What do you do when the promise of eternal salvation isn’t enough to sucker kids into attending church? Set up free Halo.

Tomorrow’s New York Times is running a great article about how leaders at Protestant churches, including those from evangelical branches who’ve actively opposed video games, are using ‘Halo nights’ to induce kids to come to church.
I suppose the pastors, “desperate to reach young congregants,” have come to the realization that the mind-numbing and immoral 2000 [...]

China more popular than sex

On The New York Times website, ‘china’ is now the most popular search term, beating out ’sex’–a close second.
Also, today’s print edition of The New York Times is carrying a rather interesting, albeit annoying, OP-Ed piece on the CCP’s obsession with China’s image during the ‘08 Olympics. The OP-Ed talks about the CCP seeing the [...]

Investigative Journalist Wang Keqin’s Lecture at Princeton

Can be watched here for free.

Olympic athletes with serious la duzi and Beijing’s not so safe cha shao bao

I love eating cha shao bao, but after this was turned up by an investigative journalist, I’ll be a little more careful next time I eat cha shao bao here in Beijing:
Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns [...]

Forgetting Wang Keqin and the Beijing Taxi Cartel

Wang Keqin is one of China’s most famous investigative journalists. In 2002, the China Economic Times published Wang Keqin’s 30,000 character report “The Inside Story on the Beijing Taxi Cartel.” This article was responsible for breaking Beijing’s taxi monopoly and ending its serious abuses of Beijing’s taxi drivers.
The report went as far up as Wen [...]

CCP Censors CNN

Because my parents are visiting Beijing, I’m taking a break from life on the Bei Shi Da campus, and relaxing in their hotel room. I turned on CNN to see if there had been an update on the foiled terrorist attacks in London. Nothing new. The anchor then started reporting on Hu Jintao’s visit to [...]

Confucius Institutes and China’s Soft Power

A classmate of mine just had his article on China’s Confucius Institutes published in Asia Times. It’s well written and I’m very impressed. Read it here.

CCP drops plan that would force netizens to use real names online

According to Mure Dickie at The Financial Times, “China has put aside proposals to force internet users to use their real names when signing up for blogging services – and will now merely encourage them to do so.”
Xinhua reports that decision was made due to objections from blog-hosting companies who were
worried that many users [...]