"The explosion took place around 10:30 a.m. on the outskirts of Aksu city in southern Xinjiang," said Hou Hanmin, deputy director of Xinjiang's information department. "Police have determined it was an intentional act."
"In today's world, a country's culture and economy are inseparable. A government must pay more attention to culture and originality if it wants to improve the quality of economic development."
"[W]hen you talk about the music industry, it can be frustrating. It is in the States now, too. In some ways, it feels like Beijing and Shanghai are ahead of the States, because they’ve actually skipped over CDs and record labels. They just do direct to consumer sales, which is where it needs to go in the U.S.But (China’s) such a small market (with) so little investment. And of course, in the music scene everywhere (in China), nobody has permits and (yet) everybody does everything."
Alone stands the orchid, aroma shimmering around;
Rejoiced by all else, above and beyond;
Of sorrow shall it be, unnoticed all along?
Days and years, wondering around like a vagabond,
Wisdom the Old King seeks, hence wise and strong
May the Lord see mine as the one
Blossom my wisdom for my lord, like the orchid under the cold,
Long last my lawful words, till generation of prosperity unfold.
The BBC World Service recently produced a series on creativity in China and one episode involved interviews with two musicians about China's growing alternative music scene.
"We grew up so fast, there are now a million bands and a million rock 'n' roll kids in China." Abe
"I do Western music but I'm Chinese, so it's Chinese music."
Poor Lindsey Lohan just can't seem to stay out of trouble. She recently got out of jail after 13 days to go to rehab. If you haven't followed Lindsay's recent travails, here's a clever Taiwanese video which sums it all up. Even if you can't understand Chinese, its funny just to watch.
I don't think I'm alone in my belief that the American healthcare system has become a disaster. We seem to be paying more and more money to receive less and less care. While the much-criticized healthcare reform law recently enacted is in theory intended to deal with some of the problems and abuses that have become prevalent, it remains to be seen whether any significant improvment will result.
I've had personal experiences that have helped form my pessimistic view of American healthcare as well as hearing of similar experiences from other people. For example, a few years ago, I was having some stomach problems that caused a lot of pain. After seeing several different doctors over 2 years and being billed God knows what for the battery of tests (thank God, most of it was covered by insurance), I was no better off. No diagnosis, no cure. So I ended up going to a doctor who practiced traditional Chinese medicine who a friend recommended. After a few sessions of acupuncture, acupressure and drinking some herb tea, I felt a lot better. Although not covered by insurance, the cost was much less than what I paid (not covered by my insurance) for all the fancy modern Western healthcare.
Tiananmen Square (天安门广场; Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng) in Beijing is the largest city square in the world. Tiananmen literally means Gate of Heavenly Peace and the square adopted the name its northern gate, originally built in 1417 during the Ming Dynasty, which leads into the Forbidden City. Here are some photos I took during a visit in June, 2010 as part of Belmont University's summer study abroad program in China.
During my recent trip to China with Belmont University's summer study abroad program, we got to spend 4 days in Tibet and on one of those days, we took a 4.5 hour, very bumpy bus ride trip to Namtso Lake (aka Nam Co; Chinese: 纳木错; Nàmù Cuò; English: Heavenly Lake). It was worth the trip since the lake, which is the highest salt water lake in the world (4,718 m), and its surroundings, offer some spectacular scenery.
Next month (late August), I'll be moving to China to teach at Florida International College (FIC) of Zhengzhou University so I've decided to start blogging again about some of my experiences. FIC is a partnership between Zhengzhou University and the University of Florida which began in 2007. I'll be there for at least one year and am looking forward to teaching in China, but have a bunch of things to try to take care of before leaving the U.S. (moving internationally is no simple task).
I also spent part of this summer in China with a summer study abroad program from Belmont University (as well as doing some traveling in Thailand, the Philippines and Hawaii). The Belmont groups spent 3 weeks in China visiting Beijing, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Xi'an, Tibet and Shanghai. It was a great trip and I'll post more about it in future. For now, here's a few photos.
Google, the world's most popular search engine, has had a troubled existence in China, but is still hanging in there to some extent after being given a reprieve of sorts from the Chinese government. While Google dominates the online search business in the U.S. and much of the world, it has been a distant second place in the world's most populous nation.China's leading search engine Baidu is known, among other things, for providing links to lots of unauthorized online music. However, since Baidu merely links to, rather than providing the unauthorized music files, it is not liable for the resulting copyright infringements under Chinese law.
James Clavell was a British author who wrote several novels set in Asia (Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore). Clavell’s interest in Asia was sparked by his actual experiences. He joined the British Royal Artillery at age 16 and fought the Japanese in Malaya where he was wounded by machine gun fire, captured and became a prisoner of war at Changi Prison in Singapore. This could not have been a good experience since Changi was notorious for poor living conditions and the brutal treatment of prisoners by the Japanese. Its therefore somewhat surprising that Clavell’s novel’s generally portray the Japanese in a positive light, especially the samurai culture portrayed in Clavell’s most famous novel, Shogun.
In 2006, I visited several cities in China as part of a summer study abroad program with Belmont University. One of the cities we visited was Nanjing, an important city in many parts of Chinese history. One of the darker parts of its history occured when the Japanese invaded in 1937 and brutally massacred several hundred thousand Chinese residents which became known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing (the title of the book by Iris_Chang). I was shocked, not only by the atrocity itself, but also by the fact that I'd never really heard much about it and didn't realize the extent and exceptionally barbaric nature of the Japanese troops which rivaled if not surpassed the worst atrocities committed by the Nazi's. None of the American students in our group had heard of it at all which seems to illustrate the overly Westernized version of history in the U.S. education system.
The German/Chinese co-produced film, The Diaries of John Rabe was shot in Shanghai as well as Nanjing and features an international cast including German actors, Steve_Buscemi (playing American doctor Robert Wilson), Chinese star Zhang Jingchu and Japanese actors Teruyuki Kagawa and Akira Emoto. It was released in 2008 in Germany and China, but to my knowledge hasn't made it to the U.S. There are several other films dealing with the Nanjing massacre so it looks like this chapter of Chinese history may finally get some more international publicity.
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