Joyce - chitchat…

A sports car made of bricks is on display in a creative industrial park in Shanghai. [Photo: cnsphoto]

Hard to believe, but this mangled bus was still able to be driven nearly 400 kilometers before the unidentified driver (seen bundled up behind the wheel) was stopped by traffic police on November 23 on Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan Highway in Hebei Province.

The driver told police he was taking the vehicle to be repaired at a garage he could afford, rather than to a closer location.

Nonetheless he was told to have it towed to the nearest garage rather than continue his journey.

From Hebei Youth Daily

Recently several paper-cut works featuring images of World of Warcraft have been widespread on the Internet and attracted the attention of World of Warcraft players. They have never thought that the traditional Chinese craft could have such a prefect combination with the Western web game. Who is the big player of the paper-cut works? Surprisingly, the craftsman is not a player of ‘World of Warcraft’ as we’ve imagined, but a father of a World of Craft fan - Mr. Liao Weiping, a folk paper-cut artist in his fifties living in Pucheng County of Fujian Province, hometown of paper-cutting.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

World of Warcraft: Troll Hunter

World of Warcraft: Paladin Draenei

World of Warcraft: Night Elf Druid

Nicking board and tool

Nicking tool, apiculate and sharp

Slum Dunk, by Liao Weiping

Ice Age 3

Fuwa, mascot of 2008 Beijing Olympics

Stamps with the theme, “A red nation all over the country” during the Cultural Revolution were recently on show at a Hong Kong auction and were sold at high prices. One stamp, 60 mm x 40 mm alone was sold for HK$3.68 million, which broke the world record for the highest price for stamps at auction. Another six smaller ones, each measuring 30 mm x 40 mm each sold for over HK$2.9 million in one lot at auction.

Printed by the Beijing Stamp Printing Factory, the stamp had a face value of eight cents in renminbi. With the design of peasants and soldiers holding the book, Quotations from Chairman Mao, the background features red flags of Chinese Revolutionary Committees and crowds of peasants and soldiers’ marching triumphantly. The top of the stamp has a Chinese map in red. All the Chinese provinces are red except for Taiwan. The large version includes the words at the bottom, “Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution with complete victory!”

However, the stamps, which were issued November 25, 1968, were ordered suspended and archived because of the inaccuracy of the map, according to Wan Weisheng, the designer of the stamp.

It has been two months since I left Shanghai for Beijing, not long to be sure, but lengthy enough to make everything back home dear to a homesick woman.

I miss the zigzagging, bewildering streets and lanes of Shanghai, plus the subway stations deluged with hundreds of thousands of agitated commuters.

Oh, and then there is the humid weather and rain that ensure my outfits are always damp.

Above all, I miss the complaints I hear in almost every corner of the city.

In the subway, hot-tempered passengers blame each other for being pushed and shoved; in taxis, disgruntled drivers curse at the rush hour traffic; and in restaurants impatient customers reproach the waiter for not bringing their meals within five minutes.

But please do not misinterpret this image of Shanghai. For me, these complaints are proof of life in the fast-moving metropolis and the motivation behind much improvement in the city.

Here in Beijing I don’t hear these sorts of complaints that often.

You may disagree. But consider this: Shanghai is the first city in China to effectively diverge passenger flow at subway stations by opening up doors on both sides of the buses.

While the ingenuity demonstrated by local traffic departments is admirable, I am more inclined to believe that in Shanghai it is the complaints that have made the city more efficient.

While Beijingers grumble about bad traffic and overcrowded subways, they are patient enough not to push to get on and off transport.

If the train or bus is full, a Beijinger appears to be more inclined to wait for the next train whereas a person from Shanghai believes that saving time is worth the risk and would calculate that there is always room for one more.

This is not, of course, what proper manners instruct people to do. But for me, it explains why Beijing’s traffic management system is less efficient than that of Shanghai - it’s because people hear applause and not complaints.

Beijingers do like talking about politics, and voicing their concerns and having disagreements, but to me it seems more like a habit without any genuine belief in change.

This mentality is best reflected in the popular catchphrase in Beijing - “duo da shi’er a”, meaning there is nothing to be worried.

Even more interesting is the fact that I, after moving to Beijing, have unknowingly become more compliant, killing most of my grievances whereas in Shanghai I really could not spend a day away without lamenting job, life, and everything else.

Despite the fact that Beijing has a lot to offer - a challenging work environment, a greater variety of cultural events, and above all, a bigger playground for ambitious reporters - I love Shanghai more because I’m more used to whiners.

From China Daily

In Renshou county, Sichuan Province, a local man hailed as the “king of alcohol” is now forced to live in seclusion to fend off the numerous challengers constantly trying to dethrone him.

Yang Shaohua, 58, owner of a small restaurant, can stomach more liquor than any of his guests.

Over the past 40-odd years, he would “chain toast” with customers, consuming up to 5 jin (about 2.5 liters) of distilled spirits on a daily basis.

His famed capacity for the hard stuff has drawn many challengers.

“People from as far as Chongqing and Chengdu have come here to contest him,” said Yang’s daughter.

Overwhelmed by the waves of competitors, Yang was recently sent to live in the countryside, resorting to a sequestered vacation to avoid the mounting number of challenges.

“It’s not that I’m afraid of my challengers,” Yang explained, “but over-drinking is bad for my health.”

From West China City Daily

wedding at the 'battle field'

Groom Chen He and his bride Feng Jiejin kiss on a “battlefield” during their special wedding ceremony which held in Nanjing City. Hundreds of couples got married on that day as the number nine means “everlasting” in Chinese. People believe that the number ensures longevity and everlasting love.

A Chinese bride dressed in a 2,162-meter-long wedding gown handmade by her groom’s family on her wedding day Thursday in northeast China’s Jilin Province.

More than 200 wedding guests took more than three hours to completely unroll the wedding train, and pin 9,999 red roses made of silk on the wedding train Thursday morning, before the bride put on the dress.

The plan was elaborated by the groom Zhao Peng, a 28-year-old railway worker, as he wanted to challenge the current Guinness World Record of a wedding dress of 1,579 meters long.

He said he has sent an application to the London-based Guinness World Record through its official Web site, and would send the wedding video to the Guinness headquarters.

“Both the length of the dress and the number silk roses pinned on the wedding dress can make history. But it doesn’t matter whether I can successfully register it on Guinness,” said the groom.

Zhao first made public of the dress August 1 in the same park, and measured the length in front of journalists from 13 Chinese newspapers, radio and TV stations.

After the wedding Thursday, he cut the dress to 1,984.1,022 meters, the number of his bride’s birthday.

“I also had 608 crystals stitched on the dress train in memory of our608 dating days, starting from the first time I met with her,” he said.

The 25-year-old bride, Lin Rong, who is a school teacher, laughed and cried at the romantic gesture.

Zhao said he was actually inspired by the world’s record of the longest wedding dress made in Romania in April when he planned his wedding.

“I do not want a cliche wedding parade or banquet,” said the groom, “nor can I afford the extravagance of a hot balloon wedding.”

He bought the materials and asked his relatives for help in making the wedding dress by hand, which has taken three months to finish, and cost him some 40,000 yuan ($5,856).

But when he first came out with the idea, it was strongly opposed by his family.

“It is a waste of money in my opinion,” said Zhao’s mother. “Though I understand that he wants to show his love on the big day.”

Zhao finally persuaded the whole family. His aunt, a dressmaker, agreed to make the design. Other family members helped search for wedding information, select dress patterns, buy the materials, do lacework, make the silk roses and stitch crystals on the dress.

Two cheat sheets apparently used to ensure passing marks for Imperial examinations during the Qing Dynasty (1644—1911) have recently come to light. One is a silk “book” with 32 pages with 32 million Chinese characters. Based on its size and content, experts from the Hainan Province Collectors Association identified it as a prompter used by an insecure examinee for the imperial examinations in the mid-Qing Dynasty. Imperial examinations determined who would be permitted to enter the State’s bureaucracy. The “book” consists of a roll of white silk cloth each measuring 23 centimeters wide, 41 centimeters long. The sheets are full of tiny Chinese characters that resemble grains of rice and include passages from Chinese classics such as The 24 Histories, Analects of Confucius and The Great Learning.

The second ancient cheat sheet is being touted as “the smallest book found in East China” and was reportedly found in Qingdao, Shandong Province. It belongs to a man surnamed Xu who brought it to be evaluated at an antique evaluation event in Qingdao on July 5.

The 160-page tiny book is 6.5 centimeters long and 4.3 centimeters wide and can fit in a match box. It has 140,000 characters and like its silk counterpart contains copies of ancient Chinese literary works.

Apparently the youngest smoker in the world is two-year-old Tong Liangliang from Tianjin, who has a pack-a-day habit.

Tong Liangliang - the toddler smoker

Already, online social networks are abuzz with admonitions and sympathy making this story destined for the “news of the weird” (or as I view it, the “condescending look at the poor”) hall of fame.

But a closer look at this story provides a fascinating look at how news is transmitted from one place to another, and from one language to another. Read more…