German man killed in hijacked Beijing taxi

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At around 05:00 this morning, police found a 21-year-old German man dead in a Beijing taxi. The car had hit a tree beside Beijing’s East Fourth Ring Road, between Siyuan Bridge and Xiaoyun Bridge. A woman lay injured on the backseat.

Approximately one hour after police discovered the vehicle, the taxi’s driver appeared on the scene, claiming that the foreign man had stolen the car.

According to the driver, the woman hailed the taxi near Lido Hotel at around 04:00, asking to be taken to Baiziwan. Before the driver set off, a man suddenly began banging on the car door. After dragging the driver out of the car, the man drove off with the woman in the backseat.

“I had no idea what was going on,” said the driver.

The woman is currently recovering in a Beijing hospital, and according to doctors, is not in a critical state.

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Because the incident took place in a remote area, there were no witnesses. Police are investigating the matter.

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The above is based on an article today’s Beijing News that I found reposted online:

http://fzwb.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=57544885 (Chinese).

Social media in China - Sina Twitter & Douban

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Due to the "technical difficulties" of living in China, The Peking Order has not been updated for quite some time. Apologies for that, it should be OK for a while now.

In the meantime, a combination of boredom, frustration and professional interest has driven me to Chinese social media equivalents of foreign sites that are inaccessible within China. The two that I have found most interesting so far are Sina Twitter and Douban.

1. Sina Twitter (Chinese: 新浪微博; Xīnlàng wēibó)

Following a purge of Chinese "Twitter clones" that took place earlier this year, Chinese internet giant Sina has recently brought out its very own micro-blogging service, Sina Twitter.

Although no official English name is clearly displayed on the site itself, in the official bilingual email that invites users to the site, the site is referred to as "Sina Twitter". The Chinese name translates directly as "Sina Microblog" (Perhaps Biz Stone et al. would be happier with that translation?!).

Sina's Twitter is very similar Twitter's Twitter. Apart from the fact that you don't need a VPN to access it in China and that functions have been given Chinese names, there are a few notable differences.

At the moment, there seems to be no desktop app like Tweetdeck or Twhirl that can be used with Sina Twitter. "Tweets" must be made either at the website or via text message, which is free of charge for China Mobile and China Unicom users.

The other main difference I have noticed is the amount of celebrities that already use this site. Most famous users are film or pop stars, but currently with the most number of followers (51,193 at the time of writing) is Lee Kai-fu, the former head of Google China.

Identical to Twitter, each post must be no longer than 140 characters. However, since a single Chinese character can represent entire words or concepts, a single tweet can convey far more than an English-language Twitter post.

For more detail, read Steven Milward's report on CNet.

To keep up-to-date on what I am doing, follow my very own Sina Twitter feed at http://t.sina.com.cn/angryeditor.

Please note: Still in the beta phase, Sina Twitter can only be used on an invite-only basis. For an invite, please let me know in the comments below.


2. Douban.com (Chinese: 豆瓣; Dòubàn)

Established in 2005, Douban is social network that, in some ways, is identical to Facebook: Users maintain a profile with basic information, add friends and post messages on the profile pages of other users.

Douban distinguishes itself from Facebook by focusing more on users' interests, with discussion groups and fan pages of bands, brand names and celebrities etc. On their personal pages, users can list books they have read, the music they have listened to and the films they have watched. Based on these interactions, people add can friends based on common interests. Unlike Facebook, therefore, a large amount of a user's friends are often people that they do not necessarily have a "real-world" relationship with.

According to an article on Danwei.org, which includes an interview with the founder, the website has dominated the online cultural scene for the last four years."

And according to a Chinese friend, Douban is predominantly used by 文青. She describes this group as "hipsters", or "young people interested in cultural phenomena". I would go for something like "young, educated, artsy types".

My Douban profile can be found at: http://www.douban.com/people/11610289/.

When I have time, I may write more about these Chinese sites. To be updated, please subscribe to The Peking Order RSS Feed (see sidebar).

"To the foreigners" - A notice from the local police

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The following appeared outside my door earlier this evening:

To the foreigners:

October 1st, 2009 is the 60th anniversary of founding the People's Republic of China, Celebrations and Eve Gala Evenings will be held accordingly. The close down and cordon off area will include the area that you live in curtain period. For the smooth going of your daily life, we take pleasure in announcing the following issues:

1. Please reduce your going out as possibly as you can. While having to go out, please definitely take your passport and the temporary accommodation register form.
2. You had better refuse the visitors who possibly cannot arrive at your abode.
3. Please save certain of living necessity, then the peripheral store won't can provide convenience.
4. Please obey the policeman's direction and control. Your co-operations are most appreciated.
5. Please pay attention to the government's announcement about traffic control, and work well your route of travel arrangement in advance.

Dong Cheng District Public Security Bureau wish you having a happy life in our magistracy!

Dong Cheng District Public Security Bureau
September 4, 2009

Vintage Beij 3: Chinese girls for US soldiers

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By popular demand, more of the Pocket Guide to China - a introduction to China for US soldiers in 1943.

An edited version of the Guide, which has had the lovable wartime racism of my earlier post removed, can be read here at the Internet Archive.

Perhaps the highlight for me was the booklet's timeless advice on Chinese girls:

THE modern Chinese girl, in her long, closely fitting gown, her bare arms and short hair, is often very pretty. Yet it is well to remember that in China the attitude toward women is different from ours in America. Chinese women in some ways are more free than they are here in America — that is, they do some things which American women don't yet do. They are in the Army, they fight side by side with the guerrillas. But in their relations with men they haven't the same freedom as women have in America.
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There are Chinese girls in cabarets and places of amusement who may be used to free and easy ways. But the average Chinese girl will be insulted If you touch her, or will take you more seriously than you probably want to be taken. A mistake in this may cause a lot of trouble.

Bald Grass Mud Horses - 草泥光头马

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The grass mud horse - cao ni ma (草泥马) - is a popular Chinese Internet phrase used as symbolic defiance of Internet censorship in China. The Chinese words for "grass mud horse" sound very similar to the common profanity 肏你妈. which translates as "fuck your mother".

Videos, cartoons and merchandise of this mythical animal, which resembles the alpaca, have been widely circulating online since early last year. However, it was only recently that I received these photographs of my family farm's very own grass mud horses looking quite unlike the bushy creatures that attempt to subjugate the Chinese government's attempts at control.
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Since the grass mud horse, or cao ni ma, is used as defiance of censorship in China, I wonder if there is any different hidden agenda of Brickfield Farm's very own Bald Grass Mud Horses, or cao ni guangtou ma (草泥光头马)?

On the Webb: How to spot a jap

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How does one "tell the difference between the Japs and our oriental allies?"

Well, I had no idea before I read the handy Pocket Guide to China - a 72-page booklet distributed to US soldiers during their stay in China during World War Two [Click images to enlarge]:

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Read a recent post on the Institute of East Asiatic Venomology for Chinese translations.

Chocolate girl – racism and reality TV in China

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Meet Lou Jing (娄婧), a mixed-race Chinese girl who is tormented in the following clip by presenters of the show Let’s Go! Oriental Angels (加油！东方天使). The contest, in which Lou Jing got to the final rounds of the Shanghai heat, has been running throughout August on Dragon TV. For those that need don't know Chinese, or who can't see the clip, a rough translation follows.

The patronising female presenter begins by asking: “Lou Jing, so you’re mixed race, how come your Chinese is so good?”

This is not the first time Lou Jing has been asked this irritating question. Un-phased, she replies: “My mum is Shanghainese, and I grew up in Shanghai.”

The questioning continues, “And your father is…”

Amid nervous laughter, Lou Jing slips in that her father is American.

However, presenter number two doesn’t let her get off the hook that easily. “Right up until Lou Jing was 16, she thought her father was Shanghainese… Ro

ll the clip!”

Next, cue the harrowing music. “20-year-old Lou Jing was born into a single-parent family. Her father was a black man of American nationality, who didn’t know he had made Lou Jing’s mother pregnant... He left Lou Jing’s mother and returned to the US... Lou Jing’s mother had no choice but to raise her daughter alone…”

Following what is edited as a horrific news item, two presenters go on to ask her whether she ever wanted to know more about her father. After all sorts of nonsense, the presenters really manage to bring on the waterworks by suggesting that “Daddy could be in some corner of the world listening to you now...”

Personally, I would have been upset enough about the way the show was put together. However, for Lou Jing, who became lovingly (?) refered to as “chocolate girl,” and her mother, things were about to get a lot worse as Chinese netizens sunk their teeth in.

Most of the attacks are aimed at the mother, who according to one netizen is a “whore” for messing around with a black guy. China Hush, where I originally found this story, has translated number of comments and opinion (read commentary translations here).

This is a touching story. One that might have been touching enough to constitute the first half of a Disney movie plot, if only her voice had been a bit easier to listen to. If you can bear it, listen below to more of chocolate girl.

On the Webb: Tatt’s China for ya!

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An recent article in The Sun about some “fishy” goings on in China reveals that lasers are being used to “etch images on the scales of parrot fish.”

Have I got tattoos for you!

The report implies that this is a new “craze,” claiming that this bizarre practice began recently in the Chinese city of Chengdu. 

However, at least a couple of The Peking Order readers will disagree; some friends and I once saw these interesting “characters” in markets in the southern province of Yunnan, as far back as 2006. 

While this report will come as no surprise to my travelling companions, The Sun goes some way towards explaining how those characters came to be on the fish, a question that has been troubling my friends and I for years. According to the article, “Fish are placed in special tattooing machines and emerge the other end with images permanently engraved on their skin.”

The report quotes a pet shop owner as saying that "The machine is quite choosy about which fish it can cope with. Most of the fish tattooed are parrot fish, since they have a high survival rate."

Sick as a parrot fish? 

The article goes on to quote a marine expert who condemns the practise, saying: "It is cruel and unnatural. For every one that survives, there are dozens that die in laser accidents." 

On the Webb: Debunking the MSG myth

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In an article on the Guardian website yesterday, Jeremy Goldkorn states what I suspected all along: MSG is nothing to worry about.

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The story is based on various articles and academic studies, which all agree that the food additive MSG (monosodium glutamate) in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming majority of people.

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The article also mentions a couple of things I did not know:

• “Chefs who don't use glutamate crystals use soy sauce in most recipes, and soy sauce tastes good precisely because it's chock full of glutamates.”
  
• One quoted article featured a random test where an “MSG complainer” was secretely fed a meal full of the additive. He did not complain, because he did not know he was eating it.
  
• Parmasan, Marmite and seaweed is also packed full of glutamates.

I never believed "MSG complainers" - not one of them had ever told me exactly what the stuff is, what it does to you, or even what it tastes like.