Wednesday, August 09, 2006

no, it's not Xin Tian Di, it's Xihu Tian Di, literally West Lake Tian Di.








photos of Xihu Tian Di

after the renovations, the lakeside areas look quite similar to shanghai, with a lot of luxury stores, restaurants and bars, and a small-sized Xihu Tian Di, directly copied from Xin Tian Di of shanghai.

you have your buffet, walk into a starbucks store, spend a few hours reading and writing in your laptop, it's too hot and you find a "dairy queen" over the street corner, you hear shanghainese besides you talking with each other, complaining the zhiweiguan restaurant of hangzhou is not as good as the one in shanghai, then you can go out and buy newspapers, all the same as those you can have  in shanghai except  5 hours late  ...

fortunately you have the lake and the lotus to remind you that you are in somewhere outside of shanghai.

soon tourists don't have to visit shanghai and hangzhou, they can pick up one of them instead of both to see both of shanghai and hangzhou. and for shanghainese who want to visit hangzhou to relax, just book a hotel near Xin Tian Di ...

thank you, city planners in Hangzhou!


posted @ 10:14 AM

via: times of oman - China says no TV delay for 2008 Olympics

China will televise the 2008 Beijing Olympics live to the world without the brief delay normally used in Chinese broadcasting, an official said Tuesday......

Chinese broadcasts -- from political speeches to entertainment -- are often delayed by a few seconds.
The practice is believed to be partly aimed at preventing unplanned, anti-government content or unfavorable surprises, such as protest signs, being beamed to Chinese audiences.

when i visited radio or tv stations in shanghai, there were armed police in the entrance and the program host asked us to relax because the show would be delayed for 7 seconds. i was a little surprised since it was only a business program. based on my observations, not all radio and tv programs are monitored like this. remember the crazy football commentator Huang JianXiang?


last sunday the BBC world news was cut off for about 1 minute, at first it talked about how fast chinese blogs developed, and then, unavoidably, it turned to "censorship" issues. the chinese censor obviously fall sleep and let the "anti-china chants" go on for too long before he cut off the TV program.

the system is tottering but some people still believe it is working. hopefully there will be more opportunities like the olympics to show them that even without the bamboo fence, chinese audience won't give a shit any of those "anti-government content or unfavorable surprises", thanks to their money-corrupted souls and too much reportings on "chinese censorships" and "organ harvesting".


posted @ 9:20 AM