City Evening News reports on January 25, Changchun hospital gynaecology department took in a special patient, a 9-year-old girl who was 8 and half months pregnant. On January 27, at noon, this girl gave birth by cesarean section to a 2.75 kilogram (about 6 lbs) baby boy.

On January 25, reporter went to the gynaecology department of the hospital, most of the patients and family members were asleep; the hospital hallway was very quiet. Reporter approached the hospital staff asking for information on this girl and the staff member said please do not disturb because the girl and the family were already asleep. Reporter than asked about this girl’s personal circumstances and situation, but the staff member did not disclose anything. The reporter learned the 9-year-old girl’s name from the registration form and the registration condition was “pregnant…”

» » » » Continue reading ‘A 9 year old girl gives birth to a 6 pound baby boy’

A Shanzhai version of Google.com has just been created and launched in China, introducing www.goojje.com. It is not a joke, this website is to compete with the world’s number one search engine, it is also said to be a gesture to press Google to stay in China. The appearance of the website is almost identical to Google.com. “Google” is turned into Goojje, and in Chinese, 谷歌 became 谷姐. (姐:jie means “Sister” in Chinese.) The slogan under the logo reads “Brother’s stay is for sister, brother is still obsessed with sister.”

“哥的留下是为了姐，哥依然迷恋着姐”
Brother’s stay is for sister, brother is still obsessed with sister

» » » » Continue reading ‘Goojje.com, sister of Google?’

China still does not have any animal cruelty law or animal protection law in place.  Law makers are proposing a such law named “Anti-Animal Cruelty Law (experts suggested draft)”, currently is in motion and under review.  However the draft proposed a ban on eating cats and dogs which is conflicting with the dog eating custom and culture at certain places in China…

From online.sh.cn: (source: Yangzi evening news)

The two meetings in Beijing this year, Beijing CPPCC members, Animal Protection Law Project Team Leader, the Chief of drafting experts and the law researcher of Academy of Social Sciences Chang Jiwen (常纪文) once again proposed legislation against animal cruelty. Chang Jiwen thinks that the banning of eating cats and dogs has already been publicly recognized in many places except for Guangdong province. However considering the number of national customs and habits of eating dog meat, the proposed draft suggests various provinces and cities to determine a fixed punishment measures system, it is not a rigidly uniformed ban.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China proposes law to ban eating cats and dogs’

Jan, 21, 2010: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gives a speech on Internet freedom at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

(If you cannot see YouTube videos in China, try use VPN software : Freedur,  and use coupon code CHINAHUSH to get 10% off. )

How did Chinese government respond to this speech?

From Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China:

Q: In her speech on internet freedom on January 21, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on China’s internet policy, accusing China of restricting internet freedom. How do you comment?

» » » » Continue reading ‘A Chinese Netizen’s open letter to U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’

“The most expensive website in history” is the infamous name for the new Confucius Institute website, a name dubbed by the Chinese media and public. The Ministry of Finance recently announced the cost of the new Confucius Institutes website (here) and the new China Trade Union website. It seems to be the general consensus among the netizens that 35,200,000 RMB and 6,700,000 RMB are absolutely ridiculous amounts to be paying for a single website. A Chinese netizen, DASH, who owns a website is quoted as saying, “Any website can be made with less than 100,000 RMB.” So why are these websites costing so much? (The famous Confucius)

This is undoubtedly a case where the Chinese government has been following through on its promises of becoming more transparent, but Chinese netizens are arguing that this increase in transparency is not necessarily achieving the desired result – a decrease in corruption.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Transparency and corruption – two sides of the same coin?’

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’

Last week Han Han already mentioned about this news in his blog, The Chinese new year is here soon, people in China should be careful sending text messages, especially if you are in Shanghai, you don’t want your cell phone to stop working while sending text, and then going to the local police station to write a promise note on new years day! Here is the actual news and some netizens’ reactions.

“On what basis, you can look at my text messages?”

News from QQ:

In order to cooperate with the dedicated actions which were launched by nine ministries on penetrating and punishing obscene, pornographic and vulgar information on the internet and cell phone, China Mobile Shanghai branch currently has introduced a number of effective measures to cooperate with the public security department to block out the criminals’ “pornographic channels”.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Shanghai Mobile: cell phone sends pornographic text messages will be terminated, after being verified of course’

We just ended the Freedur VPN giveaway drawing, and the winners were announced here today. Thank you all for participating in the drawing! If you didn’t win, here is the good news, also good news for those of you in China. There is a new way for you to browse the internet freely and it is FREE! Introducing PAPER BUS a Free proxy service brought you by Open Terrace Ltd the same company that made Freedur.

PAPERBUS has just been released today! January 21, 2010

Kudos PAPER BUS! In my opinion this is by far the best free proxy service there is right now. My experiences with the free proxy services out there are usually unpleasant. They are usually very slow; and do not load AJAX or java script heavy sites. Most of them do not support HTTPS connections and the application itself is usually bloated with ads.

I am using PAPER BUS right now and it is pretty fast, easy to use and seamless. The only down side is there will be an ad web browser tab popping up in every twenty minutes while you are using it. (Although the current version on the website doesn’t even nag you with the ad page at all, I am using 1.0.3b) Hey after all it is free! One open webpage tab every 20 minutes is not so bad, that’s how they were able to make this a free service. Just make sure to close your browser or turn off PAPER BUS when you are away from your computer.

It’s simple, download it here and use it to bypass the Great Fire Wall, access blocked sites etc. etc. It’s FREE!

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’

Recently this music video named “The whole world is laughing at China being stupid” (全世界都在笑中国傻) has been circulating on the Chinese internet. Initially this music video was “officially approved” by the Chinese government, however netizens strongly reacted to the bitter sarcasm of the lyrics which associated with China’s current situation. Soon after, Sina – the first website posted this video quickly removed the video content from its page. Subsequently, most of the major Chinese video sharing sites also have removed it.

This internet song is modified from the original song “Zhong Guo Hua” (中国话: Chinese language) by S.H.E. It uses the same music with modified lyrics. Netizens called it the KUSO version of the S.H.E song.

» » » » Continue reading ‘“The whole world is laughing at China being stupid”’

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’

From Xinhuanet:

December 9, 2009, in Guangzhou, a 3-year-old boy’s dead body was found abandoned in a dry ditch on the side of Guangchong highway. The boy named Zhou Hongdu was severely infected with H1N1 virus. The news caused quite a stir when once broke out. Many media continuously tracked this matter for days; Guangzhou residents showed great concerns and raised heated discussions about the incident. It has been listed as one of the top ten health news incidents in 2009. The incident resulted in many “questions” which still had no answers to until this day, some netizens called it Guangzhou’s “number 1 mystery” in 2009. Yesterday, Guangzhou health and public security departments issued written statements of the incident investigation. Health department said, the hospital’s treatment was effective, and the discharging was in compliance with the law and regulation; however this does not mean their work is without flaws. Public security department said, “There has not been evidence for suspecting relevant parties of any crime”.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Dead body of child infected with H1N1 abandoned in a ditch’

From Han Han’s blog

Recently I read some Shanghai related news, it is very interesting to connect them together. First, Shanghai’s concrete mixer vehicles drive the city construction in the rate of crushing one person dead each day on average. If this continues, China’s pavilions will be dyed in red with insignificant people’s blood.

Secondly, Politics and Law Committee secretary in Shanghai announced that he is determined to not allow the gangsters to be established in Shanghai. To this I feel rather at ease, because everything is so expensive in Shanghai, not that many gang leaders can afford to support any of their little brothers, Shanghai has already put an end to the creation of gangs from their roots.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Han Han: I am just exploring’

From Beijing News:
by Shi Jia (石嘉)

The reason China’s reaction was so fast when after Haiti earthquake struck, is perhaps due to our painful memories of the (Wenchuan) earthquake. Disasters do not happen frequently, but difficulties happen very often. Maybe if we only land a helping hand, they would not be buried; if only we help out a little, they would not be submerged.

Haiti earthquake shook far more than just the people of Haiti. On January 14 New York Times’ report on Haiti started like this:

The Associated Press reports, Help began arriving early Thursday when an Air China plane carrying a Chinese search-and-rescue team, medics and aid landed at Port-au-Prince airport, and more than 50 people in orange jumpsuits got out accompanied by trained dogs.

This I am afraid is one of few times when international media reporting on a foreign disaster, which puts actions from China into the text, and more than once.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China cares about Haiti, because we once endured “earthquake pain”’