks, period. I find it really funny that the propaganda site is blithely repeating my words, "Most people with democratic opinions see the Chinese government as a group of autocratic villains with a history of…
scientificactivist | March 17, 2008As demonstrating and rioting against the heavy-handed Chinese occupation of Tibet increased in intensity this weekend, it's not surprising that China cracked down using one of its favorite tools: internet censorship. As of sometime Saturday, the Chinese government had already blocked YouTube in response to protest/riot footage on the site, and recent reports indicate that Google News has also been blocked. The government's crackdown has already caused the loss of about 80 lives, and it's doing its best to prevent footage of the crisis from reaching the rest of China (through internet…
aardvarchaeology | March 7, 2008In every story there is a villain, and his adversary is either a hero or a hapless victim. But we don't live in a story.
Most people with democratic opinions see the Chinese government as a group of autocratic villains with a history of persecuting good people. When such a government persecutes a religious movement, it's easy to assume that this movement must be quite nice. This not necessarily the case.
The much-publicised and long-standing conflict between the Chinese authorities and Falun Gong is an example of a nasty autocratic regime persecuting a nasty manipulative cult. Falun Gong's…
revere | February 28, 2008When WHO tells us that there is no bigger bird flu problem in China I guess it's all relative. Like the old joke where one old man asks the other how he feels, the answer is "compared to what"?
The World Health Organization says that while there have already been three deaths from bird flu in China this year, there are no signs the deadly disease is becoming a bigger problem.
In a statement Wednesday, the WHO's top representative in China, Hans Troedsson, says the three recent cases were not unexpected considering the winter season. (VOA News)
Despite the occurrence of three deaths in China…
aardvarchaeology | February 10, 2008
Back in October when myself & the family were in Beijing, we spent a Friday at the city's main amusement park. The place was almost deserted, so the kids didn't have to stand in line at all. They would repeatedly ride these huge attractions all on their own.
Beijing amusement park has an old 80s part full of run-down Japanese gear, all flaking paint and rusty welding work. Then there's the northern periphery where they've installed new bigger attractions, each with a long explanatory sign in Engrish. One is a two-story carousel intended to create the impression of visiting a European…
revere | January 23, 2008In 2006 there were 115 confirmed cases (WHO case count) of H5N1 in humans with 79 deaths. In 2007 the figures are 86 cases and 59 deaths. Some have taken this as evidence H5N1 is less of a problem (latest data here). That's not how I read it, however. Seasonal flu numbers bounce around from year to year, too, and if this year is better than last year it isn't because flu is disappearing. Still, let's take a look at the numbers a little more closely and see where the differences are. Here's the WHO Table:
21 January 2008
Country
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Total
cases
deaths…
aardvarchaeology | January 7, 2008
Turquoise mosaic dragon and bronze bell in rich male burial at Erlitou, phase II, c. 18th century BC.
A really good historical source is coeval with the events it describes, or it may even form a part of those events, such as in the case of a land deed. It is written by a knowledgeable participant in the events, one who is not strongly politically biased or whose bias is at least known. And any statement in a good historical source is ideally corroborated by other independent good historical sources.
Now, in no part of the world is there any historical source older than the first proto-…
angrytoxicologist | January 7, 2008Okay first: Where have I been? It's too complicated to answer and retain anonymity, so suffice it to say: "away". Thanks for all the e-mails over the past month asking for posts again.
An item in Science caught my eye yesterday: Revolutionizing China's Environmental Protection. I'm sure you all know about China's problems. If you don't, click on that link and read on (it's only two pages). It is the following sentence that caught my eye, though:
Economic performance is still China's main or sole criterion for selecting and promoting government leaders
And that's different from here how?…