Simon yesterday offered some commentary on the Motion Picture Association’s latest report on DVD piracy, and specifically its claims about piracy in China.:

“Piracy cost filmmakers US$2.7 billion (HK$21.06 billion) last year, with domestic firms shouldering more than half those losses, according to a study commissioned by a trade group representing the major Hollywood studios. China’s film industry lost US$1.5 billion in revenue to piracy, while US studios lost US$565 million, according to data released Monday by the Motion Picture Association…Some 93 percent of all movie sales in China were of pirated versions of films, according to the latest study.”
…
Who’s to blame here? Is it the average Chinese worker, who earns maybe 5,000 yuan a year and can either buy a copy for 5 yuan or the original for 10 times as much? Is it China’s government, who’s domestic industry and creativity suffers far more from piracy than Hollywood? Or is it the outdated business and pricing models of foreign companies in the Chinese market?

AsiaPundit is less inclined to support the thesis that movie piracy in China is price driven and would argue that the problem is based on censorship, heavy regulation and a lack of legal channels for distribution. Pirates are on every street corner, but the only legal outlets for sales are inefficient state-owned shops or big-box retailers such as Carrefour. While the pirates can carry everything, the legitimate outlets can only sell the very slim selection of Chinese Communist Party-approved content that is available.

For that reason, AsiaPundit generally welcomes piracy in China. It would challenge a person’s sanity to only have access to CCP-approved material for viewing.

AP expects that many of the most-heard voices complaining about China’s piracy problems are also consumers of pirated products. AP would wager that the vast majority of local American and European chambers of commerce members, Western journalists, local employees of MPAA-affilated companies and even CCP party cadres all buy pirated DVDs or rob television signals trough illegal sattelite dishes and descramblers.

If the MPAA wanted to see less piracy in China it should be challenging the state’s restrictive policies on content. There are many Chinese and expatriates who would buy quality original DVDs if they were easily available, even if they were significantly more expensive than pirated product.

Variety’s Asian cinema blog, Kaiju Shakedown, offers a post today that makes the same point.

“But, as we all know, these numbers regarding China are completely bogus anyways. Because most MPAA member movies can’t be sold in China so they have no loss. China only allows 20 foreign films to be imported each year, and usually 14 - 16 of these are from MPAA members. So what the MPA is talking about in this report isn’t “profits lost to pirates in China” but “profits lost to closed markets in China”.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, piracy, northeast asia

With a possible new missile test by North Korea getting significant press attention, one could be forgiven for thinking that Northeast Asia remains a tinderbox. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Via Coming Anarchy, AsiaPundit is pleased to discover that Japan is finally exiting from its 100-year state of war.:

Montenegro, Japan To Declare Truce
Jun 16, 2006
Montenegro says Japan has recognized the Balkan country as an independent state, ending more than 100 years of a state of war.
Akiko Yamanaka, Japan’s deputy foreign minister and the prime minister’s special envoy is scheduled to arrive in Podgorica next week to deliver a letter to Montenegrin officials declaring the war is over and Tokyo recognizes Montenegro as an independent state, Belgrade’s B92 radio reported Friday.

AsiaPundit assumes that this isn’t the end of the story and fully expects that we’ll be hearing stories for decades about Japanese troops emerging from Balkan mountain hideouts completely unaware that the war is over.

(Image stolen from greatwardifferent.com, for a full-size picture see here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, montenegro

AsiaPundit apologies for the past week of inactivity. The lapse was partly due to technical issues, partly due to Asia Blog Award-related administration and partly related to the World Cup.

In regards to the latter excuse, AP is not alone. While there has not been much data on the tournament’s economic impact on Asia, from experience he will note that in 2002 trading on several regional securities exchanges was essentially halted (resulting in some very odd movements as a result of low volumes). Truck and Barter alerts us to reports on the costs to the US and US economies.:

In the US;
“The World Cup will likely cost American companies 10 minutes of productivity a day for 21 days, according to the outplacement company of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That comes to about $121.7 million in lost productivity in the US, a large figure, particularly painful for any company dominated by Englishmen, Germans or Brazilians perhaps.”
In UK;
“Based on an average hourly wage of £12.50, the law firm Brabners Chaffe Street calculated that during the tournament, if half of British workers surf the net for an hour a day, it will cost Britain nearly £4 billion in lost time”

In spite of the lost productivity, bosses are generally understanding and there are few sackings. In Indonesia, however, there has been one Cup-related firing and it was deserved.:

A vain attempt by former dictator Suharto’s middle daughter Siti ‘Titiek’ Hediati Hariyadi to improve her super-rich family’s bad image by presenting the World Cup soccer tournament on her SCTV television network backfired after she was pulled off the air following a deluge of complaints about her ineptitude.
Titiek, whose company is the majority shareholder of SCTV, was at the helm of a three-member panel of hosts for each night’s opening game over the first three days of the World Cup. Her dire lack of knowledge and passion for soccer were painfully obvious as she was seated alongside Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) vice president Dali Taher and former national soccer coach Danurwindo.
Her incompetence was perhaps best demonstrated during the opening game between Germany and Costa Rica, when she erroneously referred to Germany as “Jerman Barat [West Germany]” – apparently forgetting that West and East Germany had reunited back in 1990.
Soccer fans, forced to watch SCTV because it is the exclusive Indonesian broadcaster of this year’s World Cup, lambasted Titiek’s ignorance, inexperience and awkward performance. They demanded she be replaced by someone more professional.
(Image stolen from Indcoup)

While the Suharto clan isn’t making any gains some Indonesian retailers are hoping to capitalize on the event, as are retailers everywhere. Although one French retailer is having trouble in China (again).:

Carrefour has fallen into trouble again with its Fangzhuang Store in Beijing selling fake Adidas footballs promoting the 2006 World Cup.
The ball with the sign of “Teamgeist” and price of RMB59.90 sold in the store has a similar appearance as that of real official ball of the World Cup. An unnamed staff from Carrefour Fangzhuang store quoted in local media says that he has no idea whether the ball has anything to do with the World Cup.
In response to this, Zhu Chenye, a manager from Adidas China, says that the football found in Carrefour is certainly a fake product for they have never produced footballs of that price. According to Adidas, the football used for the World Cup usually costs about RMB900.

For those disappointed that they won’t be able to buy fake balls at Carrefour, Malaysia’s Kenny Sia has a DIY solution.:

Yes, that’s right. For a fraction of the cost of an authentic adidas Teamgeist, I could make my very own official FIFA World Cup 2006 soccer ball. And I’m gonna show you how.
First, you’d need a regular soccer ball. Any one will do. Get a “Made In China” one at your local sports store for a cheap RM40.
Sure, it won’t last as long and the specs aren’t as good, but the improvements in the Teamgeist ball are minimal in practice you probably won’t notice it anyway.
Use spray paint of ICI Dulux, whichever you prefer. Gotta have a white background before you paint the designs on later ya know?
Now comes the difficult part.
You know how the Teamgeist ball features the signature World Cup trophy-inspired ’rounded propellers’? That’s important. That’s the whole reason why so many wanted the ball in the first place.
But how do you do it?
Easy.
You get a box of Kotex.

In neighboring Singapore, which is unlikely to soon produce a World Cup Team, a scandal is developing based upon the pay scale the city state offers to African imports playing in the S-League.:

A story that has been running here in Singapore concerns the working conditions of a group of footballers from Africa (Kenya, Cameroon and Nigeria). In stark contrast to the wages earned by those competing at the world cup these players moved to play in the Singapore S league. All had signed contracts with the club, promising them $1,600 a month in salaries. But the club also deducted $1,500 of that money for food and accommodation, as the players had signed a separate contract with the club authorising the deductions. It is now reported that the issue has been resolved - after a meeting over the weekend between the Football Association of Singapore, the players and club management, the players have accepted a new deal, which will now increase their monthly take-home salary from S$100 (US$62) to about S$600 (US$375) a month

When AP suggested that Singapore will not soon have a World Cup team that assumption was based solely on economics and demographics. The city state cannot compete with any of the regional behemoths in either population or resources. However, if one sociologist is to believed Singapore may also be at a disadvantage because it is majority Chinese and the Chinese can’t play football.:

“A lot of people are pained by the fact that Chinese football did not makes it way to the World Cup. Many people make it a point of patriotism and blame the systems or institutions involved. I feel that Chinese people being bad at football is related to the character of our culture.
Chinese people, especially the Han, are a elegant and scholary people, who were never a proponent of reckless bravey and battle, preferring softer and more elegant methods. Football is not like this, it is an attack-intensive sport, with a violent character. American football is even more violent. These sports are not suited to the character of our culture.
There is lots of evidence for this:
Look at the historically famous men, from 梁山伯 to 贾宝玉. They are all bookish people.
Until a few years ago, the Chinese language did not have the word 性感 (sexy). Chinese people historically did not value ferocious images of men.

The Chinese don’t understand aggressive sports or sexiness??? AP is pleased to have some evidence to the contrary… for instance this local Esquire pictorial.:

Continuing with China, while AP has never envied local reporters, he does presently wish he was a sports reporter for a local Chinese outlet. It seems that all you have to do is show up to the games and make stuff up.:

Since the beginning of the FIFA World Cup in Germany, something strange is happening in Chinese journalism. Xinhua, CCTV and other official media sent huge teams to Germany, but their news reports are unexciting. Instead, the local or Internet media have scooped some amazing exclusives. For example, when Brazil beat Croatia at 5am on June 14, the Sohu sports page immediately had an exclusive interview with Brazilian star Kaka.
Finally, Xinhua could not stand it anymore and published an article titled “People who are even more awesome (full of shit) than Parreira) to expose the massive fabrications from certain Chinese reporters. The report pointed out that the extent to which Chinese reporters have gone must have astonished even Brazilian trainer Carlos Alberto Parreira.
For example, Franz Beckenbauer must be very busy going from one game to another, but he seems to be interviewed by mainland Chinese media every few days. He does not speak Chinese, but in the Sports Weekly exclusive interview, he can name the individual players on China’s national team. Even better yet is the exclusive interview with FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter in Shanghai Youth Daily, in which he came over after the reporter called out his name in a hotel lobby.

The tournament has been relatively free of violence this year, although there has been one unfortunate incident in an unlikely place.:

Thai gunman kills two noisy World Cup fans
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Thai police are searching for a gunman who shot and killed two soccer fans at a beach resort after complaining they were cheering too loud.
The two men, both Thais, were watching Italy’s 2-0 win over Ghana at a restaurant Monday at the Thai beach resort town of Pattaya, and erupted in roars when Italy scored its first goal, said Panipha Wattakul, a girlfriend of one of the victims.
A man seated at a nearby table asked them to quiet down, prompting a heated argument during which the man pulled out a handgun and shot the soccer fans at point-blank range, said Police Col. Somnuek Chanket. The victims were identified as Chamlong Rongsaeng, 30, and Somnuek Sonkun, 41.

Also in the Mekong region, Magnoy’s notes a Reuters item in which Cambodian strongman Hun Sen warns citizens not to bet the farm… literally.:

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urged his impoverished people on Thursday not to sell their possessions to place bets on the soccer World Cup, saying it was probably a bad idea. “Go ahead and watch it, but do not sell your cows, motorcycles, cars, homes and land to bet on the games,” Hun Sen, a one-eyed former Khmer Rouge soldier, told farmers at a provincial hospital opening.
“Just bet verbally, for fun. Don’t sell your cows to bet on games of football,” he told the several hundred villagers and foreign diplomats at the ceremony.
World Cup fever has gripped the war-scarred southeast Asian nation, with Cambodians from every walk of life staying up into the small hours of the night to catch their favourite teams in action.
Hun Sen himself confessed to backing Japan — his government’s largest donor

AsiaPundit does not have a national team this year — and being Canadian likely never will — but he does have hopes for Korea, Japan, the US and Australia. For those who are also without a national team to root for, Owen offers a tool for making an ethical decision.:

The World Development Movement has a handy tool to help the ethical football supporter decide which team to support.
As I type, Tunisia is beating Saudi Arabia - according to the WDM, this is good news as it means that the 3rd most supportable team is beating the 29th most supportable, on measures such as carbon emmissions, corruption and military spending.

Finally, the Nomad notes with some disbelief a report that the South Korean cheering section has become a tourist attraction.:

Surely it can’t be so, but if I read it in a Korean paper, and it has something to do with Korea, then that’s the way it is. According to an article in the Korea Times, people from other countries are paying money (I know, unbelievable, ain’t it?) to come over here to take part in the outdoor cheering for the South Korean soccer team. Yes, you read that correctly, nothing wrong with your monitor or your eyeglasses.
“South Korea’s victory against Togo at the 2006 German World Cup on Tuesday put the country back into the world spotlight again after its achievement in the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. The soccer match, however, was not the only thing that caught people’s eyes _ what really made people excited was the outdoor cheering in the streets, plazas and other public places filled with people in red shirts, just like during the 2002 World Cup.”

While the Nomad is doubtful, AsiaPundit is more inclined to support that thesis. There is something appealing about South Korean fans. Some of them in particular.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, indonesia, korea, northeast asia, singapore, south korea, southeast asia, thailand, world cup

One of the advantages of living in an Asian metropolis is having easy access to great food. For the most part — at least relative to North America — this also applies to regional airlines. Mari Diary notes a top-10 list for the best airline food which features a sizable Asian component.:

No.1 Singapore Airlines. 66.9 points
No.2 Virgin Atlantic. 58.8 points
No.3 KLM. 50.9 points
No.4 Air France. 49.1 points
No.5 Air New Zealand. 46.9 points
No.6 Air China. 40.9 points
No.7 Alitalia. 40.6 points
No.8 Malaysia Airlines. 39.7 points
No.9 Asiana Air. 38.5 points
No.10 Cathay Pacific Airways. 38.2 points

(Image of a Singapore Airlines meal portion (first class LAX-NRT-SIN) stolen from AirlineMeals.net… the world’s first and leading website about nothing but airline food.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, northeast asia, southeast asia

Matt at Digital World Tokyo interviews the proprietor of a ‘male clothing cafe’, where ‘hidden otaku‘ women are served by androgynous waitresses dressed to look like male anime characters.:

Word of Japan’s medo kissa or “Maid cafes,” where the staff call you goshujinsama (”master”) and serve omelets with love-hearts drawn on them in ketchup, has reached envious male geeks around the world, but what about the anime-loving women?

I spoke to one woman working to redress this injustice: Kira Ayumu, owner and proprietress of 80+1, a dansou kissa (”male clothing cafe”) in Ikebukuro, where the female waitresses dress as men for a spot of role-playing.

Can you give us a short description of 80+1?

A hideaway for girls. Our all-female staff uses dansou to embody the slim lines of anime characters in a way that men just can’t. Women can get much closer to the two-dimensional feel of a male anime character. It’s a hip cafe that appeals to both the otaku and fashion-loving side of modern Japanese women.

What’s your clientele like?

Mostly sharp-dressing kakure-otaku (”hidden otaku”) — they have some otaku leanings, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Corruption in the Olympics? A corrupt Chinese municipal official? AsiaPundit is shocked.:

The vice-mayor of Beijing overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games has built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.

Details of Liu Zhihua’s colourful private life emerged today after he was sacked from his post when a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.

Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.

In the resort town of Kuangou, an hour’s drive north of the Olympic Village, police have sealed off Mr Liu’s multi-story development.

An unknown number of young woman, as well as waiting staff, are said to be confined to rooms there, waiting to be interviewed by investigators from the central discipline inspection commission, a shadowy anti-corruption agency inside the Communist Party.

“Liu has more than one mistress,” wrote the Wen Hui Bao newspaper in Hong Kong. “He has a secret pleasure palace for himself to have fun.”

While AsiaPundit is a strong opponent of corruption, he can’t help but be a bit impressed by Liu’s dissoluteness.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, olympics

Japanese scientists are blaming China’s Three Gorges Dam for a plague of giant jellyfish.:

MAINICHI, China - June 10, 2006 (UPI) — Researchers in Japan have concluded that a surge in the number of giant jellyfish off the Japanese coast is a result of a hydropower dam in China.

The Mainichi Daily News reported that researchers from Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies have suggested that construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the world’s largest hydropower dam, is responsible for the explosion of the jellyfish population. The jellyfish have a negative effect on the Japanese fishing industry.

Nomura jellyfish, typically found in Japan, measure up to one meter in diameter and can weigh as much as 200 kilograms.

One of the breeding areas for the jellyfish is near the mouth of the Yangtze River, near Shanghai. Construction of the dam is thought to have reduced the production of silicon, which is necessary for the breeding of phytoplankton, the newspaper said.

Still, if the report is to be believed, hydro-power related giant jellyfish are less destructive than the result of China’s coal dependence.:

In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before wafting across the Pacific. An American satellite spotted the cloud as it crossed the West Coast.

Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors. These microscopic particles can work their way deep into the lungs, contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer.

Filters near Lake Tahoe in the mountains of eastern California “are the darkest that we’ve seen” outside smoggy urban areas, said Steven S. Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.

(photo stolen from National Geographic, full size and high-res image here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, korea, northeast asia, south korea

Meet the esteemed judges of the 2006-2007 Asia Blog Awards:

• Anna of HERstory, the 2004 ABA winner of Best Indian Blog.

• Connie Veneracion, Sassy Lawyer and queen of Philippine blog royalty.

• Fred of Extra Extra, former winner of best Sri Lanka blog and now a resident of Kinshasa, Democratic Rep of Congo.

• Graham Holliday of top Vietnam food blog Noodlepie.

• Previous Indonesia ABA winner and inteernational man of mystery Jakartass.

• Japundit founder of the eponymous Japundit.

• Malaysian alpha-blogger and Freedom Blog Award winner Jeff Ooi.

• Jeff Laitila, founder of of ABA-winning Japanese group photo blog Sushicam.

• Lee Chapman of the Tokyo Times.

• Malaysia’s multi-talented Kenny Sia.

• Patrix, founder of Desipundit.

• Phil of Flagrant Harbour, founder of the first Asia Blog Awards.

• Rezwan, author of the 3rd World View, Global Voices contributor and founder of Bangladesh blog list.

• Richard of The Peking Duck.

• Robert Koehler, the man behind essential South Korean site the Marmot’s Hole.

• Roland Soong of the essential Greater China site East South West North.

• Ron Morris of ABA winning 2Bangkok.com.

• Simon of Simon World, previous host of 2004 Awards and nominee for several international accolades.

• Scott Sommers, 2004 ABA winner for Scott Sommers’ Taiwan Weblog.

• Spike of Hongkie Town.

• Tengku Mohd Ali Bustaman, better known as Pok Ku, of Malaysian ABA winner Di Bawah Rang Ikang Kering

Finally, AsiaPundit will also be participating as a judge.

This is a preliminary listing and admittedly heavy on East and Northeast Asia. Other regional judges have been invited and more additions are expected.

Technorati Tags: asia, asia blog awards, east asia, south asia, southeast asia

South Korean boy band ShinHua made a rare appearance in North Korean capital Pyongyang. A You Tube video is available at GW North Korea. More interesting than the band is the audience, Preetam comments:

I couldn’t believe that North Korea allowed such seemingly western influenced band to play in front of North Koreans. The caption does say that the show was held in Pyongyang.

Occasionally the video zooms into the well dressed and sober audience. The audience reaction is priceless.

The women are all dressed in traditional hanbok and most of the faces look as if they don’t approve of such music.

The woman in the left seems interested while the women on the right is probably glad that she didn’t bring her kids along.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, north korea, northeast asia, south korea

The Chief ponders plastic surgery in China, favoring the natural look and, moreover, preferring that Asian women look Asian.:

Every two minutes somewhere in China, a woman has cosmetic surgery to give her Western double eyelids. It is now a $3 billion business, divided among 1 million plastic surgery clinics employing 6 million people. Hilariously, Beijing hosted the first “Miss Artificial Beauty” for “manmade beauties” in 2004 - contestants included a transsexual.
The plastic fantastic here is more for investment than personal vanity - what’s going to make you stand out from 1.3 billion other Chinese, to get that job or that husband? Rounder eyes, or a straighter nose, or longer legs (the bones are broken and forced apart by pins. More bone grows to fill the gap, but is hardly strong enough to carry the body’s weight. Ouch!). Then again, every 25 minutes somewhere in China, someone complains that plastic surgery had disfigured them.

In Indonesla, Indcoup argues that Baywatch has been a negative influence.:

They should never have allowed Baywatch to be shown in Asia.
Cos week after week of seeing ultrasexy American beach babes has really affected the Asian psyche, and even resulted in feelings of gross inadequacy given that most Asian women – the Chinese in particular – are not exactly noted for their measurements in the mammary department.
So what happened?
The obvious of course – Asian women started to go in for breast implants in a big way.
Done professionally, this ain’t a problem of course.
But it is when a lot of women who can’t afford high priced breast implants decide to opt for a much cheaper solution.
So what do you have?
Thousands and thousands of young Chinese women maimed by an “amazing gel”:
LI MEI is slim, with hair that falls almost to her waist, and pretty enough to draw looks in the street. But her husband refuses to come near her, and, in any case, her breasts are too painful to be touched.
She is one of hundreds of thousands of Chinese women who wanted bigger breasts and spent several hundred pounds at beauty salons for injections of Ao Mei Ding — or Amazing Gel. But in Mrs Li’s case, such as countless others, the operation went wrong.
The gel has formed hard lumps in her breasts, caused infections and migrated around her body.

We can be thankful that Korea’s top celebrities are setting a positive example with their natural beauty.:

I don’t see how anyone can look at these pictures and say that the woman in the photos have not been under the knife.
To my untouched eyes, the only ones that might be as “pure” as the writer would like to believe are Kim Tae-hee and Song Hae-gyo. You make the call…

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, korea, northeast asia, south korea

Reporters Without Borders has condemned China for allegedly blocking Google.com.:

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the current unprecedented level of Internet filtering in China, which means the Google.com search engine can no longer be accessed in most provinces - although the censored Chinese version, Google.cn, is still accessible - and software designed in the United States to get round censorship now only works with great difficulty.

The organisation also deplored the fact that the 17th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4 June has been used to tighten the vice on Chinese Internet users.
“It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Google has just definitively joined the club of western companies that comply with online censorship in China. It is deplorable that Chinese Internet users are forced to wage a technological war against censorship in order to access banned content.”
Internet users in many major Chinese cities have had difficulty in connecting to the uncensored international version of Google for the past week. The search engine was totally unaccessible throughout the country on 31 May. The blocking then gradually extended to Google News and Google Mail. So the Chinese public is now reduced to using the censored Chinese versions of these services.

There are problems with Google’s service but these are being massively overstated by RSF.

Google and G-Mail services are still working fine here at AsiaPundit Global Headquarters in Shanghai. There were intermittent outages last week, but there was nothing of the sort that indicated a firewall-level block. Beijing residents had a more prolonged outage, although AP understands that this has largely been resolved. The comments at the Peking Duck indicate no blockage in South China.

AP has also heard, indirectly, confirmation that Beijing was raising the level of its filtering ahead of the June 4th anniversary. Other services such as an overseas hosted POP e-mail account were also inaccessible last week, and general internet service was sluggish.

Still, there was a particular problem with Google. Andrew Lih has done very solid tracking of the problem and . China Web 2.0 Review, meanwhile, notes that Chinese users were frustrated with Google over the inaccessibility of the uncensored site.:

Difficulty in accessing Google: From a week ago, Chinese internet users in north China started to encounter difficulty in accessing Google and other service as Gmail. Will Google.com finally become inaccessible, and all the traffic has to change to Google.cn? On the other hand, Chinese bloggers are discontented with Google China’s official blog, since it did not have any explanation on the issues.

Google won’t say this on its official blog, but for those looking for a simple explanation, this works well:

“Google was inaccessible because the Chinese government is run by a bunch of absolute berks who annually screw up the country’s communications infrastructure to prevent its citizens from being reminded that they are ruled by thugs. Normal service will hopefully resume shortly after June 4.”

In other Google news, co-founder Sergey Brin has said that the company may have made a mistake with its China service, and has realized that no one in the country uses the censored service.:

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course. (…)
“We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said. (…)
“Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” Brin said. (…)
Brin said Google is trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course. He said virtually all the company’s customers in China use the non-censored service.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, , northeast asia

In other news, a Chinese railway cop has prevented a boy from winning a Darwin Award.:

Kung fu fan tries to stop train
(China Daily)

A 17-year-old boy surnamed Liang almost died when he tried to use a kung fu movement to stop a running train in Laibin Railway Station in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday, Nanguo Jinbao reported.

Liang was pushed to safety by a railway policeman just as he was about to be knocked down. Liang jumped down to the tracks and wanted to use Xianglongshibazhang, a famous kung fu posturing described in many swordsman fictions, to stop the running train.

He was taken into custody for breaking railway rules and said he wanted to test whether or not he could use kung fu to stop the train. Liang is a great fan of swordsman fiction and has also learnt martial arts.

(Via Daryl)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia

Americans can be so rude sometimes…

BEIJING (Reuters) - China opposes the “rude interference” of the United States in calling for a full accounting of the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.

“The U.S. statement is a groundless criticism and attack on China,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was quoted as saying in a statement.

The State Department issued a statement on Sunday, the 17th anniversary of the pro-democracy protests bloodily put down by Chinese troops, calling for a re-evaluation by China which has branded the protests subversive.

“The U.S. urges China to provide a full accounting of the thousands who were killed, detained, or went missing and of the government role in the massacre,” spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

China considers the incident history and closed to further questions.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, 8964

10 things you didn’t know about the Three Gorges Project:

6. China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, also envisaged building the Three Gorges Dam more than 2,000 years ago in order to threaten rebellious downstream communities with torrents of Yangtze water.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, north korea

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola relax with Suntory. .:

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, Kurosawa

Via CSR Asia, the British journalists union has called upon its members to boycott Yahoo!.:

LONDON — The union representing journalists in the UK and Ireland called on its 40,000 members to boycott all Yahoo Inc. products and services to protest the Internet company’s reported actions in China.

The National Union of Journalists said it sent a letter on Friday to Dominique Vidal, Yahoo Europe’s vice president, denouncing the company for allegedly providing information to Chinese authorities about journalists.

The union also said it would stop using all Yahoo-operated services.

Yahoo has been cited in court decisions as supplying China’s government with information to help them identify, prosecute, and jail writers advocating democracy.

“The NUJ regards Yahoo’s actions as a completely unacceptable endorsement of the Chinese authorities,” wrote Jemima Kiss, chairman of the NUJ new media council in the letter to Vidal.

Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako said the Sunnyvale, California-based company believes it must conduct business in each country in ways that business in each country in ways that comply with local laws.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, yahoo, east asia

While China didn’t make it into this year’s World Cup, there is interest in the tournament and will be ample opportunity to catch the games.

Andrea has an English-language lineup of the scheduled matches to be aired on CCTV 1, 2, and 5 (all with Chinese-language commentary). Virtual China offers a link to sites that will webcast the event.:

There will clearly be a demand during that 24 delay, and it will clearly be met.

Sohu.com and SMGBB.cn, a subsidiary of Shanghai Media Group, have partnered to provide the online 2006 FIFA World Cup for tens of millions of Chinese viewers, if not more. Sohu is also the exclusive online media provider of the Beijing 2008 Olympics (talk about a good place to be), and the 2006 World Cup can be seen as an early dry-run.

And for those in Shanghai, the Shanghaiist notes where you can catch events on a really big screen.:

The Shanghai Film Art Center will be showing some World Cup matches on a 40-square-meter screen, the Shanghai Daily reports. Matches shown will be:

• England vs. Paraguay, June 10, 9 pm
• All quarterfinal matches, June 30, July 1 and July 2, 11 pm and 3 am
• Both semifinal matches, July 5 and July 6, 3 am
• The championship match, July 10, 2 am
• They will be using a digital projector to show CCTV-5’s feed. The theater holds 288 people and 125 tickets (50 yuan each) have already been sold for the England/Paraguay match.

Schedules are subject to revision or hijacking by ‘evil cults.’:

Television signals illegally broadcast by the Falun Gong cult cut into transmissions using the Sino Satellite (SINOSAT) from June 23 to 30, blocking the World Cup finals for viewers in some rural and remote areas in China.

The Radio Administration of the Ministry of Information Industry said on July 8 that the hijacking of nine China Central Television Station (CCTV) channels and 10 provincial TV channels was committed by the overseas cult organization of Falun Gong, manipulated by its ringleader Li Hongzhi.

The hijack severely interfered with the normal broadcast of China’s TV programs and operations of China’s satellite, which violated the basic rules of civil telecommunications and international conventions, jeopardized China’s national security and violated the rights and interests of the public.

The hijack mainly affected television users in rural and remote areas covered by the government scheme of “TV signals to every village.” They were viewing celebrations for the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, the World Cup finals and other major domestic and international news when the illegal signals occurred.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, world cup

Those who thought that the red wine ice cream mentioned in the previous post wasn’t appetizing probably would not enjoy a yogurt soju cocktail.:

I had mentioned before that I had discovered some great soju cocktails at Indio. Since then, I have successfully attempted to recreate them at home, particularly the yogurt soju cocktail.

It is built like a highball, meaning that the ingredients are poured directly into the glass in a certain order with no stirring or shaking.

1 shot of Soju
Fill glass 2/3 full with Drinkable Plain Yogurt
Top with Lemon Lime Soda (Sprite, Chilsung Cider, 7-Up)

I have always had it without ice, but I’m sure ice is a welcome option on a hot day. It’s a very refreshing drink and not as high in alcohol as other highballs. This means you can drink a lot of these and not get dehydrated while having your summer BBQs.

(Via Buhkan Mountain Breakdown)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, northeast asia, south korea

A Singapore study has discovered that soy sauce is a better antioxidant than red wine.:

BEIJING, June 5 — Dark soya sauce, widely used in East Asia, may prove to be more effective than red wine and vitamin C in combating human cell damage, researchers in Singapore said.

Scientists found that the sauce — derived from fermented soya beans — contains antioxidant properties about 10 times more effective than red wine and 150 times more potent than vitamin C, Singapore’s Straits Times reported Saturday.

Antioxidants — found in red wine, fruits and vegetables — counter the effects of free radicals, unstable atoms which attack human cells and tissues. Free radicals have been linked to the aging process as well as a range of ailments including Parkinson’s disease, cancer and heart disease. The National University of Singapore study also found that the sauce improved blood flow by as much as 50 percent in the hours after consumption.

The original Straits Times article is only available by subscription, so it isn’t immediately clear what volume of soy sauce needs to be equivalent to a glass of red wine. AsiaPundit is a regular consumer of soy sauce, but consuming a full glass of it would be vomit inducing.

That noted, Japanese gourmands should have little trouble selecting a healthy dessert, having access to wine- and soy-flavored ice creams.:

Soy Sauce flavor — Putting the ’scream’ into ‘we all scream for ice cream’
Used in a wide variety of culinary dishes soy sauce is said to be “the flavor of Japan.”

But the dubious choice to add soy sauce to milk and sugar and pack it in a punnet has made the condiment a standout pick to headline the Wackiest World of Japanese Ice Cream and possibly soy, er, soiled ice cream as we know it forever.

Soy sauce ice cream was not a simple choice to lead, though, considering it was competing against such flavors as pit viper, Indian curry, miso ramen and salad.

And it was hard to choose soy sauce over the Pearl of the Orient — Pearl-flavored ice cream.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, singapore

AsiaPundit is pleased to announce the commencement of the new round of Asia Blog Awards. The awards are based on the Japanese financial year, which ends on March 31, and nominations are now open for the April 1-June 30 period, full-year awards are to be based on the quarterly contests.

Details are below, nominations for the below categories can be made on the individual pages linked below until the end of June 16 (Samoan time).

Awards are at present limited to English-language or dual-language sites.

Region/Country Specific Blogs:

• Best China Blog
• Best Hong Kong Blog
• Best India Blog
• Best Indonesia Blog
• Best Japan Blog
• Best Korea Blog
• Best Malaysia Blog
• Best Mekong Blog (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar/Burma)
• Best Mongolian or ‘Stan’ Blog (Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan)
• Best Philippine Blog
• Best Singapore Blog
• Best South Asia Blog (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet)
• Best Taiwan Blog
• Best Thai Blog
• Best of the Rest (Bhutan, Timor Leste, Brunei etc…)

Non-region specific awards:

• Best Activist Blog
• Best BGLT Blog
• Best Bridge Blog
• Best Business/Economics Blog
• Best Design
• Best Diarist
• Best Essayist
• Best Food Blog
• Best Group Blog
• Best Humor Blog
• Best Original Reporting
• Best Photo Blog
• Best Podcast
• Best Satirist
• Best Sex Blog
• Best Travel Blog
• Best Video Blog

Podcasts, photo and video blogs must be based on original content — which means a site such as Danwei.tv is acceptable but TV in Japan is not (although it is an excellent site).

Some categories may be deleted or combined if they lack a full slate nominations - and some may be added should it be warranted.

Winners will be judged in equal parts on: (a) votes, (b) technorati ranking and (c) judges’ selection.

While judges will naturally have biases, they will hopefully offset imbalances in other areas (such as inevitable cheating in the voting and inflationary blogroll alliances in the Technorati ranks).

The names or sites of the judges will be public.

Judges will be ineligible for nomination. As the awards largely intend on providing exposure to lesser-known sites of merit, we are hopeful that authors of ‘A-list’ sites that tend to dominate such contests will disqualify themselves by being judges.

The contest has been endorsed by previous ABA host Simon who is also serving as a judge (thereby disqualifying Simon World).

Traffic — the most telling and accurate measure of a site’s populatity — may be a consideration in future awards. However, at present, there is no clear or universal way to accurately measure and contrast traffic (sites such as Sitemeter, Statcounter offer results that cannot be compared, while services such as Alexa.com do not work for sites that are not hosted on independent domains).

This is all imperfect and will be tweaked in future events (with transparency, of course).

Most importantly, this is intended to be fun.

Technorati Tags: asia, asia blog awards, east asia, northeast asia, puppy, southeast asia

AsiaPundit is deeply skeptical of most of the ‘news’ published by the FLG’s Epoch Times, however if this is true it would be welcome (even though it would diminish some of the iconic power of the image).:

The “Unknown Rebel” who famously stood up to a column of tanks during the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989 is rumored to be living in Taiwan where he reportedly settled in 1993.The “tank man” Wang Weilin has been an adviser on ceramic artifacts and antiques to Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, the Epoch Times quoted a Hong Kong-based professor who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying.

The photograph of Wang standing alone in front of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989 is perhaps the most famous image from the protests.

The professor told the Epoch Times that Wang, born in Shaoyang in the southern province of Hunan, was the captain of the Mawangduei Archaeology Team of Changsha, Hunan in early June 1989 when he traveled with a union group to Beijing to take part in the pro-democracy demonstrations in the Chinese capital.

According to the unnamed professor, Wang went into hiding in China for three years and seven months after the bloody crackdown. He then reached Hong Kong in early 1993 from where he headed to Taiwan.

(Via Japundit)

Technorati Tags: china, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan

More at Global Voices.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia

Oddly, the packaging on this Whiteman Toothpaste has the same color scheme as the infamous Darkie. As well, as the Taipei Kid notes, the rest of the packaging hardly adds to the appeal of the product.:

This box of toothpaste is a disaster. It isn’t just the name (Whitemen Luderhow Toothpaste) or the order to take care of your teeth (Coorporate with correct brush teeth habit) but I thought toothpaste was supposed to prevent, not cause “spots, gingivitis, or periodontosis”.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan

Given Japan’s concern about its low birth rate, Yahama has a welcome new addition for motorcycle safety.:

Yamaha’s prototype… motorcycle airbag for your, er, tender nuggets. Their advanced safety scooter, designated the ASV-3, has a multi-chambered air bag rigged between your legs, under the seat, to open in the case of a crash, thus protecting your most prized possessions.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia