March 14 is White Day (White Valentine’s Day), originated in Japan and now is also observed in South Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China. It is an extension of the February 14 Valentine’s day. In Japan, February 14 Valentine’s Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts, usually to a male as an expression of love, courtesy or social obligation. On White Day, the converse happens: male who received a honmei-choco (chocolate of love) on Valentine’s day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts back to the girl they love, usually more expensive. However, this tradition seems to be reversed in China, on February 14 boys suppose to give girls presents, usually roses or chocolate, and on White Valentine’s day, it is the girls’ turn to give the boys of their choosing presents.

» » » » Continue reading ‘White Day, write a three line love letter’

Hello everyone, as the Lantern Festival also called Yuanxiao Festival on the 15^th lunar day of the first month (2/28/2010) officially marks the last day of the 2010 Spring Festival in China, I am also back from my traveling in China. Just like millions of people in China reluctantly going back to work from their long Spring Festival vacation this Monday, I too made my way to the office feeling a bit jet lagged and resumed my work.

Special thanks to Randy – AlleyCat and Matt Sawtell for submitting guest posts during the month of February, rewards for your work will be sent out shortly as I promised. Also many thanks to ChinaHush contributors: CC, Annie and Nancy for writing blog posts during the Spring Festival Holiday season covering my absence.

The following are some snap shots I took in Shanghai during this trip I would like to share with you all!

» » » » Continue reading ‘Snapshots of Shanghai’

From Unicornblog:

There are generally two categories in Chinese ancient paintings methodologically, one is hand-drawn Chinese paintings that are mounted into scrolls, the other is New Year paintings and engraved paintings that adopt block printing.

» » » » Continue reading ‘A glimpse at Chinese New Year paintings’

From xinhuanet:

Two Beijing guys spent 3 and a half months hitch-hiking over 16,000 km across 13 countries to see one of the guy’s girl friend in Berlin, Germany. Altogether they took 88 hitch rides, including tricycle, tractor and carriage. Their journey was dubbed “the most romantic hitch-hike in history” by netizens.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Beijing guys hitch-hike all the way to visit one’s girlfriend in Berlin’

This short article (from Tianya) was written by a student from the countryside. It has no statistics, nor is it necessarily anthropological, but it is an honest testimony from personal experience, which in my opinion, is sometimes more valuable than quasi-objective statistical conclusions.

It starts out:

I, myself, am a person from the countryside。 I’m not writing this to be discriminatory, I just hope it leads to reflection, and maybe to finding the source of the problem.

» » » » Continue reading ‘How come girls from the countryside are more open about sex?’

From Netease:

Today is lunar Jan. 5^th (Feb. 18), the birthday of Cai Shen Ye (财神爷), Chinese god of wealth. 550,000 people rushed to Guiyuan Temple before dawn to burn incense as a way to welcome Cai Shen Ye, as well as to pray for blessings for the year of Tiger.

In fact, many people from in and out of Wuhan City started to queue up in front of Guiyuan Temple from 7 p.m. last night, waiting to serve Cai Shen Ye. Roads leading to the temple were filled up around midnight as the number of tourists reached its pinnacle.

» » » » Continue reading ‘550,000 people squeezed into temple to burn incense on Cai Shen Ye’s birthday’

This is a slightly older post on Mop (from October 2009) but it has gotten over 20,000 comments (and a lot of support) and somehow it has reached the top of the charts again. It seems to reflect a lot of the mainstream sentiment of how to be a 爷们. I guess it would translate to something like “manly man,” or “real man,” but it should be interpreted in a Chinese context. Personally, I see it as a modern and trendy way to say “男子汉," which is why I put a picture of Lei Feng (雷锋) up above. I am somewhat of a feminist, and I don’t really agree with categorical prescriptions like this, but this is still very interesting to me from an anthropological perspective. There are some things that seem to be something only a Chinese person would say, but some things that seem like they might apply to everyone. I’d be interested to see what you would add to the list, or what you take away from the list.

» » » » Continue reading ‘How to be a real man, according to some Chinese guy’

The following is a guest post by Randy – AlleyCat

The Shanghai Forever Co., Ltd was founded in 1940, and has established a world wide reputation for producing the Forever brand traditional bicycle. It is a State-run company, and has made significant contributions to Shanghai’s rolling populace of over 10 million bikes.

Giant Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (捷安特) is a big name in the word of cycling. It bills itself as the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer. Giant has manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, Netherlands and mainland China.

As the Chinese fall in love with cars, and westerners fall out of love with them – China is once again a winner. According to the Earth Policy Institute (a Washington-based environmental think tank) of the 130 million bikes manufactured worldwide last year, China made 90 million, and exported two-thirds of them. About nine out of ten bikes bought by Americans are made in China…

» » » » Continue reading ‘Giants are Forever’

From Time Weekly:

78-year old Su Huawen sat quietly on the side of his bed, wearing a blue Chinese tunic with worn out sleeves he’s been wearing for the last 30 years, and black-rimmed presbyopia lenses. Lying on the bed was his 66-year-old wife who was suffering from brain shrinkage and cerebral arteriosclerosis, covered in thin but stiff cotton quilt.

“He has so little money that he has to make his quilt cover with clothes from a used banner,” said Su Guotong, one of Su Huawen’s students.

Like many other citizen-managed teachers, Su Huawen is a teacher in rural citizen-managed schools and he does not receive the normal remuneration from the government. He’s been teaching in Shanwei Village Primary School for half a century and has educated numerous students. He could have retired as an honorable teacher and lived well for the rest of his life had it not been for the document issued in 2000 by government of Leizhou City, which fired all the citizen-managed teachers overnight, canceling out all their work they’ve done. He lost his source of income, plus the wife’s brain illness, the old couple has sunk deep into poverty.

» » » » Continue reading ‘After 10 years, 78-year-old teacher still not getting payments from government’

From Tianya:

The annual Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) travel season officially began on January 30. According to the information disclosed by the Ministry of Railways 2010 Spring Festival travel season is from January 30 to March 10, about 40 days, 15 days before the New Year, and 25 days after the New Year. According to an authoritative forecast, Spring Festival travel season this year expects 2.5 billion passengers.

» » » » Continue reading ‘“Desire to go home, difficult to get a ticket”, Chinese Spring Festival travel season’

21 year-old-girl Xiaoqing just ended a 1 year relationship with her boyfriend not long ago. The reason was her boyfriend’s strange obsession over American movie star Jessica Alba. She could not take the fact he always dressed her up as Jessica Alba. After the break up, Xiaoqing was in so much pain that she decided to have cosmetic surgery to look like Jessica Alba to win her boyfriend back.

Because of her tight budget, Xiaoqing did not have enough money to have the make-over, so she posted a post online(on Tianya) “Cash reward offer, who can give me the make-over to have the most beautiful face in the world.” She also posted her picture, and hoped using the power of Internet to attract more attentions, and to attract cosmetic surgeons’ attentions. On the Internet, some people gave her advice, some people supported her, some people insulted her, some people questioned her, Xiaoqing’s life has changed.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese girl getting cosmetic surgery to look like Jessica Alba to win her boyfriend back’

From Southern Weekend:

After the Haiti earthquake happened for couple of days, Huang Keqiang’s (黄克锵) cell phone and QQ was vibrating nonstop, messages coming from his hometown Fujian surged at him. After Heidi’s earthquake, the president of China Lin Zexu Foundation (中国林则徐基金会) who is now the permanent resident of New York City immediately released all of his contact information online. January 16, the fourth day after the earthquake struck, he gathered over hundreds of the missing fellow villagers’ names, these people from Fujian attempted to cross the border illegally from Haiti to the United Sates were missing because of the quake.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Illegal immigrants: the most helpless Chinese people in Haiti earthquake’

I saw these pictures on the Ifeng BBS. In Shaoxin Qiaohe, a couple got engaged and the future groom took out 988,888 RMB (150,000 USD) engagement money for the bride’s family, a 200,000 RMB (30,000 USD) engagement ring and a 100,000 RMB (15,000 USD) golden necklace.

This is really nothing rare or new in China, and there are certainly way more extravagant engagements or weddings in China, but it is still pretty impressive among the common folks in China or else it would not have ended up on the BBS.  People say marriage is a business, it is especially true in China, at least it is always more typical and elaborate.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Get engaged in a bed of cash in China’

From Xinhua:

“Genius comes from hard work
Tobacco helps you to be successful”

After the Wenchuan earthquake last year, Sichuan disaster area has established a “Sichuan Tobacco Hope Elementary School”, not only the “China Tobacco” name and logo was clearly printed on the top of the school building, the stone monument in the center of the school writes “Determine to contribute to society, Tobacco helps you to be successful”. According to statistics, there are at least 17 Hope elementary schools that are named after Tobacco industry. (Wuhan evening news, 12/14/2009)

Chinese folklore says “Smoke makes writing and wine makes poetry”, but the tobacco company directly shuts out “Tobacco helps you to be successful” in a school. They want to tell the students, come, tobacco can help you to be successful and hope the students to remember, it is tobacco that helped you grow, so please repay us later. The tobacco company which is already the public enemy on TV and newspapers, all of sudden turns into Santa Claus giving presents away, opening a mouthful of yellow teeth, I am ugly, but I am your savior.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Elementary schools named after tobacco industry in China’

One Mopper posted a thread on MOP calling all netizens to say farewell to Google by posting a collection of Google doodles. He wishes everyone by posting these pictures and by leaving messages on this post to say “take care” and “safe journey” to this friend just before parting.

How appropriate to start with this doodle:
“How happy we are. To have friends come from afar!”- Confucius

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese netizens say goodbye to Google with Google doodles’