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What if the BP spill had happened in China?

I read many things and enjoy them. I don’t read many things and say, man, I wish I had written that.

Man, I wish I had written this. Forbes Beijing Bureau chief (and fellow Sinica repeat-offender) Gady Epstein with a wicked what-if take on China and the BP oil spill:

Would BP’s CEO Have Been Executed In [...]

The lost apartment of Qin Shihuang: China-friendly version

What is it with YouKu this week? It’s like Kaiser leaves and the whole thing goes to pot. I tried three times to upload “Imagethief and the lost apartment of Qin Shihuang” to YouKu, which I’ve used in the past without any problem. Total failure with 188mb and 100mb versions of the file in .mov [...]

Imagethief and the lost apartment of Qin Shihuang

Recently Imagethief and family went to Xi’an for a weekend. As everyone does, we went to see the terracotta warriors. That was fine, but the real highlight of the trip was the apartment we stayed in, which was decorated top-to-bottom in replica terracotta warriors and had a working Chinese-style guillotine. But, hey, it also had [...]

An unpaid endorsement: CCSweets cupcakes

Imagethief has had a gnawing emptiness in his soul since homespun donut-maker Beijing Guilt packed it in a year or two ago. Our friend Maya brought a box of those donuts to us in the hospital when Zach was born, and I can taste them to this day. AmCare catered from Annie’s, which put its [...]

We were zombie hunters once... And young

Let Imagethief escort you into the wayback machine and take you back nearly three decades to the tumultuous and magical year of 1983…

A first-term Ronald Reagan is staring down the Evil Empire. M*A*S*H is coming to the end of its legendary run. American troops invade the island of Granada and win. Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, [...]

Sinica 13: The great China book round-up

After a few weeks out of the studio I rejoined Kaiser Kuo for the latest installment of the Sinica podcast. This week’s topic was a discussion of the best English language China books, and should be a good listen for anyone who wants to put together a China reading list or expand their current one. [...]

Poorly thought out adventures in commuting

In the grip of my darkest and most bourgeois moments I actually considered buying a car and hiring a driver. So, it’s come to this… I thought, as I hovered over a digital map of Beijing. I have to get one of those Buick vans. No matter how I traced the route or arranged the [...]

China’s soft-power push: Where’s the Internet?

A good post from Bill Bishop, aka @niubi, arguably the most indispensable China-Twitterer (who I hope forgives me for pigeonholing him this way). Bill points out that much of the recent discussion of China’s soft power strategy has focused on traditional media, and wonders where the new media strategy is:

There are no domestic [...]

Imagethief movie minute: Wolverines, oil wells and balls of marine brass

For sheer surreality you gotta love Hollywood. And I’m not even talking about the films. Two PR-worthy Hollywood moments to remark upon today. First, the imminent arrival of the needless remake of cold war teen action flick Red Dawn has finally caught the attention of the Chinese press. Western media are reporting that the chest-thumping [...]

Chinese Internet celebrities, forums and other lurid scandals

Two interesting articles today, both having to do with Chinese Internet culture, and both leading into an ethical question that came up in a conversation recently. The question was this: Is it OK to put out “viral” videos that embed brands or have some kind of commercial message, but not identify the company behind them [...]