Ranking up there with a murder of crows, a pride of lions, and an exaltation of larks, the hard-hitting Shanghai Daily brings us the news that the correct term for a group of bizarre-looking 2010 Shanghai World Expo mascots is a brace of HaibaoBrought to you by Shanghaiist, which correctly points out that this collective noun will not often be used ( Read more... )

It was expressed once, at a party I was at, that expats should mark years not by how long it's been since they were born, but rather how long since they moved to China. (Or wherever ( Read more... )

After those protests in Paris, the fury of the Chinese blogosphere appears to have been turned full force on the government and citizens of the French Republic. There've been a good number of calls for a boycott of Carrefour, the gigantic France-based supermarket chain that's all over China (and, not incidentally, employs quite a lot of Chinese ( Read more... )

On the one hand, given the presentation I need to give today, I'm rather grateful that my Chinese-English dictionary includes the words for "aircraft carrier" and "minesweeper". (If you're curious, it's 航空母舰 hang2kong1mu3jian3 and 扫雷舰 sao3lei2jian4), respectively.) But I also feel like I should be slightly worried these were included ( Read more... )

Google (and therefore Gmail) doesn't seem to be working right now here. I'm assuming this is just a random server thing and not more government interference, because if it's the latter, Heads Will Roll. Grrr. Odds are I can check around to make sure it's just my computer, but I'm feeling kinda lazy. I'll just check later to see if it's working then ( Read more... )

I have no idea why. But for the moment, I'm just thankful.

Those of you who've never lived in a country like this may not understand my euphoria. But for me, this is awesome.

(...and even that's open to debateI was listening to "Next" just now, and the thing I couldn't stop thinking was, wow, this is about China. I'm sure this isn't groundbreaking at all, but in some ways I feel like the theme of the song - reckless urge toward progress at any cost - actually fits reform-era China even better than post-Meiji Japan ( Read more... )

I have managed to acquire knockoff baking soda. It's a familiar-looking orange box with a picture of a hammer and the brandname "HAMMER NOODLES" written proudly below it. The company claims to date back to 1938. I don't believe it ( Read more... )

This is a bit old by now, but it strikes me that the news probably didn't get far outside of China, so I figured I'd link to it.

It ain't only people mad at the Chinese government who use the Olympics as a staging ground for protests. Sometimes, it can get a lot more personalDamn, I want to shake that woman's hand. And the hand of the person who ( Read more... )

My apartment lobby is filled with Christmas decorations. I am confused (and rather amused) - I wonder if it's for all the Koreans living here? At least there's no Christmas muzak, though I can get that if I go to any of the nearby supermarkets ( Read more... )