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Dec 17

Dushi Nvbao 17 Dec
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The Ten Biggest Sex and Gender Stories of 2012

The City Lady (都市女报) from Shandong today has a front page story on the Ten Biggest Sex and Gender Stories of 2012 in China (年度十大性与性别事件). Based on an exercise led by the head of the Sex and Gender Institute at the Beijing Forestry University (北京林业大学性与性别研究所) named Fang Gang (方刚) (a man), this Top Ten list has been published every year from 2008. Each item on the list is accompanied by commentary from the staff at the Sex and Gender Institute, which is translated below along with each of the ten items.   Read more

Dec 15

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It’s just that we can’t see them – reflections on class and poverty


This is the 1510 Digest, a weekly roundup of recent essays and articles published on the Chinese web, with links to translations on the Marco Polo Project.

Over the last thirty years, along with remarkable economic development, China has seen the gap between rich and poor increase widely. But how do these statistics translate into daily life and experiences?
Today’s digest proposes two pieces that consider the impact of this distance as it applies to the individual. Hong Kong University lecturer Zhou Baosong offers a philosophical reflection on the Evils of poverty by conjuring up the figure of a struggling ‘Mr Zhang’; a post by ‘W’, a Chinese student in America, shows a young person’s perspective on the question of class.

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Dec 12

东莞时报
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Xi Jinping does his own Southern Tour

The message today is loud and clear – “No halt in opening up, no stopping reform”:

China’s newspapers today are in a festive mood because China is forging ahead with reform, and there’s no better way to ram the message home than with an inspection tour to Guangdong province in the south by Xi Jinping, China’s newly anointed leader, in imitation of the celebrated 1992 pro-reform Southern Tour of then-leader Deng Xiaoping. On a hill in Shenzhen close to a statue of Deng, Xi spoke passionately of the need to continue reform and opening up in China, and himself brandished a shovel to plant a few banyan seeds in a move symbolic of the new breakthroughs he intends to cultivate from the reform heritage left by Deng.  Read more

Dec 11

Zhengzhou Wanbao 11 Dec
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Mo Yan presented with Nobel Prize for Literature

Yesterday the 10th of December was the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel and hence the date of the annual prize-giving ceremony for the Nobel prizes. Chinese writer Mo Yan was handed his Nobel Prize for Literature in the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, and this followed an official lecture he delivered in the city last Friday. Since his winning of the prize was first announced, Mo Yan has been lauded in China yet was also the subject of controversy and debate (for a round-up of this and the various differing opinions, see the China Digital Times and other links in the Links and sources section below).

Today Mo Yan was again all over the front pages in China, dressed in a black tailcoat suit as he smiled and was handed the Nobel prize. Most of the newspapers in China today gave substantial coverage to the event, focusing on the details of the location, the ceremony and Mo’s outfit, the music, some history of the Nobel prize, and notable attendees. This whole thing is after all a kind of a first for China’s newspapers, allowed now to revel in the pomp and circumstance of a Nobel prize-giving ceremony with a Chinese winner.

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Dec 10

Shenyang Wanbao 12Dec12
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Female mayors given extra classes on makeup, tea ceremonies and flower arranging

Wouldn’t it be great if you had female leaders in China that are not only strong leaders but also look attractive and know how to work with tea and flowers because these things make them more charming? Or does that sound slightly odd? This is exactly what’s been happening with 21 female city mayors from all over China who have just graduated from a 13-week training course in Shanghai that focused both on their leadership abilities as well as their skills with tea ceremonies, flower arranging and makeup.

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Dec 7

Xihai Dushibao 7 Dec 12
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Wang Lijun and his Smurfs

You don’t know Wang Lijun (王立军). You may have last seen him being charged with various serious crimes committed when he was police chief and Bo Xilai strong man in Chongqing, for which he was ultimately sentenced to 15 years in jail. Yet now you can read about Wang Lijun the man, get to know the guy a little bit better, find out what he was really like in his prime before he fell from grace and blew the lid off the Bo Xilai/Gu Kailai scandal. Turns out that Wang Lijun was just like any other plodding policeman that’s given a bit of power, turning himself into a stern bureaucrat, a pedantic stickler for cleanliness, a faux newspaper editor and professor, a self-obsessed photography enthusiast, and a man completely absorbed in every fine detail of his own image, with a team of photographers (called the Smurfs) and Photoshop handy at all times to make him appear to the world every part of the larger than life man he thought he was.

The Western Sea Metropolis Daily (西海都市报) from Qinghai province today published an expose of the “imperious and domineering” behaviour of Wang when he was still calling the shots (no pun intended) in Chongqing. Based on the revelations of a former secretary of Wang’s called Xin Jianwei (忻建威) as well as others, this expose came to light over the course of this week and was in the last few days published in two other publications as well, namely Southern Weekend (南方周末) and Modern Express (现代快报).

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Dec 4

Henan Shangbao 4 Dec 12
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Unknown migrant worker dies after lying 20 days under a bridge in Henan

In Zhengzhou (郑州) in Henan province in November, a migrant worker lay under a bridge for more than 20 days. He didn’t seem to be very ill, just cold, hungry and destitute. People came and went, even emergency medical services were there  once – yet he still died, alone. Who is he and why did he die? This is what the Henan Business Daily (河南商报) asks today with a front page special section on the fate of this forlorn migrant worker and others like him in China.

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Dec 3

Shichang Xinbao 3 Dec 12
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A thousand miles in search of the finless porpoise

It is well-known that the Chinese river dolphin, also known as the Baiji, is functionally extinct, in other words: as good as gone forever. The freshwater finless porpoise (江豚), on the other hand, which like the Baiji also lives in China’s Yangtze river, is currently endangered and seems to be heading for the same fate. In November, a 40-day scientific expedition was launched to carry out a survey of finless porpoises in the Yangtze river, and a journalist from Star News (市场新报) from Anhui province was invited along to capture in prose the few moments when the finless porpoise was sighted in an environment that is gradually dispelling them to the verge of extinction. Read more

Nov 30

Dushi Nvbao 30 Nov
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Contrasting World AIDS Day coverage in China’s newspapers

With tomorrow being World AIDS Day, a handful of newspapers in China today ran special features and front page headlines on HIV/AIDS-related stories. This coverage came in contrasting styles, however. While most newspapers focused on informative education and prevention activities related to HIV/AIDS, Dongguan Times went straight for the proverbial low blow by focusing its front page story entirely on brave and nervous nurses at a local hospital while they treat AIDS patients who seem crazy and plague-ridden (and who are mostly outsiders [外地人] anyway).

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Nov 29

Shenzhen Wanbao 29 Nov
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Chinese warships enter the western Pacific

Early yesterday morning, Chinese warships passed through the Miyako Strait (or the Gonggu Strait 宫古海峡 in Chinese) just south-west of Okinawa, heading out in the western Pacific for the purpose of carrying out “routine training exercises”. The front page of the Shenzhen Evening News (深圳晚报) from Guangdong province illustrates the eastward maneuvers with a large graphic showing the ships crossing a clear red line (running south-westwards to the right of Taiwan) from what should be Chinese waters into international waters. A handful of other newspapers have also put the warships on their front pages today. Read more

Nov 28

Nanfangdushibao 28 Nov
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Pandemonium on China’s stock market

There’s pandemonium on China’s newspaper front pages today: the stock market is falling even faster than the sliding temperatures. So there’s graphics of bears and plunging arrows galore. The Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报) from Guangdong chose today to dispense with any graphics and simply put the cold, hard truth writ large on its front page: “The weather is really cold, but the stock market is even colder”. There’s some fun stock market crash graphics to admire on various other papers though. Read more

Nov 26

Xinmin Wanbao 26 Nov
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Aircraft on the Liaoning and other stories from China’s newspapers today

Most of the front pages of China’s newspapers today revelled in the display of aircraft landing on China’s new aircraft carrier. Scroll down to see a gallery.

But there was also much else on China’s front pages to enjoy today, such as China’s own 47 kg “Mike Tyson”; China’s best books of 2012; marine life off Shenzhen; a tirade against incorrect signposts in Shanghai; and the travails of a 14-year old girl working in her mother’s stead sweeping the streets of Wuhan – and no-one seems to mind. Read more

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