Jottings from the Granite Studio

A Qing historian reads the newspaper…

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Entries from October 2006

NYT: Rights Advocate Wins a Retrial, a Rarity in the Chinese Courts

October 31st, 2006 · 5 Comments

In a stunning move, an appeals court has overturned the guilty verdict of activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng. Chen was sentenced to four years in prison this past summer after launching a crusade against the forced sterilization of peasant women. Local officials had ordered the sterilizations as well as forced abortions in an effort […]

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Tags: Chinese politics

Sunday tea: No More Raves at the Great Wall…Jacques Chirac: Sinophile…Tombs and Tourism

October 29th, 2006 · 3 Comments

There are a lot of myths about the Great Wall that need to go away. First of all: you can’t see it from the moon. Second: While portions of the wall have been constructed and linked and rebuilt in stages since before the Qin dynasty, the Great Wall that most people see today […]

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Tags: Chinese History · Life in China · morning tea

Patriotism: Li Hongzhang and the Foreign Threat

October 28th, 2006 · 3 Comments

In 1862, three of China’s most prominent officials, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang, were locked in a mortal battle against the last hold outs of Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping Rebellion. Even as the armies of Zeng and Li used western weapons and troops (the Ever Victorious Army led first by the American Frederick […]

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Tags: Chinese History

Friday Happy Hour: Lao Wai Teaches Manners to Beijing Drivers…Professor takes on Wikireality…New "Sexy Beijing" from Danwei.tv

October 27th, 2006 · 6 Comments

From Ryan’s Life in Suzhou Blog and ESWN: One woman dared to do what almost every foreign visitor to China’s cities wishes they could do at least once in their life: She took the law into her own hands, put her bike on the line, and enforced the traffic laws. A driver trying to sneak […]

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Tags: morning tea

Jottings from The Peking Duck

October 27th, 2006 · 2 Comments

Starting this week, I will be a guest blogger/contributing writer over at Richard’s excellent The Peking Duck. TPD has been an institution in the blogosphere for many years and I am looking forward to joining in the always fascinating conversations on that site. This blog will still be my main focus and I will […]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Corruption Purge could claim Standing Committee Member

October 26th, 2006 · 9 Comments

NYT reports this morning that the Hu/Zeng crime fighting dynamic duo have turned their sites on Beijing–and Standing Committee Member, Beijing party secretary, and Jiang Zemin ally Jia Qinglin could become the first member of that elite club to be purged for corruption since the CCP took power in 1949.
“A widening Chinese anti-corruption probe has […]

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Tags: Chinese politics

Banging the Grievance Drum

October 25th, 2006 · No Comments

In today’s Christian Science Monitor comes a story of peasants so desperate in their search for justice, that they bypass their local courts and bring their plaints and pleas to the gates of Zhongnanhai.

Rapid economic growth has transformed the lives of China’s poor, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of wretched conditions. […]

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Tags: Chinese History · Chinese politics

Blogger/Blogspot blocked?

October 25th, 2006 · 6 Comments

A report from TMH (The Mighty Ho) out of Shanghai that as of this evening, blogger and blogspot are being blocked by the Great (Fire) Wall of China. Hopefully it’s a temporary setback. Curse you Chinabounder! You maniac! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God…damn you all to hell!” (Insert your own pathetic Charlton […]

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Tags: Uncategorized

The Morning Tea: How to build a CCP Quilt…An economic NATO…Baijiu gets its man…Leah’s World

October 24th, 2006 · 2 Comments

Hu Jintao has put forward a bold vision for a harmonious society, promising to clean up the environment, end corruption, and bring economic prosperity to all–a veritable chicken in every hot pot. But as this excellent overview from the Economist points out, the devil is in the details and despite Hu’s utopian vision, nobody’s actually […]

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Tags: morning tea

The Roommate from Hell

October 24th, 2006 · 2 Comments

One of the funnier posts I’ve read recently is by Talk, Talk China regular Meursault recalling a day spent at his girlfriend’s apartment while the roommate from hell roamed the halls like a self-absorbed javelina. Like The 88’s classic in-laws post, Meursault’s story says a lot about China and the Chinese even as it […]

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Tags: Life in China