The China Blog Awards 2008 are on, and I’m holding a baby Panda hostage in order to get your votes.

Now, some of you may think I’m not serious, or that I’m bluffing. You may even suspect I’m pulling your leg somewhat, so in order to show you how wrong you are, here’s what’s been done to the little XiongMao already:

I’m not kidding around here. So just you get yourself over to Chinalyst and cast your vote for me. Or else.
Voting now open.

MyLaowai: defending Democracy; not practising it.

Cai Wu, China’s information minister, said at an event sponsored by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank, that international claims that his country tramples internet and media freedoms stem from a cultural misunderstanding of the role the press plays in Chinese society, where news media must work with the government.

In his view, Chinese websites “offer probably the freest forum for opinion in the world”. Hence, Mr Cai rejected the US State Department’s annual global human rights report which accuses China of clamping down on print, broadcast and electronic media and censoring internet content.

– RFC

Dear Top Gear,

You guys are great, you really are, and now I can honestly say that I’ve seen every episode up to the beginning of Season 11, thanks to illegal downloads. Well, you’d do it too, if you lived in China and were otherwise forced to watch endless repeats of China inventing the Olympics during the Tang Dynasty and winning WWII single-handed.

China… Hmmm… Did you know that Audi sell more cars here than in the US? Or that 4.7 million cars were sold here last year? All of which leaves me wondering why you don’t head over, under, or through the Bamboo Curtain for your next safari.

I mean, yes, the North Pole – very cool. Africa, the whole redneck USA experience – awesome. But it would be as nothing compared to the ‘roads’ here. China: 1.4 billion people, yet not a single capable driver. Ever. Surely that’s a record?

Don’t worry about challenges – the lads and I would have no trouble at all getting a short list together. Starting with being able to actually buy a car here and then be allowed to bring in anything as evil as a BBC television camera…

Give it some thought chaps, martini’s are on me.

MyLaowai
http://www.mylaowai.com

Police are seeking an Anhui man they believe is connected with a homicide in Shigatse, Tibet on 28 January 1989.

Authorities were called to a Shigatse residence around 2 a.m. There they found Choekyi Gyaltsena, the Tibetan Panchen Lama, dead from an alleged heart attack.

Police are looking for Hu Jintao (a.k.a. 胡锦涛; a.k.a. 胡錦濤), 66, in connection with the murder.

Investigators believe Hu was involved in a confrontation with Gyaltsena five days after he delivered a speech in Tibet in which he said: “Since liberation, there has certainly been development, but the price paid for this development has been greater than the gains”. That incident then escalated into the murder, police said.

According to the Police, “Hu told a friend at this time that he felt pessimistic about his future. It seemed that he had reached a dead end in his career and would never rise beyond the level of provincial Party secretary.”

Hu is described as a 5-foot-11-inch, 110-pound oriental male. He is charged with murder, use of poison in the commission of a murder, malicious wounding and use of poison in the commission of a malicious wounding.

Anyone with information about Hu’s whereabouts or who has information about the murder is asked to call Detective MyLaowai at 0800-MyLaowai

China Channel Firefox Add-on

Experience the censored Chinese internet at home!

The China Channel add-on for Firefox offers internet users outside China the opportunity to surf the web as if they were in China. Take an unforgettable virtual trip to China and experience the technical expertise of the Chinese Ministry of Information (supported by western companies). It’s open source, free and easy.

Click Here

Fall is here (Note for non-Americans: I would say “Autumn”, but really, “Fall” is a far more appropriate word in China). It’s official, and I know it because the Government has commanded it be so. But even without the Red Gods telling me, I’d ‘a’ know’d it. How? Read on…

Top Ten Signs Fall Hath Arrived:

1. The little leaves in the lovely trees have turned a slightly different shade of grey, and are now starting to fall off their delightfully grey branches. Nature is truly beautiful.

2. All the cats have now disappeared, and people are starting once again to enjoy ‘lamb’-onna-stick.

3. Each and every Chinese citizen has now switched to the obligatory minimum three layers of clothing. Seven layers for small children. Even though the temperature is the same as it was a month ago, when it was officially Summer and everyone was wearing summer clothing.

4. Every whore, slut, and ho in the country has begun wearing knee-length boots (boots by Fuk Mi).

5. In an effort to impress one another, bus passengers have begun covering up their collections of rare skin diseases for the winter, and bringing out their interesting coughs and phlegm gurgles instead.

6. Pickled rotting cabbage with garlic has become the standard by which all meals are measured.

7. Taxi drivers now start drinking the Baijiu at breakfast, an hour earlier than before.

8. Plans are being hatched all along the Eastern Seaboard, with the express aim of upsetting Westerners before the Christmas Season. Chances are that they will, as always, succeed only in driving said Westerners to further increase their consumption of alcoholic beverages.

9. Heaters are being switched on in office buildings all over the nation. Windows are being opened too, but that’s just for the sake of fresh air (Note: fresh air not required during summer).

10. With declining temperatures just around the corner, the air will soon lose some its’ characteristic stench of rotting *something*, which will be replaced with coal dust. Coal dust, as everybody knows, is a sure sign of “development” and “fashion”. It’s probably “very delicious in the world” as well.

Finally, a Public Service Announcement
From Laowai’s Who Take Public Transport:

AP is reporting on the recent mass deaths of animals due to melamine poisoning, as follows:

Some 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur have died after eating feed tainted with melamine, a veterinarian said Monday, raising questions about how widespread the industrial chemical is in China’s food chain.

…

The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to trim coats and other clothing — died of kidney failure after eating the tainted feed, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang Agriculture University.

“First, we found melamine in the dogs’ feed, and second, I found that 25 percent of the stones in the dogs’ kidneys were made up of melamine,” said Zhang, who performed a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs.

Well, seriously folks, what a shocker huh? I’m going to go out on a limb here, and predict that plenty of people will act surprised, the people involved will never be publicly questioned, and the Red Gods will eventually say that “We are now more confident to tell the public that animal feed and related products available in the market are safe”. Until the next time.

Boy howdy, what kind of a box must you have been living in, to be in any way surprised that the Chinese put poison in food? Or in toothpaste? Or lead in children’s toys? Or substandard parts in motor vehicles? Or recording devices in taxi cabs for crying out loud? What the hell did you expect?

Producers, regulators, inspectors, enforcers… All of them run by the CCP. Anyone else see a problem here?

The simple fact is, that the CCP is the largest criminal organisation in the history of the world, with their own private army numbering over two million, with nuclear weapons pointed at their neighbours, and with a large population of brainwashed serfs under their complete power. Why the hell should they care who suffers, as long as they get money and power?

[/rant]

Anyway, in other news, ChinaDaily is reporting that the terrible skin afflictions that have suddenly struck over a thousand farmers in Jianli county, Hubei province, were “caused by boll worms” and are “not related to vanadium [released illegally into the environment by factories with Party connections] according to tests done by the provincial health department“. Which is all well and good.

The media [boo! hiss!] had reported farmers started suffering from rash-like symptoms in March when local industrialists and those from nearby Hunan province opened plants to smelt vanadium, a highly profitable alloy element.

Some of the illegal plants had failed to install treatment facilities for gas emissions and wastewater.

What has seven letters, and is considered rude to your host?

(Hint: It’s an old swearword, invented by some uneducated carpenters somewhere in ZhongYuan, 5000 years ago).

Please send your answers to:

MyLaowai Seven Asterisks Competition
c/- MyLaowai AT Gmail DOT com

The first place winner will receive a week in China. Second place will win two weeks in China.