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Look at the expression on the pearl ox and then ask yourself, where is the girl's right hand?   Because an ox figurine made with 130,000 pearls that conspicuously invokes the Wall Street ''bull'' statue doesn't seem, you know, vulgar or anything on the eve of a walloping recession. (By the way, the recession will be a real test of China's ...

I don't normally go for the straight Chinglish stuff, but this one is worth sharing. Via Language Log:   Full explanation at Language Log. A better translation of this might be, ''The world's biggest sporting celebration is about to burst forth!'' But even so, the copy writing is, shall we say, unfortunate. Hat tip: Bishop Joey

Snark goeth before the eating of a generous helping of crow. I owe Beijing an apology. On Thursday and Friday I lamented the return of Beijing's air pollution to what I assumed was status quo ante. But yesterday was one of those days --of which Beijing gets a mere handful each year-- that make you realize how time here erodes your standards for ...

From the ''you couldn't make it up'' department here in Imagethief Towers, an old-school China Daily gem:City gets tough on foreign jaywalkersBy Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is taking stern action against foreigners who break traffic rules, the public security bureau said Tuesday.It follows tough measures ...

This probably counts as an abuse of blogging, but for posterity, here is the stream of 40-odd tweets I posted during last Friday's opening ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. I've flipped them back into chronological order and removed the extraneous material (and some typos):Well, here we go. Good luck, Beijing! 7:52pm Alright. Gotta ...

Back when he lived in Singapore many of Imagethief's friends used to run with the Hash House Harriers, the ''drinking club with a running problem''. Imagethief, being a solitary, sober runner used to give that miss. But it did sound like a sloshing good time. Apparently there is a chapter here in Beijing as well, where, as we all know, a frosty ...

Imagethief likes to keep at least one bottle of good Scotch whiskey in the house at all times, in case of emergency. Like friends coming over. My last bottle, which I received for my 40th, way back last October, is finally down to the dregs (I don't drink much), and it was time for a fresh bottle. Since I was too lame to bring a bottle of ...

I'm not generally disposed to point to new blogs other than adding them to my blogroll because I assume you're all already reading Danwei and China Law Blog, both of which do that sort of thing much more regularly than I do. However in this case I'm going to add my own nod because I'm particularly intrigued by two new blogs. In full disclosure, ...

To look at the news surrounding China's recent announcement of a ban on thin plastic bags you'd think the gates to environmental heaven had just swung open. I'm sure I could see those very gates if the air outside my office windows wasn't full of nitrogen oxides and coal soot generated by the perma-gridlock on East Chang'an Ave. There are plenty ...

Yes, it's more fluorescent, green pigs. Details here (AP) and here (Xinhua). It used to be when you saw a green, glowing pig you automatically assumed a nuclear accident nearby. How times have changed. Naturally, this will all yield great benefits for science or agriculture:''This technology promises to breed excellent transgenic pigs and even ...