Run, do not walk or stop to collect your bling, and read Brendan O’Kane’s vivisection of the recent NYT article “Now Hip-Hop, Too, Is Made in China.” I saw the subject, read Brendan’s title (“[HELP], [HELP], [HELP] THE POLICE!”) and just went and got some popcorn because I knew it was going to be fun ride. He may post as often as I get to the gym, but if he’s not on your RSS feed you’re missing out.
The English-language China blogosphere is sure to be enriched by Evan Osnos, of the New Yorker, joining the fray. Evan’s reporting from China has been top notch and well nuanced, with particular kudos to his piece last summer on the “Angry Youth”, one of the better and more objective articles on that subject.
What historian of China could pass up a whole museum devoted to crooked and traitorous officials? I’d think the hard part would be deciding who or what to cut because of space limitations…kind of like a “Museum of Red Sox fans nicknamed ‘Sully’ or ‘Murph,’” “The Chunjie Firework Injury Hall of Fame,” or “The Dick Cheney War Crimes Exhibition Hall & Gift Shoppe”…you can only build a building so large after all. Anyway, ChinaSmack, as usual, has all the details.
Last month I wrote a post on The Peking Duck about how Yi Jianlian represented the best case so far as to why democracy could not possibly work in China. Yes, I was joking (sort of) but it turns out NBA Commissioner David Stern has more in common with the CCP than I had previously thought. (I mean other than an obsession with maintaining a vice-like grip on power, a commitment to secrecy and behind the scenes dealings, and an incoherent succession plan…) (h/t Reflections in a Chinese Eye)
Lost in the explosions and banality of the New Year festivities, Xinjiang was hit with an earthquake this week leaving thousands homeless. Of particular interest for this blog is that the region affected was home to the Xibe people, a community generally believed to be descended from Manchu military garrisons stationed in the area during the Qing conquest of Xinjiang and who represented one of the few pockets of spoken Manchu left in China. It’s a cold season to be homeless in Xinjiang, our thoughts and prayers are of course with those dealing with the the aftermath of the quake.
Finally, as part of my New Years Resolution to start reading a couple of things a month that don’t come prepackaged with 852 footnotes per page, I’m dying to check out Dai Sijie’s new novel Once on a Moonless Night…the whole Da Vin-Qing Code motif makes me think it might be a good place to start. Anyone know if it’s available for sale in Beijing?
Moo.
The statues in the museum of crooked officials are fun. You can watch the fashions change over the dynasties, especially the hats! The pillbox hat of the Classical era gives way to the Imperial hat with flaps, which is followed by the round Manchu cap and then the hatless guy in a suit (why not a fedora?).
They should’ve had someone in a Mao suit, though, to round out the fashions. I nominate Jiang Qing.