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Hong Kong-based citizen journalist and Global Voices Online contributor Oiwan Lam is facing charges of indecency in Hong Kong for posting an artsy topless photograph found on Flickr. She is facing a lengthy–and expensive–court battle and needs your help. The case has quickly become a cause célèbre in the China blogosphere. More information available at EastSouthWestNorth, Global Voices Online, Imagethief, RC Conversation, An open letter from Oiwan Lam, and Lost Laowai. Ryan McLaughlin’s company Dao by Design has also created “Free Oiwan Lam” badges for websites. Finally, a blog has been set up to provide updates on Oiwan’s situation. For stat geeks on holiday in Beijing, China Daily has a feature called “The Forbidden City by the Numbers.” The article is chock full of measurements, ratios, and other fun figures. (And no there are not 9999.5 rooms, best as they can figure there are only 8,707.) Slate Magazines Bushism of the Day: “I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, ‘I’m sending your kid into combat, but I don’t think we can achieve the objective.’ “—Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007. Yikes. This week on PRI’s The World radio program, Mary Kay Magistad
Since many researchers are here on some cobbled-together amalgam of dodgy Z visas, F visas, and/or multiple extensions of an L visa…the pre-Olympic “harmonization” of the foreign community may have implications for research plans in the PRC beginning this month:
From Today in China:
I received the following notification from the company for which I’m working.
In the meeting held by the Exit & Entry Administration Ministry of Beijing on July 12, 2007 afternoon, expats’ visa application process were revised as following:
From July 16,2007 till the end of the Olympic games in 2008, in order to ensure the security of Beijing, during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Ministry of Public Security will carry on strictly foreign management in China.
1. If applicants enter China with L, F visa, the visa cannot be transformed to other visa types. (Except for the applicant’s job title is above vice president, legal representative of the company, director, or foreign representative office’s leader).2. The urgent application (express visa service) cannot be accepted by the government for the time being.3. When foreigners with L, F visa need to extend their staying in Beijing, the applicants need to do the visa extension personally, and
It’s another of those cherished myths–that Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng He made his way as far as the coasts of North America and Europe. It does a lot for Chinese national pride and it has certainly made Gavin Menzies a well-known and wealthy author. He’s become something of a strawman in China history circles, but Menzies’ theories do have support in some quarters, especially from Liu Gang, owner of a map (right) that supposedly proves Zheng He surveyed the wide world. (Though it should be noted that the authenticity of that map is also hotly disputed.)
The problem with all of this is that nasty old preference by most historians for actual documented evidence as opposed to speculation and, in this case, outright fantasy. (See related links here, here, and here.)
Fortunately, serious historians have one of China’s foremost historical myth debunkers, Ge Jianxiong, on their side. In today’s China Daily, Professor Ge weighs in on the Zheng He “debate.”
“Menzies’ logic in the whole book is wrong. How could he draw the conclusion that the world’s geographic knowledge must have come from Zheng He’s fleet since Europeans did not have the knowledge at that time? He ignores the
On this date in 1864, Zeng Guoquan, the brother of the late-Qing statesman and official, Zeng Guofan, ordered his engineers to blow a section of the wall surrounding the Taiping capital, Tianjing (Nanjing). The wall caved and government troops charged into the city. The Taipings gave some resistance but soon Nanjing was in complete chaos as Taiping officials and commoners committed suicide or fled for their lives, taking what ever they could with them. The Qing troops, frustrated after a long siege and an even longer campaign against the Taiping forces, vented their anger on the city and its people. Fires broke out as soldiers looted homes and businesses. Disciplined troop movements broke down almost immediately into bloody street-to-street and house-to-house fighting. As the Taiping military threw off their uniforms to flee or to confuse their attackers, Qing soliders started killing indiscriminately. Nearly 20,000 people died in the retaking of the city. Like many such events, some accounts put the number higher. It’s hard to know for sure.
Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taipings, had died on June 1 and his son, the Tiangui Fu, took his place as the titular head of the Taiping movement. Donning Qing army
A 600-year old tomb (ming zuling 明祖陵) built for the parents and grandparents of Ming dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398, r. 1368-1398) is in danger of being inundated with floodwaters from nearby Hongze Lake.
Via Xinhua:
A 2,700-meter-long cofferdam built in the 1970s separates the tomb from the Hongze Lake, which covers an area of 2,069 square kilometers and is still suffering from heavy floods since June. “The water level of Hongze Lake is higher than the ground of the tomb. If the cofferdam was damaged, the tomb would be flooded,” said Wang Dong, an official in charge of the tomb protection.
“We are keeping round-the-clock inspection to monitor the water level and condition at the cofferdam,” he said.
“In a bid to fight against the new round of flood peak, which is expected to arrive in a couple of days, we have prepared abundant facilities and materials, including pumps, rocks and sandsacks, around the tomb,” the official added.
A drainage system has been installed, ensuring rainfall on the building roof to be collected in a pool and flow through a underground channel.
Meanwhile, a pump has been equipped to drain off the water from
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