A somewhat biased view on China…
Last Wednesday, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) issued a ban on misleading breast-enhancement treatments and weight-loss products commercials.
In modern China, one of the only countries where you have beauty contest specific for girls who went though plastic surgery. The advertisement for having a perfect body are saturating the television and radio commercials.
The situation is getting so serious that it has drawn public anger. A good example is a breast enhancement treatment promising to transfer unwanted weight from the hips to the breasts. Sometimes, the products just dosn’t work… but sometimes it even causes harm to the customer. Bolibao, one of these “miracle” treatments was accused in a CCTV documentary of causing gynaecological problems and of having no effect at all.
A survey shows that 90% of the audience is supporting the ban. However, the sexual topic (a 40 years old mother is quoted saying that “Some of them are like pornographic movies”) of the advertisement is also affecting the audience and the shopping TV industry is expecting a loss of 20 percent. Commercials for such products cost up to 5,000 yuan (US$625) per minute.
Source
China Daily, 2006-07-21
A year ago, on the 21st of July, China started to relax a bit its rigid currency regime and increased the flexibility of its exchange rate. The RMB then gradually raised from its usual 8.28RMB/USD to 7.99RMB/USD, a raise of 3.5%! And for some people, especially in the US - this should continue… However, I really hope it will not go back to 2RMB/USD as it used to be in the eighties…
So, did this affect the economy of China? Well… it’s still growing! Here is an interesting news from China Daily that shows China taking its part of responsibility in the World.
Last year, China stopped receiving food aid from the World Food Program (WFP) and in the same year China became the 3rd food donnor of the world just following United States and the European Union and preceeding Japan. They gave 577,000 tons of food in 2005, an increase of 260% percent from 2004.
Source
China Daily, 2006-07-21
Hutong to Highrise, an organization dedicated to documenting the disappearing hutong communities of Beijing that we already covered in a previous post, will be holding a photography exhibit at Dashanzi’s Bronze Age Gallery.
An opening reception will be held Saturday, July 22 from 3:00-6:00pm, and the exhibit will run through Sunday, July 23. Admission is free, although there is a suggested donation of 30RMB. All proceeds will be used to fund ongoing research.
Here is a copy of the flyer with directions and contact phone numbers:
Feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you think would be interested in this event.
In the last advertisement from Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China, you can see an old Taoist and his followers enjoying KFC chicken burgers. The advertisement is based on Seven Swords movie, originally written by Liang Yusheng.
Cultural experts in China find it ridiculous to have the old Taoist Fu Qingzhu recommending chicken burgers because he and most Taoists are vegetarian. For them, killing animals is wrong.
I’m quite puzzled… Is this really offending the Taoists beliefs?
Anyway, I tried to find the advertisement on YouTube or Google Video but could not find it. I only have this still image from the China Daily Website.
Source
China Daily, July 14th 2006
No, I’m not going to discuss once more about the Chinese Gold Farmer playing days and nights World of Warcraft just to resell their virtual money, magic items or full characters on eBay…
Today, I just want to share a funny advertisement made together by the producers of WoW and Coca Cola
And then, just for your information, Coca Cola in Chinese is written 可口可乐 (Ke Kou Ke Le) which gives the idea of deliciousness and happiness.
Next Sunday, it will be the Final between the 藍精靈 (lán jing líng - literaly blue fairy elves, Smurfs in English, Schtroumpfs in French) from France and the ones from Italy. We know this since today 5:00AM (Beijing time) after the French won the semi-final against Portugal thanks to a penalty from Zidane.
If I understood correctly, the Italian will be the real Smurfs while the French will have to get dressed in white. Anyway, the only thing I’m sure of is that The Pavillon (a bar near GongTi 工体, just opposite to Baby Face) will be overcrowded and a lot of people will sleep on their keyboard on Monday… Indeed, the game will start at 2:00AM!
Since yesterday, I can administrate the email users using…. GMail! They opened the GMail for your domain beta and I managed to get in!
This means that when you get a blog or website on http://todayinchina.com, I can provide you a personal todayinchina email address that you access using exactly the same interface as your GMail addresses if you have some.
By the way, Today in China is now hosting more and more personal blogs and websites… and we still have 4 slots open for free China related Personal Blogs!
Yesterday, the first Beijing-Lhasa high altitude train arrived at Lhasa Red Ball. The only minor issue they encountered was… bags of processed food bursting due to the low air pressure after the train climbed above 13,000 feet and up to 16,640 feett to go through a pass in Tibet’s Tanggula Mountains.
You may find many more information related to the train on Tibet.cn. Here is the official FAQ
CCTV1 is urgently looking for two foreigners for the months of July and August.
)over 20 years-old, from North America or Europe, speaking Chinese.The expected salary is 7000+ RMB per month, 20 days of work a month. It seems to me like a good and funny opportunity to practice your Chinese and earn some extra money!
You may call them directly if you are interested or have any questions: (63992259 or 13381205789)
Today at 11:56, the area of Beijing was hit by a medium size earthquake of magnitude 5.1. The epicentre seems to be located in Wen’an county, some 60 kilometers North of Beijing in the Hebei Province (河北, Hébĕi). No casualties nor property losses have been reported so far.
I was in my office at that time and it was a good reason for us to leave the building for lunch… However, one of my colleagues was in our small library surrounded by bookshelf with glass doors. She was quite impressed and was really frightened when it happened!
Update
What is quite interesting is that this month is the 30th anniversary of an earthquake that struck the city of Tangshan, also in the Province of Hebei, 200km east of Beijing. That one had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake left 240,000 people dead, 160,000 severely injured and more than 4,000 children orphaned. :-S
Some rumors have started through SMS and emails in Beijing about a possible stronger earthquake in the beginning of the evening…
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