Today in China

Today in New Year’s Eve in China… It might be a good time to wish all of you a Happy New Year (????!) since I will be flying to Philippines tomorrow for an 8 days break! ^_^

2006 is the Year of the Dog and if you got born in 1898, 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982 or 1994 you’re a Dog!
So, what are the characteristics of the people born during the Years of the Dog?

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people‘s confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.

Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco

Here are some famous people born on the Years of the Dog in no particular order: Sylvester Stallone, Shirley McLain, Dolly Parton, Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, David Bowie, Henry Cooper, Winston Churchill, Confucious, Judy Garland, Alexander Hamilton, Herbert Hoover, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Sophia Loren, Elvis Presley, Norman Schwarzkopf, Steven Spielberg, Angela Bassett, Connie Chung, Andie MacDowell, Kevin Bacon, Chris O’Donnell, Andre Agassi, Tim Robbins, Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton.

Normally, New Year’s Eve is celebrated with the familly. People make and eat dumplings (??, ji?ozi) but we are planning for something different! We’ll meet at Beer Mania around 18:00 for a two hours Belgian Beer apero and then we will head to Dahr Khan, a Mongolian restaurant where we will eat roast mouton, drink Mongolian alcohol and beer and sing student old songs. For that occasion, I will take my Petit Bitu and Arnaud - Arts et Metiers - will also take his book…

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 恭喜发财!

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Another big company is working hand in hand with the Chinese Government on censoring the web. Google agreed to auto censored its search results of content deemed offensive or subversive.

The good news is that this censorship only apply to their new Chinese language website. The English version is still uncensored. Well, not really… The search results are not censored by Google but the access to some websites might still be restricted by the government censors who monitor the Internet Activity.

Users of http://www.google.cn searching for sensitive keywords will see the following message:

据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。
In line with local laws and policies, parts of the result are not listed.
You may see the message for this request about freeing Tibet

And this news is running on China Daily!

Update
I just found a page with some samples of what kind of websites are blocked on Google.cn on this page. The analysis is basic but still quite interesting and shows what kind of websites are censored. A search for “falun gong” gives 11,900 results on Google.cn instead of 2,750,000 results. A search for “playboy” returns 17,700,000 entries instead of 48,900,000. Another funny one is the search for “fuck” (oooops…. sorry :-S ) that returns only 189,000 results while the official Google.com will give 89,600,000!
Leave a comment if you find another set of keywords!

Links:
China Daily - 2006 01 26
Chinese version of Google

I stumbled across the website of Feng Jiang, a PhD in Economics and Related Studies, and his amazing pictures about China… There is even a PowerPoint version of the pictures if you want to send it to your friends.
I’m not sure how long it will stay online though.

While the scheduled debut in China of ‘Memoirs of a Geisha‘ is February 9th, it has still not been approved by the Chinese government. It seems that the government is reluctant to give its approval because it fears violent events - similar to the ones triggered last year by a school book distorting history facts - could happen.

The cause of this is to be found in the casting of Steven Spielberg movie, consisting of three of the most famous Chinese actress: Zhang Ziyi (章子怡, Zhāng Zǐyí), Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊, Yáng Zǐqióng) and Gong Li (巩俐, Gǒng Lì). They will respectively play the role of a rising Geisha, her mentor and her rival. The fact that Zhang Ziyi serves a businessman who was a Japanese soldier in occupied China put her in front of the controversy more than the two others and was harshly criticized in China mainland.
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Do you want to practice your Chinese? There is a bilingual news running on China Daily about the fact that:

. 12% of French people are fluent in English
. 6% understand and speak well English
. 48% understand more or less but do not speak fluently English

This leaves one third of the French people admitting they cannot speak English at all…

So, if you want to practice your Chinese go check this news.

Reminder: I’m not French, I’m from Belgium

Updated Links:
China Daily - 2006 01 24 (this link seems broken…)
Same news on Yahoo, without Chinese version

What???

Yes, I’m talking about Adult Diapers… Next Sunday starts the Year of the Dog. Lots of Chinese people will go back to their home town to spend the Festival with their family. As I said in a previous post, they are expecting to have more than 2 billions travelers during the Festival: by plane, by car and… by train!

It is quite usual to have more than 2000 people in a 1000 seats train. I let you imagine how convenient it is on the long trip to cross China. Just to give you an example, to go from Guangzhou (??) to Beijing (??) takes 24 hours! With so many people in the train it’s almost impossible for the passengers to pass through and… reach the toilets. They have to spend the whole trip without relieving themselves or… ahem… well… that’s why the Adult Diapers sales are rising in China. Supermarkets in Foshan (佛山, Fóshān), a city in Guangdong (广东, Guǎngdōng) province, are reporting an increase in sales of about 50%!

Links:
China Daily - 2006 01 24

Internet Surveillance Division of Shenzhen (深圳, Shēnzhèn) Public Security Bureau deployed its friendly version of Big Brother - JingJing (警警) and ChaCha (察察) - last Monday. JingCha (警察) in Chinese means Police. Visitors of Shenzhen websites and portals will see JingJing and ChaCha floating on their screen. When clicking on one of those two Virtual Cops, the Netizen will have access to Instant Messaging to chat with real cops. You’ll need QQ (Chinese IM) to chat with the cops here or here.

The main goal it to intimidate people and remind them that Big Brother is watching them and that they should auto-regulate their behavior on the Internet, not visiting banned websites or participating in inappropriate forums…

“The two dummy policemen were made to remind Netizens the Internet is protected by the law. People should pay attention to their behavior when they are surfing on the Net,” a senior official of the Shenzhen cyber police told China Youth Daily.
(Shanghai Daily January 5, 2006)

Links
Overview in English
Shenzhen Website, where you can see the Virtual Cops
Access to IM here or here

Thanks to Emilie, we had our first (for most of us) try at diving. And WaoW!!! What a dive!!!

We went diving in the main tank of the Blue Zoo at GongTi (工体), the Worker’s Stadium. Altogether, we were twelve people: 3 experienced Rescue Divers, 1 Open Water Level 1 Diver and the rest of us total neophytes! The central tank - holding 3.5 million liters of artificially produced salt water and thousands of fishes - is big enough to have 3 of us diving together with a few instructors.

Diving in an aquarium might seem artificial and boring compared to diving in open water. However, with all the fishes it was an amazing experience! There were murenes, leopard sharks, Napoleon Fishes, even a Tiger Shark!!! And a Little Mermaid!!!

Links
The gallery

Here is a quick post about our ski trip to JunDuShan, on the 7th of January. It was our first time in that resort.

We had a lot of fun but I still prefer ShiJingLong. Compared to JunDuShan, the advanced slope in ShiJingLong is less difficult but seems longer. Also, it continues with a decent 15-20 degrees till the bottom. And then, of course you have this nice Chalet on top of one of the slopes where you may have lunch in the sun.

Just near the chalet, they just inaugurated a new Snow Park for those who wants to jump! jump! jump!

Okay… For those interested, we are planning to go to ShiJingLong on the 21st of January, last time before Chinese New Year!

Links
The Gallery

I added a new page with information about our next parties!

The page will stay available from the left column of the website.

Okay, so… for the next one, here is an excerpt of the page:

When?	Friday 13th of October, 20:30
Reasons?	Malaysian Epiphany, St. Knut’s Day, 390th Birthday of Antoinette Bourignon, Eve of the last full moon before the Chinese new year, Thaipusam… Enough reasons?
Where?	At my place
Dressing code?	You will have to remove your shoes when entering my apartment… So, make sure you wear beatiful socks!
What should you bring?	Just bring something to eat or to drink!