The foreign community in Beijing has been circulating breathless emails about the murder of Tina Tai, wife of Antony Tai, an engineer for US energy firm ConocoPhillips. The couple lived at Le Leman Lake villas in Shun Yi.
Tina Tai was stabbed to death in her home last week Tuesday. Some reports appear to have blamed a domestic worker, and say that RMB20,000 was missing, but Danwei has no verification of any of this.
Tai was very unlucky. Despite the breathless expatriate emails, Beijing is probably the safest big city on earth.
As the 'Two Meetings' proceed, the events of what the Western media usually calls "China's rubber stamp parliament" will be reported nearly live by various representatives attending the meetings.
Chinese government Two Meetings blog central is hosted by the People's Daily 'Strong Country' blog platform, a new addition to the 'Strong Country' BBS.
Among the bloggers are both People's Representatives and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference or CPPCC.
CPPCC member Zhang Xiaomei is pictured here. This is who she is, translated from the bio on her blog:
Zhang Xiaomei, female, Beijinger, MBA from Sichuan University, CPPCC member, member of National Association of Industry and Commerce, senior economist, postgraduate studies at a Californian university.She is the president and editor-in-chief of China Cosmetics & Fashion newspaper, the vice-president of cosmetics and beauty products of the National Association of Industry and Commerce, the president of the China Perfume and Cosmetics Association...
All of these official blogs have comments sections. Some of them are already full of long drawn out comments by people petioning for a personal cause. There are also comments asking questions about official policy. While it is highly unlikely that anything too controversial will be allowed to remain on the blog comments, there are a few comments that certainly would never appear in a Chinese newspaper.
In People's Congress representative Ye Qing's blog, someone has posted the following (rough translation):
Representative Ye, you are a National People's Representative, did you know that ten years ago, the Chinese government signed the UN's International Convention on Civil and Political Rights?Without democracy we cannot unite, this is the common understanding of the Democratic Progressive Party's unification policy. How do you see democratic peaceful unification? When do you think the People's Congress will consider the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and even better, protect and safeguard human rights to promote peaceful unification?
Another section of the labyrinthine 'Two Meetings' blog compendium contains a heartfelt cry:
I hope Premier Wen can hear this: Rural cadres should not abuse their power!
There are plenty more comments with an edge, in between the remarks from sycophants and lists of complaints from petioners.
finally, data visualization for the masses: 'clear & easy-to-read' GDA (Guideline Daily Amount) bar charts that help people estimate the approximate amount of calories & key nutrients required for a balanced diet, & show how much any McDonald's menu item or (super-sized) meal contributes to that.
[mcdonaldsmenu.info]
Two good things worth your time this Monday morning:
Virtual China: a new English language blog about China with lots of references to Chinese media.
ESWN: The Ten Most Disgusting Chinese Women of 2005, a translation of a light hearted list from the Tianya forum.
Now here is a bad thing: the list of 'disgusting women' mentioned above does not include the kitten crushing woman currently being sought by angry animal-loving Chinese netizens (see Danwei:
Animal cruelty in the mainland press.
The vile series of pictures that have caused an uproar on the Internet and in print media includes not only the kitten images that have been widely circulated, but also images showing dogs, frogs and rabbits being crushed. If you have a strong stomach, you can see the images on BBS aggregator Chinabbs.com:
Cruel cat woman's newest abuse of rabbit, frog and little dog.
This gallery of abominations is subtitled, in true tabloid style: 'Newest pictures of hateful woman's abuses (Too terrible to look at!)'.
Below the animal abuse pictures are links to soft porn images on other BBS sites.
So the authorities order the deletion of well thought-out essays by writers like Anti because they contain "harmful information", while the kitty crusher's images continue to circulate freely.
It seems that something is a little off balance when it comes to the authorities' worries about what young people are getting up to on the Internet.
an ambient display as a pair of wirelessly connected LED light flowers, of which each cluster of 3 changes color based upon the emotions of the person holding it’s twin. the flowers use an emotion recognition engine that recognizes emotion in speech patterns. a small microphone is hidden in the flowers to detect happiness (yellow), sadness (blue), excitement (red) & calmness (green). changing emotions are expressed through subtle color gradations & variations in light brightness. see also gori node garden & nabaztag.
[pinktentacle.com|via engadget.com]
