a shameful waste of madhouse time

ponderings of a pococurante

a shameful waste of madhouse time header image 4

What is going to be said about the life and death of Hua Guofeng?

August 21st, 2008 · No Comments

Hua died on August 20, and as you can expect w/ someone of his particular stature and role in history, obituaries are going to be terse at best:
On Baidu news, the Olympics coverage dominated most of the top of the web page, and you had to scroll down slightly to get to a few sparse [...]

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Tags: China

China: Not your typical “Party School” or the use and abuse of ideology

August 15th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Blogger and author Chen Xingzhi on Bokee talks about his experiences at the Chinese Communist Party School, where they study Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Deng, and Jiang Zemin. He is, of course, a Party Member and no doubt in some kind of leadership position. He spent four months as in the Party School, attending [...]

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BBC Chinese on the “harmoniousness” of the Olympics

August 12th, 2008 · No Comments

BBC 中文网 | 中国报道 | 奥运外围:当“和谐”被重复千遍 via kwout

BBC Chinese journalist Meng Ke tells it like it is in the above article. He roasts some of the sacred cows of Olympics propaganda, like the “100 years dream of the Chinese people” (he says: did Chinese people really care about having the Olympics way back in 1908?)as [...]

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China now becoming an infrastructure builder around the world?

August 9th, 2008 · 1 Comment

I was just reading this article from Ha’aretz about some of China’s major infrastructure projects in Israel, including the Carmel Tunnel. Interesting stuff, for example, a partial list of some of China’s more recent and more prominent projects:

“China’s presence in Israel as an infrastructure builder is new,” says Samuels. “In the past, China used to [...]

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Sex and the Party: Is China ready for a nude island?

July 26th, 2008 · No Comments

The sexologist Pan Hai has called for one of the idyllic islands off Zhuhai–Miao Wan Island–to be turned into a nude island. The blog post, written on July 15, is titled 中国应有裸泳海滩 (China ought to have a nude beach) and lays out some of Pan’s reasons he believes it’s about time for China’s own nude [...]

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Tags: China · Shanghai

Hu Jintao loves Photoshop

July 24th, 2008 · No Comments

H/t to Matt for showing me the link. Twin brothers, both devoted to the Party. Even whitey’s got to smile at that.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fpeijinchen.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F07%2F24%2Fhu-jintao-loves-photoshop%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Hu+Jintao+loves+Photoshop’;
addthis_pub = ”;

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Tags: China

Notice to Chinese petitioners: if you fight the law, the law will win.

July 20th, 2008 · No Comments

徐贲:善待底层民情_网易新闻中心 via kwout

These two pictures, from Hunan province, have been making the rounds on the internet because of what it says on the banners: the first one says “谁不依法信访就打击谁” which means “whoever unlawfully petitions the government will be attacked” while the second one says “违法上访,坐牢罚款”, which means “illegal petitions will be result in jail sentences [...]

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Tags: China

The troubles in Weng’an and Jiang Jie He village: gangs, dams, mines, gambling, death

July 14th, 2008 · No Comments

I was reading Southern Weekend’s investigation into the Weng’an region: the common wisdom now is that the problems didn’t begin or end with the June 28 incident, but that the latter was merely what happened when long simmering problems reached the boiling point. This report about a place called Jiang Jie He Village (瓮安县龙塘乡江界河村), where [...]

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Tags: China · violence

Only in China do you do autopsies in front of the house of the deceased…

July 6th, 2008 · No Comments

Li Shufen, the girl whose mysterious and contested death was the cause of the Weng’an incident of June 28, has had yet another autopsy performed on her corpse, this time in front of her house where naturally, as is the case in China, it became a spectator event with people from around the village coming [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Three elderly Hainan residents protest government use of land

July 6th, 2008 · No Comments

What’s interesting about this is that their land was taken and used for a police sub-station (pai chu suo), but that was not something recent, but rather happened way back in 1974. They felt they were shafted then, and kept apply for some kind of hearing on the matter of this land but to no [...]

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Tags: China