Month: April 2008

  • 'Conquer English to Make China Stronger!'

    Ampontan points out that the media’s love for Li Yang’s instructional rallies and methods, called Crazy English, recently included a New Yorker article by Evan Osnos. I’m pretty happy with myself because with my Mandarin tutor today I finished a textbook. But our meetings at a Beijing cafe are nothing like Crazy English. One by…

  • Top Japanese Officials Not Among Politicians Visiting Yasukuni

    Tis the season for Yasukuni Shrine visits. Between 62 (per Mainichi) and more than 150 (per AP) Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine on the traditional occasion of the spring holiday. But Jun Okumura notes that none of the very top leaders were among them: The AP report does tell you that “Prime Minister Fukuda did…

  • 'China Can Say No' Writer: Japan Less of a Problem Than U.S.

    Danwei today posted an excellent set of material on the 1996 book China Can Say No (中国可以说不). The book was influential in Chinese nationalism and follows a 1989 book by Japanese novelist-turned-governor-of-Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro, and a top Sony executive, Morita Akio, called The Japan That Can Say No. The Danwei post includes a recent interview with…

  • I'm a Twit. Follow me on Twitter.

    After meeting with a fellow blogger in Beijing I decided it might be time to give Twitter a shot. So far, I haven’t been completely consumed and I like it. Follow me there. I’m gwbstr. follow gwbstr at http://twitter.com

  • Beijing Traffic in 1981. And a Change on This Site.

    An interesting passage and a mini-site announcement today. First: Danwei announced they’d begin republishing old stories from former Daily Telegraph Beijing correspondent Graham Earnshaw, who held the post from 1980 to 1984. The first article they posted is interesting mostly for Earnshaw’s author’s note: At the time, there were almost no cars on Beijing streets…