Beipiao: 北漂, Literally “Beijing vagabond”, referring to the group of people who do not have a Beijing hukou (permanent residence), who migrated to Beijing from other places of China seeking opportunities and better life. Beipiao is also a life style of being a drifter in Beijing.

(MOP) My mother came, stood at the exit of the Beijing train station, waving at me. I took her bag, my father followed in silence. I took them to eat Peking duck, my mother said, “Ay, going to get fat again.” I frowned in anger and said, “You can eat less then.” She picked up the chopsticks and said, “You should have said I am not fat.” Afterwards, she stood in the street of Beijing, looking at me cautiously, and asked, “Where are you taking us?”

» » » » Continue reading ‘Beijing vagabond, do you wish your parents to visit you?’

The phenomena of university students being mistresses of wealth men has become a growing social issue in China. Chongqing Normal University and Southwest Normal University are the first two Universities which started to include “being an escort (三陪 sex workers), a mistress (二奶 Ernai) and having one-night stands” into the school rules. Student with such bad behaviors are subject to expulsion. And South China Normal University also listed “messing around with opposite sex and having special relations with a married person (homewrecking)” into the new school rules as punishable behaviors.

(QQ) Recently the “Chongqing Normal University Student Disciplinary Process Management Regulations” is to be implemented in the school. One of the rules was “student who is found to be working as an escort; or is a mistress, male mistress, or having ‘one-night stands’ will to be expelled” which caused uproar among the students.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Being a mistress, having one-night stand, is to be expelled from universities’

The following article published by Liberation Army Daily was made popular recently with hundreds thousands of comments pouring in.

(From Netease and other major Chinese media) Liberation Army Daily reported on August 13, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense made an announcement at a press conference recently, that the United States would send “George Washington” aircraft carrier to the Korean West Sea (Yellow Sea) in a series of joint military exercises. This was a 180 degree turn comparing with the Pentagon’s official position in mid-July.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Liberation Army Daily criticizes U.S. provoking China’s dignity’

Did someone say the Chinese didn’t like cheese? A recent article in the Global Times features Beijing native Liu Yang who hopes this isn’t true. While Liu isn’t the only cheese maker in Beijing, news agencies have been swarming his story, a tale that begins with an average computer science career and ends amid smelly cheese vats.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese people don’t like cheese?’

The following content is translated from an article in New Weekly, a Guangdong based magazine.

Chinese are always in a hurry. They love pressing “forward”, crazy clicking “reload”. To comment, they rush for the “couch” seat; to send package, they go with express delivery; taking a photo, they want it to be ready while waiting; to travel, highway and high-speed railway or high-speed magnetic levitation will be perfect; starting a business, they want to get rich overnight; getting married, there should be house and car first; when lining up, jumping the queue sounds necessary, otherwise they wonder to themselves: why is the other team always faster than mine?

Chinese who used to have no sense of time, have become the most hurried and impatient ethnic in the world – ten thousand years is too long, let’s fight for day and night.

Chinese hate waiting, but there are desires unsatisfied so they have to wait, they are restless with a quiet conscience.

But what has all the rushing brought to us? We are actually having more disasters and accidents, lower efficiency and worse results. We are wearing ourselves out more quickly in this hurried country. When we do come to realize the philosophy of fast and slow, lose and tight, give and get, success and failure, maybe everything’s too late already.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China the rushing country, why can’t we slow down?’

In the traffic congested city streets, an advertiser was busy handing out flyers for the newly constructed condos. “Beautiful homes, starting at 29,800 yuan per square meters”, one flyer ended up in the hands of a cab driver who was waiting in traffic. He looked at the flyer and thought “It takes 125 years in order to buy this home”. That made his nose bleed.

A young man got into the cab and picked up the flyer on his way to work. Up in the elevator, punched his time card at exactly 9 am, he rushed into his cubical to start his day of work. Then he read the flyer and thought “It takes 87 years to buy this home.” Foaming at the mouth, he threw the ad into the trashcan.

» » » » Continue reading ‘How long does it take you to buy this home?’

Recently, Chinese netizens organized the anti-“Super Junior” and their fans movement (the 69 Jihad), and then Chinese Internet users’ feeling of resentment towards (Hahanzu) “Korean Wave” have fermented, the situation gradually developed into anti-Korean sentiment. After we talked about the “69 Jihad” and the recent “Simida Zongzi gate”, many readers strongly reacted to these incidents. This article on Netease is in line with some of the readers’ views: In fact, since the new century almost all anti-Korean sentiments are exclusively based on the spreading rumors. And why do these obvious rumors have such a large market and making Chinese people to keep dwelling on them?

» » » » Continue reading ‘National sentiment controlled by rumors’

China’s Internet Video landscape is growing in a fast pace as the major video sharing sites like Youku and Tudou becoming popular in Chinese people’s daily digital lives. These sites are not only served as user based video sharing networks, unlike Youtube, large number of the Chinese people actually watch their favorite TV show and movies on these sites. Issues of copyrights aside, the Hulu-like business model actually opened up a lucrative market for the Chinese companies. At the same time business opportunities were also created for individuals or small groups who are interested in internet media. The idea of “webisode” started in the western world, a new trend which provides opportunities for individuals or small groups to create media content that can potentially become popular. As we observe, user generated content / webisodes is the latest growing trend on the China’s Internet media market. Let’s see some examples.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Growing trend of China’s Internet video landscape’

News flashback:

On May 17, 2010 CCTV news reported that Chinese government shuts down a famous Internet forum – “Moonlight Forum”, because this website carried sensitive military information in China such as locations of airfield, navy bases and barracks of Hong Kong PLA battalion that posed as a threat to China’s state national security.

In the news translated by ESWN:

The Moonlight Forum is a community website frequented by military aficionados.  They have sections such as "China’s nuclear test sites," "Chinese military airfields," "military camps around Beijing," "the catalog of Chinese military equipment" and so on.  Compared to other military websites, the Moonlight Forum links directly to a certain overseas geographical mapping search engine.  Thus, users can go through the client software and freely browse the high-resolution satellite photo maps all over the world.  Users can also annotate the geographical locations of various military locations on maps.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China regulates Online Map Services to address national security breach, will Google Earth comply?’

From Zhangshuyue’s blog:

The inside information of Facebook to enter China came in mid-April 2010, said that the earliest will be within three months. Then followed by a Chinese headhunter company said that Facebook already commissioned them to recruit the relevant General Manager in China, mainly in charge of the gaming business. On the surface, according to various sources Facebook is really going to enter China. These speculations on the king of the SNS industry created heated discussions all over the world. Netizens are especially curious about which Chinese name Facebook will use. Should it be “Lianpu” (脸谱) (types of facial makeup in Chinese operas), or slightly pictophoneic characters “Mianshu” (面熟) (first character means face, second character is a homophonic pun of the Chinese character “book” and it means familiar, together familiar face), or should it just follow what Google did phonetically translate the name to “Feisibuke” (“非死不可”) a very inauspicious term which means “must die”? But more importantly, now this temporary name seems to suggest the bleak future of Facebook entering China.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Facebook, “Must Die” (in China)’

The Global Times recently reported that 15 million teens light up in China, according to a 2008 report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Excuses that range from “It helps me relax” to “All my friends do it,” give China’s 13 to 18 year olds reasons to buy cheap cigarettes.

I personally witnessed a young kid, most likely embarking on his teenage years, pressuring his friend to smoke at a bus stop. He teasingly waved the cigarette in front of his friend’s face, while the boy desperately tried to grab at it. As the bus pulled away, I wondered about these children’s fates, as tobacco gradually blackens their developing lungs. They would severely hurt their chances of ever becoming the next Yao Ming, and they probably won’t be able to run to catch the subway without breaking into a sweat.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Smoking poses challenge to Chinese government’

by Chengdu Business News reporter:

1. May 19, under my plan, Liu Zhu went back to her hometown.

That night, I received reliable information, The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) secretly instructed Hunan Satellite TV station: Do not air any information on Liu Zhu and also do not allow any interviews with other media. Obviously Liu Zhu had been banned, almost exactly the same situation as Tang Wei previously. SARFT is only the director of Television and Radio so paper media and web media continued the coverage of Liu Zhu. For this reason, Chengdu singing district’s report of “bring back ‘Show Model’ Liu Zhu” was forced to be released early. On May 20, the newspaper,  Liu Zhu’s face was full of sunshine; he is still a young kid. Only 3 days away from the Chengdu Singing district finals.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Truth behind eliminating cross dressing “Super Boy” contestant Liu Zhu’

From Tianya: by Li Nuoyan (李诺言)

Chinese people like to kneel, this was well-known in the 19^th century. After the 21^st century New Culture Movement, the dignity-trampling kneeling culture disappeared, however after last month thousands kneeling incident in Liaoning Zhuanghe, kneeling to the government phenomenon happened in Guangdong Huazhou again. It’s just it wasn’t as spectacular as last time’s thousands kneeling, only dozens of people this time. As if the repeat kneeling phenomenon became an alternative fashion, are these people’s knees so despicable? Must rely on kneeling to win the sympathy of the world in order to satisfy themselves? I really do not now, when I heard people continued to kneel, first I was shocked, and second I am still shocked. In a country where kneeling culture spread, couple of people kneel down is nothing, but continue to kneel down like this makes us worry, is it the kneeling culture rekindled, or are people falling in love with the kneeling culture from the Spring Festival Gala?

» » » » Continue reading ‘Kneeling culture resurges in China’

Hello, everybody. It’s the second time I am in Xiamen, the air’s clean, no wonder everybody likes to walk.

Just now, when Mr. Deng mentioned something about patriotism, two lines came in my mind, not from me though, from others. The first one  is “patriotism is the last sanctuary for scumbags”, and the second one is “the real patriotism is to protect the country from any kinds of persecutions by the government”.

Today I’ve prepared for the speech, I brought a script, to restrain myself in case you guys get persecuted because of my irresponsible speech.

Here we go.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Han Han’s speech in Xiamen University: Why China cannot be a cultural power’

by Chai Jing (柴静) on her Sina blog:

Chai Jing is a CCTV journalist and TV show host. She is the currently the host of CCTV program “face to face” and “24 hrs”.

1.

As soon as I got into a taxi, the taxi driver looked at where I got in and started to chat with me, “going dancing?”

“No” I didn’t care to talk to him.

He was making conversations “You know the first disco club in Beijing was JJ, at that time I was dancing the Korean xx”

He used a very professional term, I did not understand and glanced at him – an over 30-year-old big fat man?

He understood my look, “When JJ was the hottest I was the most popular male dancer there.”

“What kind of dancing do you do?” I finally had the interest to ask questions.

“Pole dancing”

» » » » Continue reading ‘Six reasons not to buy a car in Beijing’