Current Events

[Randy W]

from Inkstone

A gay-free Bohemian Rhapsody gets high ratings in China

 

Chinese censors have scrubbed about three minutes of homosexual-related content from the film.

Although some lamented the absence of a key part of Mercury’s life, the LGBT-free cut of Bohemian Rhapsody has received high ratings on Chinese review sites.

 

. . .

 

We are the Censored

Here are some of the scenes Chinese censors cut out from Bohemian Rhapsody, according to Chinese film news outlet Moviebase.

• Mercury touching his crotch during a live performance broadcast on BBC.
• Mercury telling his then-girlfriend Mary Austin he was bisexual.
• Drummer Roger Taylor saying Mercury’s new haircut was “gayer.”
• Mercury kissing his future partner Jim Hutton at their first encounter.
• Queen dressed in drag while filming the “I Want to Break Free” music video.
• Mercury telling the other members of Queen that he has Aids. (The word “Aids” is silenced, but viewers can still see his lips moving.)
• A picture and text about the real-life Mercury and Hutton at the end of the movie.

 

[Randy W]

A human interest story from China Daily

 

An interesting story about a very scholarly professional vagrant.

 

 

Identity of 'Shanghai vagrant' confirmed by employer

 

Quote

He said he was asked by his employer to stay home for mental illness and not go back to work until he recovered.

 

"Over the past 26 years, no one from the office has ever asked about me,"

 

The office said the vagrant called Shen Wei became one of its employees in 1986 but has been on sick leave since 1993, during which he has been paid with a basic salary.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

This should be (generally) more useful than the Hong Kong - Zhuhai - Macao bridge, since you won't need a passport or visa.

from the People's Daily on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesDaily/posts/2392988904086246

People's Daily, China

18 mins ·

Quote

#Shenzhen-#Zhongshan Bridge to set world’s precedent

The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge, a massive Chinese infrastructure project within a one-hour radius of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, is under intense construction in the Lingding Cannel, southern China’s Guangdong province.

With total investment of 44.69 billion yuan ($6.69 billion), the bridge is expected to come into operation in 2024. Upon completion, the bridge will become the world’s largest and widest two-way eight-lane tunnel, the Science and Technology Daily reported.

Measuring 6.8 km in length, the tunnel is designed for a speed of 100 km/h and will have a service life of 100 years. The project includes on- and under-water construction of a bridge, artificial islands, and tunnels, bringing new challenges to the construction team and generating technical reference and experience for the world, according to Global Times.

Similar to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge will be connected by artificial islands in a west to east direction, said Yang Run, a deputy chief engineer at a subsidiary of China Communications Construction.

Yang also said that the construction team has completed the island’s backfilling, which consists of 57 steel cylinders with a diameter of 28 meters, covering an area equivalent to 19 soccer fields.

At 24 km in length, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge links eastern and western cities in the Pearl River Delta, shortening travel time between Zhongshan to Shenzhen to 30 minutes from two hours, which will improve traffic junctions in peak hours.

Besides, it is also of economic significance. Upon its completion, it will become an important channel connecting the east and west of the region and promote integration of cities in the Greater Bay Area. In particular, cross-boundary cooperation between the mainland and the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao will be strengthened, China Daily reported.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone - one of those 'only in China' things

 

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten Compensates Couple Whose Child Died in Hot Car

After the father was distracted by a phone call and left his daughter to die in a hot car, he and his wife blamed the child’s school for not noticing she wasn’t there.

 

The mother did not realize her daughter hadn’t been at the school, located in Heshan District in the city of Yiyang, until she went to pick her up at around 5 p.m., according to the report. She and her husband then searched for the child and found her dead in the back seat of their car.

The father, surnamed Hu, told Beijing Time in a video interview that he had been distracted by a phone call on his way to drop the girl off at school Monday morning and locked the car in an undisclosed location without realizing she was still inside. Daytime temperatures in Yiyang exceeded 30 degrees Celsius on Monday.

In Beijing Time’s video, the parents said they blame their daughter’s teachers at the kindergarten for not contacting them when the girl did not show up for school. Hu, the father, argued that the kindergarten should bear most of the responsibility for his daughter’s death. “Three teachers manage a dozen students — why didn’t they notice one was missing?” he told the reporter. “If they had contacted me at 9 a.m., I would have realized the problem.”

 

 

[amberjack1234]

Pitiful excuse if I have ever heard of one. Only a Chinese person could come up with that. Started happening a lot here in the US too. The first few got off scott free then the authorities started taking notice and now they get 20 years to life for that very thing and now it has dropped off to almost 0.

[Randy W]

If all you read is the headline, that's good enough!

 

from the SCMP

 

If pigs are not meant to be eaten, why are they made of bacon?

• Yonden Lhatoo rolls his eyes at talk about giving roast pig-cutting ceremonies the chop in Hong Kong after a university bowed to pressure from animal lovers over the tradition being observed at the opening of its new vet centre

 

 

Which is why I kind of understand where people were coming from when they complained about City University celebrating the opening of its new vet centre by chopping up two suckling pigs. It’s a common custom whenever a new building is completed or a new venture is launched in this city, but critics were outraged that the vet centre was “killing animals instead of curing them”.

 

[amberjack1234]

It is a little strange, isn't it? That is no suckling pig though that is for sure.

[Randy W]

There's ALWAYS a certain value to throwing a tantrum on the showroom floor . . .

 

from the Sixth Tone

 

Unhappy Customer’s Viral Video Lands Mercedes-Benz in Hot Water

The German automaker has issued an apology on Chinese social media, but the woman says her complaints of an oil leak and an exorbitant ‘financial services fee’ have not been resolved.

 

Following the attention the incident received, the market regulation bureau in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, launched an investigation into Xi’an Lizhixing Automobile Co. Ltd., the Mercedes-Benz authorized reseller where the woman had bought her car, according to a statement Sunday from the city’s internet information office. The statement added that the unsatisfied customer should be refunded for the purchase of the vehicle as soon as possible.

Later the same day, Mercedes-Benz issued its own statement through Chinese media outlets, saying it does not charge a financial services fee to its customers or its vendors. “Although car dealerships are legal entities with the right to operate independently, we openly and regularly require dealers to be honest and law-abiding in the process of their independent operations in order to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of their customers,” the statement said.

. . .

In the viral video, the customer claims staff at the dealership told her they could change the engine but not give her a refund or a replacement vehicle. She also alleges that after she made a down payment of 200,000 yuan, she discovered that the vehicle was leaking oil.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The "tantrum" wins again - from the SCMP

 

Chinese woman whose Mercedes-Benz oil leak protest video went viral ‘satisfied’ with settlement deal

• Agreement delivers new car, a year of VIP treatment and trip to Germany for customer who became so frustrated by dealer’s service she ended up in tears

 

 

On Tuesday, Xian Lizhixing Auto agreed to provide a replacement car and refund 15,000 yuan it charged her for financial service fees on the loan she took out to buy her CLS 300, Thepaper.cn reported.

Mercedes-Benz representatives witnessed the signing of the agreement and invited Wang to visit the company’s production base in Germany.

It also said it had suspended the showroom’s licence.

“We are launching a compliance investigation of the dealer,” Mercedes said. “Before the conclusion is made, we decided to suspend the showroom.

 

“If any practice of this dealer is found to have violated regulations or compliance rules, we will terminate its showroom licence.”

 

She also agreed to have her face pixelated.

[amberjack1234]

The power of a Chinese woman.

[Randy W]

Amazon quitting China on July 18 - from CNBC

 

Amazon is shutting down its China marketplace business. Here’s why it has struggled

 

Queenie Liao, an office worker in Guangzhou, China, shops online several times a week. Alibaba’s Taobao and JD.com are her go-to platforms, but it wasn’t always that way.

“I used to use Amazon a few years ago. Amazon was one of the first online shops in China and a lot of friends told me that the things from Amazon were much more trustable. That’s why I used it, ” Liao told CNBC. “Taobao and JD have more items now.”

Her shift in attitude underscores one of the major reasons why Amazon is thought to be struggling in China. The U.S. e-commerce giant now plans to close its domestic marketplace business in China.

“We are notifying sellers we will no longer operate a marketplace on Amazon.cn and we will no longer be providing seller services on Amazon.cn effective July 18,” the company said in a statement, referring to its Chinese-language site, according to the Financial Times.

 

. . .

 

Customers in China will still be able to buy items from the U.S., Germany, Japan and the U.K. through Amazon’s global site as it focused more on cross-border sales into the world’s second-largest economy, according to an earlier Reuters report. Amazon’s cloud business will reportedly continue to operate in China.

 

[Randy W]

Leica distances itself from itself in the SCMP

Advert depicting Tiananmen Square’s ‘Tank Man’ creates headaches for Leica Camera after uproar from Chinese online

• Leica draws fire from online commenters and is censored on Chinese social media platform Weibo
• Spokeswoman says the advert was not an officially sanctioned marketing film commissioned by the company

A frame from the Leica promotional video "The Hunt". Image: YouTube/RadioaktiveFilm

Quote

The five-minute promotional video, “The Hunt”, depicts various dark moments of war and conflicts through the lenses of photojournalists. But its main plot follows a Western journalist inside a Beijing hotel in 1989 as he tries to go outside to document the shooting of student protesters by the Chinese army, but is confronted and chased by Chinese soldiers.

. . .

The cinematic ad was met with blanket censorship on China’s social media. By Thursday evening Beijing time, any post containing the keyword “Leica” – in English or in Chinese – could no longer be published on the social platform Weibo, due to “a violation of relevant laws and regulations or the Weibo Community Convention”.

. . .

Late on Thursday, a spokeswoman for Leica said that the ad, which ends with the Leica logo, was not an officially sanctioned marketing film commissioned by the company.

“Leica Camera AG must therefore distance itself from the content shown in the video and regrets any misunderstandings or false conclusions that may have been drawn,” said Emily Anderson by email.

https://vimeo.com/330777695

go to https://vimeo.com/330777695

Edited January 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Allon]

A bit overdramatic. Jan Wong was with Sidney Franklin and Charlie Cole on the 6th floor of a Beijing hotel. Franklin got most of the credit for the Tank Man shots but Cole hid his film in the hotel room toilet and gave the PLA, who searched his room, a blank roll of film which the soldiers promptly exposed. The pictures of the Tank Man were smuggled out of China in a box of tea by a French national. Cole used a Nikon FE2.

 

But the CCP has been ruthless is suppressing news of the event and I don't doubt the story of even suppressing a Leica commercial, albeit an unauthorized one. They don't want the June 4th Incident as they call it, even recognized, although some Beijing students use the code "89" for concealing that they are aware of the Tienanmen Square massacre, after all, even by Chinese government secret estimates, 10,000 students were killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Official_figures

[Randy W]

On 3/28/2019 at 11:44 PM, Randy W said:

A human interest story from China Daily

An interesting story about a very scholarly professional vagrant.

Quote

A waste-picker became famous overnight after people uploaded videos of him talking about literature and philosophy, but his life was soon disrupted by swarms of livestreamers.

Read more: http://ow.ly/OuMB50r7OIu

Identity of 'Shanghai vagrant' confirmed by employer

He said he was asked by his employer to stay home for mental illness and not go back to work until he recovered.

"Over the past 26 years, no one from the office has ever asked about me,"

The office said the vagrant called Shen Wei became one of its employees in 1986 but has been on sick leave since 1993, during which he has been paid with a basic salary.

An update from the Sixth Tone - on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/videos/280792929535918/

Read more -

The Invasion of the Livestreamers: How a Man Became a Meme

In their endless quest for clicks, Chinese livestreamers turned a waste-picker named Shen Wei into a fashionable prop — so what does that say about those of us who pressed play?

Quote

Finally, on March 25, Shen had had enough. That afternoon, he left, leaving behind a note saying that he wanted a break. That didn’t stop his fans, however, and videos soon emerged showing a cleaned-up Shen with freshly cropped hair heading into the police station to re-register his ID card. Then, on April 9, Shen did something unexpected: He opened an account on Kuaishou and started engaging with his fans.

Perhaps Shen wants to end his vagrant existence. As for the livestreamers and viewers who made him famous, they’d already moved on to newer and fresher content by the time Shen re-emerged. In the end, it doesn’t matter how great a master you are; as long as the clowns are in the palace, we’re all just fodder for their antics.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

I don't watch this very closely, but I think they ALWAYS do this, but round 8 or 9 UP, while everything else is rounded DOWN (only on the final total) - from the SCMP

on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/scmp/posts/10157148109174820

(that's 6/10 of one cent)

South China Morning Post

5 hrs ·

Quote

"They illegally took 0.04 yuan. By filing the lawsuit, I only wanted them to return the 0.04 yuan that should be mine."

Chinese man successfully sues supermarket that cheated him of 0.6 US cents

Edited January 13, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)