You Know the Rules and You MUST Obey at this Charming Chinglish Urinal
In authoritarian countries, everything is either compulsory or it is forbidden, and you have to know the rules by heart, don't expect any reminders
Posted 2012-05-05 at Shanghai,China
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Hartbeeps early years TEFL education in Shenzhen China
In recent months I have been neglecting my blog, because I have been busy teaching Hartbeeps English in China to toddlers. This has been a great privilege And has made me feel younger as though I were reliving my childhood. The classes were developed by professional musician, Sarah Godwin, and contain many original dances and songs combined with traditional classics, often with a new spin. The teaching scripts are easy to follow and full of creative ideas bring in the class to life with props such as puppets and fabrics representing the sun and the stars etc.
Posted 2011-11-15 at Shenzhen,China
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British panda lovers delighted as Kung Fu Panda 3 to feature Christian Bale and Chen Guangcheng
Christian Bale announces he will star in Kung Fu panda 3, a prison escape featuring Guang Guang, a blind self-taught Panda who was imprisoned after aiding damsels in distress using a rare but useless Kung Fu technique called " The Law"
This year has been a great year for China and for British panda lovers. In December, after months of anticipation, Tian Tian and Guang Guang finally left Sichuan province, and began to settle into their new home in Edinburgh. Known as China's national treasure, it was a great honour for Scotland, which is still part of Britain, to be allowed to rent the pandas for 10 years at a cost of only ¥6 million, plus $100,000 per year of bamboo. The British people will always remember the generosity of China in loaning national treasures to us. According to British intelligence, Tian Tian will be "in the mood for love" in February, and we hope that she will give the British people a son or daughter. Many Britons would like to be Chinese one-day, and know this is not possible, so it is a great consolation for us to know that the Chinese pandas may give their only son to Britain.
Read more...
Posted 2011-12-23 at Shandong,China
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Chinese wannabe
My satirical article in Hong Kong Open magazine "I want to
be Chinese" is now on sale all over town. It is also on the Open Magazine site and can be read
here It is a call for China to relax its immigration policy, by allowing foreigners to attain Chinese citizenship in the way that immigrants do in most countries. China now has a large population of expatriates, many of them whom have married into Chinese families or set up businesses. These people have no political rights at all, and in some ways face an even worse human rights predicament than citizens of the PRC
Posted 2011-09-13 at Hong Kong,China
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Stephen says: Mostly positive comments so far...
Posted Wednesday 28th of September 2011 11:38:28 PM
Censorship on youku
Yesterday I tried to upload another video on
the theme of attaining Chinese nationality to
Youku.com. But for some reason, not only was
it immediately censored, but it also
triggered the censorship of both the
previously uncensored videos on the same
theme on the site, which I had uploaded last
week. I'm not sure exactly why; one
possibility is that I was wearing a T-shirt
with the letters six and four in one of the
frames of the video. Apart from that there
was nothing very anti-Communist party.
This is not my first experience of having a
video censored in China, but it is the first
time that I have had a video censored which I
had taken a lot of time and trouble to make.
As usual there was no explanation for the
censorship.It's a learning experience which
makes me understand and sympathise with
mainland China users of such websites. It's
very disheartening to go to the trouble of
uploading video, only to find it has been
deleted, to the extent that it puts me off
wanting to use their website in future.
Read more...
Posted 2011-09-11 at Shanghai,China
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Propaganda on the Roof
A woman hangs out her washing beside a large
rooftop propaganda poster celebrating the
foundation of the People's Liberation Army.
So propaganda does have a use after all; to keep the washing dry!
Posted 2011-09-07 at Shenzhen,China
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The flag of the Republic is stained with the blood of the the People
Someone once said that the flag of the Republic is stained
with the blood of the the People, but this one
looks like a foreign victim. I saw this in an
art exhibition in Chai Wan, Hong Kong a few days ago.
Modern art has been successful spreading ideas which are subversive and new; Ai Weiwei is just the best-known example of this trend.
Posted 2011-09-06 at Hong Kong,China
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The Deaf Dumb and Blind Kid
I added myself to the picture with eyes that
cannot see and mouth that cannot speak. That
is what I used to be like! This picture is
composed of 10,000 banknotes, composing
another ironic artistic statement about the
late Chairman Mao.
Posted 2011-08-29 at Hong Kong,China
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Latricia says: Hey, that's powerful. Thanks for the news.
Posted Sunday 4th of September 2011 07:49:38 PM
Pillar of Shame
Monument to the dead of the Tiananmen massacre
of June 4th, 1989, outside the students union at Hong Kong University. I heard that this would be moved to another
site recently, to make way for the
building of the west island Mass Transit
railway, but as of last month it was still unmoved. It remains a powerful monument to the unjustly dead, their families, and their dreams of a fairer world
Posted 2010-06-04 at Hong Kong University,China
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Counterfeit paradise
A large market specialising in counterfeit
clothes, bags and watches can be found in the
basement of Science and Technology Metro
station. There was a lot of publicity about the closure of the previous market in another street, which supported the notion that the Shanghai government was getting serious about cracking down on counterfeiting. But it's alive and thriving underground; you can see it as soon as you pass through the ticket barriers.
Posted 2011-08-26 at Shanghai,China
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Nurse Thompson
As a young woman,Isobel Thompson worked as
Volunteer nurse along side Norman Bethune in
north west China during the closing stages of the
civil war in China between 1947 and 1949.She is
now retired in New Zealand and her memoirs
have been translated into Chinese. Unfortunately although she shares a surname with me she's not a close relative. Otherwise perhaps I could claim to be from a family of old friends of China, and belong to that small category of foreigners who are genuinely welcome
Posted 1947-02-01 at Shanghai,China
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Yen and Yuan
With out the Japanese invasion, the CPC would
not have come to power, said Mao Zedong on
several occasions
Posted 2011-08-26 at Shanghai,China
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The Road to 1911
An exhibition of photos relating to the end of
the Empire 100 years ago is being shown at
Hong Kong University
Posted 2011-08-26 at Hong Kong,China
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HKU 110th anniversary marred by political repression
Heavy handed policing during the visit of Li
Keqiang on August 18th led to claims that
freedom of speech at Hong Kong University was
dead. Students were prevented from going anywhere near Li, and reporters were prevented from filming this. Even so, a government spokesman claimed that it was completely rubbish that Hong Kong people's rights had been infringed
Posted 2011-08-26 at Hong Kong, China
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Worst Hotel in Shanghai
Appallingly bad service used to be universal in China, but I've almost forgotten what it was like until I stayed at this hotel.Hoping to get an early flight, I stayed in this hotel 10 minutes drive from Pudong airport. It had a curtain-less window painted blue which gave the impression of dawn, so that I woke at 4:40 AM.
The toilet was smelly, the hot water took ages to come on, there was no information in the room about the Wi-Fi password all the reception telephone number and the shuttle bus to the airport left at 7 AM, the same time as breakfast was served.
I decided to complain but the manager was absent so I left this note in the visitors book.
In future I will remember to stay in one of the business chain hotels which are reliable and avoid imitations like this one
The window was painted blue which made me think that dawn had arrived in possibly the worst hotel near Pudong International airport.
Posted 2011-08-23 at Shanghai,China
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Shanghai library
I was pleasantly surprised by Shanghai library. The big open space in the middle reminded me of Hong Kong Central library. There were plenty of foreign newspapers to read, although they seem to be rather out of date. They even had the China quarterly!
Posted 2011-08-23 at Shanghai,China
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Propaganda Poster
Enthusiastically celebrate 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Long live the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China!
Posted 2011-08-23 at Shanghai,China
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Pudong from the sky
I took this photograph shortly after taking off from Pudong International airport late in the afternoon
Posted 2011-08-23 at Shanghai,China
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The Fat Years
An English translation of the popular banned book Shengshi (盛世) by Chen Guanzhong (é™ˆå† ä¸) has now been published with support from English Pen and financial help from Bloomberg. Reviewing it in the Guardian, Jonathan Fenby calls it "a dystopian portrait of the world's most deceitful superpower" Posted 2011-08-23 at Hong Kong, China
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Death by China
The hysterical tone and US-centric perspective put me off what could other wise be an interesting book
Posted 2011-08-23 at Hong Kong, China
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Coffee and propaganda
A short propaganda video was repeated every
few minutes on this copy machine in Pudong
airport to celebrate the 90th anniversary of
the Communist Party. In the picture, Mao and
early party members
Posted 2011-08-23 at Shanghai,China
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Japanese Tea Flavoured Kit Kat biscuits
To me, few things are more English than a cup of tea accompanied by a chocolate Kit Kat biscuit after a game of football on a rainy day, but in fact this is fusion food par excellence. Tea in Britain is usually drunk with milk and sometimes sugar in mugs more often than cups. The British prefer black tea to the green tea grown in Fujian province of China from where the word tea originates and where the best Chinese tea is grown.
Kit Kat is made by Swiss company Nestle which pays almost no UK tax.
Today I found a Japanese-style Kit-Kat for sale in Tokyo; it is green tea flavoured and green in colour.
The Japanese are known for studying and perfecting many Chinese customs, including the tea ceremony. I wonder whether they need any lessons in British tea drinking culture?Posted 2011-08-23 at Tokyo, Japan
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