• Chinese hoard salt out of radiation fears

    STR / AFP - Getty Images

    Chinese shoppers crowd a shop in an effort to buy salt in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu province on Thursday.

    By Bo Gu, NBC News

    BEIJING – China is in the midst of a salt rush.

    Despite the Chinese government’s effort to educate the population and reassure them they will not be exposed to radiation from the nuclear plant in northern Japan, many fearful Chinese have come to believe baseless rumors that the iodine in salt could save them from radiation sickness – so they are hoarding iodized salt.
     
    The frantic buying has left grocery shelves empty of salt in China’s coastal provinces, just across the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea from Japan. But the panic is spreading quickly westwards to the country’s inland where salt sales are catching up at a crazy speed.
     
    “April Gourmet,” a chain supermarket frequented by Beijing’s expatriate community, told NBC News that its salt supply was sold out as of Thursday morning.  “I’m not sure when we’ll have salt again because our suppliers’ stocks have been sold out, too and now the price is higher. Even the soy sauce is sold out by customers who worry they won’t have salt for cooking,” Ms. Zhao, a public relations manager for the store said in a phone interview.

    “Merry Mart,” another big Chinese supermarket chain favored by older Beijingers, also reported that all the salt was sold out.
    The spike in demand may be due to the misunderstanding of reports that note the thyroid gland is susceptible to radioactive iodine – just one of several types of radiation that could be produced by the crippled reactors – and that potassium iodide tablets can block the radioactive iodine if taken before exposure.

    STRINGER SHANGHAI / Reuters

    A policeman tries to maintain order as residents line up outside a salt wholesale market to buy salt after it was sold out at local supermarkets in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China on Thursday.

    Salt containing iodine, however, would not shield against the radiation, medical experts say, adding that there was no reason for alarm in China, which is thousands of miles away from the damaged reactors.
     
    On Taobao.com, China’s largest online business-to-business platform, some sellers from coastal provinces are even promoting their products by advertising, “Buy one, get one bag of salt free.” On the Sina microblog, a Twitter-like message sharing site, “salt” has become the most frequently discussed word and people from all over the country are reporting on how the panic buying has caused shortages in their hometowns.

    Meantime, nuclear scientists have repeatedly explained on TV that even if a nuke explosion did take place, the level of radiation that could spread to China’s coastal cities would be diluted to a minor extent and simply taking salt would not help preventing damage.

    Fang Zhouzi, a Beijing-based scientist famous for educating the public about scientific facts, wrote in his microblog that “you’d have to take 5-13 pounds of salt to have enough iodine to resist the radiation.” The Chinese government has also set-up telephone hotlines and web sites that address the public’s concerns about possible radioactivity from Japan.
     
    The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic policy agency, has also warned consumers about price gauging and has encouraged them not to give into the fear mongering. "Don't believe rumors, don't spread rumors, and don't panic buy," said the NDRC in an emailed statement, Reuters reported.

    LIU JIN / AFP - Getty Images

    People get bottles of soy sauce, which contains iodine, from the supermarket after salt sold out due to panic buying in Beijing on Thursday.

    Still, the Chinese government’s education efforts seem to have done very little to deter people’s determination to hoard salt. News keep pouring in about how salt is sold out everywhere, and the China Salt Industry Corp., China’s biggest state-owned salt producer, continues to promise citizens a stable market will be back soon and that therea are ample reserves.
     
    Meantime, China announced on Wednesday that it will readjust and amend mid- and long-term development plans for nuclear power. The State Council announced that approval for all new nuclear power plants, including those in preliminary development, will be temporarily suspended until safety standards are revised and strengthened.

  • Despite the despots, millions of smiles in Myanmar

    Bo Gu / NBC News

    A young Burmese man sells oranges at Yangon's Theingyi Zei market.

    By Bo Gu, NBC News

    YANGON, Myanmar – Yangon’s five-star hotels instantly relaxed me as soon as I checked into one after a long journey to this distant place usually closed to foreigners.

    A smiling porter opened the taxi door and promptly took my luggage. Petite girls in traditional dresses spoke impeccable English at the front desk while I checked in and another young woman offered me orange juice. The sound of chanting monks echoed off a lake when I opened my balcony door; crystal waters of the hotel pool beckoned.

    Clean, neat souvenir shops captured my attention with delicate puppets and “I Love Myanmar” T-shirts.

    But I was confronted with a completely different world once I walked away from the tourist area and into the old town district where cracked sidewalk stones was the norm.

    Bo Gu / NBC News

    A young woman and a baby smile at the camera in downtown Yangon, Myanmar.

    Instead of fancy shop windows, a bustling market sold everything on the street. Hundreds of stalls sold fruits I couldn’t name, snacks of all colors, fresh and dried seafood, flip-flops, pancakes, remote controls, stationary, and even Justin Bieber posters.

    The market had much of what you would see anywhere in Southeast Asia, but there were three things I noticed that were distinct to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma before the ruling military junta changed the name):

    Smiles
    I live in a country where people rarely smile at strangers – China – which may explain why I came to feel spoiled by the Burmese people’s constant, friendly and bright smiles. Women or children, monks or street peddlers, they all smiled and posed for me when I took pictures of them.

    Their cheerful expressions seemed to belie the fact that they are an oppressed people under a military regime that still puts human rights activists in jail. But occasionally, out of the blue, one of them would whisper to me, “I hate my government.”

    My trip was short, so I cannot say I understand the Burmese people, but I sensed they are so eager to communicate with people from the outside. They want the world to know how much they suffer – in a beautiful country with pleasant weather, but with an oppressive authority. And yet they begin that communication with the beautiful gesture of smiles. 

    Bo Gu / NBC News

    A street peddler prepares a betel nut roll in Yangon.

    Betel nuts
    Burmese men seem to always be either preparing a betel nut roll or chewing one. Although once banned by the government in mid-90s, chewing the mild stimulant that leaves a distinctive red mouth is still extremely popular and betel stands can be seen every few blocks.

    It’s fun to watch boys and men dexterously roll up what looks like a tiny burrito made of green leaf containing a mixture of betel nuts, lime paste and tobacco. They put this tiny burrito into their mouths, chew, grind and spit it out onto the ground, leaving a thick, reddish brown spittle that dots the sidewalks of Yangon.

    Magical facial paste
    Another distinctive color on the streets of Yangon is the white paste that nearly every woman and child wears on their face. The whitish sticky paste, called “thanakha” in Burmese, can be made from teak, bark or other tree varieties mixed with water and other flavored ingredients.

    Like in many other Asian countries, local women favor the magical paste for its supposed whitening effect, as well as its special power to smooth skin, prevent acne, and most importantly, cool skin from tropical sunburns.

    Women and children apply the paste on both their cheeks and nose, in a square or round shape. They walk around with the mud on their faces all day; I couldn’t help wondering if they wear the paste when they sleep.

    From the hotel souvenir shop I bought a small bottle of lime scented thanakha for $1. It didn’t seem to stay on my cheeks for very long, but I enjoyed the coolness, just like any other facial mud or moisture masks we apply at home. With the thanakha on my face and donning a blue and white flower-patterned longyi – a sheet of cloth widely worn in Myanmar – I felt like a local, at least on the outside. As for what it truly feels like to be Burmese – willing to give a smile to a stranger while living under an iron-handed government – that I can only imagine.

    (Burma, Myanmar – what’s the difference? The country’s ruling military junta changed the name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989. The capital, Rangoon, also became Yangon. The United Nations has recognized the name change, but the U.S. and the U.K. do not).

  • Worming toward greener living in Beijing

    BEIJING – Sixty-nine-year-old Zhou Xianqiang’s favorite hobby is recycling. A retired school teacher, Zhou makes her own handcrafts out of things usually dumped in trash cans – roses out of used red banners or hats out of milk cartons. Now she has a new toy: a crate full of thousands of earthworms in her little floral balcony.

    Some people may not like having 2,000 smelly, slimy worms at home. But dozens of families in the Dongsi neighborhood, in the heart of Beijing, have taken them in as part of an environmental challenge from the non-governmental organization, “Global Village.”
    Partially inspired by Mary Appelhof’s book “Worms Eat My Garbage” and with help from China Agricultural University, Global Village bought earthworms from a company in suburban Beijing and experimented with them for a few months before they delivered the little creatures to local residents.

    Each family participating in the project was given one crate that contains about 2,000 earthworms. Once bedding (shredded newspaper, cardboard or leaf mold) was made inside the crate, another crate was put on top because the worms prefer it dark and quiet.

    The top crate is also where food is placed, which could be cabbage slices, crunched egg shells or apples peels. Through holes on the bottom of the top crate, the toothless earthworms crawl up and grind the food with their gizzards by muscle action. In a few weeks owners can see the results: black manure-like compost that can serve as the perfect organic nutrients for flowers and plants.

    “We hope by raising earthworms the community can have its own cycle chain. Our short-term goal is for the families to get rid of the kitchen wastes, and then use the droppings to grow plants or vegetables,” said Zhang Qiang, program coordinator from Global Village.

    Since most modern families in Beijing live in apartment buildings and are busy leading fast paced lives running between home and work, Dongsi, the old courtyard area where you can still see hundred-year-old alleyways, seemed to be an ideal residence to start with the project.

    The elderly who choose to stay in the old neighborhood have the time and patience to take part in something new and share their experiences.

    Zhang and his colleagues hope to see a long-term project if things run smoothly. “We sure will encounter many problems, but we want to succeed. In the future, even if we pull out, I hope these local residents can spread the idea to other communities.”

  • A museum dedicated to China's cruelest cut

    By NBC News’ Bo Gu

    BEIJING – It’s a small museum in a quiet and grubby village, and few people pay attention to it. Yet, despite its low profile, any man who walks into the little exhibition hall will no doubt feel a chill down his spine: it’s a museum dedicated to China’s 2,000-year history of eunuchs.

    Built in 1998 and recently refurbished, the museum sits next to a tomb for the high-ranking eunuch Tian Yi from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In a space the size of a 2,000 square foot apartment, five exhibit rooms give visitors a brief but complete account of how the system of castrating men came into being, how the eunuchs' institution grew to become powerful political cliques and how the system finally ended with the death of the last eunuch in China, Sun Yaoting, in 1996.

    Bo Gu/ NBC News

    The museum dedicated to China's 2,000-year history of eunuchs displays a knife that was used in castration.

    The etymology of “eunuch” is the Greek word for “bed keeper.” Young boys’ penises and testicles were castrated before they were sent to serve in royal and aristocratic families as slaves – the practice was meant to ensure there was no chance of them sleeping with female members of the household or concubines.

    Records of eunuchs have been found in ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome, Turkey and Persia, but none of the other countries maintained the system for long. But the practice lasted for thousands of years in China.

    It’s hard to trace when exactly the first eunuch appeared in China, but the museum shows a picture of an oracle bone inscribed with the hieroglyphic word that means "eunuch" – a penis-shaped character with a blade right next to it. Hieroglyphics evolved during the Shang and Zhou dynasties (17th century B.C.-256 B.C.), but it wasn’t until the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 A.D-220 A.D.) that only castrated men were allowed to serve in royal families.

    The system of eunuchs reached its zenith in China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) when eunuchs became the de facto rulers who controlled the imperial power and founded their own political parties and secret police. In the late Ming-era court officials even had to bribe the sterilized men to get access to the emperor.

    Zhu Youjian, the 16th and the last emperor of Ming Dynasty, had more than 100,000 eunuchs during his rule. The eunuch clique was so powerful, yet corrupt, that when Li Zicheng, the leader of an uprising during the late Ming dynasty, finally conquered the capital city, he kicked out all the eunuchs.

    The museum lists all of the best-known eunuchs in one exhibit room, of which the most famous is probably Zheng He (1371-1433), the mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and East Africa. His travels were later remembered outside China as “Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean.” The list of luminary eunuchs also includes Cai Lun (60-121), who is revered in China as the inventor of paper.

    Cruelest cut
    The most chilling and vivid display room shows the actual process of castration. A life-size diorama shows a young boy lying on a bed with his limbs tied down while three other men – one holding a simple apparatus like a knife, the other holding the boy’s legs, and one performing the surgery – conduct the operation without any anesthesia.

    The patients would stay in bed for months after the surgery until they could finally move again, others simply died in pain.

    Bo Gu, NBC News

    The tomb for the high-ranking eunuch Tian Yi sits right next to the museum.

    The penis and testicles, after being removed, were usually carefully wrapped up, put in a fine case and hung up on a roof beam in the boy’s house. They would eventually be buried together with the body when the man died, following the Chinese tradition of “dying a full-body death.”

    Some of the other museum displays show nicely sculptured tombstones, silk outfits senior eunuchs used to wear and a mummy excavated from nearby.

    One corner is devoted to Sun Yaoting, who served the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty and his concubines. Sun died at 94 years old in 1996; “The Last Eunuch of China” is a book about his life.

    Losing a man’s most important organ was never easy, which may explain why so many eunuchs donated the bulk of their money to Buddhist or Taoist temples in order to secure a different – and complete – afterlife.

  • In China, citizens find ways to learn of Nobel prize

    By NBC News’ Eric Baculinao and Bo Gu

    BEIJING – The news that jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize created a lot of excitement among the foreign media here.

    One of their first ports of call Friday was a housing compound in a back alley near China’s Ministry of National Defense in the western part of Beijing, hoping to see and hear from his wife, Liu Xia.

    Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images

    Near the China Liason Office in Hong Kong, where Chinese residents have greater freedom of speech than mainland China, protestors celebrate Liu Xiaobo being awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

    But after a couple of hours of waiting – and some scuffles with Chinese security personnel – it dawned on the crowd that there would be no appearance by Liu Xia. “No, she cannot come out,” said, Liu Xiaoquan, Liu Xiabo’s younger brother, a hint that authorities were taking preventive measures.

    Which, indeed, they did. After several hours of a semi-standoff, Liu Xia was taken from her home by plainclothes police officers.

    “They are forcing me to leave Beijing," she told Reuters during a phone interview as plainclothes police waited for her outside.

    Preventive measure also were being taken by the government-controlled media.

    China Central TV’s 7 p.m. national newscast reported on Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s trip to Europe, the status of China’s eleventh iteration of the “Five-Year-Plan” for the economy (the first version began after the revolution in 1949) and the successful artificial insemination of a panda that lead to the birth of two panda cubs in Spain – but not a word on Liu Xiaobo was mentioned.

    Actually, up until Friday, many Chinese people had never even heard Liu Xiaobo’s name before – because his political writings are considered to be subversive by the government, his name has long been censored from the media.

    Soon after the Nobel announcement, major Chinese Web portals like Sina, Netease and Sohu all redirected their previous special reports on this week’s Nobel prizes to their homepages or simply displayed a message saying “deleted.” And reports on the Peruvian writer Vargas Llosa winning the Nobel Literature Prize were demoted on web site homepages and buried among hundreds of other headlines. China Mobile users also found it impossible to send out any text messages mentioning “Liu Xiaobo.”

    Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV did report on the award, but in the context of the foreign ministry’s condemnation of the honor.

    And broadcasts of CNN and BBC, which are usually available in upscale hotels and places where foreigners gather, were blacked out when the Nobel announcement was made and during subsequent reports on the award.

    ‘Finally this day has arrived!’
    Despite the government-controlled media blackout, the Chinese blogosphere and microblogs still exploded with excitement as soon as the news came out that Liu had been awarded the prize.

    On Twitter, the popular web site that can only be accessed via proxy servers in China, it seemed like almost every tweet was about Liu winning the honor.
    “I’m in ecstasy,” wrote Wang Dan, a prominent student leader at the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 who now lives in the U.S. “Finally this day has arrived!”

    Reports on dinner celebrations and firecrackers popping in major cities spread online and there were more than a few tweets from people saying they had shed tears in exhilaration at the news.

    There were also sarcastic comments making the rounds, too. “The Nobel Committee must be broke! So they are giving the award to someone who cannot come to get his money!” or “Congratulations to Chinese judges who sent Liu Xiaobo to prison! They just won the Nobel Shame Prize!”

    Outside the Twitter world, under the surveillance of the government’s censorship, Netizens still found ways to express joy and anger about the government’s response to the award. One person wrote, “Good new, good news, Chinese! You know what I mean!”

    And on Douban.com, another popular Chinese Web portal, a user named “Chengcheng” simply posted links to reports on the win from the world’s major newspapers with Liu Xiaobo’s photo and wrote, “He’s in the headlines of all these media” without writing Liu’s name.

    His post was followed by comments from other users who didn’t mention Liu’s name, but pointed out the constant struggle with censorship. “Yeah he’s on headlines of English media, but not on Chinese ones,” one person wrote. Another wrote, “Last year everyone talked about Obama winning Nobel, this year…nothing.”

    Another stop in a long journey
    The prize was clearly a big boost for China’s dissident community, which has been largely harassed and marginalized by China’s economic achievements and dramatic rise on the global stage.

    Qi Zhiyong, who lost a limb during the 1989 armed crackdown at Tiananmen Square, said the prize was “a confirmation and promotion of Chinese struggle for democracy.” He quickly added, “but it also means we have to redouble our efforts to realize that day,” he said.

    Peking University professor Xia Yeliang, who co-signed the controversial Charter 08 manifesto that led to Liu’s imprisonment, boldly declared to a group of foreign journalists that “the one-party dictatorship will be ended within ten years.”

    For Liu himself, the prize marks the culmination of a long journey that began in the late spring of 1989. He cut short his fellowship at Columbia University in New York to join the historic pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen Square.

    The Tiananmen movement was “teaching China’s government on how to govern in the ways of democracy and rule of law,” he declared in a manifesto that led to a hunger strike in June 1989.

    Nearly 20 years later, he was still promoting the same message. “The awakening Chinese citizens increasingly recognize that freedom, equality and human rights are universal values and that democracy, a republic, and constitutionalism are the hallmarks of modern governance,” declared the Charter 08 manifesto that Liu helped compose in 2008. That document eventually led to an 11-year prison sentence.

    “He has never thought of giving up, and I cannot persuade him to stop,” his wife told NBC News before the news of the Nobel award.

    “You only have one life, so I let him do what he wants to do,” she added.

  • Historic enmity between China and Japan heats up

    By NBC News’ Bo Gu

    BEIJING – As the diplomatic dispute between China and Japan grows, Beijing is finding itself torn between pacifying angry nationalists and holding a hard line toward its Asian rival.

    The dispute was sparked over two weeks ago when a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol ships near uninhabited islands claimed by both nations, as well as Taiwan, in the East China Sea. Territorial disputes over the islands, which are said to be rich fishing grounds and may have oil and gas deposits, go back to the late 19th century.

    MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

    A Hong Kong activist stands in front of a Chinese flag as a group of activists sets sail on Wednesday for the disputed island chain in the East China Sea, amid an escalating row between China and Japan over the territory.

    After the latest incident, Japan arrested the Chinese boat’s captain on suspicion of deliberately ramming the Japanese vessels and has refused to release him.

    The diplomatic scuffle extended to New York this week when China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said he would not meet with Japanese leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations gathering.

    But while Beijing continues to ratchet up the diplomatic dispute, there are concerns about revving-up too much anti-Japanese sentiment at home.

    Anger spills into streets
    Given historic enmity, anger over the territorial dispute has already started taken on a life of its own in China.

    On Sept. 18, a day remembered as the anniversary the Japan’s invasion of China 79 years ago (an early event in the Sino-Japanese conflict that eventually lead to full-blown war in 1937), dozens of Chinese demonstrators rallied outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and marched to the Chinese foreign ministry.

    The protesters carried banners and chanted nationalistic slogans like, "Japanese, get the hell out of Diaoyu Islands!" and “Boycott Japanese goods!”

    In China, protests are technically legal, but only with police consent, which makes public demonstration a rare phenomenon. The last open mass protest happened in 2005, also against Japan on the same issue.

    However, out of fear that any public protest could turn chaotic or veer into anti-government rhetoric, the Chinese authorities kept the demonstration low-key and police confiscated the protestors’ banners. The China Federation of Defending Diaoyu Islands, an association focusing on researching and protecting the territory rights of the islands, denied it was involved in the protest, but its website was quickly blocked.

    ‘Let’s stage a war against Japan!’
    Still, the Chinese authorities have not been able to control the wave of anger against Japan that has spread across the Internet.

    On the popular Strong Nation Forum hosted by the People’s Daily (one of China’s biggest official newspapers), the diplomatic dispute is the most viewed news event. It also has generated comments by legions of outraged Chinese Netizens – some even proposing war.

    "Why is there no Chinese military stationed on the islands?" is a frequent question. It provokes answers like, "Let’s stage a war against Japan! I’ll sacrifice my life to protect our country’s dignity."

    Some have expressed the wish that Chairman Mao was still alive, arguing that he would send out troops right away. Others have called for a boycott of Japanese products and a ban on tours to Japan. (Ironically, Japan recently claimed it would ease the visa application procedure for Chinese tourists, who have become the top consumers among travelers from all over the world).

    ‘Nationalism is very dangerous’
    Still, given the history between China and Japan, there are fears that the nationalist fervor could become combustible.

    "Nationalism is very dangerous. People do have the right to demonstrate, but nationalism is different from patriotism, especially when the war legacy still overhangs from World War II," said Victor Gao, a well-known commentator based in Beijing. "We do not need to sensationalize the situation, and there’s no need to throw out nationalism. This is not doing any good to either party, China or Japan."

    Gao believes the capture and arrest of the fishing trawler captain has more to do with Japan’s domestic politics and was a gesture directed at its own people in the midst of another one of Japan’s frequent cabinet shuffles.

    "If I was to advise the Japanese government, they could just use any humanitarian excuse to release the captain very soon. I don’t think anyone will gain anything from this. Neither wants to have a war."

  • Chinese get their byte at Apple's iPad

    By NBC News' Bo Gu

    BEIJING – Ma Li and Wang Quan were welcomed with cordial applause and a chorus of “iPad! iPad!” by staffers dressed in blue Apple shirts when they walked into the Apple store here Friday morning. The married couple, both scientists, had just waited in the rain for about 40 minutes to become a few of the first official iPad owners in China.

    “We’re buying an iPad as my birthday gift,” said Ma Li with a content smile on her face. “We came here as early as 8 a.m. because we were afraid the iPads would be sold out. We are not hard-core Apple fans, but I believe in their products. They are just such perfect combination of
    art and technology.”

    AP Photo

    Customer Han Ziwen holds up his iPad while being carried out by store employees at the Apple flagship store in Beijing on Friday. Han is one of the first customers to officially buy one of Apple's iPads in the Chinese mainland.

    Friday’s iPad launch was much simpler than the iPhone release a year ago that featured long speeches by executives and a red-carpet walk by movie celebrities. But it was still carefully engineered – every customer was greeted by “iPad! iPad!” cheers courtesy of the store’s enthusiastic employees when they walked in and out.

    Still a luxury
    The 16-gigabyte iPad, now on sale for about $590 in 18 cities in China (18 percent more expensive than in the U.S.), is still a luxury product in a country where the average annual income is about $3,800. People living in Beijing and other major cities are better off than the rest of China, but the line in front of Apple store was far shorter than what you might see in New York or London. Smuggled iPhones and iPads have been available in Beijing’s electronic markets for some time, but only the fervent admirers could afford them.

    Bo Gu/NBC News

    Employees at Apple's flagship store in Beijing line up to cheer customers coming in to buy the newly released iPad on Friday.

    Wu Rui, a management major at Capital Normal University, waited 80 minutes before he finally bought his iPad. As a young student, the English operation system is not a problem for him and he thinks the product is well worth the $590. “It’s very meaningful for me to buy an iPad on its first day of sale in China, and I’d love to recommend it to friends after I try it out. I just like the product.”

    China Unicom, Apple’s sole partner in China, also started taking reservations for the iPhone 4, but without notifying buyers when the newest iPhone model would become available.

    Apple introduced the iPad to the Chinese market just five months after it launched in the U.S. That was much faster than the release of the iPhone here when there was a two-year interval between the two events.

    AP Photo/Andy Wong

    A Chinese man looks aside while people line up in the rain to buy the iPad at Apple's flagship store in Beijing during the launch of the device on Friday.

    Muted response
    Despite the hoopla at the Beijing store, there wasn’t much attention paid to Apple’s new gadget release on China’s blogosphere. On most of the major Web portals, there were only a few comments made about the release – but there were a lot of complaints over its high cost and slow Internet speed.

    “This is so sad. China has one of the lowest per capita GDP in the world, but the most expensive products,” said a user on a popular Website QQ.com. Other posts mainly concentrated on comparing services between China Unicom and China Mobile, the two biggest mobile service providers in China.

    Nevertheless, about an hour after the first buyer walked into the Apple store in Sanlitun Village in Beijing – one of the only two Apple stores in China – dozens of other iPad lovers were still patiently standing outside under umbrellas in the rain waiting to be called in.

  • Chinese workers unite -- to exercise again

    By Bo Gu, NBC News

    BEIJING – I always hated mass exercises. I had to do them every school day for 15 years.

    It seemed worse when I was in middle school, between the ages of 13 to 18. Every school day after our “morning study session” the loudspeaker blared the ear-piercing “Athletes March.”

    That was the signal for all the students to run out to the soccer field, in all kinds of weather. Wearing the same uniforms, we gathered in long lines and did the exact same dance moves together for five minutes before returning to our classes.

    Bo Gu/ NBC News

    People gathered in Beijing’s Celestial Palace Aug. 10 for the re-launch of mandatory group exercises for state workers.

    The mass exercises, coordinated by radio broadcasts, were first introduced under Mao in 1951. They continued for decades, but were suspended in 2007 so that Beijing Sports Radio could spend more time covering preparations for the 2008 Olympics.

    But as China continues to develop and modernize, there are now growing concerns that the population is becoming sedentary and unhealthy.

    So the mass exercises are making a comeback.

    Collective exercise is ‘more lively’
    If a plan put forward by the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions is adopted, it will be compulsory for all state-owned enterprises to do on-the-job calisthenics twice a day in Beijing by 2011. In addition, 70 percent of civil servants and at least 60 percent of all employees in Beijing will be expected to practice the daily exercises, according to China Daily.

    Yu Junsheng, vice-chairman of the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, explained the goal of the mass exercise movement to China Daily.

    "Any exercise done by an individual can be tedious and boring. To do exercise with other people makes the atmosphere more lively and employees can take the opportunity to talk to each other,” said Yu."Through collective activity, people feel more relaxed and have greater efficiency at work. That's why we want to resume the fitness activity."

    So now every day at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Radio Exercise Set No. 8 will be broadcast on “Beijing Sports Radio.”

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    ‘Great leader Chairman Mao taught us’
    The resurgence of the exercises brings me back to my youth. As a teenager I hated two things: following orders and being exactly the same as others. The mass exercises are a perfect combination of the two. I was overjoyed at the last year of my college time when we finally were not forced to do it anymore.

    The twice-a-day outdoor mass calisthenics weren't the whole story. We had to do eye-exercises once a day too. The eye exercise could be done while students were sitting on their seats. We were told to rub facial acupuncture points around our eyes for a few minutes.

    The eye exercises always started with loud music from the loudspeakers that began with a very enthusiastic female voice: “Great leader Chairman Mao taught us, let’s protect our eyesight for the sake of revolution by doing eye exercises…”

    While rubbing cheeks might not be scientifically proven to help eye vision, outdoor activities twice a day may not a bad idea for you. The problem is nobody took it seriously.

    My girlfriends and I ran to the soccer field every day, jumping and waving when teachers passed by. Once they were gone, we stopped to chat and check out cute boys from other classes. None of us ever showed any interest in doing exercises together. Now I doubt people would be any more passionate ten years later.

    Early this week we went to film the launch ceremony at the Celestial Temple in Beijing for the return of the group exercises.

    The event showcased about 3,000 people, including government officials and celebrities. Everyone was so blissful and told us it would be a great thing for citizens to improve their health.

    As I heard the officials saying they hoped to mobilize 4 million workers to do the exercises together, I couldn’t help thinking: China is probably the only country in the world that could get so many people to march and dance at the same time.

    Oh wait, there’s another place that would well beat China – North Korea. Its Arirang Festival features thousands of young students doing synchronized gymnastic movements in Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium daily from August 1 until early October.

    Not sure China can beat that.

  • Doggie dye jobs? They'll never tell

    By NBC News' Bo Gu

    BEIJING – As Beijing’s population of 22 million people continues to grow, another population is also on the rise: dogs.

    Beijing Public Security reports that in recent years there has been a growth rate of about 100,000 dogs a year. By mid-2010 the total number of dogs registered with the Beijing police was around 900,000 – but of course, that doesn’t take into account all the unregistered dogs.

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    Along with the burgeoning dog ownership, the market for veterinary care – as well as dog grooming - has catapulted. And as the middle class is willing to spend more on their pets, a unique service has become the newest fashion trend: dyeing dogs’ fur.

    The dogs – mostly white-haired chow-chows, poodles, and bichon frises – are often dyed to look like other animals such as pandas, donkeys, raccoons. Or they simply have their ears and tails dyed in bright colors.

    Photo courtesy of Jianwen Pet Beautician School

    A dog who had a tough guy look painted on him – down to the toe nails.

    We visited the Jianwen Pet Beautician School in northern Beijing and watched a white poodle named Laifu get his coiffure colored.

    After being styled to have a carrot-orange tail and a red Chinese shirt, Laifu’s dog-fashion obsessed owner wanted to have a pair of blue-green-yellow butterfly wings painted on his back.

    Laifu cooperated well, standing there for a few hours without barking or showing any sign of pain. He’s probably used to it.

    Check out more dogs getting dye jobs in this video above.

    And watch NBC’s TODAY Show anchors discuss the trend in a recent segment:
    Tiger or terrier? Chinese transform dogs with dyes

  • Protesters: 'Say no to Mandarin!'

    By Bo Gu, NBC News

    BEIJING –"Say no to Mandarin!" thousands chanted in Cantonese in a busy district of Guangzhou, capital of China’s southern Guangdong province, Sunday afternoon.　

    Residents of southern China have long been known for being vocal about their opinions – from mass protests against a local chemical plant in Fujian province three years ago to a series of strikes by migrant workers calling for higher wages in Guangdong earlier this year.

    But Sunday’s protest was unique – Guangzhou citizens were walking in the street to protect their native language:Cantonese.

    It was sparked by an announcement earlier this month by the local China People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body, encouraging the local government to promote Mandarin language content on Guangzhou’s prime time TV news programs.

    With Cantonese serving as the primary language in Guangdong province, as well as Hong Kong and Macao, it’s spoken not just by millions locally, but also by millions of Chinese emigrants around the globe.

    Dialect equals identity
    Mandarin, China’s official language, is based mainly on northern dialects, primarily, the Beijing dialect. It was not adopted as the country’s national language until the1950s, when the fledgling Communist government took power and began to enforce it as the standard language to be used in education, media and by the government.　

    But in a country as large and geographically diverse as China, promoting one standard dialect has been no easy task. It’s not uncommon for villagers living just 30 miles away from each other to speak different dialects – particularly in the south where the mountainous terrain helped lead to linguistic differences.　

    Many people living in southern China have been speaking local dialects for centuries – the only time they even hear Mandarin is when they watch TV or listen to radio (assuming they watch or listen to either). As a result, the central government has gone to great lengths to try to unify what people speak.

    "When I was in elementary school 11 years ago, we were not allowed to speak any Cantonese," said a native Guangzhou girl who spoke to NBC News by phone and asked to be identified by her Internet chat room alias, Yinghuochong.　

    "We were only allowed to speak Mandarin in the school, otherwise your daily achievement score would be deducted by teachers. They say it’s not civilized to speak Cantonese. I don’t understand. Why is it so civilized to speak Mandarin? What about English? Is it more civilized to speak English then?" said Yinghuochong.

    Yinghuochong was not the only one angry about the CPPCC’s proposal. She joined thousands of other young people, mostly in their 20s, wearing white tee-shirts that said "I love Guangzhou" as they walked through the city’s streets to show their support for their dialect.

    "Support Cantonese!" "Let’s speak Cantonese!" "Say no to Mandarin!" were a few of the slogans shouted out by the crowds.

    The march reached a climax when a chorus of protesters sang "Glorious Time," a hit song by the former Hong Kong band Beyond, in Cantonese.　 　

    "Among dozens of the TV channels we can receive, only five or six are Cantonese channels. They are for people like my mom, who doesn’t speak Mandarin at all. She doesn’t have many options when she watches TV," said Yinghuochong. "This is just not necessary at all."

    Su Zhijia, the deputy mayor of Guangzhou, denied that Guangzhou TV was planning to switch from broadcasting in Cantonese to Mandarin. In an interview with a local media he stressed that "the government has never thought about doing anything to weaken Cantonese."

    Su also argued that promoting Mandarin doesn’t necessarily mean Cantonese has to be eliminated. But his promises didn’t seem to calm the doubts and complaints from many Guangzhou citizens.

    A form of ‘cultural deprivation’
    Michael Anti, an active blogger and analyst, explained why he believes Cantonese is so symbolic in this region, which is one of just two places in China that is still permitted to broadcast television in its own dialect; the other is Shanghai.

    "The official promotion of Mandarin is a sort of cultural deprivation," Anti said. "The majority of the protesters are young people, who cannot afford to buy any property in this weak economic environment. They already feel economically disadvantaged and now they are more afraid of losing what they are proud of."

    And the outrage over the Mandarin proposal is not limited to the activists marching last weekend. The CPPCC’s web site sponsored an online survey asking respondents if they should add more Mandarin TV programs. The survey received a resounding "No" from 80 percent of respondents. The overwhelmingly negative results quickly became a major point of discussion in the blogosphere and on Internet chat rooms. 　

    "Shame on a city without dialect," said Feng Xincheng, an editor of a magazine based in Guangzhou. "Save Cantonese!" soon turned into the most used slogans on many microblogs.

    Despite the outpouring, Yinghuochong is still worried. "The last time when 80 percent of people surveyed voted ‘No’ the CPPCC still said people needed to be guided. We only have one purpose: We don’t want them to crack down on Cantonese."

  • Suspicious shutdowns of Chinese microblogs

    By NBC News’ Bo Gu

    BEIJING – For Chinese Internet users frustrated by the government blocking of Western social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the best way to communicate has been on microblogging services via major Chinese Web portals like Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Tencent.

    Microblogging – short, punchy, Twitter-like posts that can be as brief as a sentence – has become an increasingly popular way to communicate. That is, until now.

    There has been a sudden spate of temporary shutdowns of blogs in the name of "maintenance" – which many suspect is just another example of the government cracking down on the flow of information.

    ‘Sorry,’ no Internet today
    It started with the microblogging service on the Chinese site, Sohu.com, which suddenly became inaccessible last Friday night and recovered service early Monday morning.

    On Tuesday, NetEase.com, another microblogging site, had a notice saying, "Sorry, we are currently undergoing maintenance."

    NetEase restored its service Thursday afternoon with its official notice "We have finished upgrading the system." But users discovered that the site’s old search function had disappeared.

    The microblogging services on two other popular portals, Sina.com and Tencent.com, were not shut down. But a "beta" logo is appearing on both of their microblogging front pages, which means they are testing the service.　　

    The shutdowns come just as the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center released a report saying the number of Chinese Internet users reached 420 million at the end of June.

    The speed at which Internet use is growing has made it more challenging for the government to monitor what people say and read online every day.

    Early last year the Ministry of Industrial Information ordered that so-called "Green Dam" software be installed on all personal computers in China. The government said the software was meant to block websites considered inappropriate or harmful to users. But there was such an outcry from China’s netizens that the government was forced to abort the plan. And more recently, Google pulled out of China briefly due to a dispute over censorship of search results. The U.S. technology giant resumed business on the mainland this month after Beijing renewed its license.

    None of these major portals’ spokesmen or editors has confirmed whether the government is behind the current spree of unexpected glitches.

    The explanations given were either "system maintenance" or "upgrading," although the simultaneous timing is highly suspicious.

    Bloggers still get word out
    Gaoming, a Chinese tweeter, wrote on Twitter.com about the shutdowns. "All major domestic microblogging services have stopped their URL link functions. You can’t find any links on theses websites anymore." (Sophisticated Internet users have been able to access Twitter and Facebook via proxy servers.)

    Another tweeter and popular commentator, Wen Yunchao, wrote, "Internet control policy in China can be concluded in one sentence: Trying as hard as possible to stop the spread of information."

    But, despite the turmoil, Lian Yue, one of China’s most popular bloggers and a microblogger on both Sina and Tencent, said he’s still optimistic about the future of microblogs in the country.

    "The government will definitely tighten their control over microblogging, but I don’t think they’ll completely shut them down," said Lian. "It’s hard to dig out the real reason behind this temporary shutdown, but it could be related to the change of the way information spread. Microblogging speeded up the information flow, but information censorship has always been there."

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