THE CHINA VISA BLOG

Your weekend music !

2012-02-12T01:33:00.003+08:00

lets get used to some bizarre sounds for your weekend - just enjoy.

I love that chaotic Jefferson Airplane performances. Nothing you can get close to that nowadays. Yes, nowadays all is super perfect & under control of the MEGA STUDIOS & COMPANIES. Is it better - I prefer that old rough sound & behavior !

Here final for this weekend STEVE HILLAGE with a BEATLES cover from 1977 - enjoy:

Here something very long - it is a documentary about Robert Wyatt - former SOFT MACHINE and whatever - he is paralyzed after falling out of a window many, many years ago........please look at this - it is something essential.

Something personal - photos from my trip to Germany

2012-02-12T01:08:00.002+08:00

I want to share this with you, my dear readers. It was the first time I was going home to my hometown in Germany in 8 years. Finally in Munich we enjoyed a lot of activities - but it was very cold. Food is nice like always - especially the many sorts of bread & sausages, cold cut & cheese. Many kinds of that food you still cannot find in Hong Kong & surely not in China.
Here some pictures with a short description.

The hallway of my aunt holiday farm house in the bavarian alps near the famous Chiemsee. This house is very old, but nicely renovated & preserved some of the real nice historic parts more than 300 years old. The little person there walking straight to the staircase is my son. When I was young I have spent many summers in that house and the first thing when I entered the house I was heading to the staircase - because my room was upstairs. And so did my son, when he entered the house for the first time - never being there before.

A very cold morning in Munich at 7.30 am - sunrise - photo out from the balcony of my mother appartment.

Almost same view as the picture with the sunrise - but now late afternoon & it is freezing.

Another shot from the farm house: Some small library with famous, old history books & the complete range of "Meyers Konversations Lexikon" - more than 100 years old.

A typical winter food: "Blut & Leberwurst" (Blood & Liver sausage). Just heat up in hot water. Wait 10 minutes + serve with Sauerkraut + Beer ! Delicious - this is the bavarians HOT POT !

Another shot from the farm house: One room has a 300 year old "stuck ceiling" - it is protected by law as a historical memory (or similar). Isn't it nice ? Do we also not have enough of this kind of things in Hong Kong & China better to protect and not just demolish it for the sake of growth or the sake of some property tycoons ?

Last shot now: Again from the farm house hallway - a very old chair - somewhat almost 400 years old - I know that chair since I was a young boy.

So now I hope you enjoy that pictures - even this is all very far away from the meaning of the blog. But this is the nice thing - just mix up all & at least it is for your entertainment & for your good information. Thanks !

Visa to USA for Chinese Nationals........

2012-02-12T00:33:00.000+08:00

...finally "somebody" somewhere found out how useful it could be to bring more chinese tourists to the USA. Because they have a certain buying power what is good for the US retail sector. So here at least some news about some relaxation for visa applications to go to the USA.
Please read here - this is from here:
quote

US liberalises visa procedures for Chinese

PTI Feb 10, 2012, 05.40PM IST

BEIJING: The US has liberalised visa procedures for non-immigrant Chinese as it stepped up efforts to woo more tourists to help its ailing economy.
Starting next Monday, qualified non-immigrant Chinese applicants to the US can renew their visas without undergoing another interview if their visas expired less than 48 months ago.
The scheme was launched under a pilot programme announced yesterday by US Ambassador Gary Locke, state-run China Daily reported today.

US consular officers handled over a million visa applications from China in 2011, a 34% increase. The growth rate accelerated to 48% in the last three months of 2011.

Now almost 90% of non-immigrant applications from Chinese nationals are approved, Charles Bennett, minister- counsellor for consular affairs at the US embassy, said.

Chinese tourists to the US, on average, spend more than USD 6,000 per trip, compared with about USD 4,000 spent by all other international travellers, according to statistics from the US Department of Commerce.

More than 800,000 Chinese visitors contributed USD five billion to the US economy in 2010.

The new initiative includes B (temporary visitors for business and pleasure), C1 (transit), F (students), J (exchange visitors) and other categories, covering 95% of the total visas issued by the US embassy and consulates across China, according to Locke.

The previous policy only allowed an interview waiver within 12 months of the expiration date.

"We expect that this will benefit tens of thousands of applicants in China, saving them time and money, and making it easier for them to travel to the United States more frequently," Locke said.

On January 19, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order to significantly increase travel and tourism to the US, with the goal of increasing visa-processing capacity in China by up to 40% in 2012.

This goal, combined with previous measures announced by the US embassy to streamline the application process to allow Chinese applicants to be interviewed in a more efficient manner, is the country's latest effort to attract more visitors from emerging economies, such as China, to boost the ailing US economy, the report said.

"We find that once a country relaxes its visa policy for Chinese tourists, it usually produces immediate results in the growth of visitor numbers," Jiang Yiyi, director of China Tourism Academy's International Tourism Development Institute, said.

Locke, however, did not respond directly to a question on whether this initiative was aimed at boosting the US economy.

The pilot programme does not apply to first-time applicants.
unquote

The Mysterious Visit in the US Consulate

2012-02-11T14:43:00.006+08:00

Some rumours going on here - please click here:
quote
Bo Xilai’s deputy visits US consulate, jeopardising his admission to the politburo
The powerful Chongqing Communist Party leader wants to become a member of the country’s most powerful institution. After a suspicious meeting with US diplomats, his right-hand man is arrested, threatening his rise to power.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Wang Lijun, the powerful right-hand man of Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai, visited the US consulate in Chengdu on Monday where he stayed for the day. Afterwards, he was relieved of his duties and sent to Beijing on “stress leave”. China’s blogosphere has been abuzz ever since.

Chongqing Committee Secretary Bo Xilai heads a campaign for a “return to Maoism”. launched two years ago, the latter’s aim is to change the central government’s policies. In Chongqing, this has been accompanied by a Maoist revival. The Cultural Revolution has also found an echo in the actions of local security forces (in Wang’s hands until yesterday) with municipal guards exercising enormous discretionary power.

Both Washington and Beijing confirmed Wang’s consular visit. Equally, both sides refused to give any details about the visit or speculate about rumours that Wang sought political asylum.

"The meeting was scheduled.” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Vice-Mayor Wang “did visit the consulate and he later left the consulate of his own volition."

In Chongqing, the period in office of the two former allies remains a controversial issue among residents. As police chief, one resident said, he was successful in cracking down on crime but fundamental rights were ignored. Others suggest that Wang’s strong-arm tactics led Bo to get rid of him before the 18th General Congress of the Communist Party where he is expected to be raised to the politburo.

Bo’s political future and speculation about Wang’s visit to the US consulate have lit up China’s blogosphere. On sina.com (China’s version of Twitter), people are wondering why he met Us consular officials.
unquote
REUTERS is calling this a bizarre drama........please click here:
quote

China's buffeted and ambitious Bo Xilai stays afloat

By Michael Martina

CHONGQING, China | Thu Feb 9, 2012 5:31am EST

(Reuters) - A bizarre consular drama in southwest China is just the latest to buffet Bo Xilai, the suave politician angling to join the Communist Party's inner circle, but on Thursday residents of the city he runs fancied his chances of surviving.

China's communist leaders like to keep political intrigue out of public sight and the feverish speculation about Bo's longtime ally and chief crime-fighter, Wang Lijun, would be enough to sink less skilled politicians.

The city of Chongqing said on Wednesday deputy mayor Wang had taken sick leave, fanning rumors that he had been purged and sought refuge at the U.S. consulate in nearby Chengdu. The U.S. State Department confirmed that Wang Lijun, visited the consulate, but said it was a "scheduled meeting."

The episode could still blot former commerce minister Bo's prospects of climbing into the party's Standing Committee, which makes key decisions, when a new lineup is settled late this year. But China's state-run papers stayed largely mute on Wang, suggesting official desire to cool speculation after an uproar online.

"I think Bo Xilai is a bit like the Chinese version of Newt Gingrich -- he's so battle-scarred that does this really add or take away from a guy who is controversial?" said Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, a London foreign policy institute, referring to the Republican aspirant to the White House.

"If he's known for being a controversial character, I don't think these things have a big impact," Brown said of Bo. "It may just as well work to his advantage."

RED FAMILY, BLUE SUITS

In Chongqing, a sprawling municipality on the banks of the Yangtze River, residents said recent events had not changed their view of Bo, who has won public support and national attention for tackling crime gangs and pursuing a more egalitarian growth model.

Chinese citizens can't vote for their leaders. But an informal poll on the city's steep streets suggested it was too early to count out Bo, whose ill-concealed ambition and privileged background have attracted naysayers.

"From almost every perspective, Chongqing is better since Bo came," said Wu Jun, 25, when asked about Bo, a previous mayor of Dalian, a port city in eastern China.

"Look at Dalian too. When Bo was there, they also were developing well. So there is something to the man. I think a lot of people my age like him because he seems real," he said, adding that he wasn't concerned about the rumors swirling around Wang.

Bo Xilai's father, Bo Yibo, was a revolutionary comrade of Mao Zedong, making his son one of the "princelings" -- sons and daughters of the Communist Party's elite. Bo Xilai is reputed to have attacked his father in the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), when Mao urged youth to embrace radicalism.

Nowadays, Bo prefers sleek blue suits to Mao suits, and had his son, Bo Guagua, educated at an expensive English private school and Oxford University, where the younger Bo was linked to the Adam Smith Institute, a bulwark of pro-market ideas.

Photos of younger Bo partying hard at Oxford, which circulated widely on the Chinese internet, also do not help create an image of family dedication to tradition. The younger Bo has been spotted driving a expensive cars around Beijing.

WHAT PROBLEM?

The official Chongqing Daily heaped praise on Chongqing's anti-crime crackdown that Wang was instrumental in organizing, but it did not mention Wang.

"The evil criminals have been destroyed, the people are clapping and cheering. The fight against the evil forces has been fully affirmed by the superiors and the community," said the article, giving Bo prominent mention.

"Most people in Chongqing know about this news," said a clean-cut man in his late 50s who declined to give his name.

"If it is true, most of us find it very surprising. Only a few weeks ago Wang was in the papers for his contributions to fighting crime," he said, adding that the city was safer after Bo's anti-crime campaign.

On China's hugely popular "Weibo" microblog service, the rumors about Wang sparked enthusiastic debate, attracting more than 500,000 posts -- unusually free discussion in a country where censors quickly delete sensitive political online messages.

The search terms "Wang Lijun" and "Vacation-style treatment" ranked No.3 and No.4 on the list of most searched terms. Searches for "Bo Xilai" were blocked, but the names of senior leaders usually are.

Still, some microblog users managed to defy censors with oblique references to Bo, 62, who has advertised his hopes for a place in the central leadership through a campaign of "red" songs and culture extolling Mao's achievements.

"What great luck, if (we) allow these people who harbor ambition in their hearts and have red songs all over their mouths (to) gain power, the Chinese people will go back to the Cultural Revolution," said a user called "Music person Ma Jun."

The visit to the consulate was an "isolated incident" that had been resolved, Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said, adding that it would not affect a visit to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping next week.

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Sabrina Mao and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Don Durfee)

WORLD

CHINA

unquote

6 Reasons to oppose ACTA

2012-02-11T02:07:00.000+08:00

1.ACTA locks countries into obsolete copyright and patent laws. If a democracy decides on less restrictive laws that reflect the reality of the internet, ACTA will prevent that.
2.ACTA criminalizes users by making noncommercial, harmless remixes into crimes if "on a commercial scale" (art 2.14.1). Many amateur works achieve a commercial scale on sites like Youtube. ACTA, like SOPA, could mean jail time for the Justin Biebers of the world.
3.ACTA Criminalizes legitimate websites, making them responsible for user behavior by "aiding and abetting". (art 2.14.4). Like SOPA, the founders of your favorite sites could be sued or (worse) thrown in jail for copyright infringement by their users.
4.ACTA will let rightsholders use laughably inflated claims of damages (based on the disproven idea that every download or stream is a lost sale) to sue people. As if suing amazing artists, video makers and websites for millions wasn't hard enough!
5.ACTA Permanently bypasses democracy by giving the "ACTA Committee" the power to "propose amendments to [ACTA]" (art 6.4). In other words, voting for ACTA writes a blank check to an unelected committee. These closed-door proceedings will be a playground for SOPA-supporters like the MPAA.
6.Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a backdoor track that, even though it creates new law, is miles removed from democracy. It's a secretive process that's tailor-made to serve politically connected companies. And the movie studios behind SOPA? They're experts at it. If we can't make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.

From La Quadrature du Net

Here we go again - SOPA / ACTA

2012-02-11T01:59:00.001+08:00

More action on that front - read here & do what you need to do.Click here first !

Hi--
Together, we beat SOPA in a huge victory for internet freedom. But this Saturday, internet freedom protests are breaking out in over 200 cities across Europe. Why?

Because the companies behind SOPA are using international trade agreements as a backdoor to pass SOPA-style laws

SOPA's supporters are pushing two agreements: ACTA and TPP¹. ACTA would criminalize users, encourage internet providers to spy on you, and make it easier for media companies to sue sites out of existence and jail their founders. Sound familiar? That's right, ACTA is from the same playbook as SOPA, but global. Plus it didn't even have to pass through Congress².

TPP goes even farther than ACTA, and the process has been even more secretive and corrupt. Last weekend (we wish this was a joke) trade negotiators partied with MPAA (pro-SOPA) lobbyists before secret negotiations in a Hollywood hotel, while public interest groups were barred from meeting in the same building.³

Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a secretive backdoor track that--even though it creates new laws--is miles removed from democracy. Trade negotiators are unelected and unaccountable, so these agreements have been very hard for internet rights groups to stop.

But now the tide is turning. Fueled by the movement to stop SOPA, anti-ACTA protests are breaking out across the EU, which hasn't ratified ACTA. The protests are having an impact: leaders in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have backtracked on ACTA.⁴ Now a massive round of street protests in over 200 cities is planned for this Saturday February 11th.

We're planning an online protest this Saturday to support the protests in the streets. Why? Because together we can drive millions of emails to key decision makers--and start tipping the scales like we did on SOPA.

Can you take part? Click here to get the code to run on your site!

We just built an ACTA & TPP contact tool, and it's not just a petition. It's code for your site that figures out the visitor's country and lets them email all their Members of European Parliament--the politicians who will be voting on ACTA in June--or the trade negotiators behind TPP. This direct contact between voters and their officials, driven by websites of all sizes, was instrumental in the fight against SOPA.

We can use the same tactics to defeat ACTA & TPP, but we need your help!

Support the street protests with a flood of emails to the officials responsible for ACTA & TPP. Get the code for your website!

Don't have a website? Tell officials in your country to scrap ACTA & TPP! And spread the word about Saturday's protests!

This is going to be tough fight. But we need to make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law. If we don't, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.

This is just the beginning,

--Holmes Wilson, Tiffiniy Cheng, Joshua Blount & the whole Fight for the Future team.

P.S. This map of ACTA street protests in Europe is amazing. The largest has almost 50,000 RSVP's!

Sources:

1. For more information on ACTA, read these excellent articles from Techdirt and La Quadrature du Net. For information on TPP, read this Ars Technica piece. For video, watch this.

2. Obama's signing of ACTA may have been unconstitutional. See Anti-counterfeiting agreement raises constitutional concerns and Techdirt.

3. Hollywood gets to party with TPP negotiators, public interest groups get thrown out of the hotel.

4. Ars Technica: Czech, Slovak governments backing away from ACTA, too.

Racism - not only in Hong Kong......

2012-02-09T00:59:00.001+08:00

As the ongoing discussions about the HK people & mainlanders disputes / racial discrimination etc.....dont worry - here a clip from YouTube mentioned at all local HK yellow press - just see it yourself - it is from London. Please be aware all this kind of shootings lets consider them at least a chance to be FAKE - or fabricated:

Here some further info about that from here - just click !

Woman filmed hurling 'racist abuse' at Tube passengers in yet ANOTHER video of a vile rant on London transport

Clip shows seven-minute long expletive-ridden tirade of abuse
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097142/Woman-filmed-hurling-racist-abuse-Tube-passengers-ANOTHER-video-rant-London-transport.html#ixzz1loKZbg6v

Police are investigating yet another video of a London Underground passenger apparently hurling racist abuse at foreign passengers.

The film shows the middle-aged white woman direct a tirade of abuse at passengers on a Central Line train between St Paul’s and Mile End stations.

She begins by shouting 'all f****** foreign s********' in a shocking seven-minute long expletive-ridden rant in front of stunned onlookers.
The woman - with shoulder-length black hair and a thick Cockney accent - then asks 'where do you come from? F****** like, f****** all over the world'.

Footage of the incident emerged on YouTube on January 24 after a string of similar rants by women were made public last year. It is believed to have been filmed on January 23.
It shows the woman, whose name is not known, sitting between two men.
After saying that the passengers come from all over the world, she asks: 'I'd like to know if any of you are f****** illegal, I'm sure 30 per cent of you are. It's taking the f****** p***.'

The woman then becomes aggressive towards the man sitting next to her. 'I hope they f****** catch up with you and shove you off,' she says.

She adds: 'I shall punch you in the f****** face. Ninety per cent of you are f****** illegal. I wouldn't mind if you loved our country.'
After singing in his language, he defends his country as other passengers on the carriage laugh at his gestures.

The woman then turns her attention to the man who is filming the alleged abuse on his mobile phone, who says he is British.

He tells her to 'watch what you say' but she responds: 'I used to live in England now I live in the United Nations.'

The woman then appears to become increasingly aggressive in an argument that lasts for another four minutes.

At one point she appears to try to attack the man next to her before she is thrown into a seat on the other side of the train.

She gets up and screams: 'As long as you're f****** working, and not claiming benefits.'

A second clip uploaded on the video sharing site shows her standing up as she waits to leave the train.

She says to another passenger: 'This is what we've got to put up with... that's what we don't like about you people. I'll show you what kind of government lets people like you in.'

The video emerged after similar clips were uploaded onto the internet.
One, recorded on a Croydon to Wimbledon tram, showed a woman holding a toddler as she shouted at passengers.

Emma West was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence in connection with the incident in December.

West, a 34-year-old mother from New Addington, Croydon, will appear at Croydon Crown Court at a later date.

Another video called 'Welcome to London' showed a woman holding a pink rose on the London Underground as she abused passengers.

Another was of a drunk woman who tried to punch a black passenger on a London bus, but ended up falling over herself then being thrown into the street.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: 'BTP is aware of the videos posted on YouTube which show a woman making alleged racist comments on board a Central Line Tube train between St Paul’s and Mile End stations during the evening of Sunday, 23.

'Detectives were made aware of the videos on January 24 and immediately launched an investigation.

'Anyone who witnessed this incident, or who has information which they believe can assist police, is asked to get in touch and help us build up a full picture of what took place.

'BTP treats all allegations of racism on the London Underground very seriously and would urge anyone with information about this incident to contact us.'

A woman has been arrested in connection with the incident.

The legacy of Wukan

2012-02-08T00:35:00.000+08:00

This one I just copy in without any further comment from my side. Please read yourself - this is very long - but will help all the outside readers to understand some of the serious challenges CHINA is facing - this is very serious - it is from here - click it !
quote
By David Bandurski | Posted on 2012-01-30

The standoff last December between local authorities and villagers in Wukan, prompted by deep anger among villagers over corrupt land deals and the suspicious death of a protest leader in police custody, was one of the biggest stories of 2011. But the saga of Wukan, which is ongoing despite pledges by Guangdong’s top leadership to meet the demands of protesters, could continue to have an impact this year and beyond.
Some say the Wukan incident, an act of organized civil disobedience that infuriated local Party officials (and, no doubt, quite a few senior leaders as well), has established a “model” for villages facing seizure of their land, one of the most common causes of so-called “mass incidents” (群体事件) in the countryside and in areas outside developing cities. Some have cited Wukan as an example in calling for democratic reforms in China.
But even as international attention gradually shifts away from Wukan, it remains to be seen whether the villagers’ demands will ultimately be met — and whether provincial leaders will live up to their promises.
Discussion of Wukan continues inside China, but public discussion of its deeper implications is a sensitive matter.
A January 27 blog post on Wukan made by lawyer Yuan Yulai (袁裕来) to his blog on the Caixin Media platform was deleted by internet censors. Yuan followed up the same day by posting news of the deletion on Sina Weibo. Including an image file for the post (below), he wrote: “Is there no hope for the Wukan incident? Are leaders now setting the tone? (Why was this deleted? Is this still propaganda policy?)”
Yuan Yulai’s microblog post was also subsequently deleted. But the text-as-image file he posted on Sina Weibo, which we archived, is pasted below. In the file Yuan shares an account of words spoken by an unnamed senior leader at a recent meeting on stability preservation, the mobilization of domestic security forces to combat social unrest:

A certain leader said in an internal address at the CCP Work Conference on Politics, Law and Stability Preservation: Right now there are tens of thousands of mass incidents [in China each year], mostly happening in rural townships and villages and remote regions, the causes being principally economic. These are convenient for us to independently resolve or break up. But if these spread to coastal cities and are transformed into political demands, the result would be unimaginable. Some comrades lack a real sense of the dangers involved, thinking we are over-reacting. It would be better for a clear directive from the central authorities to over-react than to fall short [of what is needed].
. . . The Wukan incident is far from finished. Can challenges to the leadership status of the Chinese Communist Party evade retribution? That is a page we cannot open, that no one dares open.

The following is a partial translation of a review by journalist Chen Jibing (陈季冰) of the Wukan incident published in Outlook China magazine. Chen also posted the article to his weblog at QQ.com.

The Example of Wukan
Chen Jibing (陈季冰)
January 20, 2012
1.
Ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday news came of the latest development in the Wukan story. According to news reports, three special work teams constituted by Guangdong province to explore the issues of collective land [use and appropriation in Wukan], village finances and breaches of law and Party discipline by village officials notified the villagers of Wukan of their findings in the initial phase [of their investigation] on December 30. According to Zeng Qingrong (曾庆荣), chairman of the standing committee of the Guangdong Provincial Commission of Discipline Inspection and deputy-head of the [provincial government's] supervisory office, who is serving as head of the special work team on breaches of law and discipline [in the Wukan case], they have already found that Xue Chang (薛昌), Wukan’s former Party branch chief, former village Party committee director Chen Shunyi (陈舜意) and others did indeed violate [Party] discipline in misappropriating collective assets of the village; a related personnel member in the marketing division of the Cooperative Association of Lufeng City Rural Credit Cooperatives (陆丰市农村信用合作社) pocketed 200,000 yuan in the process of land transfer (土地转让); various personnel in the Donghai Township State Land Office (东海镇国土所) of the Lufeng City Land and Resources Bureau (陆丰市国土局) accepted bribes in processing the transfer of land belonging to Wukan Village. At the same time, it has been initially established that some cadres from the Wukan Village Party Branch and village committee received rewards in the process of authorizing transfer of collective land [belonging to the village], and that some accounting staff in Wukan village are suspected of having personally used public funds [belonging to the village]. The cashier for the village committee, Zou Chai (出纳邹钗), also a committee member of the Party branch, has already been detained pending investigation for discipline violations (两规).
It was not long before this, owing to the direct intervention of the provincial Party leadership in Guangdong, that serious protests in Wukan Village, in [Guangdong's] Shanwei City, finally calmed down in late December. While for reasons known to all newspapers, television and other mass media kept quiet on this incident out of fear, it was the most hotly watched public opinion storm on China’s internet — and particularly on microblogs — for some time.
On December 21, deputy provincial Party secretary Zhu Mingguo (朱明国), who has represented Guangdong province in handling this incident, met face-to-face with the chief acting village representative, Lin Zuluan (林祖銮), and agreed to the principal demands of the protesting villagers, including: to suspend and fully investigate the property development project in which the villagers’ interests were harmed and for which village cadres and the government illegally sold [village] land; to carry out a full and comprehensive investigation of the death of protest leader Xue Jinbo (薛锦波) while in police custody on December 11, 2011, to return his remains, and to release several other villagers who were detained for their involvement in the protests.
What has most unprecedented meaning is that the [Guangdong provincial] authorities also formally acknowledged the “leadership committee” chosen and constituted by the villagers themselves for the purpose of the protests, and that they pledged resolutely that they would not seek to settle scores with villagers involved in the protests at some convenient later date (秋后算账).
[Village representative] Lin Zuluan at least believes that their protest movement has already achieved the things they set out to achieve, and he has told media that he is satisfied with the outcome. “The higher-level government [authorities] have treated this matter with utmost priority, so I have all confidence that we can satisfactorily resolve this dispute,” [he said].
The attitude of the Guangdong Party leadership set the tone for the handling of the incident: “The basic demand of the people of Wukan Village in Lufeng City is fairness, and errors certainly did exist in the work among the masses carried out by the grassroots Party leadership and government, so certain unreasonable actions on the part of the villagers can be understood.” Moreover, Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) pointed out clearly that, “The occurrence of the Wukan incident was both a matter of chance and a matter of necessity. This is the result of paying insufficient attention . . . to tensions building up in the process of economic and social development, and it is a necessary result of our being ‘hard on one hand and soft on the other’ (一手硬一手软).” This hard on the one hand and soft on the other points clearly to the government’s active promotion of economic development while it has been soft on social management (社会管理).
On December 22, the People’s Daily ran an article called, “What does the ‘turnaround in Wukan’ clue us in to?” (“乌坎转机”提示我们什么), which called on governments at all levels [in China] to “eliminate the ‘oppositional stance’ in dealing with the masses” (扫除面对群众的‘对手思维’). The article said: “Looking back on many mass incidents over the past few years and assessing their basic character, [one realizes that] the vast majority arise from the fact that the masses, in response to appeals on behalf of their vested interests, have received no satisfaction or relief. This tells us that local government must have a keen awareness of prevailing conditions in facing the interest demands of the masses, even if these involve tension and conflict.”
Zhu Mingguo, who has personally handled this incident, subsequently stated that the villagers of Wukan Village raised two demands in particular. The first concerned the question of land. Wukan Village has 9,000 mu [or 6 square kilometers] of land, and now more than 6,700 mu [or 4.46 kilometers, 75 percent of the total] have been sold, leaving just over 2,000 [mu [or 25 percent of the original land]. But the villagers have not been transformed into city residents [of Lufeng City], nor has the issue of basic living allowances from the city been resolved [CHECK]. The demands of the villagers are reasonable. The second issue raised by the villagers was that the affairs of the village were not handled openly. They said that village cadres were corrupt, and that they were not consulted over the issue of land sales. “The villagers said to me that under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party they had farmed the land without paying taxes and also enjoyed subsidies and free education. We do no oppose the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party is good! What we oppose is the village selling the land without telling us,” [said Zhu Mingguo]. Zhu Mingguo added: “If these demands had been satisfied earlier, would this matter have built up to such an extent?”
I’m confident there is a great deal of truth to these words. But the heart of the problem is the question of how the ruling Party and government can create a system for themselves in which they must resolve demands of this kind. Perhaps there is nothing better than external pressure to bring people to their senses, and competition offers the best instruction. [CHECK]
2.
The so-called “Wukan incident” originated back in March 2011, at which point the villagers, who had suffered in silence for more than a decade, finally united in action. It is alleged that after local officials were involved in one particular corrupt land deal, furious villagers assaulted the village Party branch, and in the three months that followed numerous conflicts erupted.
The incident suddenly escalated in mid-December. On December 13, 42-year-old Xue Jinbo — who according to some accounts was 43 years old — one of several representatives chosen by Wukan villagers, died of heart failure while in [police] custody. Official media denied that wounds were present on Xue Jinbo’s body, [a claim made by Wukan villagers]. Reports said that on December 10 fellow detainees reported that Xue Jinbo was in a poor condition, and Xue Jinbo was then dispatched immediately to a nearby hospital, where he died after 30 minutes of emergency treatment. Reports also said that Xue Jinbo had a history of asthma and heart disease. [According to the reports], certification issued by forensic specialists at Guangzhou’s Sun-Yatsen Hospital shows that Xue Jinbo had no clear visible external wounds aside from bruising on his knees and wrists. The reports quoted the deputy director of this [forensic] center as saying that in his estimate the bruises on Xue Jinbo’s wrists had been caused by handcuffs, and that the bruises on his knees had been caused by kneeling on the ground.
Xue Jinbo and two others were detained on December 9, the justification being that they they were charged with destroying public financial affairs and jeopardizing public affairs. According to statements by local police, Xue Jinbo had led the unrest in Wukan due to tensions over land, [village] finances and issues with local election of [village] officials. At the time, [said police], he and other villagers had forced their way into the local government office and police station, and had destroyed six police vehicles. Police claim that these accusations were confirmed in two interrogations on September 9 and 10.
Xue Jinbo’s family has come to the conclusion that he was beaten to death. It is said that Xue Jinbo’s mother, wife and older brother went to view his body and discovered numerous wounds and bruises, including three points where his bones had been broken.
The anger of villagers then ignited and they openly opposed the local government. They organized large-scale demonstrations, and after cadres from the village Party branch and village committee deserted the village, they organized the village to govern itself, even setting up barricades and organizing hundreds of armed deputies to prevent violent suppression by police.
On December 15, acting Shanwei mayor Wu Zili (吴紫骊) gave a harshly worded denunciation [of the villagers]. He traced the incident back to two villagers who had been chosen to represent the villagers in negotiating with the government, Lin Zulian (林祖恋) and Yang Semao (杨色茂). He vowed to strike out firmly against “those principal figures who had planned and organized the inciting of villagers to smash and destroy public property, impede public affairs and other illegal and criminal activities.” He urged these people to turn themselves in. In a video appearing online on December 18, Shanwei Party Secretary Zheng Yanxiong (郑雁雄) harshly accused the villagers for using foreign media to invite the attention of the outside world to this local situation. Zheng Yanxiong said that the villagers had not sought the government but had instead sought out “rotten” foreign media, and “these media will only be happy when our socialist nation is broken and divided.”
These statements roused even greater feeling among the opposing [villagers]. After the above-mentioned language by Wu Zili, 8,000 of the villagers in a village with a total population of 20,000 again held demonstrations, the numbers double that of the previous day.
In fact, the full story of the Wukan incident is not all that complicated. When villagers attacked the offices of the village Party branch back in September last year, they accused the [local] government of selling off agricultural land in the village to a development company for a price as high as one billion yuan, and without providing villagers with reasonable compensation — and after [the transaction] pocketing 70 percent of the income [from the sale] for themselves.
As for the full and accurate situation in Wukan, perhaps we will have to wait patiently for the results of an independent and credible investigation. But cases like this of conflicts over interests emerging as a result of land appropriations (征地) are something that can be found everywhere in China today. According to research by Chinese Academy of Social Science professor Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), this sort of dispute over land accounts for two-thirds of all of all “mass incidents” in the countryside. Yu Jianrong estimates that since 1990 local officials in China have forcibly taken farmland totaling 6.72 million hectares, and owing to the gap between the actual market value of land and the amount of compensation for land actually given to farmers, [Yu estimates that] farmers have [collectively] lost around 2 trillion yuan (US$316 billion) in rights and benefits.
While the central Party leadership has said again and again that it will take concerted action against illegal land use, and has created new regulations prohibiting forced land seizures, demanding that farmers be compensated according to market value . . . and in fact this year’s No. 1 Document (一号文件) points out clearly that the portion of income from land appreciation given to farmers needs to be raised, all of these measures have met with fierce opposition from local governments. This is because at present the normal operations of local governments rely to a high-degree on so-called “land financing” (土地财政). According to a report released by the National Audit Office of the PRC in June [2011], local government debt nationally in China reached 10.7 trillion yuan, and of this 2.5 trillion yuan (or 23 percent) was guaranteed (担保) by land sales. By contrast, the estimate of total land sales income for local governments nationwide in 2010 was 2.9 trillion yuan. Which is to say that total income from land sales by local governments in 2010 is probably only sufficient to pay back the debt that will come due for the next few years.
All of this means that if the current trends do not change, standoffs like that at Wukan will most likely only increase steadily.
unquote

We are one country .......

2012-02-06T01:26:00.000+08:00

and then here is a nice one about this topic:

One more on KIM DOTCOM........

2012-02-06T01:25:00.001+08:00

please read here:
quote
Megaupload founder to try and get assets back
From: AAP
February 05, 2012
KIM Dotcom is to try and regain control of his assets in court next week.

The 38-year-old Megaupload founder, who was again denied bail on Friday, will fight to get back millions of dollars seized in worldwide raids late last month.

Papers have been filed in the Auckland High Court which say the freezing orders used to seize Dotcom's fortune have gone too far and the money should be returned, the Herald on Sunday reports.

His lawyer, Paul Davison, has said Dotcom was disappointed with the outcome of Friday's High Court bail hearing, which challenged a North Shore District Court decision to keep him in custody.

Justice Raynor Asher agreed that Dotcom posed a flight risk.

A further application for bail can be made if there are new circumstances or the decision can be appealed.
Dotcom and three other men were arrested on January 20 after Dotcom's $30 million rented mansion in Coatesville was raided.

Dotcom's security chief alleges the arrest was a "home invasion by New Zealand police at the urging of the US Government" and that help was slow to arrive when Dotcom's wife Mona became ill but police are satisfied with their tactics.

More than $10 million from financial institutions, and assets, including luxury cars worth $6 million and expensive art works, were seized.

The men face charges in the US of racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. Extradition papers are expected to be filed on February 22.

Bail has been granted to two of Dotcom's co-accused, Finn Batato, 38, of Germany, and Dutch national Bram van der Kolk, 29, who holds New Zealand residency.

The other accused man is Mathias Ortmann, 40, of Germany.

It is alleged the group amassed $NZ216 million in criminal proceeds through the website
unquote

And here is the song about that LOCUST story ........

2012-02-06T00:29:00.000+08:00

enjoy it:

Here another version in Cantonese only - but different video:

About That Hong Kong ‘Locust’ Ad…

2012-02-06T00:02:00.001+08:00

....here a little bit more info about that topic - this is from here !

quote

A Hong Kong newspaper ad decried Chinese visitors as ‘locusts.’ The text asks, ‘Are you willing for Hong Kong to spend one million Hong Kong dollars every 18 minutes to raise the children born to mainland parents?’

Hong Kong’s latest fissure with China deepened Wednesday after a popular local newspaper published an advertisement slamming mainland Chinese as “locusts” who swarm the city and drain its resources.

“Hong Kong people, we have endured enough in silence,” said the ad, which ran in the Apple Daily, a Chinese-language paper with an average daily circulation of about 288,000 in the first half of 2011, according to Hong Kong’s Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The full-page ad, which shows a locust looking at the Hong Kong skyline, was paid for by an online fund-raising campaign on Facebook and local site Hong Kong Golden Forum, which received more than 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$12,900) from 800 donors in a week.

A man who identified himself over the phone as “Mr. Poon” and goes by the name of Yung Jhong online said he organized the campaign. He said he was inspired to act after seeing news stories about mainland Chinese mothers who crossed the border to bear children in Hong Kong so that their offspring could obtain Hong Kong citizenship and the benefits that come along with it. Local authorities say that some 40,000 mainland Chinese mothers gave birth in Hong Kong hospitals last year, straining the local health-care system.
“People want to protect the city for their kids, protect the education and health-care system,” he said. “Hong Kongers are welcoming to everybody, even those from China, to come and visit and shop. But they have to follow our rules, which is why we feel like we have to say something.”

See more on this story at Scene Asia
unquote

One comment from my side:
The issue of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong is a serious problem. You need to know that if the baby is born in Hong Kong it will be automatically a "permanent resident".
If the baby gets older - becoming an adult - this "baby" easily can apply for dependent visas for the parents, means the parents can permanently stay in Hong Kong. Do the math yourself - we are talking about an increase of several 100,000's of people living in Hong Kong within the next 20 years.......

Hong Kong 'locust' ad angers Chinese web users

2012-02-05T00:35:00.000+08:00

During being away the debate got somewhat more heated........Now see this ------ bloggers from China recommend China Shoppers not to go Hong Kong for shopping.......please be aware how much MONEY Hong Kong people spend on the mainland for travelling, entertainment (whatever category.......) + besides the Hong Kong tourism - how much Hong Kong investments are pouring into China since more than 3 decades. So you better shut up - you penny-picking mainland tourists spending your BLACK MONEY in Hong Kong......Besides this we dont care if LV, Gucci or Prada will lose some turnover because of you not coming here. Because besides of this stupid LV + Chanel shopping everything else they are spending here is very LOW BUDGET !
Read this - from here - just click:
Hong Kong 'locust' ad angers Chinese web users
SHANGHAI — Chinese netizens voiced anger Thursday over a Hong Kong advert portraying mainlanders as "locusts", sparking a call for calm in a state newspaper after an increasingly bitter exchange of words.

The advert was published in Hong Kong's widely-read Apple Daily Wednesday by an anonymous group in retaliation for comments made by Chinese professor Kong Qingdong, who called locals of the former British colony "dogs".

"How dare Hong Kong people have the courage to say we are locusts. No one should go to Hong Kong," said Reneeshou on Sina's popular microblog service.

"This shows a limited sense of appreciation (towards China) and a lack of tolerance of an international city," another commented.

The full-page advert demanded action to stop mainland Chinese "infiltration" of the territory, showing a huge locust overlooking Hong Kong's skyline with the words "Hong Kongers have had enough!" and "This city is dying, you know?"

Mainlanders are a key source of revenue for Hong Kong, but there is growing discontent over the thousands of mainland women who come to give birth in the territory every year, taking up limited beds and pushing up costs.

Many Hong Kongers also dislike the shadowy role that Beijing plays in local politics and the flashy displays of wealth by mainland Chinese tourists.

Mainlanders, for their part, complain people from Hong Kong -- which is part of China but enjoys more economic and political freedom -- look down on them.

Kong made the comments in an online, broadcast interview last week after a video of Hong Kongers scolding a mainland woman for disregarding rules and eating on a train went viral on the Internet.

"Originally, I didn't agree with Kong Qingdong, but after seeing the Apple Daily ad, I just want to say that these people really are mad dogs," one outraged web user wrote.

However, others admitted the behaviour of mainland Chinese travellers in Hong Kong could be improved.

"I do not like the Apple newspaper ad, but I think people who have been to Hong Kong should reflect on what they did. The quality of behaviour should be improved," another comment read.

The recent, barbed exchanges have prompted the official Global Times newspaper to call for calm.

In an editorial Thursday, the newspaper said China and Hong Kong should grow closer on the basis of a "shared identity".

"The mixed mutual feelings are making things more complicated. More efforts are needed from both the mainland and Hong Kong," it said.

MANDARIN

2012-02-05T00:18:00.001+08:00

Here a shot from the toy museum in Munich:
Mandarin ............no further comment........

Your weekend music !

2012-02-04T22:25:00.004+08:00

Enjoy here - this is quite the HYPE right now - LANA DEL REY - reminds me (a lilittle bit) of NICO.......

And here about NICO:

HK financial chief delivers budget speech 2012 - 2013

2012-02-04T22:10:00.001+08:00

During my days in Europe on February 1st Hong Kong's financial chief John Tsang unveiled the budget proposals for the fiscal year 2012-2013 at a Legislative Council meeting Wednesday, which is the last budget for the current Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

Read this first - this is from NY TIME - just click or read below:
quote

Bonanza in Hong Kong From Mainland's Boom

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: February 1, 2012

HONG KONG — The United States is shrinking its military and debating whether to cut social spending, raise taxes or both. European governments from Greece to Ireland are struggling to maintain payments to the unemployed and retirees. Japan is borrowing heavily to pay for earthquake reconstruction and care for a graying population.

And then there is Hong Kong.

Financial Secretary John Tsang announced a budget for the coming fiscal year that cuts income taxes, corporate taxes and real estate taxes. Household electricity bills will be subsidized, and people living in public housing will receive two months’ free rent.

Education spending will jump 7 percent. Senior citizens will receive an extra month’s pension payment; government hospitals will expand; and 10 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $1.29 billion, will be put in a special fund to help the needy buy medicine.

Perhaps most impressive, the budget is forecast to be roughly in balance – and Hong Kong’s budget forecasters have a reputation for consistently underestimating surpluses. The city, an autonomous region of China ever since Britain handed it back in 1997, has accumulated a rainy-day fund equal to more than a year and a half of government spending.

Hong Kong is running another large budget surplus for the current year, which ends on March 31, despite giving 6,000 dollars to each adult permanent resident.

Economists attribute the bonanza to a series of factors: tight limits on senior citizen spending, no military spending and an economy that grew 5 percent last year, mostly because Hong Kong has cashed in on China’s economic boom.

Mainland Chinese real estate buyers have driven up housing prices as they seek political stability — and, sometimes, safety from mainland tax collectors and fraud investigators. Rising apartment prices have pushed up government revenue from taxes on real estate transactions and from the sale of government land for further construction projects.

Retail sales surged 23 percent here through November of last year, mostly because nearly 100,000 mainland visitors a day come to Hong Kong. Most of them head straight for the stores.

They come not because Hong Kong stores are any nicer — practically every luxury chain now has shops in mainland China. With sky-high rents to pay in a highly congested city, stores also charge more here for a wide range of goods than in the United States and many other countries.

Hong Kong’s attraction instead has been as a tax haven to avoid the 17 percent value-added tax in mainland China, plus steep import and consumption taxes that can add another 10 to 50 percent to the price tag there. The tax savings on a single Louis Vuitton bag can cover round-trip airfare from practically any city in China.

President Obama announced Jan. 19 that the United States would liberalize visa rules for affluent tourists from China and Brazil in particular. Because of a combination of proximity and easy visa rules, Hong Kong attracts nearly 30 times as many heavy-spending mainland Chinese visitors as the United States.

The flood of prosperous mainlanders has provoked considerable angst in Hong Kong, particularly among the young, many of whom struggle to find jobs these days, especially if they are not fluent in Mandarin, a different Chinese tongue from the Cantonese that most residents speak here.

“They don’t like the idea of having all these rich showing off how much money they have, and spending heaps of money on all these luxurious products,” said Paul Tse, the Hong Kong lawmaker who represents the tourism sector.

Populists in Hong Kong have also been assailing the government for being less generous than Western governments to those who are poor, elderly or both. Hong Kong is one of Asia’s most expensive cities, but elderly residents typically receive 1,090 dollars a month, or $140, plus 2,820 dollars a month if they are needy.

K.C. Chan, Hong Kong’s secretary of financial services and Treasury, said that the tax cuts and extra spending in the upcoming budget were aimed at offsetting possible harm to the city’s economy from a slowing global economy. The government is predicting that growth will slow this year to between 1 percent and 3 percent.

Even that level of growth will be possible only because of a 1.5-percentage-point stimulus from the budget, Mr. Chan said.

Cathy Chu, Mr. Chan’s deputy for Treasury, said that the biggest reason for Hong Kong’s fiscal strength was a combination of strong economic growth together with self-restraint in the share of economic output that is spent by the government, which is held to about 20 percent.

unquote

And here is the link to the full budget speech 2012 - 2013:

Just click here !

Kim DOTCOM - again declined bail......

2012-02-04T22:01:00.002+08:00

So just got the info about this: Kim Schmitz aka Kim Dotcom has been declined bail again yesterday - The US want hin that urgently - this smells already ! Please read here - from here - just click or read the copy below:
quote
Dotcom's 'extraordinary' life keeps him in jail
By Edward Gay

n the end it was Kim Dotcom's money and his "history of taking an unorthodox route'' that saw the multimillionaire remain behind bars yesterday instead of going home to his family and his $30 million mansion. The man at the centre of what has been described as the largest copyright case in the US to date walked back into the cells last night after his latest bid for bail was declined at the High Court in Auckland. He will remain in custody at least until an extradition hearing is held unless a fresh appeal is launched.
Justice Raynor Asher upheld last month's decision by a judge in the North Shore District Court to decline bail for the German multimillionaire.
He said Judge David McNaughton had noted "the extraordinary features'' of Dotcom's life.
They included "his great wealth, taking on an unorthodox route, his connection to Germany and his incentive to get there''.
Justice Asher said that because Germany did not have an extradition treaty with the United States, Dotcom would be free from prosecution if he chose to escape to his birth country.
"He may or may not have the means to bring about such a scenario, however it was open to the judge and constituted a significant risk which could not be mitigated by [bail] conditions,'' Justice Asher said.
The FBI is seeking to extradite Dotcom and three of his associates to the US to face charges of conspiring to commit racketeering, conspiring to commit money laundering, copyright infringement, and aiding and abetting copyright infringement.
The FBI-led investigation has so far frozen $23 million in a Hong Kong bank account, $10m in New Zealand Government bonds, $6m in expensive cars.
The Megaupload co-founder showed signs of a sore back as he sat through the nine-hour court hearing and had to have his seat changed.
Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, addressed the court for the first time since being arrested last month and said he had every intention of fighting the charges so that he could get back the millions of dollars frozen by the FBI.
"I'm aware that if I go to Germany I would be unable to unfreeze my assets. What I want to do is stay here to fight and get my money back. What would I do in Germany with five kids and a wife with no money?
"It is not an option for me.''
Crown prosecutor Anne Toohey, acting for the US Government, said there could be more money. She also said the court had to take into account the issue of flight risk, given Dotcom was found to have travel documents and credit cards in different names.
She said New Zealand had porous boarders and Dotcom had access to a helicopter.
Dotcom's lawyer Paul Davison QC said his client had changed his name for legitimate reasons and had no intention of deceiving officials.
He said that explained the passports and credit cards in different names.
"You left with a business man reeling from the fact that his business has been brought to a halt, his assets have been seized, his family is effectively devastated by this event.''
Earlier, Dotcom told the court how, while on remand, he had received letters from female prisoners and even a phone call from a man claiming to be a "prosecutor'' and asking for money in exchange for a favourable bail appeal.
Dotcom said he reported the phone call to prison authorities.
Fresh from visiting Dotcom in the cells after Justice Asher's decision this evening, Mr Davison told media outside court his client was disappointed with the decision.
Mr Davision described suggestions that Dotcom could flee the country by boat or jet as a "flight of fancy''.
He said Dotcom would now take advice on his next steps which could include a further appeal or a fresh application if his circumstances change.
Extradition papers against Dotcom are expected to be filed later this month.
Dotcom and his millions:
* $30 million rented mansion in Coatesville
* $10 million invested in NZ government bonds frozen
* Over $100 million assets frozen worldwide
* $42 million earned in 2010 year alone, according to the FBI
* $6 million worth of luxury cars removed from the property
Dotcom case at a glance:
January 18: District Court issues arrest warrant for Dotcom and three others
January 20: Police raid Dotcom's Coatesville mansion. Dotcom and three associates arrested
January 23: Dotcom applies for bail at the North Shore District Court
January 25: Judge McNaughton declines bail at the North Shore District Court
February 03: Dotcom's bail appeal at the High Court in Auckland declined by Justice Asher
- APNZ
By Edward Gay | Email Edward

unquote

Good luck Kim - we all hope that this will get some turnaround into a more positive situation for you !

Back again here !

2012-02-04T21:55:00.002+08:00

Just back from Europe - ice - cold (minus 15 degrees - but blue sky). Some new posts will come up asap ! Thank you for being patient and have a nice weekend.

One more before I board the airplane: Anonyupload: faceless group steps in after Kim Dotcom's arrest

2012-01-24T20:46:00.003+08:00

the internet is big and wide. So just a few days after shutting down MEGAUPLOAD ....here is the next one. Please read here - just click !.......
quote
Anonyupload: faceless group steps in after Kim Dotcom's arrestLia Timson
January 24, 2012 - 1:14PM

It only took four days for another file-sharing service to surface.
The loose-knit hacking group Anonymous is attempting to replace the fire-sharing website Megaupload, following the latter's demise at the hands of the FBI.
Servers are being set up in Russia, according to the new website's welcome page, to provide an alternative file-sharing service called Anonyupload.
Megaupload.com was shut down by the FBI in the early hours of Friday (AEST) after charges were laid against seven individuals, three of which were arrested in New Zealand, including Megaupload's millionaire founder Kim Dotcom.

Members purporting to be from the Anonymous group have now set up Anonyupload and have called for supporters to join the group in hosting services in a decentralised fashion to "ensure the safety" of users and "rapid transfer" of files. The new site was registered on Monday and says it will be "launched" on January 25.
The site appears to be advocating a return to peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, given Megaupload's centralised service was arguably simpler for law enforcement to take down. P2P users allow others to share files hosted on their own computers.
"There are many reasons why (going to one centralised service) is not good, the first is that some of you store personal information and files on machines which are not belonging to you, and that you do not have any control on. The second is that you are always going through the same wires, it means that someone could spy on it, monitors your activities, or decides to cut it off as it happened with megaupload.com. This can be avoided by using decentralised technologies, the first thing to do if you are interested in doing it, is to host your own content, on your own machines," a statement on the website says.
It also says the group's infrastructure has been set up outside US jurisdiction in Russia, and thanks Mr Dotcom for his "service" adding "try not to make that amount of money next time and it should be alright".
It appears to shun profit-making by stating that the site has a "good economic plan" based on donations: "let's try to not get into a huge system that only works with money". It appears to accept donations via PayPal.
Some commentators say the closure of Megaupload has implications for other cloud hosting or "cyberlocker" services such as Dropbox, RapidShare and Hotfile. The sites have no control over the files users upload, and users have no guarantee the service will not be targetted in a piracy crackdown.
In retaliation for the closure of Megaupload, Anonymous crippled several official websites including the FBI, the US Department of Justice, Universal Music, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America with distributed denial-of-service attacks on Friday. Denial-of-service attacks cause websites to temporarily crumble under the weight of millions of requests for page views, disrupting service.
The FBI site is back online, but justice.gov was not at time of publishing.
Anonymous is against the anti-piracy lobby led by music, movie and book publishers. It found allies in opposition to US proposed copyright protection bills which many, including Google, Wikipedia and the father of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, say go too far in censoring the internet. Several US senators withdrew support for the bills late last week.
Voting on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate cousin Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) has been postponed, amid the outcry.
unquote
Here some words from Kim dotcom from an article he wrote in December 2011 on torrentFreak.com:

"I made mistakes when I was young and I paid the price. Steve Jobs was a hacker and Martha Stuart is doing well after her insider trading case. I think over a decade after all of this happened it should NOT be the dominating topic.
"I am 37 years old now, I am married, I have three adorable children with two more on the way (twin girls – yeah) and I know that I am not a bad person. I have grown and I have learned."
He continued: "Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules. We take our legal obligations seriously.
"Mega's war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us. We have been online for 7 years and we are here to stay, so no need to worry about us."

Click here - one of Kim's lawyers steps out !

We all wish you good luck Kim !

Slow posting for the next 10 days !

2012-01-24T15:48:00.000+08:00

On the way to Europe. posting will be slow or non - existent.
See you later & thank you for reading.

Some news about Kim Dotcom - Megaupload

2012-01-24T02:11:00.000+08:00

Still in jail in NZ Kim dotcom had to celebrate his 38 birthday behind bars. I guess there was no champagne. Today (yesterday...) was a hearing again in court - the decision if he and the others will be granted bail was adjourned to Wednesday 25.01.

Here the full story from stuff.co.nz - click it ! The photo cannot be copied so please use the link.
quote
Courtroom circus over Dotcom appearance
KIRSTY JOHNSTON
A quiet court erupted into circus-like chaos yesterday as the Mega Conspiracy accused made a plea for freedom and asserted their innocence.

Cyber-tycoon Kim Dotcom, 37, and his three alleged co-conspirators appeared in North Shore District Court for a day of legal ping-pong with little resolution.

At the end of a day of argument, spectacle and some confusion, Judge David McNaughton reserved his decision as to whether or not Dotcom should be released on bail.

The four were arrested in a dramatic FBI-led police raid on the German millionaire's Auckland mansion on Friday, with the US Government planning to extradite them and lay charges of racketeering, money laundering and three types of copyright infringement.

US authorities claim that Megaupload - a repository for films, TV shows and books, where users could watch content without charge - and its sister sites made more than US$175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500m.

Dotcom has denied any wrongdoing.

Ringside seats to the courtroom drama yesterday were packed full of the men's supporters, forcing media from New Zealand and around the world to sprawl onto the floor, along the walls and even into the witness box.

The hearing provided further revelations into Dotcom's luxury lifestyle.

Defence lawyer Paul Davison detailed how some passports were found in a bed his client ''used for work purposes'' while the Crown brought its own set of evidence in an attempt to prove the accused posed an ''extreme'' flight risk.

At one point, an arms officer brought an allegedly modified shotgun into court in a paper package.

''I don't think it's necessary for you to be in here with the firearm in a package,'' Judge McNaughton said, asking the officer to leave.

The judge began the day by asking media to leave the court, causing a ruckus when some refused.

When the hearing finally began, only Dotcom was dealt with. Sitting in a chair seeming far too small for his black-clothed bulk, Dotcom sat quietly for most of the day, smirking occasionally when his lawyer made a good point.

A grin almost slipped out when Davison, in summing up, described his final reason why Dotcom should be set free.

''It won't escape the court's notice that Mr Dotcom is a man with a distinct [look], he's not the kind of man who is going to pass unnoticed through controls and checks without being readily identifiable.''

The arguments centred around a number of main points listed by Crown lawyer Anne Toohey as Dotcom's lack of respect for authorities, ready access to wealth, multiple aliases, access to a firearm, access to transport and alleged likeliness of reoffending.

Toohey described how Dotcom had several passports - Finnish, New Zealand and German - in different names.

He also had multiple credit cards, all discovered in the raid.

There were six in one wallet, 19 in another and ten in another. These were all in a variety of names, including the first name ''Tim'' rather than Kim, she said.

Davison counter-argued that his client ''collected'' the cards, and they were of no consequence.

The prosecution also gave details of the gun found in the panic room at the mansion. The gun, discovered in a safe just metres from where police arrested Dotcom sitting on the ground behind a pillar in his safe room, was a type never seen before by arms experts in New Zealand.

Defence lawyers said the gun was loaded only with a rubber bullet but Toohey said it was also loaded with buckshot.

She said a police arms officer believed the weapon had been modified.

''It couldn't be cut off any further back because of the position of the magazine,'' she said.

To get a license for that type of gun in New Zealand it would have had to be granted a permit. The arms officer didn't believe that would happen.

It was at that point the officer entered the courtroom with the gun, to be swiftly escorted out.

Also attracting attention during the hearing was Dotcom's previous altercation with the German and Thai authorities during 2002.

The Crown argued Dotcom had been arrested and deported from Thailand, while the defence said he willingly went back to Germany with police.

At the conclusion or proceedings, Judge McNaughton decided he needed more time to consider the bail application, and said he would make a written judgement as early as today.

Dotcom would remain in custody till then.

Bram van der Kolk, Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato, who were arrested alongside Dotcom on Friday, were also remanded in custody, and will reappear on Wednesday.

The decision brought a flood of emotion from the gallery, with family members and friends rushing to say a quick word to their loved-ones before they were ushered back into custody.

One woman rushed up to touch her partner's hand, while he mouthed at her ''I love you''.

Other family, including teenage girls, were reduced to tears outside.

Dotcom's wife, said to be heavily pregnant with twins, was not present.
unquote

The nuts professor Kong Qingdong: "Did I say Hongkongers are dogs? I didn't,"

2012-01-24T01:56:00.000+08:00

is now saying that he has never said this................about Hong Kong people "are dogs" and other really disgusting comments.
Click here for the full story !
quote
However, according to a SCMP report on Sunday, the professor had denied calling Hong Kong citizens “running dogs for the British government”, adding that both mainland and Hong Kong media outlets had “maliciously twisted his speech”.
"Did I say Hongkongers are dogs? I didn't," he was quoted by SCMP as saying. "I request all media outlets which have twisted my speech to apologise."

You can watch the video here.

unquote

So this professor now is demanding the media to apologise to him.....??? So what you can see in that video is all a "trap", it is all words "later changed" or what ? By the way this is the typical lousy chinese attitude of not taking personal responsibility for things done personally especially the wrong things.

Always the "bad guy" is "somebody else". It is never "me".

This attitude is what makes it so difficult for all to run proper business with many of chinese companies. They still do not understand one principle:
It is not to blame who was doing something wrong - it is to find a way how to avoid this "mistakes" in future and to have a better performance.

People make mistakes - if they are chinese or whatever nationality - this is normal life.

In chinese business life the so-called "loose face" attitude is much too much exxagerated - this is old-fashioned. Besides this despite being a chinese - everybody has a "face", if chinese or not.

The idea of learning from the own mistakes is NOT existing (because it is always "somebody else"doing that mistake).

Going home on Chinese new year

2012-01-23T02:07:00.000+08:00

This is from here - just click !quote
Millions of Chinese have returned home, or are still trying to get there on time. Author Zhang Lijia feels guilty she did not make it to Nanjing this year, yet again, she tells on her website. But she is happy for those who did.

Zhang Lijia:
Some got lucky. In Shanghai, quite a few large factories hired coaches to drive people home and drop them. Thanks to labour shortage in Shanghai and also coastal areas such as Shenzhen, factories have tried harder than ever in accommodating and helping the workers in the hope of retaining them. Some factories offer them iphones or other bonus to allure the workers back.

The migrant workers live separate lives from the urban population. The Spring Festival is the time the city people realize the importance of their poor rural cousins. In my neighborhood – where many migrant labours congregate – is rather quiet right now.
A lot of breakfast stalls disappeared, restaurant, shops and news stands closed. No one came to deliver the milk or water; and no one collected rubbish. Many domestic helpers have also gone home, leaving many families struggle with their daily grinding. Migrant workers have effectively taken over the service industries in the city. They are the unsung heroes of our society.

My helper Xiao Yu has also gone her home in Sichuan, by taking the train for 29 hours without a seat. I’ve told her to take her time as I’d like her to spend decent time with her family.

I watched the news and felt guilty. Ever since I left home in the end of 1990, I have only gone back four times for the Spring Festival. I find the overwhelming crowds off-putting: anywhere you go, it is infested by thongs of people. And my family has never pressured me. If I bothered to try, it wouldn’t be too hard – wouldn’t be hard as Xiao Yu’s 29 hour seatless train. I’ve called home and promised to be there next year.
More at Zhang Lijia's weblog.
unquote

Megaupload Mega Song HD

2012-01-23T01:35:00.000+08:00

More than 12 Million hits on YouTube - enjoy - this is not bad marketing:

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI !

2012-01-23T01:30:00.000+08:00

Wishing all my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR of THE DRAGON !

University professor Kong Qingdong - some more here !

2012-01-23T01:25:00.000+08:00

After this racist comments from that professor (just wondering what he is telling his students about Hong Kong or foreigners.....). Now it seems that he denies having said this & that this was some make up by the TV Station (similar to that - I cannot find the source anymore - but I read it earlier today online....).
So here some comments for you - this is interesting:

More about Kim Dotcom

2012-01-23T01:12:00.000+08:00

Kim Dotcom is still in New Zealand jail - but he is willing to fight and as reported he has hired the best lawyers possible. On Monday (today) there will be the decision if he will be granted bail. Personally (I do not know that guy - from all the reports about his lifestyle, maybe he is a little a**h**e - but who knows). If he has really broken the law (or only smart enough using loopholes) this will be decided by somebody else. The US want him that urgently - this is a problem for him.
Here some more info about the whole story (Click here )
This is from NATIONAL POST:
quote
Kim Dotcom, Megaupload founder, claims he is ‘smarter than Bill Gates’

Reuters Jan 22, 2012 – 10:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Jan 22, 2012 10:29 AM ET

By Lincoln Feast and Sarah Marsh
Among the roll-call of hip-hop artists and other celebrities plugging Megaupload.com’s digital storage services in an online promotional video, a cameo from the website’s founder would have gone unnoticed by many.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

This TV grab shows Internet guru and founder of Megaupload.com, Kim Schmitz, also known as "Kim Dotcom", in an Auckland district court in New Zealand on January 20, 2012.

As the voiceover boasts of the site’s billion users and four percent share of all Internet traffic, a colossal figure clad in black appears in a music studio.
“Bit by bit, it’s a hit, it’s a hit!” founder Kim Dotcom booms in a slight accent that hints at his German roots.
The hits may have just run out for Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Investor, who spent his 38th birthday on Saturday in a New Zealand jail after 70 police raided his country estate and cut him out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which requested the raid, says Dotcom masterminded a scheme that made more than $175 million in a few short years by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.

Click here to read the FBI’s full statement regarding the charges against Mr. Dotcom

Megaupload’s U.S. lawyer said the company merely offered online storage, would “vigorously defend itself” and was trying to recover its servers and get back online.
The arrest marks the latest twist in the checkered story of Dotcom, a former hacker who got his first computer at nine before going on to build an Internet fortune and friendships with music stars including Alicia Keys, Will.i.am and P.Diddy who appeared on the Megaupload.com promo video.
EARLY STARTER
Born in the German city of Kiel, Dotcom — who was then known as Schmitz — grew up in northern Germany.

Nigel Marple/Reuters

Giraffe statues stand in the grounds of the Dotcom Mansion, home of accused Kim Dotcom, who founded the Megaupload.com site and ran it from the $30 million mansion, is seen in Coatesville January 21, 2012.

As a child, he made copies of computer games to sell to his friends, and in the early days of the Internet, began hacking into computers via telephones, according to reputed German daily Die Welt.
Schmitz has made no secret of his controversial past as a cyber-raider, hacking into computer networks at NASA, the Pentagon and at least one major bank.
As the hacker pioneer generation came of age, so did Schmitz. After being convicted of computer hacking in 1998, he made a fortune providing computer security consulting and venture capital investment via the firm Kimvestor.
According to German magazine Der Spiegel, Schmitz once boasted he would become one of the richest men in the world. How was he so sure? “I’m smarter than Bill Gates,” he said.
Schmitz, who also called himself Kimble after the wrongly convicted doctor-on-the-run in the film “The Fugitive,” became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.
He briefly became a fixture in Germany’s nouveau riche party scene and made his own film, shot with a hand-held camera, Kimble Goes Monaco. The hulking Schmitz — reportedly two meters tall and weighing more than 130 kg — was often shown in Germany’s tabloid press with fast cars and a model on his arm.
unquote
GOOD LUCK KIM !

Hong Kong people are dogs !

2012-01-22T15:04:00.003+08:00

This is a professor spreading his "opinion" about Hong kong people live in TV - slightly disgusting. It seems later he apologised for his talking - but it doesn't matter he apologise or not: It seems this guy is full of prejudice against Hong Kong people & "over - proud" of being a "mainland chinese".
Actually if you have been to the mainland already & especially often & not only in the glitzy cities like Shanghai - you know how dirty it is everywhere in the mainland & what kind of behavior the people have there..........(by the way there are still a lot of streets in Shanghai the people let the kids pee & shit on the street..........).
Please see yourself here:

This is what it was all about (this is from here - click !)
Watch: Bitchfight between mainland tourists eating on the Hong Kong MTR with local passengers

quote
A video of a quarrel between mainland tourists caught snacking on a Hong Kong subway train with local passengers has burnt up the internets in both Hong Kong and the mainland. Since the video was uploaded to Youtube five days ago, it has racked up half a million views, and a few hundred thousand more on various Chinese video sites. Here's a quick summary of what happens in the video:

At the start of the video, a Hong Kong man demands an apology from the girl and her mother but the tourists refuse, saying it is not a big deal. Others then join in on both sides.

One of the Hongkongers presses the emergency button and notifies platform staff. An MTR employee tells the tourists they can't eat inside the train and a mainland woman says sorry in English. A Hong Kong man then says sarcastically: "Oh, she knows English".

A mainland woman tries to explain the situation to the MTR staff member but is interrupted by the Hongkongers as the quarrel resumes. At the end of the video, a Hong Kong man says: "No need to speak to them. That's what mainlanders are like."
Huang Xiangyang, senior writer at the China Daily, describes the video as a "symbol of the 'culture clash' between Hong Kong and the mainland":
Internet users from the mainland overwhelmingly pointed to Hong Kong residents' sense of superiority - something that was routinely felt by the less wealthy mainlanders when they visited Hong Kong before its return to the motherland in 1997 - only a very few took a neutral stand, noting that mainland tourists should learn to behave themselves while Hong Kong people should be more tolerant and not overact.

I would no doubt have reacted in the same way as most of my mainland compatriots if I had not lived in Hong Kong for five years. In fact, I was expecting to experience discrimination when I was first sent to the city in 2000 to work for the local bureau of our newspaper.

After all, I had experienced not so subtle discrimination in big cities such as Shanghai where I could not speak the local dialects. Given Hong Kong's history as a British colony for more than 150 years, what more could I expect?

Yet my fears never materialized. Instead, my five years living and working in Hong Kong are some of my most pleasant memories. Instead of enmity and discrimination, I was shown hospitality and care by the local people, who were always polite and ready to help.
unquote
And here some part with english subtitles:

Controversial ultra-nationalist Peking University professor and 73rd generation descendant of Confucius Kong Qingdong (孔庆东), who recently handed out the Confucius Peace Prize to Vladimir Putin via two Russian babes, does not like the Hong Kong MTR bitchfight that we just saw taking place between mainland tourists and local passengers. He has some harsh words for the people of Hong Kong, who he thinks are mostly bastards, running dogs of the British, and thieves. With English subtitles thanks to Youtuber @languagelover7.

This is one in the first video in this post ! Kong Qingdong is his name & he is a Beijing University professor !

Your weekend music !

2012-01-22T02:35:00.000+08:00

All final preparations are on the way for the start of the CNY celebration - isn't it ?
Here your weekend music - no further comments - just get a little bit crazy with 3 clips here. 2x Saint Saviour (w Groove Armada + solo). The last one is a fan video for Kate Bush 50 words for Snow - Nice !
If PIPA & SOPA will be in effect - my blog would not exist anymore - like 10,000 of others.

Protect IP & SOPA

2012-01-21T19:19:00.004+08:00

This is the result of the SOPA Strike 18.01.12 - click here.

And that is what it is all about (I have posted this already 2 days ago - but it is so important, that it doesn't matter to be posted again):

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Dear Readers, please spread the word - this bill must be stopped completely !

SOPA Text - click here - 78 pages long !

Wikipedia on Stop Online Piracy Act - click here !

Wikipedia on Protect IP Act (PIPA) - click here !

And here another site to caste your vote against this nonsense:
Click here & vote !

Hong Kong freezes $42 mln in Megaupload raids

2012-01-21T18:56:00.002+08:00

Here the latest news about the bust of Kim Schmitz + 2 other germans in New Zealand on Friday. As it seems he has a lot of companies "running" in Hong Kong, there was a huge action raiding all the sites connected to him. This comes all just a few days after the massive internet protest against the IP-Protect by the US Government - more about this in the next post.
Here from AFP about the raids in Hong Kong regarding Kim Schmitz - I am not so sure what he really did wrong - but it is clear that he is def. a "target" - at the bottom some YouTube videos about Kim Schmitz:
quote

Hong Kong Customs officers have raided offices, domestic premises and luxury hotel suites as part of a worldwide FBI Internet piracy investigation into file-sharing site Megaupload.com.

One hundred officers took part in the raids Friday which seized a large amount of digital evidence and uncovered about HK$330 million ($42 million) in suspected crime proceeds, Customs said.

"The assets have been frozen in accordance with related ordinances. The operation is ongoing," it said in a statement.

Officers raided hotel suites costing HK$100,000 a day equipped with high-speed servers and large television screens which were suspected to be connected to the case.

Megaupload's website was shut down Thursday by US authorities who accuse it of one of the largest cases of copyright theft ever.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, is being held in New Zealand following a police raid there.

The 37-year-old German citizen, who has New Zealand and Hong Kong residency, was denied bail with three other men on Friday when they appeared in an Auckland district court.

New Zealand police seized luxury cars worth NZ$6.0 million ($4.8 million), including a 1959 pink Cadillac and a Rolls Royce Phantom, in a raid on Dotcom's Auckland mansion.

The US Justice Department and FBI have indicted a total of seven people who they said were "responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works, through Megaupload.com and other related sites".

The accused generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners by offering pirated copies of movies, TV programmes and other content, according to a statement.

The Hong Kong Customs said it had been conducting a joint investigation with the FBI targeting the criminal activities of the syndicate since the end of 2010.

Megaupload itself is registered as a private company in Hong Kong, with an office in Wanchai district.

The dramatic raids came amid a fierce debate in the United States over a proposed bill before Congress aimed at cracking down on online piracy.

Critics say the new law would hand US authorities unprecedented powers that could impinge on the freedom of the Internet, and on Wednesday dozens of websites led by Wikipedia went dark in a rare protest.

In face of the criticism, US Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid Friday agreed to delay next week's vote on the bill to allow more time for talks.

"We made good progress through the discussions we've held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks," he said.

The European Union's top Internet official Neelie Kroes also criticised the planned US legislation, writing on Twitter that: "Internet regulation must be effective, proportionate & preserve benefits of open net."

"Speeding is illegal too: but you don't put speed bumps on the motorway," she added.

The prosecution of Megaupload meanwhile sparked a retaliatory cyber attack on the FBI and Justice Department websites.

The two government sites were up and running again early Friday after being shut down for several hours in the attack claimed by the "Anonymous" hacktivist group, which also briefly disabled music and recording industry websites.

Megaupload is popular with Hollywood celebrities and has been endorsed by music stars such as Kanye West.

Megaupload Ltd. and another company, Vestor Ltd., were indicted by a US grand jury and charged with racketeering conspiracy, copyright infringement and conspiring to commit money laundering.

Vestor's sole shareholder is Kim Dotcom. His six fellow accused come from Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia.

unquote

One comment:
He gave them fireworks, they give him to the US !
And when you try to open the Megauploads webpage you will get this:

Good luck Kim !

Mainland pregnants flocking into Hong Kong to give birth........

2012-01-21T01:10:00.001+08:00

....an old problem here: The mainland woman pregnant want to give birth in Hong Kong. Why ?Because then the baby is a permanent HK resident....and after maybe 18 -- 20 years this now grown-up baby can apply for dependent visa for his parents even if they are not born in Hong Kong. Mainland pregnant women abusing the emergency call of the public hospitals - they cannot be refused...."Smart business people" arranging the trips for this woman including husbands to Hong Kong - they are "storing" them in some kind of hostels.......it is just a dirty business using the loopholes in Hong Kong. HK government seems not powerful enough to complain to the mainland government more seriously.
Here some little efforts to tackle that problem......Donald Tsang almost at the end of his term - why shall he care too much - let this job be done by the next CE........Please read here from THE STANDARD:
quote
Tsang out to deliverPhila Siu Friday, January 20, 2012
Pregnant mainlanders trying to give birth in Hong Kong are to face a four-way clampdown.
The plan is to hit them in the pocket, toughen border checks, chase the sneaks and raid unlicensed hotels who put them up.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam- kuen yesterday set out four steps against mainland moms-to-be gate-crashing emergency wards and hospitals.
Speaking in a Legislative Council question-and-answer session, he said the Hospital Authority will review public hospital charges for pregnant non-locals who turn up at accident wards to deliver their babies.
Second, the Immigration Department will get more resources to beef up border checks.
Local and mainland authorities will work together to crack down on intermediaries who help expectant women sneak across the border.
And fourth, the government will increase raids on unlicensed hostels that put up pregnant mainland women.
"The government will carefully handle the issue of mainland people giving birth in Hong Kong," Tsang said. "I understand there has been pressure on the city's medical system.
"The government places high importance on this matter. Hong Kong people should have priority to use the city's medical system."
Tsang said the government has already set quotas on the number of pregnant mainlanders the city's private and public hospitals can admit. The quota is 3,400 for public hospitals and 31,000 for private hospitals. He said the quota has led to a drop in the number of mainlanders giving birth in Hong Kong.

But lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan did not think the four measures would be sufficient and called for an urgent review of the quota mechanism.
At present, the quota applies to all mainland women, even if the spouse is a Hong Kong resident. Lee said such families should not be affected by the quota, and Tsang promised to look further into this.
According to the Census and Statistics Department, 88,500 people were born in Hong Kong in 2010.
Babies born to mainland families - in which neither mother nor father were Hongkongers - accounted for 36.9 percent. It was only 16.2 percent in 2005 and 1.3 percent in 2001.Tsang said he will look into how this can be tackled further.
Cheung Tak-hong, head of Prince of Wales Hospital's obstetrics department, said the four measures may not be very effective as so many mainlanders want a Hong Kong birth certificate.
The Immigration Service Officers Association said the department would need to hire 400 more officers to strengthen border checks.
On the Hong Kong identity remark by Central Government Liaison Office official Hao Tiechuan, Tsang said different Hong Kong people have various views on the matter.
Hao had criticized a University of Hong Kong survey in which people were asked whether they considered themselves Hongkongers or Chinese.
"Hongkongers should know what is right or wrong," Tsang said.
When lawmakers criticized Tsang for failing to defend Hongkongers over Hao's remark, Tsang said there was no need for him to comment on every issue.
unquote

Signs of 2012

2012-01-20T00:20:00.001+08:00

This is a rather long one with all signs explanations & forecast for 2012 - the year of the DRAGON:
quote
THE CHINESE calendar has a 12-year cycle and each year is named after an animal. People born in each of these years are said to have certain characteristics. The animal is believed to be the main factor in each person’s life that gives them their traits, success, and happiness in their lifetime.

Dragon

1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012
Secret Friend: Rooster
Allies: Rat and Monkey
Enemy: Dog
Best Months: May, July and September
Bad Months: March, June, and December
Zodiac’s Nature: Magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self-assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, zealous, eccentric, intellectual, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, ambitious, artistic, generous, and loyal. Can be tactless, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, intolerant, dogmatic, violent, impetuous, and brash.
Geomancer Joseph Chau said people born in the year of the Dragon will not be that lucky in 2012, because they are offending the Grand Duke (Tai Suey Pang Tai or the ruling god) of the year.
“This will usher in inauspicious and difficult periods from time to time throughout the year, so they should think before they act,” Mr. Chau said.
He said career luck for the dragons is tough and slow in 2012. “They have to keep a low profile, they have to be patient, and they have to do their best to keep good relationships. They should avoid involving themselves to office politics,” he said.
Financially, Mr. Chau said 2012 is not the year to invest for the dragons. “Money is ‘easy come, easy go’ for the dragons. They have to cut down their expenditures and try their best to save money,” Mr. Chau said.
Feng shui expert Marites Allen said financial luck is more favorable for the Wood Dragon (who is 48 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Dragon (who is 36 years old).
Mr. Chau said Dragons are also not fortunate with the affairs of the heart in 2012. “Lovers should be patient with each other to maintain mutual understanding. They must be careful in their relationships to avoid any conflict,” he said.
Healthwise, he said Dragons should pay special attention to road safety. They should also be careful in handling sharp objects. “Beware of spleen, gall bladder, and stomach problems,” he said.
Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Earth Dragon (who is 24 years old), and least favorable for the Wood Dragon (who is 48 years old).

Snake

1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001
Secret Friend: Monkey
Allies: Ox and Rooster
Enemy: Pig
Best Months: May, July, and September
Bad Months: April, August, and January 2013
Zodiac’s Nature: A deep thinker, wise, mystic, graceful, soft-spoken, sensual, creative, prudent, shrewd, ambitious, elegant, cautious, responsible, calm, strong, constant, and purposeful. Can be a loner, a bad communicator, possessive, hedonistic, self-doubting, distrustful, mendacious, suffocating, and cold.
Mr. Chau said the fortune of the Snake would be much improved, especially with the presence of their lucky stars in 2012.
“Career development is quite smooth and this is the right time for business expansion. In the process however, they have to keep good relationships with people to avoid isolating themselves,” Mr. Chau said.
Ms. Allen said Snakes should look forward to unique opportunities that will come their way despite a lackluster 2012 for them. However, she said things might not come easy to the Snake-born this year.
Mr. Chau said money luck for Snakes is steady in 2012, for as long as they do not end up being too greedy.
Ms. Allen said financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Snake (who is 47), and least favorable for the Fire Snake (who is 35).
He said the Snake-born people could expect their love lives to blossom into a permanent relationship in 2012. “Single Snakes can easily ‘hit-off’ with the opposite gender and bear fruits of love, and end up getting married,” he said.
The presence of the “Illness Star” signifies that Snakes will easily get sick in 2012. “They have to pay special attention to their lungs and respiratory system,” Mr. Chau said.
“They should also avoid dangerous water sports, and pregnant women should beware of miscarriage and gynecological problems,” he added.
Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Earth Snake (who is 23 years old), and least favorable for the Wood Snake (47 years old).

Horse

1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002
Secret Friend: Sheep
Allies: Tiger and Dog
Enemy: Rat
Best Months: May, October, and December
Bad Months: April, June, and September
Zodiac’s Nature: Cheerful, popular, quick-witted, changeable, earthy, perceptive, talkative, agile both mentally and physically, magnetic, intelligent, astute, flexible, and open-minded. Can be fickle, arrogant, childish, anxious, rude, gullible, and stubborn.
Ms. Allen said 2012 is “a fabulous year with fresh opportunities” for those born under the sign of the Horse, with “victory luck” helping them succeed in competitive situations.
Mr. Chau said the Horses benefit from the “Noble Star” which shines brightly on them in 2012. “With conservative work, Horses can yield twice the result with half the effort,” he said.
In terms of finance, Ms. Allen said luck is fairly good for all Horse-born except for the Wood Horse (who is 58).
Mr. Chau said the finances of Horses would be good and optimistic in 2012.
“Money comes from all sources and it never ends. However, they have to be highly alert of their fair-weather friends. Otherwise, they will easily fall into a money trap,” he said.
For affairs of the heart, Mr. Chau said Horses would experience “dull and depressed” love lives due to the influence of the “Lonely Star.”
“Lovers will experience communication gaps and misunderstanding. Apart from this, they should stay away from temptation, and should not give any third party [the chance] to intervene in their love affairs,” he said.
On health, Mr. Chau said Horses would have the possibility of undergoing an operation this year. They should also pay special attention to road safety, as well as diseases related to the liver and the lungs.
“It is important that they should not go to funerals and attend wakes during the whole year,” he said.

Sheep (or Goat)

1919, 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991
Secret Friend: Horse
Allies: Rabbit and Boar
Best Months: April, May, and December
Bad Months: August, October, and November
Enemy: Ox
Zodiac’s Nature: Righteous, sincere, sympathetic, mild-mannered, shy, artistic, creative, gentle, compassionate, understanding, mothering, determined, peaceful, generous, and seeks security. Can be moody, indecisive, over-possessive, a worrier, pessimistic, over-sensitive, a complainer, and weak-willed.
It will be a lucky year in terms of wealth and career for those born under the sign of the Sheep, Mr. Chau said.
“They will be blessed by the ‘Grace Star’ this year and it will be lucky for them to explore and market their business overseas,” he said. If they can take advantage of the chance, he said they would gain more wealth, fame, and authority abroad, than in the local market.
“This year will be especially lucky for singers, entertainers, and business traders. It is also lucky for the Sheep-born to study abroad or migrate,” he said.
He however advised Sheep-born people to stay away from gossip and rumors by being careful with their words.
Ms. Allen said financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Sheep (who is 57), and least favorable for the Fire Sheep (who is 45).
Mr. Chau said they should try their best to save money for rainy days. They should also be “extremely careful” when signing contracts.
Meanwhile, the Sheep’s love life is “satisfying and desirable.” “However, they should have to stay away from extramarital affairs, or they might have the possibility of falling into love traps,” he said.
On health, Mr. Chau said Sheep should pay attention to road safety, as well as possible heart, liver, and lung problems. “It is important that they should avoid going to funerals or attending wakes within the year,” Mr. Chau said.
Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Water Sheep (who is 69), and least favorable for the Earth Sheep (who is 33).

Monkey

1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004
Secret Friend: Snake
Allies: Dragon and Rat
Enemy: Tiger
Best Months: March, May, and June
Bad Months: February, August, and October
Zodiac’s Nature: An inventor, motivator, improviser, quick-witted, inquisitive, flexible, innovative, a problem solver, self-assured, sociable, artistic, polite, dignified, competitive, factual, and intellectual. Can be egotistical, vain, selfish, reckless, snobbish, deceptive, manipulative, cunning, jealous, and suspicious.
Mr. Chau said 2012 is not a favorable year for Monkeys, so they have the tendency to get into trouble and problems, especially related to business ventures, rumors, and court cases.
“They should especially avoid lawsuits and be law-abiding,” Mr. Chau said. “Luckily, there is a lucky star shining brightly. It helps the Monkeys cut the Gordian knot. However, only constant humility and hard work will bring success to the Monkeys.”
Ms. Allen sees “impressive personal chi” which helps those born under the sign of the Monkey to go after their goals. “Wealth and success luck are with them this year,” she said.
However, Mr. Chau said Monkeys should be alert for pickpockets and robbers when travelling.
Financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Monkey (who is 68), and least favorable for the Fire Monkey (56)
Meanwhile, Mr. Chau said that when it comes to love, Monkey’s might easily fall into melancholy in 2012. “So they should avoid over-thinking their love affairs. Otherwise they might have the tendency to be trapped in a mental problem,” he warned.
Monkeys are advised to diet and pay attention to their hygiene to stay healthy in 2012. Mr. Chau said it is important that they should not eat too much oily food. They should also take care of their lungs, intestines, and stomach.
Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Metal Monkey (32), and least favorable for the Fire Monkey (56).

Rooster

1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005
Secret Friend: Dragon
Allies: Ox and Snake
Enemy: Rabbit
Best Months: March, July, and October
Bad Months: April, November, and January 2013
Zodiac’s Nature: Acute, neat, meticulous, organized, self-assured, decisive, conservative, critical, a perfectionist, alert, zealous, practical, scientific, and responsible. Can be overzealous and critical, puritanical, egotistical, abrasive, opinionated, and given to empty bravado.
If the Rooster was the most inauspicious sign for 2011, both Mr. Chau and Ms. Allen agree that this year it is the luckiest.
Being the secret friend of the Dragon, the Rooster-born will have a relatively smooth and trouble-free year, Ms. Allen said.
“Both personal and professional pursuits are satisfying. Finances will go well, with a possible windfall of some kind,” she explained.
Mr. Chau said “change” is a must for Roosters in 2012. “They have to look for new jobs, new markets, and new directions to explore for their business. They should be ready for sudden changes, and try their best to cope with it,” he said.
“On the other hand, they have to make good friendships with people, so that they are able to work efficiently to achieve their target easily,” he added.
Financially, Roosters are expected to have stable incomes in 2012, Mr. Chau said. “But they should try their best to save their money for a rainy day,” he said.
He added that Roosters will have many chances to enter joint ventures, but they should be careful in signing contracts to avoid money traps.
Ms. Allen said financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Rooster (67), and least favorable for the Fire Rooster (55).
When it comes to love, Mr. Chau said 2012 will be a very romantic year for Roosters. “They are so attractive and popular in social gatherings, and they can easily [make a] good impression [on] the opposite gender,” he said.
Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Metal Rooster (31 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Rooster (55 years old).
“Roosters should have enough rest, beware of limb injury, and avoid going to funeral and attending wakes,” Mr. Chau said.

Dog

1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006
Secret Friend: Rabbit
Allies: Tiger and Horse
Enemy: Dragon
Best Months: February, July, and September
Bad Months: March, June, and October
Zodiac’s Nature: Honest, intelligent, straightforward, loyal, has a sense of justice and fair play, attractive, amiable, unpretentious, sociable, open-minded, idealistic, moralistic, practical, affectionate, sensitive, and easy going. Can be cynical, lazy, cold, judgmental, pessimistic, a worrier, stubborn, and quarrelsome.
“2012 is a year to be careful because of the presence of harmful stars in your chart,” Ms. Allen advised those born under the sign of the Dog. “Get your timing right for any major activity,” she added.
Mr. Chau said Dogs are directly clashing with the Dragon this year, causing their luck to fluctuate from time to time.
“Fortunately, the existence of the lucky star Yuet Hung can help neutralize the negative forces and release half of the bad luck influence from the unlucky stars,” he said.
Career-wise, the road forward is uncertain for Dogs, Mr. Chau said. “This is not the ideal year for Dogs to change jobs or to expand businesses. It is safe to stay extra vigilant, and they should beware of backstabbing and lawsuits,” he said.
Financially, Mr. Chau said it is a “fluctuating” year for Dogs. He advised those born under the sign to be very careful in handling their money. “It is best to broaden the sources of income, and reduce the unnecessary expenditures,” he said.
Mr. Chau said Dogs should not be credit guarantors for others “or they will suffer in the months to come.”
“On the other hand, they should keep from borrowing money to avoid court cases,” he added.
Ms. Allen said finance luck is most favorable for the Wood Dog (78 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Dog (66 years old).
Meanwhile, health luck is most favorable for the Earth Dog (54 years old), and least favorable for the Wood Dog (78 years old).
Mr. Chau said the Dogs should have enough rest to avoid exhaustion. “Keep away from sharp objects, be conscious of road safety, and beware of industrial accidents,” he said.
“On the other hand, they have to watch their diet, and their digestive system,” he added.

Boar (or Pig)

1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007
Secret Friend: Tiger
Allies: Rabbit and Sheep
Enemy: Snake
Best Months: February, August, and September
Bad Month: March, June, and October
Zodiac’s Nature: Honest, gallant, sturdy, sociable, peace-loving, patient, loyal, hardworking, trusting, sincere, calm, understanding, thoughtful, scrupulous, passionate, and intelligent. Can be naïve, over-reliant, self-indulgent, gullible, fatalistic, and materialistic.
It is a prosperous year for the Boars and it will be smooth-sailing beyond expectations, Mr. Chau said. “Their career luck and business luck are stable, and they will be able to reach their target,” he said. “They will get guidance from their eminent friends, so they will turn disaster into positive events.”
However, Ms. Allen warned that Boars will be likely susceptible to possible robbery, money loss, or betrayal. “Make sure to get your timing right, and keep yourself strong and protected,” she said. “But your other star combinations bring success luck,” she added.
In money affairs, Mr. Chau said Boars would have a “pretty good year.”
“It is bitter first, and sweet later,” he explained.
He said Boars would have many opportunities to change jobs or have another better prospects in their careers, so he advised them to treasure their luck, and “strike while the iron is hot.”
Financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Boar (77 and 17 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Boar (65 years old).
On love and romance, Mr. Chau said 2012 is the romantic year for Boars. “They will enjoy a harmonious relationship with those around them this year, but they should keep away from temptation, and beware of intruders,” he said.
Regarding health matters, Ms. Allen said health luck is most favorable for the Earth Boar (53 years old), and least favorable for the Wood Boar (77 and 17 years old).
Mr. Chau said Pigs must pay attention to their diet to protect their kidneys and digestive systems.

Rat

1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008
Secret Friend: Ox
Allies: Dragon and Monkey
Enemy: Horse
Best Months: February, April, and December
Bad Months: May, July, and October
Zodiac’s Nature: Forthright, tenacious, systematic, meticulous, charismatic, sensitive, hardworking, industrious, charming, eloquent, sociable, artistic, and shrewd. Can be manipulative, vindictive, mendacious, venal, selfish, obstinate, critical, over-ambitious, ruthless, intolerant, and scheming.
Ms. Allen said 2012 is a “mixed year” for the Rat, with favorable career and finances, while experiencing challenges regarding health and romance.
“The Rats should focus on mentally challenging activities rather than doing the party scene,” she advised.
Mr. Chau said opportunities would be knocking on their doors if Rats watch out for what they say, and stay away from jealousy, rumors and personal disputes.
“If they can take advantage of the chances, they can yield twice the result with half the effort,” he said.
Ms. Allen said financial luck would be most favorable for the Wood Rat (28 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Rat (76 years old).
Rats will have a steady income of profits from other sources, Mr. Chau said. “Things go smoothly and they will have chances to change jobs and exhibit their talents. However, they have to remember the Chinese motto that says: ‘Too greedy will become poor’ if they want to succeed in 2012,” he explained.
He said the love life of Rats is a flat line in 2012, as they face many obstacles and problems that will cause disputes with their partners. “Therefore, lovers must try to understand and forgive each other,” he said.
Ms. Allen said the health of those born under the sign of the Rat may not be at its best in 2012, so they are advised to adjust to a less demanding schedule.
“Stress brings tension, but allies are there [to come] to the rescue,” Ms. Allen said.
Health luck is most favorable for the Water Rat (40 years old), and least favorable for the Earth Rat (64 years old).

1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009
Secret Friend: Rat
Allies: Snake and Rooster
Enemy: Sheep
Best Months: February, April, August, and September
Bad Month: May, July, and December
Zodiac’s Nature: Dependable, calm, methodical, a born leader, patient, hardworking, ambitious, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute, and tenacious. Can be stubborn, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, and demanding.
Ms. Allen said the presence of the “Multiplying Star” magnifies both the good and the bad fortunes of those born under the sign of the Ox.
“This means that this year may be tougher than last year, but when things go well, they will go very well,” she explained.
Because of this, she advised the Oxen to plan their major activities on their good months.
Mr. Chau said 2012 is a lucky year for Oxen in business, and they will have better prospects in finance. “However they should not be moody or swell-headed. Otherwise, they will suffer a big defeat by their competitors,” he warned.
Financially, the Oxen are expected to be quite fortunate this year because they will have a steady stream of income from different sources. Mr. Chau said it is the ideal time for Oxen to invest or purchase properties, for as long as they keep a low profile so as not to attract theft.
“It is important that they should avoid lending money to others or they should not expect that it will be paid back,” he said.
Financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Ox (27 years old), and Water Ox (39 years old). Financial luck is least favorable for the Fire Ox (75 years old).
On love and romance, Mr. Chau said Oxen would experience stable love lives. However, they should not indulge in late-night parties or suffer love traps along the way. He added that male Oxen will have a better year than their female counterparts.
On health, Mr. Chau said Oxen should take care of their blood circulation, lungs, and heart.
Health luck is most favorable for the Water Ox (39 years old), and least favorable for the Earth Ox (63 years old).

Tiger

1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010
Secret Friend: Boar
Allies: Horse and Dog
Enemy: Monkey
Best Months: February, September, and October
Bad Month: March, May, and August
Zodiac’s Nature: Unpredictable, rebellious, colorful, powerful, passionate, daring, impulsive, vigorous, stimulating, sincere, affectionate, a humanitarian, and generous. Can be restless, reckless, impatient, quick-tempered, obstinate, selfish, and aggressive.
“This is a tough and busy year for Tigers,” Mr. Chau said. “They have to work very hard to survive in business, otherwise they will become a loser... So, the busier they are, the better prospects they will have.”
Ms. Allen said Tigers should be mindful of the “Annual Conflict Star,” and must chose auspicious months for important events.
She added that those born under the sign of the Tiger have a “Multiplying Star” this year, which means that both the good and the bad luck get doubled.
Mr. Chau advises Tigers to be more conservative in handling their finances, since a slight mistake might cause them to lose a lot of money.
Financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Tiger (38 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Tiger (26 years old).
Health luck is most favorable for the Metal Tiger (62 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Tiger (26 years old).
“Try to avoid participating in dangerous sports and be aware of road safety,” Mr. Chau said. “In the same manner, they should not neglect the health of their eldest member of the family,” he added.
On love affairs, the romantic star of the Tigers is weak in 2012, Mr. Chau said. “It is full of complications, and love life will definitely not be smooth,” he said. “Reward is little compared to huge effort paid. So, they should not expect too much or they would be deeply disappointed. Lovers should try not to be rigid and try to improve their communication skills,” he added.

Rabbit

1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011
Secret Friend: Dog
Allies: Sheep and Boar
Enemy: Rooster
Best month: April, May, June, and August
Bad Months: March, September, and December
Zodiac’s Nature: Gracious, a good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, astute, compassionate, and flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, and stubborn.
Both Ms. Allen and Mr. Chau said Rabbits will have a very good year, with significant improvements over last year.
“Career luck is promising and they will be able to change their bad luck into good fortune,” Mr. Chau said.
However, he warned Rabbits from being too talkative. “Try to be alert [about] people and their hidden enemy. They have to remember the Chinese saying: ‘Sickness comes in through the mouth, and troubles come out from the mouth,’ if they want to succeed in 2012,” he said.
Ms. Allen said the relationships of those born under the Rabbit sign would go well.
Financial luck is most favorable for the Wood Rabbit (37 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Rabbit (25 years old).
Mr. Chau said Rabbits will have money luck in 2012, but they have to prevent problems that could be created from wealth. “It is important that they should not be greedy or take shameful profit or they will put themselves into jeopardizing situations,” Mr. Chau explained.
On love affairs, Mr. Chau said Rabbits would find it easy to get into romantic involvements with the opposite gender. However, he said they should keep away from temptations and one-night stands, or fall into serious troubles that they will regret later.
Ms. Allen said health luck is generally good, allowing Rabbits to fight stress and work pressures. Health luck is most favorable for the Metal Rabbit (61 years old), and least favorable for the Fire Rabbit (25 years old).
unquote

CHINESE NEW YEAR IS COMING - here some recipe from Wolfgang Puck

2012-01-20T00:11:00.000+08:00

Check out that - try to cook it - it is delicious !
quote

Wolfgang Puck: In honor of Year of the Dragon, fire up wok for shrimp and noodles

By Wolfgang Puck

Updated: 01/18/2012 10:03:44 AM CST

For me, food is the best way to celebrate just about any holiday. That is certainly true for the Chinese New Year celebration, which begins this year on Monday.
According to the Chinese zodiac, we're now entering the Year of the Dragon, a time of good fortune. So let's observe it by cooking a dish that represents a fortunate new year for us all.
Noodles are traditionally served at Chinese New Year celebrations, with their lengthy strands representing long lives for those who eat them. So, take care not to cut your noodles when eating lo mein in the recipe I share with you here. Instead, lift up several strands at a time with your chopsticks and take them into your mouth whole or twirl them up Western style on your fork, resting the end of its tines in the bowl of a spoon.
Lo mein are traditional Chinese wheat noodles, rounded strands similar to spaghetti. You'll find them dried in Chinese food stores or in the Asian foods section of most markets; but, for the sake of convenience, you can substitute spaghetti. Whichever you use, be sure to precook the noodles only until al dente - tender but still slightly chewy - and then drain them; they'll continue to cook a bit when you add them to this stir-fry toward the end of cooking.
Speaking of stir-frying, that simple Asian cooking technique speeds the preparation of the recipe. It helps to use a wok, which has a curved bottom, which maximizes the cooking surface. It distributes heat evenly and promotes thorough tossing of the ingredients as you stir them continuously.
You can find woks with flattened undersides that enable them to sit stably on a Western-style stove burner; and there are also good electric woks that heat up perfectly to let you do the cooking on a countertop. In a pinch, though, you can use a large skillet with curved sides.
All of the ingredients for this dish, adapted from a recipe developed at my Chinois restaurants, can be easily found at a well-stocked supermarket. Some of them also express a pan-Asian sensibility that extends beyond the Chinese kitchen alone.
The ponzu, for example, is a traditional Japanese bottled condiment that combines soy sauce, rice vinegar and citrus juice. If you can't find it, mix those three ingredients together to taste.
And then there's a more Western ingredient in the mixture, too - a few tablespoons of butter. Added along with the ponzu toward the end of cooking, it helps bind the sauce together and adds a touch of richness - just the thing you need for a dish to observe a prosperous new year.
GARLIC-PONZU SHRIMP WITH LO MEIN NOODLES
Makes 8 to 10 servings.
2 pounds fresh large shrimp, shelled and deveined
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons soybean or vegetable oil
1 cup sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms
1 cup thinly sliced baby bok choy leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
2 pounds lo mein noodles or spaghetti, cooked al dente following package instructions, drained
1 cup bottled ponzu sauce
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions
To prepare wok: Preheat wok or large skillet over high heat.
To stir-fry shrimp: Using paper towels, pat shrimp dry. Lightly season shrimp with salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons oil to wok. Heat until oil swirls easily and gives off thin haze. Immediately add the shrimp. Stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes or just until they turn pink. Remove shrimp to strainer. Set aside to drain oil.
To stir-fry vegetables: Drizzle remaining oil into hot wok. Heat until hot. Immediately add mushrooms and bok choy. Stir-fry for 3 to 5 minutes or just until colors are bright and vegetables are tender but still slightly crunchy.
To stir-fry noodles: Add garlic and noodles to vegetables in wok, separating noodles as you add them. Stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes or until noodles are heated through and garlic is fragrant. Return shrimp to wok. Add ponzu sauce and butter. Stir-fry, tossing well, just until butter has melted and sauce is hot and coats all ingredients.
To serve: Transfer mixture to serving bowl or platter. Arrange some shrimp attractively on top. Garnish with scallions. Serve immediately.
unquote

More CNY posts will follow ! But somewhat earlier above this Wolfgang Puck is talking about some Japanese ingredients .......not so sure if he is mixing up China & Japan ..........

Protect - IP ?? Vote against that !!!

2012-01-19T01:32:00.002+08:00

Please read / see below. Please be totally against that - this makes no sense !

Cast your vote here - just click !

News on China Corruption

2012-01-17T23:37:00.001+08:00

We all know chinese people in whatever position are easily getting victims of their own greed. If it is in micro-small, small, big, bigger, huge or enormous amounts - it doesnt matter. Everybody like to "take advantage of possibilities". The idea that this maybe not "right" or "against some law" is almost not existing, because "everybody" is doing it. As said before micro-small for example is the market woman cheating the foreigner or unknown customer for a few RMB.....big for example is the guy in the factory cheating you for RMB 2 per meter on a 50,000 meter order of jersey, because he simply buy it at cheaper source and lower quality & smaller fabric width.....with the result that during production they are running out of material because the calculation for the consumption was "misleading"...and so on and so on......About the big shots you can read here. There is still a lot to be done by the Government to tackle that problem. And that problem is A BIG PROBLEM:
quote
More SOEs caught up in corruption: report
Global Times | January 16, 2012 01:05
Over 200 entrepreneurs were involved in 199 criminal cases in China last year that saw a total of 1.4 billion yuan ($222 million) embezzled or exchanged in bribes, according to an annual report on crimes committed by entrepreneurs released Sunday.

The report was jointly published by Faren Magazine, subsidiary of the Legal Daily, and the King and Capital Law Firm.

The number of entrepreneurs involved in crimes was 95 in 2009, 155 in 2010 and 202 last year, the Legal Daily reported Sunday.

Among the 199 cases, 88 involved entrepreneurs from State-owned enterprises (SOEs) whose average age was 53, and 111 of them involved private companies’ entrepreneurs whose average age was 46, according to the report.

Wang Rongli, a researcher with Faren Magazine and author of the report, told the Global Times that the cases were all taken from widespread news reports that he has collected for the past year.

"I have 10 years of experience working in SOEs as a legal advisor and witnessed several managers sent to jail," Wang said.

Wang added there were 76 entrepreneurs from SOEs who were convicted of a total of 122 crimes, of which 92 were bribery and corruption related crimes.

Forty of the 202 entrepreneurs were also former deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC) or members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the report found.

Huang Jianhua, former CEO of the State-owned Hebei Port Group Company and also a Hebei NPC deputy, was sentenced to death with two years’ probation in November last year for receiving bribes of over 20 million yuan, according to the Legal Daily.

"One unique trend in China is more and more government authorities are involved in commercial competition," Li Shuguang, deputy director of the Graduate School with the China University of Political Science and Law, said at Sunday’s press conference.

Li explained that more government officials were becoming CEOs or managers of companies, which was the reason why more SOEs were becoming involved in corruption.

About 40 percent of the cases involving entrepreneurs that the King and Capital Law Firm dealt with since 2000 were related to people taking advantage of their position.

Wang Jiuchuan, a lawyer with the King and Capital law firm who attended the conference, suggested the entrepreneurs maintain a distance from the government, and learn to balance their interests among family members to prevent corruption.

By Zhang Hui
unquote
By the way: Also Hong Kong is far away from being free of corruption. Very well I remember when my first boss here in Hong Kong (this was a german) told me one day: "Why shall I pay my staff too high salary - they anyhow take from the factories.....". This was a company running several 100,000 of pcs production a month for a well-known german brand. Very much I remember at other occasions a german managing director of another famous brand was coming to visit the office (this guy normally stayed in THE PENINSULA) - after doing some normal work this guy always needed to meet the directors of this company for a short moment.....for what ? My boss clearly told me: "He needs to pick up his commission........". This was most probably an amount of between HKD 200,000 - 500,000 each visit - surely then the accommodation in THE PENINSULA was no problem.
So - if you offer they take easily. Only the honest ones are the loosers !

Some more weekend music !

2012-01-15T01:02:00.000+08:00

No further comment on that performance from Kevin Ayers - it is around 1976 - do not miss the end:

And here the same Kevin Ayers - just a 25 years later or more - for your information he was one of the founders of the legendary SOFT MACHINE in or around 1967.........

And here a special feature Robert Wyatt (ex SOFT MACHINE) with AT LAST I AM FREE (this song is originally from CHIC - Rogers & Edwards):

Your weekend music !

2012-01-14T01:40:00.001+08:00

WITHOUT ANY FURTHER COMMENTS - JUST ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND MUSIC !
ITS GOOD - ITS CLASSICS - PLAY IT AT MAX VOLUME !

This one has almost 15 Million hits - not bad:

And this one - my old friend PRINCE - sometimes he is totally underestimated - a perfect musician - and he CAN PLAY GUITAR - enjoy this one:

3x iPhone Craziness MADE IN CHINA

2012-01-14T00:33:00.000+08:00

Okay - it is just a mobile phone with a lot of extra features. Is it a status symbol ? Maybe for many mainland chinese it seems it is a status symbol. Or is it just the chance to buy & sell (even more expensive) on the black market. No judgement from my side. Enjoy this 3 videos:

D&G 門口萬人影相活動 D&G Photography Protest January 8, 2012

2012-01-12T00:58:00.001+08:00

I guess everybody heard about that story here in HK in front of the D & G shop in Canton Road.
Some security guy asked some people to go away and not allow them to make photos in front of the shop - this is only allowed for MAINLAND PEOPLE it is reported was the security man answer. Another part is that it is said while a high ranking MAINLAND official was in the shop some people tried to take pictures of him & then this guy complained and this triggered the security staff action. The result was a heavy protest in front of the shop of Hong Kong people demanding D & G to apologize etc etc.
I find this action quite exxagerated - many people who are out there on the street are surely never D & G customers, so why do they demand can make photos in front of the D & G shop ? Social media turned out to be very efficient to start that action on Canton Road.
The target is D & G somehow representing the RICH & THE UGLY mainlanders. But please be reminded on something:
Isn't Hong Kong a place crowded with thousands of security guards who whereever you are will come and run and tell you, dont sit here - dont do that - this is not allowed etc etc.
How many of the shopping centers here have a place for visitors just to sit and take a rest (for free I mean - not STARBUCKS) - and not being chased away by security guards because you are NOT ALLOWED to do this & that ?

Point of the whole action: The poor protesting against the rich & their special treatment.

Hong Kong must do more to avoid this "special treatments for the rich"- the "normal" people feel offended - this is understandable !

Enjoy the video - a lot more can be found on You Tube:

Chinglish

2012-01-11T01:58:00.000+08:00

At least the chinese writning seems collect - isnt it ?

It is time to go home for Chinese New Year !

2012-01-09T00:43:00.002+08:00

It is the time again the BIG TRAVELLING starts. This one found on chinaSMACK here the wordings:
The following video was featured on popular Chinese video sharing website Youku’s home page, having accumulated over 560k views after just 7 hours of being uploaded, featuring several migrant workers overcome with emotion at the prospect of returning home to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their families…
From Youku:

Migrant workers overcome with emotion and shedding tears after getting their train tickets, happily going home to celebrate the new year!
Several migrant workers are interviewed in the 5 minute long video. Several migrant workers express happiness and are thankful that they received their wages in time for the Chinese New Year, perhaps allowing them to go home to celebrate with their families. Some thank their employers for paying on time, the government, and the media for helping bring public attention to their lives and hardships.

The second pair of migrant workers talk about their train trip, that it will take 2 days and 1 night in order to get home, requiring a one day stopover as well, and their train tickets are for standing room only, without seats for the entire ride. When asked by the interviewer how they can endure not having seats, they explain that they are in a rush to get home and there were out of options. It was only until they got their wages that they were able to go home at all.

They also share about who they are looking forward to see at home, such as their wives, children, and parents. When asked what he wants to say to his family at home on camera, the crying migrant worker says he’s bringing home the money he’s earned through blood and sweat, that he’s about to come home, and they can be reunited.

At time of translation, there were over 5000 comments by Chinese netizens in reaction to this video. Many of the comments reveal not only the attitudes of many Chinese people towards migrant workers, the government, and Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Year) but also various phenomenon common to the Chinese internet and the internet as a whole…

AND HERE COPIED IN SOME OF THE COMMENTS TO THIS VIDEO - It is long but interesting:

我倦了:
Train tickets are indeed really hard to purchase. When booking ticket, I called for half an hour and nearly a thousand calls before I booked them, and they’re not even to my hometown. Sigh.

lvzifeng765: (responding to above)
Amazing, over a thousand, half an hour, what planet is your home on?

不想独自快乐:
Everyone is equal… so where is the equality? Sigh… hope everyone can pay more attention to these people on the bottom levels of society and not discriminate against them nor treat them with indifference!

Z夜半猪叫:
This year, I’m again unable to go home to celebrate the [Chinese] new year. It’s been 3 years now that I haven’t been able to go home for new years…

whitetiger66:
I wish the best for those who go out to make a living, may you guys be safe and healthy!

jjdhfjj:
Fuck, even thanking the government [referring to the first interviewed migrant worker].

吸烟咳嗽:
This is what China’s most simple, down-to-earth ordinary common people are like, so easily satisfied [happy to just be able to go home for new year's].

阴间小鬼儿:
Money, is the life’s hope of migrant workers. We can’t say money is vulgar. It is hope. It is a necessity for the growth of the next generation.

序列号521:
I wish migrant workers the best. Those of you who were fighting for the sofa [there were a number of early comments simply posting "沙发", "SF", etc.], was it that hard to add a bit more wishing them well…?

幽忧囚1:
[I'm a] manly Shandong man, I’m not going to cry.

a51469958:
The so-called government leadership all say they want to care for workers of society’s lowest level, but it’s all just pretense. At least I haven’t felt it.

愤怒一拳:
China, if there weren’t migrant workers, then all of society would come to a standstill. You guys are the best.

康さくら:
May every one of them have a safe trip home…

87492330:
In the Heavenly Kingdom, going home for [Chinese] New Year’s has become a kind of extravagant wish.

铁腿军魂:
Simple and honest migrant workers, those wages are what you guys should get and you not getting them would be a failure of the government. You guys getting your wages should not be thanking the government, and instead you should thank those back home.

川西人士:
Thank you all for your contributions to the country. My brothers and sisters, it is your guys who are the main reason for the past 30 years of this country’s fast growth.

真三狂徒:
Online ticket booking was truly such a ball ache for those men who work on construction sites and don’t go online.
[Online train ticket booking was made available this year, but while it helped many, many migrant workers could not take advantage of it because they do not typically own computers or use the internet.

WQ有一个梦想:
I'm also a migrant worker. Those of us who come out to work basically only go home once a year. In the cities, the reason we scrimp and save is specifically so our family members in the rural countryside can live better, so I'm really moved. Migrant workers like us have very hard lives, truly using our own tears and sweat to make money, so I guess we can only wish ourselves luck.

19帝少: (responding to above)
It's so nice that I'm not a migrant worker, everyday eating my mother's food.

做个好人难吗:
Heart breaking. You guys saying thanks to the government, sigh, the government is laughing.

lajihao:
This is the tragedy of the government, where something as small as simply getting a train ticket can make them feel so blessed. China's ordinary common people are too kind.

热而已116：
There are actually people downvoting this video??? [At time of translation, this video had over 18k upvotes and over 300 downvotes]

霓宏灯:
Every year there is Chun Yun [the annual rush of Chinese people to return home to celebrate Chinese New Year's, often called the world's largest annual human migration], every year there are people who aren’t able to go home, every year there is constant news about these things, is [the government, the country] really unable to come up with effective measures to solve this problem? We are all taxpayers, so just what exactly has all our taxes been used on????

qianhaoyu1:
This world is so sad, those who can’t get train tickets want so much to go home, whereas I who can get train tickets don’t even want to go home.

zhiaikyo:
I don’t know why it was so irritating to hear that uncle say “thanks to the government”.

雪姐。:
Back in the day, my parents took the train to go home for the new year. Mom said that from Harbin to Fuyang, it wasn’t until Tianjin before there was a seat, and at that time my mother was pregnant with me too. My dad stood from Harbin all the way to Fuyang. Going home was really very tough.

Etudos:
Don’t they know how to go book tickets? These people are so cheap, just drink one less drink of alcohol and smoke one less cigarette. If it were me, you could beat me to death and I still wouldn’t take the train during the Spring Festival [Chinese New Year] season, or at least it’d have to be one of the faster trains.

zwx199: (responding to above)
f you

霓宏灯: (responding to Etudos)
That’s because you have money, rich guy!! Have you thought about those people who have to work hard every day to make money? If there are cheaper trains, do you think they would spend their hard-earned blood and sweat money [on more expensive trains]?

goarago:
Always talking about migrant workers, don’t people know the income of migrant workers is higher than university graduates?

五百万得主: (responding to above)
How much more hardship do migrant workers suffer compared to university graduates? However much more they earn is still deserved. What kind of work do university graduates do? What kind of work do migrant workers do?

绿宝石小明 (responding to goarago)
The work they do, do university graduates do? There are university graduates like you who do, so why don’t you go do it?

吚吇:
The 10 people who downvoted [the video] are beasts, may you be worse than pigs and dogs in your next life.

178297563: (responding to above)
Maybe those who downvoted were all downvoting the Railway Ministry.
[China's Ministry of Railways is widely reviled for all manner of ills. In addition to causing headaches and frustration for Chinese travelers during Chun Yun each year due to the difficulty of getting train tickets, often exacerbated by scalpers and corruption, the Railway Ministry has also recently been in headlines for horrific train crashes like 2011 July's Wenzhou train accident.]

yayaAie
Fuck, having to say thanks even for getting the money one is owed…

绿宝石小明:
Satisfying them is that easy… For us, it would just be getting something that is ours. I hate those unscrupulous evil businessmen/companies [who withhold wages from their migrant worker employees].

阳光sunshine:
Those who cheat migrant workers of their money these days, most of them are the contractors. These contractors are the real ones who are inhuman.

qq446947674:
Look at those country people, all bumpkins, sigh.

qq446947674:
The more I watch, the more I despise them. Country people, still wearing clothes from the 1980s, is it because they can’t afford new clothes?

梦幻大魔王: (responding to above)
It’s you again, you stupid cunt. You’re fucking about to be human flesh searched. Sooner or later you won’t even know how you died.

@水水900: (responding to above)
May those who look down on migrant workers die a violent death on the street on [Chinese] New Year’s Eve…

Your thoughts?

Snowed in at Wheeler Street - Here is your weekend music.......

2012-01-08T02:33:00.001+08:00

There is a new KATE BUSH album out since a few weeks or something. Interesting sounds & feelings - it is all about snow. Here is a track together with .....? I dont tell you - but if you know POP MUSIC you will know who the male singer is - have a nice weekend etc. Please be noted that this video is not an official KATE BUSH video - is just made by a fan - you can see there are some parts of a CHANEL ad inside etc - anyhow it doesnt matter - see you next week:

After seeing this: Who are they ? They are spanning a time of several hundred or even thousand of years (Rome burning until 9/11) - THE DEVIL (666) !

Important Info regarding China Visa application in Hong Kong

2012-01-08T01:40:00.001+08:00

Hope you all had a pleasant move into the year 2012.
If you are in Hong Kong and want to apply a China Visa please read the following points carefully - this is some rather new findings after I have got information from a lot of people doing China Visa applications here in Hong Kong:

1) If you are a traveller and want to apply for a F - Visa here in Hong Kong just forget it, as long as you cannot provide a passport full with old F - Visas (business Visa). The max you will get will be a L - Visa (tourist Visa) with a max of 2 entries. Makes no difference if you make your application with a local travel agent or directly at the Commissioners Office.

2) If you are a Hong Kong permanent resident and you want to apply for a multiple entry F - Visa, better do not try through the Commissioners Office (surely this is the cheapest application), as long as you cannot provide a lot of extra documentation like business registration, investment visa, invitation letters + a long history of F - Visa. You can be dissapointed by again only getting a tourist visa for 2 entries. Why is that so ? Do not ask me, but it seems the Chinese Government want "crack down" on business people abusing the F - Visa + then really working in China, without proper
permits. Actually this is logical and understandable as too many people have abused this in the past: Under a F - Visa just go in / out once a month - and avoid all other necessary permits in China, like residence permit, work permit & surely PAYING TAX (one important point).

3) If you are a business people in HK and need a multiple F - Visa for lets say 6 month or 12 month, there is only one chance to get a F - Visa without any hassle: Not to apply through the Hong Kong Commissioners Office (of the PRC) for that Visa. If you have enough F - Visa history, this is workable with some agencies who are applying for you on the other side of the border like in Shenzhen or Guangzhou. This is totally legal, but expensive (around HK$ 2,000 or more).

One more thing is very important:
Do not "foul play" regarding your Visa applications. It is the year 2012 and also China has the right to protect themself against people cheating them into the mainland to do illegal business. Just like in the most countries of the world - just obey the rules of immigration & business - it is the best you can do.

Welcome 2012 !

2012-01-02T01:57:00.000+08:00

Please enjoy the videos - no further comment from my side.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012 !

Happy New Year !

2011-12-29T01:02:00.000+08:00

Think about the good & bad things of 2011 & lets hope 2012 will be more good things than bad ones. Cheers. No more posting for the rest of 2011 !
A classic here - Dinner for one - original version:

Foshan again !

2011-12-28T00:21:00.001+08:00

This story just coming up - even if already some weeks old. It really seems Foshan is quite a special place full of aggression. Please read here:
quote
Sex-in-car driver arrested for murdering spotters

By Pan Zheng | 2011-12-22 | ONLINE EDITION

The driver who killed one worker and injured three others after they saw him having sex in the car has been officially arrested for murder though he said he felt the victims were robbers, the Guangzhou Daily reported today.

The man surnamed Jiang, 32, admitted that he was having sex with two prostitutes in his car parked on a road in Foshan City, Guangdong Province on the night of November 23.

Prosecutors said their affair was spotted by six young men who just finished their work in a nearby factory. They saw the trio in the car, looked at them for a while, and knocked at the car door out of curiosity.

Jiang was furious and got out of the car to argue with them. Their quarrel was stopped by one of the workers.

As the group walked away, Jiang went back to his car and charged at them in revenge. One worker surnamed He was crushed to death on the spot and three others were slightly injured.

A security camera recorded the whole scene. The video footage showed a white car speeding toward the four workers without braking and vanished immediately.

Jiang surrendered to the police on December 3 and argued that he thought the victims were robbers and tried to flee in haste.

But one prostitute surnamed Mao told the police that Jiang smiled after hitting them. His defense was not accepted by the prosecutors.

unquote

Absurd that just today I have received a GROUPON offer for a 1 night stay in a Foshan hotel.....

please click here !

Until now nobody signed on that offer - but this offer only need 2 people to sign on.

Not so sure if this is the perfect travel location.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU !

2011-12-24T00:32:00.000+08:00

Just have a moment of peace & silence - enjoy that music & thank you very much for reading my blog.

It is Christmas now - and here is a story about some good-hearted chinese people !

2011-12-24T00:19:00.003+08:00

Sometimes maybe you, my readers, think that I am so negative about China & the chinese People.
This is not the case. The case is that I am against all kind of unjustice, if this is in China or anywhere else in this world. As I am living (almost - as I am living in Hong Kong) in China since more than 13 years (including 5 years in Shanghai) I have learned a lot about people, traditions etc.
In my opinion the speed of China's economic development is much too fast for most of the people.
Out of this some very strange, irritating & wrong (bad) behavior has been developed by a lot of people:
Greed ! Wrong Ambitions ! Envy !
As Christmas is around the corner please see this video / story about a helping crowd in Wenzhou, most probably saving the life of a little child.
This is from here (including photos & video) click here: chinasmack

Crowd works together to lift car to save child

December 9th morning 7:25am, at the corner of Lane 40 Hangbiao Road in the city of Wenzhou, a child was run over and trapped under a car. With the SUV caught in the dilemma of not being able to go forward or back, someone shouted “lift the car!” Immediately over 10 people who had gathered around “one, two, three” used their collective strength [and lifted up the car]. The frightened child was carried out and unhurt. These people who helped did not know each other but their action both moved and warmed those at the scene and this city. Wenzhou people used action to once again demonstrate the “place of warmth” is a title fully deserved.

Christian Bale - Not welcome in China anymore !

2011-12-23T01:52:00.002+08:00

Please read here from THE STANDARD. Actor Christian Bale has embarrassed the Government - in clear words he will never ever get any visa anymore. Besides this be aware that there seems to be a certain kind of new visa policies in general. Making it more hard to get F visa (business visa) to force business people to apply for Z visa (work visa).
But wait - you are HK permanent resident, foreign passport holder, running a company in Hong Kong & need to go several times a month to China to meet your suppliers:
Why shall you apply for a Z visa ? I have reports from people now they suddenly only get L visa (tourist visa) for 2 entries - but they are not tourists - isn't that odd ?
Another question related to that is:
How is the Hong Kong SAR Government supporting this sort of business people ?
Is there any chance that there will be some help from the Hong Kong Government ?
Do they know about this practise at all ?
IMPORTANT: When you apply China Visa through your travel agency, make sure that you need a F visa either 6 month or 1 year with multiple entry. It seems some travel agencies cannot guarantee this, others can.
quote
Oscar-winner faces visa ban

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Beijing has pulled the red carpet from under the feet of Christian Bale, the Oscar-winning actor who stars in China's latest box- office hit, after he tried to visit a detained dissident.
The foreign ministry yesterday accused Bale of "fabricating news" after the Hollywood actor made international headlines last week when he tried to visit a blind lawyer-dissident being held under house arrest.

The British actor, who was in China to promote his Nanjing Massacre film The Flowers of War, was stopped last Thursday on the outskirts of the village in eastern China where the activist Chen Guangcheng is being detained.

Asked by reporters if China was embarrassed by Bale's actions, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said: "I think it is the relevant actor who should feel embarrassed instead of the Chinese side.

"The Chinese side will not welcome him to make news in China," Liu added, suggesting that Bale would not be allowed back into the country.

Bale, describing Chen as a personal "inspiration," invited a CNN crew to accompany him on an eight-hour drive from Beijing to the village in Linyi district, where he was stopped by guards.

Chen, who exposed abuses in the "one-child" population control policy, has been under house arrest since September 2010.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
unquote

At least you can see how advanced China Intelligence is: Bale took an eight hour drive from Beijing to a village & they were waiting for him already !

From the Neighbours: Kim Jong II is dead

2011-12-19T23:19:00.005+08:00

Please see the footage from North Korean TV - announcement of the death of Kim Jong Il. Is this all PROPAGANDA - who knows ?

And here some street scenes after the announcement:

I am a little bit puzzled, as per my information this Mr Kim was a brutal dictator - and they are weeping for him like that ? Maybe they are afraid of what comes after him.
Some info here about the people's life:
Read here: north-korea-hunger-crisis
And here some special info:

The next school bus tragedy

2011-12-14T13:05:00.001+08:00

Before reading the story supplied by REUTERS let me allow some comments.
The problem with increasing traffic in China is overwhelming & the main problem is the drivers themselves:
Ruthless driving attitude of many drivers:
No sense of defensive driving. No idea about danger. Not keeping safety distances to the drivers before them. Crazy lane changing & speeding. No use of safety belts. Using the mobile during driving. Eating during
driving. The Government should urgently think about a way to get this problems under control as fast as possible: Strict penalties (financial - up to revoking driving license + jail terms) must be set- up for whatever kind of possible breach of traffic laws. There are too many accidents & crashes - most happen because of "human error". Please read the news from REUTERS here:

quote
Another school bus crash sparks fury in China

BEIJING

Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:58am EST
(Reuters) - Fifteen children were killed when a school bus crashed in China's eastern province of Jiangsu, state media said on Tuesday, the latest in a string of accidents fanning public fury across the country.

The bus rolled into a ditch as it veered off the road to avoid a pedicab, the Xinhua news agency said. At least eight children were injured in the accident, which happened after school on Monday.

"Students became trapped at the bottom of the overturned bus and drowned as water gushed into the wreck," Xinhua reported, citing Zhang Bin, a deputy head of the Fengxian county, where the accident happened.

The driver, he said, had been detained.

Xinhua gave conflicting accounts on the number of children on board the bus, but all the reports suggested it was not overloaded. Xinhua last reported that 29 were on board.

An outcry erupted across China in early November after 18 nursery school children were killed when a coal truck slammed into their overcrowded school van in northwestern China.

Two other accidents involving students were reported.
A bus crash in Zhumadian city in central Henan province killed two students on Tuesday and injured 20 people, seven seriously, Xinhua reported.
The bus had been rented by a middle school and was carrying 50 students and teachers when it rammed into a truck.

On Monday, a school bus carrying 59 children collided with a truck in Guangdong Province, in China's far south, injuring 37, media reported.

The deaths and injuries are sure to amplify calls for more spending on education and children's safety. In 1993, the Chinese government vowed to dedicate 4 percent of GDP to education.

"Close to 20 years have passed, and this has still not been achieved," said an editorial in the China Information News on Tuesday. "For some local governments, the proportion of GDP spent on education has actually fallen."

Chinese microbloggers were quick to express their anger about the Jiangsu crash.

"Another school bus accident kills 15 children. It's just a number in the eyes of Chinese officials. The only thing they care about is whether it impacts their future career," wrote Huiji Flying on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblog.

"Nothing is safe in China apart from leaders' cars, houses, money and concubines," added Yiran Anki.

The November tragedy prompted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to promise more government funds to provide improved school bus services.

Rural areas are notorious for unsafe transport. Children face risky rides in ageing, badly maintained vans and trucks.

The school bus crashes also reflect the growing trend in rural China for schools to be concentrated in larger towns, abandoning villages where the population has been shrinking. Children then have to travel long distances to school or board away from their families.
(Reporting by Koh Gui Qing, Sabrina Mao, Chris Buckley, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina; Editing by Ken Wills, John Newland and Ron Popeski)
unquote

Another weekend "delight"- New way of Chinese robbery ! Very brutal.

2011-12-10T23:10:00.000+08:00

The above video has been viewed over 1.1 million times and has over 3,000 comments since it was uploaded yesterday. Summary translation of the Chinese in the video:
The first victim, Yongkang resident Miss Hu was robbed of 3000 RMB cash she had placed on the ATM, 900 RMB cash in her purse, and even her platinum ring on her finger.
Two days later, the second victim Mr. Tong was robbed at 11pm at night as he was on the phone and preparing to deposit money at the ATM. He was knocked unconscious and robbed of the 47,000 RMB cash he was going to deposit and his black Apple iPhone.
This one from chinaSMACK - just click for more !

Some hardcore sound for your weekend !

2011-12-10T22:40:00.004+08:00

Enjoy a great Iggy Pop ! The mood of this week. Give them all HARDCORE - they deserve it. If you want to know more contact me !

And then here - I know I had it here before - but it is worth to put it up again: somewhat 30 years earlier - but the same Iggy - just as good as always:

Now enjoy your weekend & all my best greetings to all chinese people who are honest & goodhearted & not greedy as hell !

Chinese business attitude - No moral No ethics - Just Rude & Greedy !

2011-12-09T00:35:00.005+08:00

Labelled with "China Dirt" as it is clear that in general chinese business attitude is simply DIRT.
Now almost 15 years here & I cannot see any change into something positive with most of our suppliers & I have this confirmed by many colleagues:
Shortsighted Greed - this is the final solution.
Business manner ? Ethics ? Moral ? Behavior !
These words are not existing in Chinese Language !
Short story here:
One of our main suppliers since 5 years - we always paid him upfront (as he always complaining need money).
Suddenly we find a lot of other goods (not from us) in his factory.
90% of his capacity was used by us. All material supplied by us.
So today he is telling us a big bull shit of his losses blah blah blah ....................
And he does not want to continue with us (actually the last 5 years we made him survive & build up his facilities). Do not await any words of thank !
His new customer a local internet seller on Tabao or whatever kind of internet service is placing so
big orders to him. As he is saying full of PRIDE !
We have borrowed him money all the time ...............
He is holding a lot of stock fabrics of us !
I have already told him today:
Once the door is shut - you never ever ask me again to give you some orders !
That made him rather nervous !

Clue: All the books want to tell you the truth of China Business Etiquette - all rubbish - just scratching the surface !
Once you have to deal with the real Chinese - then you will find out better !
Be careful !
By the way - do not forget this:
Most of the achievements made in China business over the last 2 or 3 decades - ALL WAS COMING INITIALLY FROM THE OUTSIDE by placing it to them.
Conclusion: The big bucks they are making is also coming from the outside.
Innovation from China - barely non - existent.
The only point is COPIES.

Beijing Fog ?

2011-12-07T23:42:00.000+08:00

Yes they call it fog what is there since a few days clouding over Beijing !
2 photos here - it doesn't look very healthy. More on the click below from chinaSMACK.

Click here to see more !

In Hong Kong Hippocratic Oath is existing

2011-12-07T23:32:00.001+08:00

................otherwise 100's of pregnant mainland woman abusing the Accident & Emergency department of Hong Kong Public Hospitals could be send away easily. So this is the newest trend to just sit pregnant in some shabby Hostel or boarding house and then call the emergency as "suddenly the baby wants to come". Just in relation to the last post - here in Hong Kong Public Hospitals nobody will dare to simply send them away or let them wait too long.
I just wish some of the guys mistreating my old friend in the Shenzhen hospital (post below) would have his pregnant wife begging to get admission in a HK Public Hospital & then let her wait 12 hours !
Please read here from THE STANDARD:
quote
A&E births double for mainlanders
Mary Ann Benitez Wednesday, December 07, 2011

The number of pregnant mainlanders rushing to Accident and Emergency Departments of public hospitals this year has doubled as compared to 2010, the Hospital Authority revealed.
"The approaching peak season for deliveries along with the suspension of this year's obstetric bookings service for non-local mothers in public hospitals has aggravated the situation in recent months," a spokesman said.
Last month, there was a total of 205 such cases, representing a 99 percent increase over the 103 in November last year.
The trend spiked significantly from May when monthly deliveries through A&E exceeded 100, from an average of 70-80.
In the first 11 months of this year, there were 1,453 such deliveries, up sharply from 708 in the same period last year.
Thirty percent of the 1,453 deliveries were by mainlanders who made prior bookings in public hospitals but were unable to go there in time, the authority said.
In contrast, mainlanders delivered 8,672 babies through appointments at public hospitals up to November 30, as compared to 9,899 for the whole of 2010.
The number of children born to Hong Kong residents has remained stable, at between 30,000 and 32,000 a year, from 2008 until November this year.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok said the problem will persist as increasing fees and charges for mainlanders have not had a deterrent effect.
Mainlanders have to pay maternity packages of HK$39,000 on booked deliveries and HK$48,000 for non- booked deliveries at public hospitals.
The authority reminded expectant mainlanders that rushing to A&E at the last minute to deliver posed risks for both them and babies.
unquote

The Hippocratic Oath is not existing in China !

2011-12-07T00:38:00.007+08:00

Be careful if you are long-term in China, better make sure you have correct medical insurance which will help you to save your life, in case you have any kind of serious accident, emergency etc.

Short story about a very good friend:
Since 18 years in HK & China. Permanent HK resident, 50 years old.
2.5 years ago lost his job & a lot of money with some of his "good friends chinese business partners".
Close to be broke.
Married with a Chinese.
Stayed in Hangzhou & Hong Kong.
Before Christmas 2009 suddenly got a big headache burning like fire.
Got heavy black spots under the eyes. Jumped in a plane from Hangzhou to Shenzhen to his wife home.
Broke down the next day:
Rupture of a brain aneurysm.
His wife brought him to the emergency unit of a Shenzhen hospital.
No insurance coverage.
To make the surgery they demanded to put RMB 120,000.00 on the table.
This took the wife some time to arrange.
Her husband was left alone in the hospital floor with a surely still heavily rupture of the aneurysm.
It took somewhat more than 12 hours before they started to conduct the surgery (only after receiving the cash).
Surely this was much too late.
After surgery he was in coma.
After one week we arranged his transfer to Hong Kong, where he was several weeks still in coma & then being transferred to an elderly home.
Now being supported by Hong Kong welfare.
CT scans of his brain are not very positive.
He cannot talk.
We do not know if he recognizes anybody.
He is in a state "trapped in his own body".
Totally depending on nursery.
Here is a link of what the HIPPOCRATIC OATH means:
From Wikipedia click here.
This is the China version excerpt.
And here another story where doctors & nurses did not follow the Hippocratic oath

So in China you need to pay first before they are willing to save your life, as long as you not having a super insurance or are some relative or "princeling" of some heavy-weight officials or other "important person".
This is totally against the HIPPOCRATIC OATH !
I was long thinking if I should put the photo of my friend here on that blog - maybe some people might consider it "not right" or "unethical" or some kind of problem of breaking some law - I dont care right now about this concerns.
Because it makes me angry to know that if they would have started much earlier with the surgery this man could be much better today !
12 hours with a rupture in a lousy cold Shenzhen hospital floor & the doctors waiting for the cash come down on the table ?
What would this man be maybe much better today if they would have started the surgery immediately after he was admitted by his wife into the emergency unit ?
UPDATE: PHOTO DELETED TODAY
Reminder: Make sure you have a good & solid medical insurance valid also for the MAINLAND CHINA if you are often travelling in China. Carry the card with your insurance number + other details always with you.

Shanghai Proposition

2011-12-03T14:49:00.004+08:00

Simply disgusting - please watch - this is the MODERN CHINA:

Uploaded by sav0320 on Mar 13, 2010
Walking on the streets of Shanghai, I met a new friend. Sorry, I did not accept the offer.
** Note ** Some language might be offensive. The whole situation might be offensive!
This video was posted two years ago and removed shortly after.

Please see also this one from CNN - better be careful if you are "messing around" in China:

And then found this one:
China's Sexual Revolution Part 1 + 2 (CBC Documentary)

Fa Yuen street fire this week killing 9 people

2011-12-03T14:34:00.000+08:00

Terrible this week in Mong Kok Fa Yuen Street a fire at night killing 9 people. The police says it is suspicious - most probably arson. It seems that some of the stalls had been put on fire and because of the very small distance from the stalls to the houses (more than 50 years old) the fire quickly spread into some houses.
Here a short clip, but in Cantonese. And further below a video about this Fa Yuen Street.

Fa Yuen Street (traditional Chinese: 花園街) is a street between Boundary Street and Dundas Street in Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong. With over fifty stores selling sport shoes, the street is famous for selling sport gears and is known as Sport Shoes Street or Sneaker Street (波鞋街). Merlion Tales explores Fa Yuen Street hoping for bargain buys and great food! Read more at http://www.merliontales.com

[Hong Kong Bus Ride] 九巴 GK9636 @ 66 往大興 [全程行車影片]

2011-12-03T14:17:00.002+08:00

Found this on on You Tube - quite nice views out from that bus - it is a long clip more than 45 minutes & mainly driving through the New Territories. You can find many more Hong Kong bus rides on that You Tube user channel.
Uploaded by mm2teaching on Sep 13, 2011

KMB Route 66 Entire journey video (Towards Tai Hing)

Volvo Olympian
S3V22 - GK9636 (05/1995 - )
Engine: Cummins L10-B252
Gearbox: ZF 4HP500
Body: Alexander Type R
Date: AUG 2011
Copyright: Justin1082

途經車站 Stops observed:
00:12 深水埗欽州街 Sham Shui Po (Yen Chow Street)
01:25 怡閣苑 Yee Kok Court
02:14 長沙灣遊樂場 Cheung Sha Wan Playground
03:34 興華街 Hing Wah Street
04:50 荔枝角鐵路站 Lai Chi Kok Railway Station
06:16 美孚鐵路站 Mei Foo Railway Station
08:28 葵涌交匯處 Kwai Chung Interchange
09:57 荔景邨 Lai King Estate
11:31 葵芳邨 Kwai Fong Estate
13:07 光輝圍 Kwong Fai Circuit
14:17 健全街 Kin Chuen Street
15:03 大窩口鐵路站 Tai Wo Hau Railway Station
16:46 眾安街 Chung On Street
18:05 福來邨永樂樓 Wing Lok House, Fuk Loi Estate
19:44 荃景圍天橋 Tsuen King Circuit Flyover
37:38 豐景園 Goodview Garden
38:03 翠寧花園 Tsui Ning Garden
39:15 友愛邨 Yau Oi Estate
40:25 屯門公園 Tuen Mun Park
42:02 屯門鐵路站 Tuen Mun Railway Station
43:11 屯門消防局 Tuen Mun Fire Station
44:25 鳴琴鐵路站 Ming Kum Railway Station
45:31 中電 China Light Building
46:06 台山小學 Toi Shan Primary School
47:06 大興 Tai Hing

APEC CARD RE-MAKE

2011-11-28T13:24:00.000+08:00

Please be reminded following:
If you are APEC card holder please re-apply at least 3 months before your card expiry date. Better 4 months earlier.

It takes really long time - and last country to clear you, will be in most cases CHINA.
Besides that 3 countries you will never get cleared: USA, CANADA + RUSSIA.

6000+ Chinese Shoe Factory Workers Strike in Guangdong Province

2011-11-26T01:19:00.000+08:00

Here some manufacturing news. Some disputes in a big Guangdong Shoe factory - no further comment from my side - besides this one: Main problem can be "corrupt & bad management". Please see this video:

Man refusing to move away his car on Nathan Road

2011-11-24T12:10:00.000+08:00

This one comes from THE STANDARD - please see the related video below:
quote
Tale of police uncle in road row hits net

Samson Lee
Thursday, November 24, 2011

In a case reminiscent of that infamous Chinese hit-and-run incident in which the suspect was caught on video saying "Go ahead, sue me if you dare, my dad is Li Gang," a new video has surfaced on YouTube in which a man is shown arguing with police, saying his uncle is a Yau Ma Tei police station sergeant.

The five-minute clip of the incident was uploaded on Monday. According to the uploader, supermandrum, it was shot at about 5.45pm in Tsim Sha Tsui.
In the clip, a man who sports sunglasses and is smoking, has parked his car near a bus stop. He is told to move the car, as it may affect traffic.
Instead, the man becomes angry and, flashing two business cards, tells police officers they are not qualified to challenge him. He is also heard telling them about his uncle's position.

More policemen then arrive at the scene, as pedestrians gather around to witness the show, with some openly calling for the man's arrest. Angered by the negative response, the man makes rude gestures toward the pedestrians.

But the video ends as police are milling around and taking down details of the car.

A police spokesman said they received a report at 6pm on Monday that a car was parked outside 165-181 Nathan Road and blocking traffic. He said no one was arrested, but the driver was issued a Fixed Penalty Notice.
Netizens are obviously not pleased and some said they are disgusted with the man's behavior. Others suggest he is either mentally ill or on drugs.
One netizen said: "Even if the sergeant is your uncle, you need to abide by the law."

Some said it is similar to the incident in Baoding, Hebei province, on October 16, 2010, when a 22-year-old drunk driver fled the scene after running over a roller- skater, who died later in hospital.
When arrested, he was convinced his father Li Gang's position as deputy director of the local public security bureau would give him impunity.
unquote

Hu & Obama kissing

2011-11-18T00:25:00.000+08:00

Please see that photo (shopped) image of Hu & Obama kissing each other. This is part of the Benetton UNHATE campaign.
Please click here & read more about that !
Here is the photo Hu kissing Obama or vice versa .........

And this one seems to steer up a lot of trouble from our main shepard THE POPE ...........

Congratulations: Bona Mugabe now finished University........

2011-11-16T23:35:00.000+08:00

here in Hong Kong and has now received a degree in accounting. Her daddy came here for the celebrations & maybe instructing her already to do some "useful" accounting on the millions (billions ?) he has embezzled from his hunger stricken country in Africa. Asia cities is Mr Mugabe's main destination as all other places in Europe, USA etc he is not welcomed / allowed anymore. Now he
is in Hong Kong & then willl meet some China officials (all same of his kind) to have some talks - believe it or not: This is all money talks ! Besides this it seems the local media like APPLE DAILY is calling this girl Bona being an "african princess" as far as I understood what my wife told me & all the
students did not know that they are studying beside a "princess". Cheers Bona - you lovely princess & accountant>
Here is some press links about that graduation story & the daddy's visit:.
Click here - Mr Mugabe thanks HK for protecting his daughter !

And here another one:
Proud Daddy - please click here !

New China Visa application format here !

2011-11-15T17:54:00.000+08:00

Please be noted the China Visa Application is now a total of six pages - please see here:
Please click here & download the new form !

This is from the China's Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong website. This website is badly maintained - for example they still have the announcement dated 13.04.2008 in there. And you can find it under:
quote
Address/Office hours/Enquiry service

NOTICE
(2008/04/13)
Visa applicants are increasing in a large number and need longer waiting
time in the visa office recently. If you don't reside or work in Hong Kong
permanently, you are required to apply Chinese visafrom the Embassy
or Consulate-General of Peoples' Republic of China in yourresident
country. You are welcome to China for tourism, business and visit .
unquote

The public holiday calendar is still showing the year 2010 - to be seen at the same page:
Please click here !

QUESTION OF THE WEEK !

2011-11-14T13:29:00.005+08:00

This one found in a reader's comment on chinaSMACK regarding that post:
jilin-railway-bridge-project cheating

In a certain place: Conscience has no value, law has no dignity, morality has no bottom line, the people have no rights, husbands and wives have no fidelity, love is not pure, LD [the leaders, rulers] don’t speak the truth, food is not safe, the environment has no tomorrow, property rights have no guarantees, culture has no outlet, innovation has no market, greed has no limits, ideas have no belief/conviction… Question: Where is this?

WE ARE THE ROBOTS !

2011-11-13T01:47:00.002+08:00

Your weekend clip here - WIR SIND DIE ROBOTER (We are the robots) Kraftwerk live at Munich on October 12th 2001 - sound is only so - so but please enjoy & see you next week.
Are they friends of SIRI ?

Greed knows no races !

2011-11-13T01:14:00.002+08:00

How nuts / greedy the people are with the iPhone 4S - click here !

A lot of re-sellers have hired guys from Pakistan, India whatever South-East asian decent to line up at the Apple store to grab a maximum of 5 pieces of iPhone 4S. I guess I need to develop another label for posts like this - I will call it HK Greed.
Enjoy that from You Tube:

And here you can see / hear how SIRI works / works not - I have tried it already with some guy in the office who bought a grey market one - if you have an accent SIRI will have difficulties to understand you. But in below video some of the replies from SIRI are really amazing.

Not all the glitter is gold.........

2011-11-09T01:05:00.000+08:00

The "famous" Jianlibao drink manufacturer has another "small problem" now. Cans provided to Barcelona Olympic games participants / winners in "pure gold" have been proved to be totally fake.
This one from EASTDAY:
quote
Champions' gold awards 'a fake'
SEVERAL Chinese Olympic champions have agreed to submit gold cans awarded by Guangdong-based soft drinks producer Jianlibao for verification after a judo gold medalist allegedly found her award was a fake.

The champions are seeking compensation from the beverage maker if the gold cans prove to be counterfeit.

Jianlibao awarded every champion with a so-called pure-gold can, weighing 200 grams, after these national heroes returned to China, Chinese Business Morning View reported yesterday.

A gold shop in Shenyang, northeast Liaoning Province, however, said the cans were made from cheap materials and were worth just 50 yuan (US$7.88), after Zhuang Xiaoyan, the gold medalist in the 72kg class judo competition had her can checked.

Zhuang kept her gold can as one of her most treasured things for 19 years before being told her prize was "fake gold," according to Xinhua.

"I had always thought the gold can was the best proof for my professional career. It gave me a lot of confidence in my life during the past 19 years," she told Xinhua.

She said she stored the "gold can" in a bank for three years, costing her over 1,000 yuan a year. When suspicions were raised, she had the can tested, only to be told it was worth less than 100 yuan.

Zhuang contacted Jianlibao but was told she should pursue the problem through "legal procedures."

A source from the Legal Affairs Management of Jianlibao Group told Xinhua that Jianlibao had informed local police, adding that they will look into the "fake gold can" issue.

"We take this case seriously," said Jianlibao assistant manager Chen Weijian.

Jianlibao, whose energy drink was one of the best sellers in China in the 1990s, plunged into crisis in 2005, when poor management and stiff competition from international rivals like Coca-Cola and Pepsi led to a total debt of more than 1 billion yuan (US$157 million).

Li Jingwei, the former group chairman, received a 15-year imprisonment last Wednesday for siphoning 60 million yuan from the company's account. Before that, former Jianlibao president and CEO Zhang Hai was also sentenced 15 years jail time for embezzling public funds in February 2007.

Source:Shanghai Daily

unquote

Here is there Website - just click !

Very lousy & cheap presentation on that website.

Here some info about this company - and YES they are from FOSHAN - this seems to turn out a really OUTSTANDING place in China - unfortunately in the negative sense !

Jianlibao Group is a soft drink producer based in Foshan, Guangdong, China which was established in 1984. In 1990s, The Jianlibao drink was one of the best sellers in China, on a par with Coca-Cola and Pepsi [1]. However, poor management and stiff competition let to a total debt of more than 1 billion Renminbi yuan (US$121 million) in 2005.
In February 2007, Zhang Hai, former Jianlibao president and CEO, was sentenced 15 years jail time for embezzling public funds after nearly two years of detaining[2].

Something more nice......MUSIC

2011-11-05T02:19:00.001+08:00

here is a full Fleetwood Mac docu from the BBC - it is great - just enjoy & have a nice weekend !
Once the part 1 is over you will easily find part 2 etc.

Another story from Foshan !

2011-11-04T23:39:00.009+08:00

This Foshan seems to be really a wonderful place with a lot of people there "having a real heart" - please read the below and you can find a related video on chinasmack here.
This one is from THE TELEGRAPH:
quote
China hospital disposes of live baby

A hospital in south China has suspended four medical workers for mistakenly diagnosing a stillbirth and disposing of a baby By Our Foreign Staff
9:04AM GMT 04 Nov 2011

Health authorities in Guangdong province have launched an investigation into the incident on October 26 at the Nanhai Red Cross Hospital in Foshan city, the Beijing News reported.

Liu Dongmei - eight months pregnant - had been rushed to the hospital with internal bleeding and stomach cramps. She later had an emergency birth, but the baby was neither breathing nor crying when it came out and its skin had turned purple, the report said.

Believing it was dead, the medical team disposed of the child but did not follow proper hospital procedures, it added.

When Liu's sister-in-law asked to see the body around 30 minutes after birth, she was handed a yellow plastic bag containing the infant and found it was still alive, said the Foshan News, a local website.

“I opened the plastic bag and saw the baby's hands and feet moving, the stomach was going up and down and air bubbles were coming out of his mouth," the paper quoted her as saying. She was further shocked when she saw the baby was a boy - not a girl as the family had been told, it said.

According to the Foshan News, nurses had told the family the child was a girl in an effort to blunt the blow of its death. In China, baby boys are often viewed as more precious than girls, as many families can have only one child as part of the nation's population policy and desire a male heir.
Following the discovery, the newborn was rushed to intensive care where he remains in stable condition.

Officials at the hospital and Foshan's Nanhai health bureau refused to comment on the incident when contacted by the AFP news agency.
China's healthcare system - once widely praised for improving the health of millions - is now panned as costly, underfunded and providing shoddy treatment, especially in poorer regions.
Liu and her husband are seeking to sue the hospital for 300,000 yuan (£30,000), the Beijing News said.
The head of the maternity ward, a doctor and two nurses have been suspended pending the results of the investigation, it added.
unquote
There are rumours now that this was an organized attempt in baby - selling, just telling the parents the newborn is dead - disposing it somewhere and later let it dissappear - means sell it to somebody !

Not enough yet about disgusting things ?

2011-11-03T00:41:00.000+08:00

Here you go ! Just a few weeks ago this has happened in Shanghai - you read below later. Just coming back from a meeting with a good friend (almost 20 years in China now) - we both have agreed on following: The overall attitude of people in the bigger (1st, 2nd & even 3rd tier chinese cities) cities is getting more crazy, disrespectful + simply horrible. And still the "china drunkeness" of foreign "investors", foreign employees etc. seems never to end.
Do you all really know the truth with whom you are dealing with ? Do you ever question about the "business structures"you have to obey to ? Are you sure that this is all safe & "good & honest" business ?
Anyhow here now "enjoy" that nice story about an AUDI driver killing a parking maid in Shanghai rich district Xuhui (this is from here)
quote
Crazy Audi driver in Xuhui refuses to pay parking fee, kills meter maid.
A 40-year-old man has been apprehended by police after crushing a meter maid to death with his car over a disputed parking fee. The scene unfolded this morning at 10:30am in Xuhui District on Dong'An Road near XieTu Road.
Witnesses (Chinese link) described seeing the man and the meter maid arguing by the side of the road. The man was parked in a fee zone and was attempting to drive away without paying when the meter maid stepped in front of the car in an attempt to force him to stop. The man continued forward regardless, knocking the attendant over and dragging her under the wheels of the car.
Passersby quickly moved to rescue the meter maid by lifting the vehicle off of her, whereupon she was rushed to the hospital, but she died shortly after.
After the incident, the Audi driver got out of the car looking extremely scared, took out his cellphone and walked to the street corner where he was eventually apprehended by police.
In that area of Shanghai, the cost of parking is a paltry 15RMB per hour.

With the recent Li Shuangjiang incident, and the infamous "My Dad is Li Gang" debacle, not to mention scores of other cases, we have to ask: should luxury sedan owners in China be required to undergo regular psychiatric evaluations?
unquote

Huaxi Skyscraper - this is 100% nuts !

2011-11-02T00:57:00.001+08:00

Please read this - I do not think that this will be that successful - or am I totally wrong ? And see the video afterwards. This "thing"was opened in early October 2011 - I will follow up on the status of success.
This is from "The Guardian":
quote
Huaxi: the village that towers above China

Until recently, Huaxi was a poor farming community, typical of eastern China. Now, thanks to the ambition of one man, it is a powerhouse symbol of the country's economic expansion, embodied by a giant 328m-tall tower.

An incongruous new sight has risen up in the countryside of eastern China: a skyscraper taller than any building in London or Tokyo, topped by what looks very much like a giant, golden disco ball. The 328-metre supertower, which juts out of the Jiangsu plains like a trophy on an empty shelf, will be opened on Saturday by the village of Huaxi, a communist model community with a registered population of just 2,000 "farmers".
Having been built up to the heavens during a period of global economic collapse, the megatower will be heralded as the latest symbol of China's extraordinary economic expansion. But this bizarre new addition to the landscape also speaks volumes about the land pressures, environmental stress, inequality and rash investment that threaten the country's long-term growth.
The skyscraper will primarily be used as a gourmet dining hall and luxury hotel. Though many of those who live in its shadow earn less than £10 a day, there is no attempt to hide the wealth gap. From a gold leaf-covered reception to a 60th floor inlaid with genuine flakes of gold, the building exudes wealth and excess. Its proudest feature is a one-tonne, solid gold statue of an ox, said to be worth 300m yuan (£31m).
The mega-statistics do not stop there. With 826 bedrooms and dining facilities for 5,000 guests – including southern China's biggest banquet hall – there is almost enough space to accommodate and feed all of the original village residents at a single sitting.
It is the brainchild of Wu Renbao, the driving force behind Huaxi's 40-year transition from a small village to a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with interests in steel, shipping, tobacco and textiles. By turns a communist dictator, capitalist entrepreneur and self-help guru, the 84-year-old is among China's most colourful characters. He is praised for turning Huaxi into one of the richest villages in China and enriching the original residents with annual shares, dividends and free overseas trips. He is also criticised for turning the community into a family fiefdom, in which workers get no holidays and his relatives get the best posts.
He has created a hierarchy largely determined by closeness to the Wu clan. Those from the original 2,000 Huaxi families are at the top of the pyramid. Next come the 35,000 residents from neighbouring villages that have been swallowed up by Huaxi's expansion. At the bottom are 20,000 newly arrived migrants, who provide labour for the factories on 12-hour shifts without weekend breaks. The monthly salaries of 3,000 yuan (£310) are better than average for low-skilled labour in China, but it is hardly a worker's paradise.
Wu is undoubtedly Huaxi's greatest draw. Coachloads of visitors – mostly cadres and retirees – turn up to listen to the 10.30am lecture he delivers every day in a village auditorium that has been decked out to resemble the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. His close connections to the central government ensure supportive policies – for example, planning permission to build a 72-storey skyscraper in an area where the next-biggest building in less than 20 floors tall. Wu says he looked to the mega-cities of the Middle East for inspiration. "This tower is my idea," the patriarch says in such a thick local accent that the interpreter needs an interpreter. "We learned from Dubai, but taking into account our domestic situation, we decided the height should be 328m. Why 328m? Because that is as tall as the highest building in Beijing." Chinese culture loads numbers with significance: 32 is associated with business and eight represents prosperity.
As village officials also proudly note in the invitation to the opening ceremony: "There are 209 countries that lack such a tall building." That includes the UK. Even the Shard London Bridge – which will be the tallest building in the EU when it is completed next year – is 18m shorter than Huaxi's new village centre.
Even for those used to the speed and scale of change in China, this is astonishing. The last time I visited Huaxi in 2005, it was building a cluster of giant pagodas, which then appeared outlandishly large compared to everything else in the village. Today, those same pagodas barely register in comparison to the supertower beside them, which pulsates in all the colours of the rainbow when night falls.
It is a tacky but impressive reminder of how far the village has come since the Mao era. That message is reinforced at the village museum, where old propaganda footage shows farmers breaking rocks, labouring in the fields and living in small, unfurnished homes. It is also evident in the small park, which preserves Wu's first factory, a whitewashed, single-storey building.
"We used to have a very difficult life. We lived in a thatched shed, ate bran and had nothing in our pockets," recalls Wu, whose message can be distilled to a drive for GDP growth. "I think it will never be wrong to expand the economy and make ordinary people rich. In our opinion, that is the priority."
This approach has worked for decades and never more so than during the past seven years, when Huaxi's sales have increased fivefold. But the skyscraper is a towering indicator that business as usual is no longer working. The 3.5bn yuan (£360m) investment is designed to attract tourists and new business to Huaxi as it attempts the leap from dirty industrial centre to an ecologically friendly service sector economy.
In making the transition from third-world village to first-world skyscraper, Huaxi is in many ways a microcosm of China. But the next step will be harder as it tries to cope with the declining competitiveness of its core industry, the inflated cost of land and worries about the environment. In this case, an even wider comparison can be drawn: like the global economy, Huaxi may be bumping up against limits to growth.
Until recently, the village earned half of its income from the iron and steel industry. But today, this has fallen to less than a third. This collapse is due to rising material costs, the expansion of rival firms and falling demand both overseas and in China. "This is the worst situation I have experienced," says Yang Yongchang, who has been general manager of the Jiangyin Huaxi Iron and Steel Company for eight years. "It will get worse in the future. People in this industry are panicking." He says Huaxi is planning to move the factory so it can reinvent itself as a tourist resort and commodities-trading hub. "We're trying to build an ecological village that looks like a forest garden," he says.
The costs of fast, dirty, old-style economic growth can no longer be ignored. Wu Yunfang, the head of environmental affairs in the local communist party, says the village has recently shut down five chemical and textile factories that once used to discharge pollutants into the local Changjiagang river. She estimates the value of the lost production at 150m yuan (£15m), which adds up to a significant environment bill along with the 350m yuan (£36m) spent on emissions scrubbing and wastewater treatment.
Territorial expansion is also becoming more expensive. In the past two decades, Huaxi swallowed 12 neighbouring villages as its industry and influence sprawled outwards. It is not officially a merger. The official terminology is that the villages are "united under Huaxi", but the reality is far more like a corporate takeover. Huaxi paid an annual fee to the surrounding villages and in return it gained control of economic management, land use decisions, labour issues and political appointments.
The loss of independence is worthwhile, according to Zhang Zhongxian, the former head of Xixiang village, who is now working for Huaxi's labour federation. Since his community was subsumed by Huaxi in 2002, Zhang estimates that average annual incomes have more than tripled, welfare for the elderly and disabled has improved and homes and roads have been upgraded. "In five to 10 years, we will be where Huaxi is now," Zhang says. "Many other villagers want to join. Even some from other provinces."
But land costs have risen dramatically. Huaxi's village chief, Wu Xie'en – the son of Wu Renbao – said this was a major factor in the decision to build the tower, which has been dubbed "a village in the air". "With the completion of this building, we can save a vast expanse of land. In China, the trend now is to build tall because the more the economy develops, the more space is needed. Where is the space for China in the future? We must look to the sky." The party secretary says he wants to turn the "city village" of Huaxi into a Shangri-la. "My father made people rich. Now I want to make them healthy and happy," he says.
The tower seems an odd way to do this. But the Wus argue that they have succeeded over the years by anticipating changes in the economic wind and gambling big on the outcome. They are trying again this time. Just in case, the outside world fails to notice, Huaxi has invited the international media to the village's 50th anniversary celebration on Saturday, when its skyscraper will be officially unveiled. To give visitors a better view, villagers have started a helicopter business – a first step in a planned expansion into commercial aviation and high-end tourism.
If anywhere in China can find new areas of economic expansion it is Huaxi. But even with the political connections and business nous, it is hard to imagine that the village will reinvent itself as a tourist centre – particularly given the advanced age of the retired party secretary who is its main attraction.
But Huaxi has proved its doubters wrong in the past. Ahead of the opening of their new skyscraper, the mood on the streets was optimistic. In the evening, locals, neighbours and migrants gather to dance on the village square, a huge expanse of concrete between 15-storey pagodas that pulsate pink, blue, green and yellow. One migrant labourer from the steel factory, who declined to give his name, said the tower would help the economy and create new opportunities. "Nobody would invest so much money in something that wasn't sure to be a success, right?"
unquote

Chinese Men...............

2011-11-01T23:32:00.002+08:00

seems to be a very special species: Especially if they are so-called officials of whatever small county, village etc. They have power and they abuse it: Taking advantages (bribes) whenever possible, being corrupt in the real meaning of this word. Besides this surely heavy drinking, big mouth attitude, cheating on their wives & families, beating others - simply said: They are above any law (in their idea / mind-set). Mostly they get in trouble because of some whistleblowing of envy, greedy compagnions or of the CCTV footage (which is almost everywhere in China) catching them during "action".
This one is from March this year - quite brutal. The guy in the red jacket is the security staff at this hotel.
Please read and then see the video by the CCTV of that hotel.
Yibin County [Sichuan province] group of men beating women exposed by surveillance camera, perpetrator suspected of being deputy captain of the traffic police. (This is the guy in black with the bag at his shoulder).
Truly completely lawless, barbaric, outrageous!!! Quoted from a discussion forum: They were caught off guard and completely amazed, subconsciously protecting themselves: “Why are you touching me? We are good girls, not out to sell ourselves.” The other party arrogantly replied: “So what if I touched you?” … Ultimately, it escalated into this scene.

update on the below: The said guy with the bag on his shoulder, the so-called "deputy captain of the traffic police"- it seems he rather tried to ease the trouble - he did not beat anybody - at least not seen on this CCTV footage. But it seems he is hanging around with the wrong kind of people.

And here a few days ago:
Female cadre uses real name to report being raped by county Disabled Persons’ Federation Chairman while drunk
Summary: Recently, Sichuan Pengan County a female Safety Supervision Bureau cadre using her real name claimed online that around noon on October 19th, she and the local Administration of Work Safety Deputy Director Zhang Sen and Pengan County Disabled Persons’ Federation Chairman Liu Xiquan were drinking together and after she became drunk, the two men carried her into a hotel then Li Xiquan raped her. In response, officials have expressed that they will seriously investigate this matter and at present, the relevant individuals involved have already been suspended and are under investigation.

Unofficial Translation Of China's New Social Insurance Rules For Foreigners

2011-11-01T01:18:00.000+08:00

Please read this - be aware that after reading you make yourself sure if you are employed as a so-called "expat"in China - you better discuss this with your boss asap. They will push this law through & will take good care that ALL IS PAID PROPERLY ! Just imagine you are 35 years old and on your assignment from your company (lets say US, Aussie, French or Italy) in your company China office.
Better discuss a new salary asap with your boss. And all that you PAY IN you will get out when ? Yes if you choose to retire in China 30 years later ? If you leave earlier ? Better consider this money is gone - once the money is in China Man pocket it is very difficult to get it out of China Man pocket. Believe it or not - oh yes the law says you can get out a "lump sum" - Good luck ! Simply this whole law is an attempt to force out foreign managers, staff, experts etc. Take it that way !
quote
The following is an unofficial translation of China’s new interim measures covering foreign participation in China’s social insurance system by Jun He Law Offices in Shanghai:
Interim Measures for the Participation inSocial Insurance by Foreigners Employed in China

Article 1

The present Measures are formulated in accordance with the SocialInsurance Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter the “Social Insurance Law”) in order to protect the lawful rights and interests of foreigners employed in China to lawfully participate in social insurance and receive social insurance benefits, and to strengthen social insurance administration.

Article 2

Foreigners employed in China shall refer to people who are not of Chinese nationality but are lawfully employed in China, and have obtained foreign resident permits and employment authorization, including Work Permits for Foreigners, Foreign Expert Certificates, Certificates of Resident Foreign
Correspondent, or hold a Permanent Resident Certificate for Foreigners.

Article 3

Foreigners who are legally employed by organizations, including enterprises, public institutions, social organizations, privately-owned non-enterprise entities, foundations, law firms, and accounting firms, that are legally registered in China (hereinafter “Employing Units”) shall according to law participate in basic pension insurance for employees, basic medical insurance for employees,
occupational injury insurance, unemployment insurance and maternity insurance.
Employing Units and the foreigners shall pay social insurance premiums in accordance with regulations.
Foreigners who enter into employment contracts with employers outside of China and are dispatched to work in branches or representative offices registered in China (hereinafter “Domestic Work Units”) shall participate in basic pension insurance for employees, basic medical insurance for employees, occupational injury insurance, unemployment insurance and maternity insurance in accordance with law. Domestic Work Units and the foreigners shall pay social insurance premiums in accordance
with regulations.

Article 4

Employing Units that employ foreigners shall make social insurance registrations for the foreigners within 30 days of the handling of their employment authorizations.
Domestic Work Units shall make social insurance registrations for foreigners who are dispatched by employers outside of China to work in such Domestic Work Units in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Government agencies handling employment authorization for foreigners in accordance with law shall timely report to the local social insurance agencies of relevant information concerning employment of foreigners in China. Social insurance agencies shall make regular inquiries with relevant government agencies regarding the status of foreigners applying for employment authorization.

Article 5

Foreigners who participate in social insurance shall be entitled to social insurance benefits if they satisfy the prescribed conditions. Where a foreigner departs from China prior to reaching the age stipulated to draw a pension, his/her personal social insurance accounts will be retained, and his/her
social insurance contribution periods can be calculated cumulatively when he/she re-enters and is employed in China. If a foreigner applies in writing to terminate his/her social insurance relationship, the social insurance agencies may also pay the foreigner the amount deposited in his/her personal social insurance accounts in one lump sum.

Article 6

In case of a foreigner’s death, the amount remained in his/her personal social insurance account can be legally inherited.

Article 7

Foreigners who receive monthly social insurance benefits outside of China shall provide at least annually a survival certificate, as issued by a Chinese embassy or consulate, or notarized by a competent entity and legalized by a Chinese embassy or consulate in their resident countries, to the social insurance agencies responsible for paying their social insurance benefits.
Where a foreigner lawfully enters China, he/she may prove his/her survival status personally before social insurance agencies, and thus no longer provide survival certificates as prescribed in the preceding paragraph.

Article 8

If any dispute arises between a foreigner legally participating in social insurance and his/her Employing Unit or Domestic Work Unit in respect of social insurance, the foreigner may apply for mediation, arbitration or file a lawsuit in accordance with law. If the Employing Unit or the Domestic Work Unit infringes upon his/her rights and interests in social insurance, the foreigner may also request the administrative department of social insurance or the agencies responsible for collecting social insurance premiums for handling in accordance with law.

Article 9

For foreigners employed in China who are nationals of countries that have entered into bilateral or multilateral treaties relating to social insurance with China, their participation in social insurance shall be handled in accordance with such treaties. {REMARK: This is only valid for the moment for South Korea & Germany}

Article 10

Social insurance agencies shall create social insurance numbers for foreigners and issue social insurance cards of the People’s Republic of China to foreigners in accordance with the Social Insurance Numbering Rules for Foreigners.

Article 11

Social insurance administrative departments shall supervise and inspect the status of foreigners’ participation in social insurance in accordance with the Social Insurance Law. Any Employing Unit or Domestic Work Unit failing to lawfully make social insurance registrations or pay social insurance premiums for foreigners that they employ shall be subject to the Social Insurance Law, Social Insurance Supervision Regulation and other laws, administrative regulations and relevant rules.
Employing Units who employ foreigners without obtaining employment authorization in accordance with law or not holding a Permanent Resident Certificate for Foreigners shall be subject to the Administrative Provisions on Employment of Foreigners in China.

Article 12

The present Measures shall become effective on October 15, 2011
unquote

I am sure that now you understand everything - isn't it ? Be aware heavy penalties will be imposed on those who do not obey the law !

This one via chinaSMACK regarding Yue Yue

2011-10-31T01:00:00.001+08:00

even if there is the side-bar link I just copy this one here- also some interesting links inside - please read:

Yueyue: A Tragedy of 3 Seconds & Flawed Heroism

by Christine H. Tan on Sunday, October 30, 2011

Two weeks have passed since a little girl named Yueyue was struck by two vehicles and left to die in Foshan, Guangdong. We know the details: two drivers fled the scene, and numerous passersby ignored a child in pain. Kindness arrived too late in the form of a scrap peddler who pulled her up and went searching for help. Yueyue passed away from systemic organ failure eight days later.
As an outsider, it is far too easy to thumb our noses at this new example of a nasty, immoral Chinese society. The Yueyue tragedy has already encouraged many of my overseas Chinese friends to turn their backs on China. Many of us have a tenuous relationship with the part China plays in our Chineseness, and Yueyue’s case is ‘proof’ that this is an alien world. While proud to be ethnically Chinese, we wonder whether our values and traditions, inherited from forefathers who left China a century ago, have much to do with China’s society today. Friends have rolled their eyes at my decision to come to China to discover my roots; to them, those roots are planted in my great-grandparents’ home in southern Malaysia, not in a country that apparently ignores injured children. ”Come home,” someone told me. “We’re afraid you’re going to grow a cold heart the longer you stay there.”
I haven’t jumped onboard the “us Chinese versus them Chinese” train. Though I’ve had unsettling experiences in China, these haven’t been enough for me to condemn this whole nation to an evil, inhumane “them.” There is this thing in the air that feels like ‘cold apathy’ to an outsider, but to the local Chinese is just a sense of ‘can’t make it my business or else.’ I don’t think there’s anything cruel about it. Blame the Cultural Revolution. Blame a Nanjing judge and compensation laws. Blame hopelessness. Blame fear.
You may call me an apologist, though for what, I’m not quite sure. For not wanting to condemn all of China based on this incident? Not wanting to hate Chinese citizens for this culture of fear that I may never understand? Even good people can be wary of stepping in to stop another’s suffering. There’s so much fear here, fear that goes in many directions — don’t want to meddle, don’t want to get in trouble, don’t want to be blamed, don’t want to regret helping — but there’s no desire to be responsible for creating pain and suffering in the first place.
The horror of a three-second decision
As I watched the horrific video of Yueyue in Foshan, my strongest emotions weren’t directed at the many people who rushed past her. To me, those people weren’t evil. They were unkind and unwilling to put another before themselves, but not evil. They hadn’t caused her pain, and their only crime was complete submission to cowardice. Nor did I feel anger at the second van that ran her over. At the steady speed he was going, I assumed he didn’t realize that he’d run over a child.
Instead, the most damning and damaging moment that has stayed with me, the complete horror of it all, are the three seconds when the driver of the first van pauses with Yueyue between his front and rear wheels. He then proceeds to intentionally cause the toddler additional pain and suffering by stepping on the gas.
Those few seconds changed everything. They transformed him from a humane being into a murderous creature. They transformed Yueyue from an injured girl into a crushed mess after the whole weight of the van was slowly applied across her upper torso for the second time. It took three seconds for her to become a mangled body, the back tires of the van seeming to crunch her up and spit her out, leaving behind a devastating trail of blood so noticeable, so slick, even in the grainy CCTV footage. In those three seconds, the incident morphed from an honest mistake into cruel murder.
After watching that, I was too numb to feel anything much for those 18 passersby.
In the shit-storm following the video’s release, rage has been focused on those who did nothing. As stated in this Telegraph article, “It is not the accident itself, but what happens next – or rather does not happen – that has left millions of ordinary Chinese wondering where their country is heading.” But while we’re asking all those worthwhile questions about Good Samaritans, and in some quarters arguing over whether mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese are inherently different, perhaps we shouldn’t lose sight of something else – Yueyue may not have needed to be saved by those 18 passersby if the rear wheels of that first van had never touched her body, if the driver had paused…and kept pausing. Maybe we should be examining the accident itself — what it is that made one van driver cold enough, bold enough, and perhaps scared enough to make a decision that, in three seconds, changed the life of one little girl forever.
Chen Xianmei: A flawed hero
In a story this heartbreaking, we’ve needed a hero to cling to. Chen Xianmei, the scrap peddler who dragged Yueyue off the road, has become that celebrated savior, because she was the only passerby who tried to DO SOMETHING.
However, it feels like a taboo to suggest that she may have helped in the wrong way. Not many commenters have pointed out that she likely did not do Yueyue any good by initially moving her into an upright position.
“She can’t sit up on her own!” I wanted to cry as I watched the footage. The video clearly shows Yueyue’s torso flopping over and collapsing when Chen Xianmei pulls her up by the arms and lets go; it’s as if the little girl has been severed in half. Yueyue is then picked up and carried away by her frantic mother. These scenes made me wince. Elsewhere, in a different place and under different circumstances, our hero (and the child’s mother) might not be hailed for saving Yueyue, but rebuked for exacerbating already severe internal injuries.
What a sad situation. We had people unwilling to be Good Samaritans, and a Good Samaritan whose first move was probably not in the child’s best interest, through no fault of her own. Chen Xianmei was absolutely right to do something. But it was heartbreaking to see that the only person who would stop to help, was unable to judge that the child was much too bloodied and injured to be moved in that manner.
In early September, the Health Ministry issued a detailed manual on how to help the elderly if they fall. The document was widely ridiculed online, especially because it was issued at around the same time as another Good Samaritan failure. But one of its recommendations was not to move the injured, which is sound advice however dismissively one may view the manual and other guidelines like it.
There is so much discussion out there about morality. But let’s not only focus on whether to be a Good Samaritan; we have to know how to do so in a way that minimizes injury. A nation of Chinese citizens moving, rolling, and lifting internally bleeding victims can be just as disastrous as standing by and doing nothing. Let’s talk about that, instead of creating these archetypes of demons (the evil 18 Chinese bystanders) and angels (simple, kind-hearted scrap peddler), and nonsense accusing Chen Xianmei of seeking fame. The only criticism of her should be that this kind woman didn’t know a better way to help the little girl.
A different form of this article originally appeared on Shanghai Shiok!

Update: Primary One Admissions

2011-10-31T00:22:00.002+08:00

First please see here a link here for your info:
Click here to see all existing DSS schools in Hong Kong (Primary & Secondary)

After attending another interview with my son on Saturday we heard from a mother of one of his classmates following statement:
"Oh he has already been admitted to 2 of the schools + one 2nd interview"
Second interview means that you are 80% in !
The mother then told us she surely registered already for both of the ones her boy has been admitted already. I almost wanted to beat her - because:
1 kid here is blocking 2 seats (only releasing them in last minute next year) - because in the end he can only go to 1 SCHOOL (as much as my math is good). Under consideration that all the application this family has filed was a favourite place for her son - now you tell me why they are holding an extra of 2 places - for what ?
I am safe to say there are many families doing the same as described before:
Holding several admissions in their hands & not willing to give up some of them until last minute - even they pay several 100 HKD registration fee for each of the schools they have been admitted to.
How to call this ? Show off to friends, relatives & others: My kid is so good - getting 2 admissions already.
Please do not forget: Much more are failing the applications / interviews than being successful - that is why I personally find this kind of behaviour totally unacceptable.

No regulation on this kind of behaviour from Education Dept.
Besides this, the son of the above family is 8 months older than my son - means he is 8 months more mature, which makes a big difference in that age.
When my son will start P1 next year he will be 6 + 2 months - the other boy will be 6 + 9 months - I am very sure this guy is much smarter today in this so-called "interviews" than my son is.
So many things are "over-regulated"in Hong Kong: You can not sit here, you can not sit there, you cannot have a seat outside a restaurant (btw: what happened in Stanley - no more OUTDOORS seating ?) - but this P1 admission no regulation at all ?

Anything ever heard about this in a so-called POLICY ADDRESS - I cannot remember.
Have a nice week ahead !

Primary One Admissions in Hong Kong - Is my son stupid ?

2011-10-28T01:08:00.001+08:00

I was thinking a long time about if I really should post this. But I am really up-set with the Hong Kong system how to get your kids into Primary 1.
My son is now 5 and a few months old - he needs a Primary 1 admission for the school year 2012/2013.
Since weeks we are doing applications for so-called DSS schools here in Hong Kong. My son is a mix - I am a "gweilo" - the mother is HK chinese - mother tongue cantonese & very good mandarin + very good english.
My sons first language is english, his mandarin is developing, his cantonese is "playground - level".
He can read english since more than 10 months - surely with some flaws when the words are too complicate or unknown to him. He recently was reading the content of a "Letter of Credit" to me when he was in our office for a visit.
So as all parents in Hong Kong need to suffer the same system I do not want to complain about the procedure - but I want to complain about the system in general for applying Primary 1 admission at so- called DSS schools.
Info here
These schools are in the middle between the real public schools + private (international) schools.
Means monthly fee can be between HKD 1,500 - 5,000 (approximately - do not challenge me on this).
So if you want your kid to get admitted into one of this DSS schools you normally need to do following:
1) Make an application with a lot of copies (HK Id, birth certificate, latest kindergarten reports, some even ask for proof of your address via CLP or Towngas bill) - surely plus application fee between HKD 20 - HKD 150 - non-refundable.
2) In average you can say maximum seats for Primary 1 is no more than 150 per DSS School. Some schools have more than 3,000 applications for this 150 seats.
3) Then your kid needs to go to have an interview in each of the schools you have applied for. Funnily in the peak time interviews in some of the schools are conducted on the same days. My boy had a record of 5 interviews in 3 days !
4) What they are doing in the interviews is completely not clear - what they are asking - and how they are choosing winners & loosers out of a few hundred or thousands is completely a BIG SECRET.
5) And then you have to wait for the result mainly getting admitted for a 2nd interview - if you get this you are already lucky.
6) In between you better file the application for the public - means government schools POA (Primary One Admission) - to at least have a "back-up" if your kid is not successful for the DSS schools you have applied for.
7) The whole process is going over months until you are clear if your kid made it into one of the DSS schools you have applied for or not.

Hong Kong parents can be very ambitious with their kids: In queuing up at one school to get into the interview hall some "drilled 5-year old in a suit with a bow was very noisily calling his Daddy on the mobile and really asked him: "What again was the name of the first astronaut" ?

Another point is following: With so many applications for each DSS school and so little seats for each of them, most have to "fail" - but others will suddenly hold a choice of 3 - 4 different schools to send their kid into. And they are holding back their decisions for a long time which school to choose - means they are blocking with one kid the place for 2 or 3 other kids which can move up on a so called waiting - list.

Why there is not a system synching the results from school to school & asking the parents to make their decisions within a certain (short) period after they were getting the green light from several schools.

In case my son will fail all 10 applications (4 he failed already) we need to wait until next year May to try some "begging" to some of the failed schools as then some seats are getting vacant because parents with multiply choice of schools have stepped out.

Why parents having their kids already in ESF schools (they start one year earlier) are still allowed to participate in "the race" ? I know several cases doing like this.

Also I feel there is still some racist elements in deciding for admissions. Why a school with a curriculum 100% in English needs to conduct interview with the kids also in Cantonese ?

Why some principal of some of this schools even has a more worse english intonation / expression as my son ? And he still get rejected !

The system is completely unbalanced and completely not fair.

Oh yes - please consider we are talking about children 5+ years old - need to go to interviews - like applying for position of CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Sometimes they just want to play and have fun.
Our adult-driven success - money - hectic - stress- life - competition - do they really need to adopt to this already that young ? My son has refused inside several interviews (as far as he could really tell us) - just saying "I don't know" - so what is the REAL CRITERIA to get selected for the school ?
They need to be able to read in 2 languages - count - do some maths - talk about science - about economics & the world politics - are we sure this is exactly what a 5 year old plus a few months is really deeply interested in ? I always thought learning reading / counting etc starts with school only ..... surely now in the KINDERGARTEN they can learn already some basics which is good.
But how perfect our kids here in Hong Kong must be to just manage to get a P1 seat ?

Being obedient already during the interview ?
Being a "drilled smart interview expert".
Having parents filling out several pages of questionnaire the school is asking for ? I have seen parents adding several pages to that paper (maybe they think the more they write the better the chances of their kid).

They are just innocent kids !
So how much pressure we need to give them to be successful ?
Do they really understand what is this all good for ? I have deep doubts.

And last not least:
Do they "google" the names of applicants parents esp. if one is a "gweilo" ? Then I have "bad cards" as my real name was released by AP (Associated Press) a few years ago - do they judge on this ?

If you need details about schools procedures please feel free to contact me.

Here we go again: Crazy driving killing again a kid in a very cruel way !

2011-10-26T01:37:00.002+08:00

Who knows China & ever been travelling in cities by car or even better on highways or roads knows it:
Chinese driving skills / knowledge are below 0 for 90% of all the drivers. Crazy speeding, crazy lane changing, no distance keeping, aggressive driving in general: THE ROAD IS MINE - DO NOT GET INTO MY WAY !
Penalty system is weak - non - existing, traffic police can be easily bribed - result almost 80,000 dead only by traffic accidents each year - figures rising. So whenever you have to think about traveling in China - if you can take a train - better take a train - dont rely on the crazy drivers.
Here another sad story happened a few days ago -this one is from the shanghaiist
In wake of Yueyue's passing, another child-death tragedy strikes in Sichuan

Luzhou Evening News brings us a report from October 20 that in Luding County, Sichuan Province, Luzhou City, a truck knocked down a five-year-old child returning home from school, causing the child to die on the spot. Luzhou citizens have claimed the accident was actually cold-blooded murder.
The victim, five year old Xiong Maoke, was still in kindergarten. His mother recounted the horror of what happened, eyes red with tears. After school, 11 am, Xiong Maoke and several children left to go home whereupon they were involved in what appeared to be a simple accident.
Zhang Shifen witnessed the accident. "I saw the truck coming, the children were walking by the side of the road, not in the street." Zhang Shifen recalls the truck didn't hit Xiong Maoke directly, but rather cuffed his ear. "He fell, but after being knocked over, immediately stood up again and bent over to pick up his umbrella. "
The next scene left Zhang speechless, "I saw the truck move back a little and then move forward again, Xiong Maoke became wrapped up in the wheel, and then the truck continued forward another 10 meters." Zhang Shifen said she was standing behind the truck, and clearly saw a child under the wheels had been badly mutilated. She shouted at the driver, "What are you doing? Will you stop!" The driver stopped, got out, swore, and turned away.
He then asked, "How much should I pay?"
The driver, Ao Yong, 35, denies he stopped the truck the first time Xiong Maoke was hit. He refuses to talk about his behavior after the accident, but maintains, "I will compensate them (the family members) however much they want."
Police are investigating the incident and are working with the driver and villagers to ascertain what transpired and whether or not it was an accident or something more sinister.
For witnesses and friends of Xiong Maoke's family, this "accident" was a deliberate child murder as brutal and heartless as the death of Yueyue that gripped the nation and the world earlier this week.
In the Yueyue case, the driver who ran her over was infamously quoted as saying "If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan."

Some deeper thoughts........about MORAL !

2011-10-21T18:14:00.001+08:00

this one comes from the ASIA TIMES ONLINE - please read carefully:
SUN WUKONG
Little Yueyue and China's moral road
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - "What has happened to our morality?" "Where are our hearts of sympathy?" "How come we could ever become even more cruel and hard-hearted than cold-blooded animals?" These were questions being asked by outraged Chinese media and bloggers over a recent incident hit-and-run incident which saw bystanders indifferently walk past a toddler who was struck by a van, only for the child to be hit by a second vehicle.
The incident happened on October 13 in Foshan city in southern Guangdong, the richest province in China, and was captured by a surveillance camera. The footage was aired by the province's Southern Television Guangdong (TVS) and posted last Saturday on the Chinese video site Youku, drawing around 2 million views and thousands of comments on that site alone.

The footage shows a two-and-a-half-year-old girl hit and run over by a large white van while walking down a street in a market district of Foshan. About six minutes later, another passing van runs her over again. During the interval, at least 18 people walk by without helping her. Finally last an elderly trash collector comes to her aid, moving her to a side of the street and calling her mother.
According to Xinhua, doctors say the girl, Yueyue, from a rural migrant workers' family, is brain dead and surviving on life support in a deep coma. Police said the drivers of both vehicles have been arrested. [1]

"I was picking up trash in the hardware market when I saw a child lying in the road. I walked up in a hurry to the girl and heard her groan, " said trash collector Chen Xianmei. "I lifted her up and saw that one of her eyes was closed, that she had tears in her eyes, and she was bleeding from her mouth, nose and the back of her head.

"I wanted to carry her but she was soft and collapsed immediately. I was scared to try again and so I dragged her to the side of the road and shouted for help. But nobody showed up," Chen was quoted in Yangcheng Evening News as saying. Chen asked a few nearby shopkeepers who the girl was and only heard "I don't know" in reply. [2]
The apathy of the bystanders and people in the neighborhood has shocked the public, with media commentators and netizens seething over an incident that raises questions about the morality and conscience of today's China.
"[Ancient Chinese thinker] Mencius said, 'The heart of sympathy is essential to man.' What has made us so apathetic?... Lack of sympathy is a moral disaster facing us all … Let us all ask ourselves if we had passed by the scene, how many of us would have stopped to help the girl?" wrote a commentary on Chongqing Times.

It went on to blame the system for a lack of mechanisms that support good deeds. "Our current system is obviously in an embarrassing status: corruption continues to run wild and evil people enjoy privileges, scandals with charity organizations such as the Red Cross stop people from donating to help the needy. [3] All this certainly shakes up the beliefs of kind-hearted people."

Others have linked the absence of good Samaritans to a previous court ruling in Tianjin. There, a man who said he'd helped an elderly woman who had fell on the street was accused by the old lady and her family of knocking her down. The court ordered the man to pay a huge compensation and his appeal is now awaiting a higher court's ruling.

However, a commentary on Guangzhou-based Information Times says it is unfair to blame the law. "Everyone saw clearly that the girl was run over by vans. No passers-by could possibly be wronged by her parents. Despite the circumstances, still no one would even just make an emergency call. We believe all viewers of the footage have passed down their judgment on those passers-by."
"The trash-collecting lady has given us a most vivid lesson. How have our people have become so apathetic? It is evident that we must strengthen our morals."
A signed article in the China Youth Daily wrote that fears of liability are not an adequate excuse for not helping, and that this case exposes a decline of humanity in Chinese society.

The Foshan incident is by no means an isolated case of moral decline.

On September 2, an 88-year-old man collapsed in Hubei in central China, his face striking the pavement. No one came to his aid though he law on a crowded street for about 90 minutes, and he ended up choking to death on the blood from his nose. [4]

Several days ago at a high school in Changchun in northeast China, basketball-playing students began fight. One of them phoned his parents for help. Their parents, local rich business people, rushed to the scene with dozens of men armed with big knives. The mother shouted: "Let's hit them. Afterwards I'll pay for their medical treatment." One of the students was stabbed more than a dozen times and later died in hospital.
"What great hatred had the parents towards that student? Why did they want his death? What happened to the traditional Chinese virtue of 'extend my love of my children to others' children'?" said a commentary on Chongqing Times.

Netizens are now calling for a good Samaritan law that would protect people who intervene in such incidents from legal repercussions. But legislation may not be enough. For instance, it offers no solution cases such as Changchun stabbing.
For more meaningful results, society has to take a hard look at the spread of money worship in the past three decade. It is money that has eaten away at people's sympathy and caused moral decline in Chinese society.
Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, now trying to restore Mao-style ideological education in his jurisdiction, earlier said, "Our younger generations seem to know only about making money. This will put our country in jeopardy."

But what can the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) do now Pandora's box has been opened? Whether the blood of little Yueyue is the last shed to awaken the conscience of Chinese society is a question to be answered by the CCP, its government and the whole of Chinese society.
Notes
1. Apathy toward injured child sparks public outcry in China, Xinhua, Oct 17, 2011. click here
2. Mother testifies to good character of rescuer, China Daily, Oct 18, 2011. click here
3. China's state-run NGOs in graft spotlight, Asia times Online, Aug 3, 2011.click here
4. Death in Hubei sparks debate on ethics, China Daily, September 5. click here

RIP YUE YUE - 21.10.2011

2011-10-21T12:26:00.001+08:00

please read the below - Yue Yue has passed away in the early morning hours of Friday 21.10.2011:
quote
A toddler who was twice run over by vans and then ignored by passers-by on a busy market street in southern China has died a week after the accident and after days of bitter soul-searching in the country.
Surveillance camera footage of people walking past two-year-old girl Wang Yue, nicknamed Yue Yue, as she lay bleeding and unconscious sparked a wave of condemnation and soul-searching on China's hugely popular social networking sites.
A rubbish collector who finally moved the girl to the side of the street in the southern Chinese city of Foshan was hailed as a national hero, but the incident also led many online commentators to question the state of Chinese morality.
A nurse in the intensive care unit of the Guangzhou Military District General Hospital confirmed that the two-year-old girl, Wang Yue, died early today.
"Yue Yue died of systemic organ failure," a spokesman from the hospital treating her told AFP, adding that no expense had been spared to try to save the girl, whose parents are migrant workers.
Doctors had earlier said Yue Yue, who had been in a coma since the October 13 incident, was unlikely to survive.
The death of Yue Yue was one of the most popular topics on China's weibos -- microblogging sites similar to Twitter -- today as people expressed sorrow and anger over the incident.
"Farewell to little Yue Yue. There are no cars in heaven," wrote one microblogger on Sina's weibo.
"Yue Yue was consumed for a week by the fake kindness of netizens... All the wishes are fake and only the 18 passers-by are real. Farewell, and do not be born in China in your next life," another weibo user wrote.

Police have detained the drivers of both vehicles involved in the incident.

The plight of Yueyue came to symbolise what many Chinese see as a decay in public morals after decades of headlong pursuit of economic growth.
AP/AFP
unquote

CHILD KIDNAPPINGS IN ANHUI - LIVING WITH DEAD HEARTS

2011-10-21T01:02:00.001+08:00

HERE WE GO ABOUT SOME MORE DIRT FROM CHINA & IT SEEMS NOBODY CARES !
This comes from chinaSMACK - I will put a link to that blog on the sidebar asap..
quote
by C. Custer on Monday, October 17, 2011
In February of 2011, news spread across Chinese websites and BBS forums about cases of child kidnapping in Anhui province. These cases were a bit more brutal than what’s often reported in the Chinese media — in some cases, kidnapped children had been splashed with acid or otherwise disfigured to make them look more sympathetic as beggars — but the kidnapping of children is in no way uncommon in China, nor is it limited to Anhui.
In fact, tens of thousands of children — estimates vary — are kidnapped in China each year. Some, like the children in February’s Anhui case, are sold into lives on the street. Many are lucky enough to be sold to “adoptive” families who raise them as regular children. Still others, mostly older children, are sold into marriage, prostitution, or slave labor.
unquote
Now please take a look at this - some documentary under preperation called LIVING WITH DEAD HEARTS - they need some money / sponsorship - anybody out there to help they would be very happy.
Here is the trailer:

THE CHINA VISA BLOG

Your weekend music !

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Visa to USA for Chinese Nationals........

US liberalises visa procedures for Chinese

The Mysterious Visit in the US Consulate

China's buffeted and ambitious Bo Xilai stays afloat

6 Reasons to oppose ACTA

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Woman filmed hurling 'racist abuse' at Tube passengers in yet ANOTHER video of a vile rant on London transport

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One more on KIM DOTCOM........

And here is the song about that LOCUST story ........

About That Hong Kong ‘Locust’ Ad…

Hong Kong 'locust' ad angers Chinese web users

MANDARIN

Your weekend music !

HK financial chief delivers budget speech 2012 - 2013

Bonanza in Hong Kong From Mainland's Boom

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Published: February 1, 2012

Kim DOTCOM - again declined bail......

Back again here !

One more before I board the airplane: Anonyupload: faceless group steps in after Kim Dotcom's arrest

Slow posting for the next 10 days !

Some news about Kim Dotcom - Megaupload

The nuts professor Kong Qingdong: "Did I say Hongkongers are dogs? I didn't,"

Going home on Chinese new year

Megaupload Mega Song HD

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI !

University professor Kong Qingdong - some more here !

More about Kim Dotcom

Hong Kong people are dogs !

Your weekend music !

Protect IP & SOPA

Hong Kong freezes $42 mln in Megaupload raids

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Signs of 2012

CHINESE NEW YEAR IS COMING - here some recipe from Wolfgang Puck

Wolfgang Puck: In honor of Year of the Dragon, fire up wok for shrimp and noodles

Protect - IP ?? Vote against that !!!

News on China Corruption

Some more weekend music !

Your weekend music !

3x iPhone Craziness MADE IN CHINA

D&G 門口萬人影相活動 D&G Photography Protest January 8, 2012

Chinglish

It is time to go home for Chinese New Year !

Snowed in at Wheeler Street - Here is your weekend music.......

Important Info regarding China Visa application in Hong Kong

Welcome 2012 !

Happy New Year !

Foshan again !

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU !

It is Christmas now - and here is a story about some good-hearted chinese people !

Crowd works together to lift car to save child

Christian Bale - Not welcome in China anymore !

From the Neighbours: Kim Jong II is dead

The next school bus tragedy

Another weekend "delight"- New way of Chinese robbery ! Very brutal.

Some hardcore sound for your weekend !

Chinese business attitude - No moral No ethics - Just Rude & Greedy !

Beijing Fog ?

In Hong Kong Hippocratic Oath is existing

The Hippocratic Oath is not existing in China !

Shanghai Proposition

Fa Yuen street fire this week killing 9 people

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APEC CARD RE-MAKE

6000+ Chinese Shoe Factory Workers Strike in Guangdong Province

Man refusing to move away his car on Nathan Road

Hu & Obama kissing

Congratulations: Bona Mugabe now finished University........

New China Visa application format here !

QUESTION OF THE WEEK !

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Greed knows no races !

Not all the glitter is gold.........

[Hong Kong Bus Ride] 九巴 GK9636 @ 66 往大興 [全程行車影片]

A hospital in south China has suspended four medical workers for mistakenly diagnosing a stillbirth and disposing of a baby By Our Foreign Staff
9:04AM GMT 04 Nov 2011