Forums > Living in Kunming > World Cup 33 posters, one for each team and one for all together:
www.worldcupbuzz.com/espns-2010-fifa-world-cup-murals
Some quite amusing (England), some downright silly (Oz), but all 'heroic' as they should be. Not sure what killing bears has to do with soccer though!
Forums > Living in Kunming > World Cup With only 2 days to go, high time for a WC thread!!! Starting out with some links I posted in announcements, which seem to have gone under:
To get into the spirit of things, start practising your Diski Dance:
www.southafrica.info/video/diski-dance2.htm
Do you know what a Vuvuzela or a Makarapa is? Who is Zakumi? Find out about WC with SA flavour here: www.southafrica.info/2010/
The best and coolest WC calender is here:
www.marca.com/[...]
And for some SA/WC laughs, check out one of the most popular comic strips, Madam & Eve:
www.madamandeve.co.za/index.php
Forums > Living in Kunming > GoKunming redesign: we want your input! 1 Work on the resolution
2 More local news
3 Ensuring listings are complete and updated (e.g. several consulates & airlines missing, several listed restaurants closed).
4 More info on local cultural events beyond piss-ups at Hump or Uprock, such as exhibitions, performances, etc. listed only in newspapers or elsewhere.
5 Keep up the good work!
Forums > Living in Kunming > Suggestions to reduce friction between Public Security and Immigrant Population Piers, good point. But I laughed at traffic police being "utterly disinterested in any violence that falls outside their traffic remit". I sometimes think traffic police are utterly disinterested in most things that fall INSIDE their traffic remit! I'm sure you've seen the lone cop standing like a helpless sheep in the middle of (or more likely on the other side of) a busy intersection with chaos ensuing all around or lazily looking after cars that jumped red lights at high speed. So I'd like to see them at least
taking on the responsibility that they HAVE been assigned! But then again, that may get them deep in it too if they stop the wrong guy. Hence better to do nothing or just pick on the weak!
Kunming residents clash with chengguan officers
发布者This has even been picked up by the Economist: www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15826335
The story mentions various recent cases around the country and that the press has been sympathetic:
"The latest flare-up in Kunming has also attracted considerable press attention. One newspaper website described the eruption as symptomatic of public resentment against local officialdom that could blow up like "a bomb at any time". Another newspaper attacked the Kunming authorities for releasing only bare details and not taking questions at a press briefing on the incident. A third suggested the official version of events, that the vendor had simply fallen over, might be a "lie" (a word even used in the headline). It quoted witnesses saying an officer had pushed over her pedicab, pinning the woman under it. A gas canister had then rolled on top of her, knocking her unconscious."
Kunming News Roundup
发布者With regard to the garbage crisis, this is a must-see posting: www.chinahush.com/[...]
Amazing and horrifying pics by a CHINESE photographer!
Lu Guang (卢广) from won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project "Pollution in China."
India says no to Stilwell Road
发布者In connection with this, an interesting story from today's FT:
Chinese essay sparks outcry in India
By James Lamont in New Delhi and Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Published: August 12 2009
Indian academics are up in arms over what they regard as provocative incitement of the country's demise by a Chinese essayist.
"China can dismember the so-called 'Indian Union' with one little move!" claimed the essay posted last week on China International Strategy Net, a patriotic website focused on strategic issues. The writer, under the pseudonym Zhanlue (strategy in Chinese), argued that India's sense of national unity was weak and Beijing's best option to remove an emerging rival and security threat would be to support separatist forces, like those in Assam, to bring about a collapse of the Indian federal state.
"There cannot be two suns in the sky," wrote Zhanlue. "China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously." The article suggested that India should be divided into 20 to 30 sovereign states.
Such was the outcry about the article that the Indian government issued a statement reassuring the country that relations with China were calm.
"The article in question appears to be an expression of individual opinion and does not accord with the officially stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions, including at the highest level, most recently by State Councillor Dai Bingguo during his visit to India last week," the foreign ministry in New Delhi said in a statement, referring to mutual pledges to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The publication of the article coincided with talks between Beijing and New Delhi over disputed Himalayan border areas. Earlier this year, China held up funding for an Asian Development Bank project in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state claimed by China as "south Tibet". India has also banned some Chinese imports as it tries to protect its economy from the global downturn.
Officials in Beijing and Delhi hew to rival visions of the future, each seeing themselves as pursuing the more durable political and social model of development. The presumption in New Delhi is that China's unified, one-party state is bound to break down.
DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, brought the essay to his countrymen's attention. "It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices," he said. "Its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting."
China International Strategy Net is run by Kang Lingyi, who took part in hacking into US government websites in 1999 following US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Sites such as his are part of the Communist party's strategy to allow nationalism to grow to strengthen its political legitimacy.