News

Dim Sum Under Assault: A report by the Hong Kong government suggesting that eating many kinds of dim sum regularly may be bad for your health is threatening to overshadow whatever else might be worrying the people of this city. [NYT: reg. req'd]

Opinion—China's Selective Memory: Ever since June 4, 1989, when the world's cameras embarrassed the Chinese government by recording the slaughter of unarmed protesters in Beijing, spring has been a sensitive period in Chinese politics. [NYT: reg. req'd]

Ripping Off Good Reads in China: The five-volume "Executive Ability" book series is a classic in Chinese business and management circles. Collectively, it has sold more than 2 million copies in the last two years. Top universities and public libraries in China keep multiple copies on hand. It's also a big fake.

Fantasies inspire Chinese gamers: Ancient warlords and dragons that breathe fireballs loom large in China's online fantasy games. And the virtual world is sometimes taking precedence over the real one for the growing band of online gamers.

Local Story

Eagle Scout project grows into successful adoption foundation: I met Matt, resplendent in his Boys Scouts of America uniform, when he was guest speaker at my son's recent BSA Court of Honor. Yes, the Boy Scouts are alive and well in Beijing. The boys do all the same things as their American counterparts, but instead of camping at Anawana, they sleep in the shadow of the Great Wall.

Zheng He Trail

If you are looking to get out of the house and have an extra $1500 laying around, check out the Zheng He Trail tour.

An enchanting experience beckons you, blending history and holiday in Malaysia & Singapore. To commemorate the 600th anniversary of the maiden voyage of the legendary Chinese voyager, Admiral Zheng He, the Association of Zheng He Studies London, invites you on an exciting 12-day adventure to the Far East on the exclusive ZHENG HE TRAIL.

It looks like it will be an authentic re-creation of the Trail, even replicating such details as allowing you to choose between 4- and 5-star hotels. :-)

Popular Items

Since I started this blog in 2003, I've tried to list items that may be of interest to China-adoptive families. This is a list of what's been most popular:

Mulan Special Edition (DVD)

Big Bird in China (DVD)

China's Lost Girls

Adoption...the Songs you Love

Chinese Lullabies

Just Add One Chinese Sister

Ruby's Wish

News

The Feng Shui Kingdom: When building the new entrance to Hong Kong Disneyland, Walt Disney executives decided to shift the angle of the front gate by 12 degrees. They did so after consulting a feng shui specialist, who said the change would ensure prosperity for the park. Disney also put a bend in the walkway from the train station to the gate, to make sure the flow of positive energy, or chi, did not slip past the entrance and out to the China Sea. [NYT, free reg. req.]

China and Japan Leaders Pledge to Improve Relations: The leaders of Japan and China pledged to improve ties Saturday after weeks of escalating disputes, easing tension but not resolving some critical problems besieging relations between East Asia's big powers. [NYT, free reg. req.]

A Hundred Cellphones Bloom, and Chinese Take to the Streets: For several weeks as the protests grew larger and more unruly, China banned almost all coverage in the state media. It hardly mattered. An underground conversation was raging via e-mail, text message and instant online messaging that inflamed public opinion and served as an organizing tool for protesters. [NYT, free reg. req.]

Local Story

Family's adoption story spans the world, Web: After 15 years of marriage and two sons, Rebecca says, she and her husband, an executive with Volvo, had good lives and good jobs. But they felt something was missing -- namely, a daughter.

China Related TV

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Beautiful China

Panda and the Magic Serpent

Panda and the Magic Serpent is considered to be the first full-length animated color film to emerge from Japan (1958).

Inspired by an old Chinese folktale, Panda and the Magic Serpent tells the story of Bai-Niang, a white snake with magic powers.

I found it on DVD at Wal-Mart for only $1. It was with a large assortment of slim-cased DVDs placed by the checkout counters. Keep an eye out for it. You can also get it from Amazon.com (although it costs more).

News

Few Partners for Outstanding Women: Women with high educational credentials, qualities and incomes usually find it difficult to find their Mr. Right, according to the latest statistics by the marriage and family consulting service center of the Beijing Women's Association.

Local Story

Making room for another: New Berlin couple with 5 sons from China has been granted the rare exception to adopt a sixth.

News

Koizumi Apologizes for Past, to Meet Hu: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized on Friday for Japan's wartime atrocities and said he would meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in a bid to repair ties that are at their worst in over three decades.

Generation Gap for Disney in China: Ever since Mickey Mouse visited Lin Huanbin's school here last summer, telling fairy tales and passing out Mouseketeer certificates, the 11-year-old boy has been unable to get Mi Laoshu out of his mind.

China Looms as the World's Next Leading Auto Exporter: Industrial heartlands from the Great Lakes region to Germany, look out -- here comes the Chinese auto industry.

Local Story

Local Story: Motherhood has been good for Kelly Burns. Since she adopted two daughters from Asia, ages 5 and 1, she has become "more patient" and able to "enjoy things more."

News

Great Wall visible in space photo: A photograph taken from space appears to confirm that China's Great Wall can be seen with the naked eye after all.

China's workers face high risk of work-related diseases: Workers in China -- the factory of the world -- are at high risk of contracting work-related diseases, especially lung ailments, state media said while attributing part of the blame to foreign companies.

Blame China?: Members of Congress, egged on by American manufacturers, are threatening to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods unless China increases the exchange rate of its currency, the yuan, thus raising the price of Chinese imports here.

Local Story

Baby adoption brings Danville couple to Taipei: Traveling to Taiwan was a labor of love for Jaime and Larry Kendrick. They were there in January to pick up their son, Jacob, who was less than a year old at the time. He now joins a sister in Danville, Raechel, 13.

The Amish, China Adoption, Vaccinations, and Autism

In this part of an ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism, a reporter investigates the link between autism and vaccination by looking for autism in the Amish community. The one case of autism he finds turns out to be girl that was adopted from China.

Julia's vaccinations in China -- all given in one day at about age 15 months -- may well have contained thimerosal; the United States had stopped using it by the time she was born, but other countries with millions to vaccinate had not.

The article is interesting on many different levels.

Iris Chang

Historian Iris Chang won many battles The war she lost raged within: Irrefutably, Iris Chang won many battles in her fight for justice. But as she began to manifest symptoms of bipolar illness, she perceived them as a failure of will. Such harsh logic, symptomatic of the disease, rendered her unable to extend her own magnificent compassion to herself.

(Thanks asa from APC!)

China Related TV

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Beautiful China

News

China's Problem With 'Anti-Pest' Rice: In China, it is illegal to sell genetically modified rice on the open market.

Thousands Rally in Shanghai, Attacking Japanese Consulate: More than 10,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai on Saturday, attacking it with bottles and rocks as hundreds of police, many of them from special antiriot squads, looked on passively.

Cancer Becomes Top Killer in China: Cancer has become an effective killer not only in northern China's poverty-stricken Cixian county in Hebei Province, but also in Shanghai, China's most developed city, experts revealed on Friday.

Number of Job Seekers Sets Record in Shanghai: A record number of job seekers visited the Shanghai Job Placement Center or its Website during the first quarter of this year, where a record number of employers had set up help wanted ads, according to a recent government employment report.

Digging to China

The Dig to China project is a sculpture in progress(?) by Mike Rathbun.

China sees America. America sees China. Real people in real time.

The hole is a screen and concealed camera with a direct feed that enables the visitor to see through to the other side in real time. Imagine looking down into the ground through the center of the earth and seeing the sky on the other side or waving to someone you would not otherwise encounter.

(Thanks Junie from APC!)

News

Bush—China a great nation growing like mad: US President George W. Bush urged once again for China to float its currency so as to protect American producers, and linking China's galloping economy with the rising gasoline prices in the United States.

More Shanghai Couples Have Second Child: Since new family planning laws were enacted in the city of Shanghai one year ago, 4,413 local couples have delivered a second child, 1.7 times the number reported during the previous year.

18 million Chinese adults now obese: China now has some 18 million obese adults, and 64 million adults may be at risk of cardiovascular disease because of poor dietary habits and lack of exercise.

Study Finds Pervasive Chinese Internet Controls: China is the world's leading censor of the Internet, filtering web sites, blogs, e-mail, and online forums for sensitive political content, according to a study released Thursday.

News

Rural Chinese Riot as Police Try to Halt Pollution Protest: Thousands of people rioted Sunday in a village in southeastern China, overturning police cars and driving away officers who had tried to stop elderly villagers from protesting against pollution from nearby factories. [NYT, free reg. req.]

Farmers' income up; urban-rural gap widens: Average farmers' per capita income reached 2,936 yuan (US$353.7) in 2004, whilst that of urban residents was 3.21 times more at 9,422 yuan (US$1,135) a slight decrease from 3.23 times more in 2003.

Pictures

Panda Pictures

"Living Ancient Town of A Thousand Years"

News

Zhang Ziyi on Time 100 list: Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi made Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people, which hits newsstands on Monday.

White paper illustrates human rights progress: China on Wednesday published a white paper to show the marked progress in its human rights protection efforts in the year 2004.

Local Story

For Chinese adoptees, a cultural link: Every parent faces the identical, crucial question: How do I raise my child to be happy? The query is the same whether the baby was born in a hospital halfway across town or in a hut halfway around the world. So, why are the China parents jittery?

[Access to article requires annoying free registration]

News

China Tells Japan Face History: China's premier told Japan to "face up to history" and Japan's trade minister called China "scary" Tuesday as a dispute over Japan's wartime past rumbled on after violent weekend demonstrations. [NYT, free reg. req.]

Rivalry Fuels Anti-Japan Protests in China: Violent weekend protests in which Chinese stoned the Japanese Embassy are just the latest eruption in a decades-old series of disputes rooted in wartime history but fueled by modern rivalry, as the two sides jostle for Asian dominance.

Study Finds Japanese Watch Most TV: . . . At 2 1/2 hours daily each, China and Sweden watched the least amount of television last year. [NYT, free reg. req.]

Tiger Cub Pictures

Quintuplets white tiger cubs: Quintuplets white tiger cubs, born a month ago, play at a zoo in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province April 11, 2005. This is the cubs' first appearance before the public. Their mother Xingta has given birth to 19 babies in the last five years.

Local Story

An emotional journey: Their process began in May 2003. It was a full year later before the completed papers arrived in China. May 19 to be exact. Every date is burned into Rebecca's memory. From there the waiting game began.

China Related TV

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Beautiful China

Cute Doll

For some strange reason, someone would like to feed this cute little doll to a pair of Rottweilers. Go figure . . .

Update: Figlet deleted the original entry due to traffic from this blog.

Chinese Music

A recent study has shown that, "Music improves sleep quality in older adults."

A recent study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and the Buddhist Tzu-Chi General Hospital in Taiwan shows that listening to soft music at bedtime will help older adults sleep better and longer.

Of interest is the fact that:

The music group was able to choose from six tapes that featured soft, slow music. These included one tape of Chinese folk music and five that had been found effective for reducing postoperative pain in research.

(via boingboing)

China and the Pope

China's Divided Catholics Unite, if Just to Mourn: With a large, framed photo of Pope John Paul II propped atop a makeshift altar, a Chinese priest named Father Joseph stood before a few hundred peasants on Wednesday and led a memorial Mass that broke the law. [NYT, reg. req.]

China's official Catholics cautiously mourn pope's passing : As the world mourns the passing of Pope John Paul II, China's Catholics are mourning too, but cautiously.

Chen's Vatican trip angers China: China has protested against Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's plans to attend Pope John Paul II's funeral.

China Won't Send Envoy to Pope's Funeral: The Chinese government said on Thursday it will not send an envoy to Pope John Paul II's funeral due to its long-standing policy of refusing to recognize states that have diplomatic relations with rival Taiwan. [NYT, reg. req.]

Local Story

For local families, adoption process filled with excitement, anticipation: For two local couples, waiting for news of the children they will be adopting has been a bit like being pregnant, complete with all the excitement, hopes, plans, and anticipation.

Latest Article on Anna Mae

Whose Child Is This?: Anna Mae, 6, is in the midst of a custody dispute between two sets of parents. It is a battle of cultures, credibility and, they all say, love.

Hell Money

The Big White Guy living in Hong Kong tells us about Hell Money:

The two most traditional times of year to burn Hell Bank Notes are during Ching Ming (The Festival of Pure Brightness) and Yue Laan (The Hungry Ghost Festival). Another delivery method is to toss it in the air during the funeral procession or leave it on the grave of the deceased any time one desires.

(via boingboing)

Sushi (and Dim Sum) USB Drive

What will they think of next?

Never again will you have to choose between having sushi or having a USB memory drive--thanks to the USB sushi drive. These USB drives are hand-made-in-Tokyo sushi replicas. The convincing USB sushi drive comes in several flavors. Overnight shipping with dry ice pack available. Comes in 32mb or 128mb size.

(Thanks J-Walk!)

News

China giant pandas get broadband: China's largest panda reserve has installed a high-speed broadband network to help the animals survive.

China Finds Itself With a Labor Shortage: The world's most populous nation, which has powered its stunning economic rise with a cheap and supposedly bottomless pool of migrant labor, is experiencing shortages of about two million workers in Guangdong and Fujian, the two provinces at the heart of China's export-driven economy. [NYT free reg. req.]

China Related TV

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Beautiful China

News

Twenty-seven killed, 285 poisoned in east China chlorine leak: Twenty-seven people were killed and 285 were sickened when liquefied chlorine spilled from a truck following a collision in east China's Jiangsu province.

Six Asian Nations Act to Stop Human Trafficking: Police and governments of six Asian countries agreed on Thursday to closely collaborate to end human trafficking from the Mekong region where criminals mostly target women and children.

71% Chinese Women Sexually Harassed?: Sexual harassment has reportedly been included in the amendment to China's Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women (LPRIW) that has been included on the legislative agenda for 2005.