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Latest Comments

• • October 15, 2012
  • Nobel laureate Mo Yan's Yunnan connection
    

    @helface
    You misunderstood me if you thought that I was expecting GoKM to be anything but lighthearted. Not reporting controversial issues is a practical solution to a real problem and as nothing of that nature appears in GoKM I assume that this an editorial decision. This is fine with me.

    As I said, I draw the line where this turns into a bizarre defense of distorted facts that have significant meaning in this country, assisted by some semantic trickery and hidden editing.

    Is that really asking too much?

    @Liumingke1234
    It was meant in jest.

• • October 15, 2012
  • Land mines and coffee in Wenshan
    

    I have been to Tianpeng 田蓬 in Funing county where this has happened a few times, the first time maybe ten years ago. Not only is the scenery pretty nice, but it also has a unique mix of minorities: Miao, Yao, Yi, Zhuang. Even the Han dress traditionally there and some people cross from the Vietnamese side on market day.

    But the border police has been very itchy every time I went there. The first time they told me to move into a different guesthouse and not to leave the township apart from on the bus back. Now I understand their concerns a bit better.

• • October 15, 2012
  • Nobel laureate Mo Yan's Yunnan connection
    

    Apology accepted, sometimes in the heat of the moment we do things that we know are not right and regret later.

    However, there is a different aspect to this story, which prompted my original comment. Certain countries try to erase unwelcome people from their collective memory. For writers this means: their books never published, their plays not performed, their names not mentioned. In the case of Gao Xingjian the official Chinese response was to deny that he is Chinese and he has become one of those unmentionables: so for the Chinese media, Mo Yan is the first Chinese to receive the Nobel prize for Literature.

    I can accept that GoKM tries to avoid anything that is even remotely controversial (even though that is a marked change from the previous owners and GoKM appears to be more Catholic than the pope by even not mentioning Kunming events that are widely reported in the Chinese media, the most recent involving a Fujian official and a Kunming newspaper). But I do draw the line where this policy turns not just into statements that are not true, but that collude in the practice of erasing dissidents from collective memory.

    There has been another Chinese writer receiving a major literary award with two more than tenuous connections to Yunnan. Searching for 'Friedenspreis 2012' will give you a few more details.

    @Liumingke1234

    thank you for accepting the apology on my behalf. I did not know I had an impostor on GoKM.

• • October 14, 2012
  • Nobel laureate Mo Yan's Yunnan connection
    

    Correction: your original page said he is the 'Mo is the first Chinese person to win the Nobel Prize for literature'.

    Double checked with the Google cache:

    See webcache.googleusercontent.com/[...]

    Shame on you, Patrick, for changing the article and pretending you did not.

• • October 14, 2012
  • Nobel laureate Mo Yan's Yunnan connection
    

    ... 'as it clearly states in the article's final paragraph'...that you changed after I posted my comment.

    The previous version said 'Mo is the first Chinese to win...', no mention of the cop-out 'citizen' in your initial version.

    A mistake is one thing, a stupid mistake is another thing, not having the integrity to own up to it is three steps down from that. Shame on you.

    Gao Xingjian was born in China, wrote in Chinese, got his book published in Taiwan, wrote about his life in China and everybody understood the award as criticism of contemporary China/Chinese literature.

    The guy is French, obviously.

Latest Forum Posts

• • October 15, 2012
    
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Earthquake?
    

    It is now:
    earthquake.usgs.gov/[...]

• • October 15, 2012
    
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Earthquake?
    

    I felt something, the 'usual' 'little wave', around that time. I am about 50km south of Dali right now.
    But nothing yet on earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/

• • October 13, 2012
    
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > looking for a quality photo print shop
    

    Kaida used to be the main place for professional photo printing, but their main shop on Beijing Lu disappeared when the building was pulled down. I am not sure if their branch on Dongfeng Donglu, in the block just east of the Beijing Lu intersection still exists. They used to have a section specialising in exhibition/display printing.

• • October 12, 2012
    
  • Forums > Travel Yunnan > cheap flights to Brazzaville
    

    Another mysterious double post.

• • October 12, 2012
    
  • Forums > Travel Yunnan > cheap flights to Brazzaville
    

    If searching the various flight booking websites is too much for you, you could try flightfox.com, where others do this for you.

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