A woman in Chengdu's Jinniu district set herself on fire last month in protest the demolition of her house. ChinaSMACK has the story and netizen reactions, and China Geeks gives more details about this sad case.

Find out all you ever wanted to know (and a little more) about the life of a migrant worker and his workmates in Hainan in this post translated by China Hush.

What are the vital ingredients for a successful Chinese pop song? Albert at Laowai Chinese reckons he has the answer: by stuffing in as many cliched words as you can.

As if Chongqing's skyline needs more madness, Shanghaiist has some pictures and news of a new wobbly skyscraper to be built in Sichuan's neighboring city by MAD Architecture.

If stories about China leading the way in all things green and environmentally friendly has you raising an eyebrow, you're not alone. Adam Minter on Shanghai Scrap also takes a skeptical view in this post on controlling pollution and carbon emissions in China.

A Chengdu man invokes the wrath of Chinese netizens after he boasts about using donated blood plasma to fertilize his plants, translated by Chinasmack.

Everyone knows that China isn't uniform, and the different areas each have their own stereotypes and reputations. Check out these funny maps depicting how the various provinces view each other, via Shanghaiist.

Ever sat through countless hours of TV dramas about the Red Army? No? Well, for good reason it seems. Uln of Chinayouren plows through 22 hours of "Stab in the Back" and shares his thoughts on its artistic merits and what it tells us about good communist ethics.

Lu Guang is the photographer who took the incredible and frightening pictures of environmental degradation in China that we linked to a few weeks ago. Now, Chinahush translates a Netease interview with him about photographing heavily polluted areas and how the villagers feel about the pollution.

The methods of translating foreign names into Chinese gets examined in a Danwei post about the possibilities of changing Barack Obama's Chinese name. (Requires proxy)

Fran enjoys surfing the China blogosphere and every Sunday she shares her weekly picks with GoKunming readers.

New environmental legislation by the Kunming municipal government will create approximately 430 square kilometers of protected areas which will be known as the Dianchi Plateau Wetlands Protected Areas, according to a Sina.com report. An official timetable for the creation of the protected areas has yet to be made public.

According to a statement released by the Kunming Municipal People's Standing Committee, the city's goal is to develop into a sustainable metropolis with a healthy Dianchi. Since Dianchi's water quality nosedived in the 1980s, the Kunming and Yunnan governments have spent billions of dollars on cleaning up Dianchi, with negligible results.

Resolutions passed recently by the committee have created four types of protected zones, according to government English-language news site en.kunming.cn:

1) Core areas of four drinking water reservoirs covering approximately 13 square kilometers. The reservoirs are now first-level protected areas – no individual or organization is permitted to enter these premises except for scientific research purposes.

2) Seasonal core areas, covering nearly 300 square kilometers, which will be protected at the same level as the core areas during certain periods such as fishing bans.

3) Buffer areas of forested land surrounding the drinking water reservoirs, totaling approximately 17 square kilometers. No infrastructure projects or activities that harm the environment will be permitted in the buffer areas.

4) Experimental areas composed of just over 100 square kilometers of land with a damaged forest ecosystem. These lands are located near the reservoirs, along the 36 rivers that flow in or out of Dianchi, along the lake's shores and also Xishan, the mountain situated on Dianchi's west side. Ecotourism activities will be permitted in the experimental areas, provided that they do not harm the environment or scenery.

While far from fixing Dianchi's severe eutrophication problems which have turned much of the lake a soupy lime green, the creation of the Dianchi Plateau Wetlands Protected Areas is one of the more decisive measures that have been taken by the Kunming municipal government to address some of the root causes of the lake's pollution.

In 2007 the current government under Kunming Party Secretary Qiu He (仇和) and Mayor Zhang Zulin (张祖林) inherited the seemingly unfixable Dianchi problem. But unlike under previous governments, there is some visible progress being made, the biggest example being the improvement in water quality of the Panlong River, the largest of the rivers draining into Dianchi.

In March of this year, the city government allocated one billion yuan for lake cleanup and also assigned one official to each of the 35 rivers flowing into Dianchi.

In addition to environmental measures, a Dianchi Lake bike path which will circle the lake is currently under construction, and is expected to be completed next year.

China Study Group looks at alternative food networks in China, and in particular an organic co-operative in Anlong that delivers organically farmed produce to Chengdu residents.

China Hush reposts a beautifully shot photo essay on pollution in China and finds out that the prostitute with AIDS story from last week was a cruel hoax by a jealous ex-lover.

Danwei shares a foreigner's account of life in a Beijing jail.

ChinaSMACK features a post from ESWN about present-day university students' responses to the legend of the White-Haired Girl and Evil Landlord: "For some, this means that the sympathy that used to exist for poor and oppressed people in the 1940's has been replaced by blind adoration of money."

Aimee Barnes conducts long technical interview with two foreign experts on energy in China.

And Glen on the Lost Laowai blog takes issue with the idea of "real China."

The Chengjiang County People's Court found Chengjiang Jinye Industrial Trade Company Limited guilty of contaminating Yangzonghai Lake with arsenic, fining the company 16 million yuan (US$2.3 million), according to Chinese media reports.

In addition to the large-by-Yunnan-standards fine levied against Jinye Industrial Trade, former company legal representative Li Dahong (李大宏, above right), general manager Li Yaohong (李耀鸿, middle) and production manager Jin Dadong (金大东, left) were all found personally responsible for the pollution of Yangzonghai with toxic arsenic.

The company was the largest – but not only – polluter of Yangzonghai. Since the government announcement of Yangzonghai's condition in September of last year, 26,000 people have been forbidden to use the lake for drinking water, fishing or swimming. It is still unclear how long people had been consuming arsenic-heavy water or fish prior to the announcement.

The court sentenced Li Dahong to four years in prison and a fine of 300,000 yuan with Li Yaohong and Jin Dadong both receiving three years' imprisonment and a fines of 150,000 yuan each.

The punitive actions against Jinye Industrial Trade and its representatives is the second wave of punishment against those deemed responsible for Yangzonghai's degradation. In October of last year, 26 local and provincial officials were fired for allowing the contamination to occur under their watch.

Image: news.kunming.cn

If one strolls through the villages along the shores of Yangzonghai Lake, it is impossible to avoid coming across signs announcing the "Three Prohibitions" – drinking lake water is prohibited, swimming or bathing in lake water is prohibited and consuming aquatic products from the lake is prohibited.

The 26,000 villagers in the area can no longer use the lake as a source of drinking water – they now depend upon bottled water delivered by the government. Unfortunately, Yangzonghai's pollution, most of which has taken place since 2001, parallels what has been happening to lakes and rivers across Yunnan province in recent years.

According to a recent Tencent report, water quality across Yunnan's network of rivers and lakes has been deteriorating steadily over the last several years.

Of the 53 lakes and reservoirs in the province, 27 are not considered "environmentally functional". Of the 75 main rivers in the province, 22 percent are heavily polluted.

Aside from arsenic-polluted Yangzonghai, the report said there are five other lakes in Yunnan that are not able to be considered "environmentally functioning". This includes Dianchi Lake's Caohai and Waihai sections, Qilu Lake, Xingyun Lake and Yilong Lake.

Of these bodies of water, Caohai and Qilu Lake suffer from the heaviest pollution, while the pollution levels at Waihai, Yilong Lake and Xingyun Lake – which suffers from petroleum pollution – were slightly lower.

The report also said that Erhai Lake in Dali is currently at a perilous turning point between medium and heavy eutrophication, which eventually removes oxygen from a body of water and leads to the destruction of all animal life.

Across Yunnan, wastewater treatment, a crucial component in reducing river and lake pollution, is practically nonexistent, according to the report.

At present, there are only 38 wastewater treatment facilities in Yunnan, 10 of which are located in Kunming. There are 90 counties and municipalities in the province with no wastewater treatment facilities whatsoever.

Compounding the problem of too few wastewater treatment plants is the lackluster condition of existing facilities. In a spot check of 13 wastewater treatment facilities in Yunnan by the provincial environmental supervisory unit, it was discovered that six of the plants were incapable of "normal operations".

To further compound matters, landfills across the province are seeping pollution into underground water supplies, the report said.

Twelve officials in Yuxi including vice mayor Chen Zhifeng were fired last week over the recent discovery of heavy arsenic pollution in Yangzonghai Lake, according to Chinese media reports. Another 14 officials from the provincial government were also sacked.

The majority of fired officials were from Yuxi and Yunnan's environmental protection and water departments. Yunnan Chengjiang Jinye Industrial and Trade has been fingered as the main polluter, but several other enterprises around the lake have also been connected to the arsenic pollution.

According to the Shanghai Daily:



The provincial government is estimating that it will take at least three years to reduce the lake's arsenic contamination to acceptable levels and is seeking international help to address the problem.

Related articles:

Yangzonghai Lake suffering from heavy arsenic pollution

Yunnan calls for international help to clean up arsenic-tainted Yangzonghai

The Yunnan provincial government has announced that it will not only be searching around China but internationally as well as it scrambles to find firms capable of cleaning up arsenic-poisoned Yangzonghai Lake.

The "China Yunnan Yangzonghai Lake Water Pollution Reduction, Arsenic Removal and Water Quality Restoration" project is publicly inviting bids to clean up the lake via the Yunnan Provincial Scientific and Technological Development Research Institute, according to local media reports.

The main objective of the project will be to reduce the amount of arsenic in Yangzonghai's waters from the current 0.128 grams/liter to 0.050 grams/liter within a three-year period.

The discovery in June that Yangzonghai Lake, located 45 kilometers east of Kunming, had heavy arsenic levels has been followed by a banning on drinking the lake water, swimming in the lake and selling vegetables grown in the fertile lake basin. The 26,000 people who had been using lake water for drinking are now dependent upon government shipments of drinking water.

This year, eight companies in the Yangzonghai Lake area were found to be engaging in illegal polluting practices, with Yunnan Chengjiang Jinye Industrial and Trade Co Ltd (云南澄江锦业工贸有限公司) fingered as the main polluter.

The company failed to build the legally required treatment facility for its wastewater, with years of accumulated arsenic seeping into the local water table. It had been fined multiple times in the past, but the relatively small fines were viewed by the company as a cost of doing business, according to Kunming media reports.

Related article: Yangzonghai Lake suffering from heavy arsenic pollution