· August, 2009

Stories about Chinese from August, 2009

China and Taiwan: Dalai Lama's visit, inevitably political

  31 August 2009

Yesterday Dalai Lama arrived in Taiwan on a visit that has been denounced by China. The trip, requested by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to President Ma Ying-jeou, aimed at comforting victims of Typhoon Morakot. Dalai Lama explained in the airport that “I'm a monk. I was asked to say prayers...

Hong Kong: “Compensated Dating” and the use of Pejoratives

  27 August 2009

The life imprisonment of the “girl butcher” might have halted the case against “compensated dating” in Hong Kong for a while, but what have Hong Kong people learned from the incident? It all started with the conviction of a 17-year-old girl for soliciting compensated dating online. In Hong Kong, it...

Ukraine: In Chinese, Yanukovych is Yushchenko?

  21 August 2009

Evgeny Morozov of Foreign Policy's Net.Effect writes: “It turns out that when you use Google Translate to translate (from Chinese to Russian) the expression “Vote for Yanukovych” (Yanukovych was Kremlin's favorite candidate), Google gives you “Vote for Yushenko” in the translated version. Global conspiracy orchestrated by Google!”

Taiwan: A Hug for Taiwan

  20 August 2009

Beeside made (zh)a video of his “free hug for Taiwan” campaign after he saw so many tragedies caused by the flood everyday (translation): “At the beginning, it was like other netizens said, people there were merely watching, no one dared to give me a hug. But this situation did not...

Taiwan: Southern Taiwan devastated by typhoon Morakot

  10 August 2009

On Aug. 7, 2009, typhoon Morakot landed on Taiwan. The Central Weather Bureau urged residents in Northern Taiwan to be prepared for the heavy rain and strong wind brought by Morakot. However, it turned out that southern Taiwan has suffered from more devastating landslides and floods when compared with northern...

Taiwan: Typhoon disaster and call for volunteers

  9 August 2009

Southern Taiwan has been severely affected by floods associated with Typhoon Morakot (颱風莫拉克). Billy Pan posted (zh) a link to a Google Map showing the sites of the disaster (zh) and places where volunteers and assistance are required. On Twitter taiwanfloods is regularly tweeting the latest news about the situation...

China: Prostitutes more trustworthy than government officials

  7 August 2009

A startling result of an online survey of more than 3,376 people published by Insight China magazine reveals that China's prostitutes are considered by some to be more trustworthy than its politicians, teachers and scientists! The survey found that 7.9% of the respondents considered sex workers trustworthy, placing them third...

China: Han's prejudices and discriminations towards Uyghur

  6 August 2009

The July 5 Xinjiang riot has passed over a month and the majority of Chinese netizens are still blaming the West and Rebiya Kadeer for promoting Xinjiang separatist movements. Nevertheless, there are some whispering voices popping up here and there in the Chinese Internet, like this one sentence comment at...

Hong Kong: A 10-dollar coin to pledge against political harassment

  3 August 2009

During the protests over the demolition of Queen's Pier in 2007, two of the preservation activists Ho Loy and Chu Hoi-dick filed a judicial review (30-7-2007) against the secretary for home affair's administrative decision on not declaring Queen's Pier as historical monument according to the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance Cap.53....

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Oiwan Lam
Oi wan Lam is the North East Asia editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.