Sinofile - Times Online - WBLG

Love or Commerce?

It's Chinese Valentine's Day. The idea was utterly unavoidable today, with headlines plastered across the front pages of major newspapers and web sites devoting acres of the ether to the event. Chinese Valentine's Day?

What has happened to the centuries-old legend of young star-crossed lovers? What of the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd who can meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month?

   

A Flash Too Far?

A complete unknown is causing a furore in China for a performance that could be styled China's Janet Jackson moment.

No, there was no nudity involved. But would-be singer Sun Yixin came pretty close to it on primetime television in the Chinese version of Pop Idol. The censors are unimpressed. In fitting with Communist Party processes, the cumbersomely named State Administration for Radio, Film and Television has launched an investigation.

The Sky High High Rise

New regulations out this week mean I could buy my own home in Beijing. These rules are specific to foreigners and seem to be part of a series of measures to try to cool the property market in China.

How effective can all these measure be? Is China seeing a property bubble? Or is it just encountering the consequences of decades of pent-up demand and years of saving?

The Little Red Envelope

The Times office in Beijing is a simple, modest place. We don't have telephones that show incoming numbers and so the identity of callers is always a surprise. Rather refreshing in an age when my mobile shows the names of most of those who want to get in touch.

Today's surprise was a call from the Red Envelope Fairy.

Jade, Smog and Many Bungling Villains

If a cinema near you were to show Crazy Stone, do go and see it. Or at least make do with the DVD.

I confess it's been some time since I paid several times the price of a DVD in China to go to the movies. But this experience was worth it.

Ocean of Wisdom, Ocean of Faithful

I had thought after a historic train journey to the Roof of the World that I probably would not write about things Tibetan for quite some time. Events have all too soon overtaken my intentions.

Or, rather, the power of rumour, the depth of Tibetan Buddhist faith and popular reverence for the Dalai Lama appear to be astonishing. I have been back and forth to Tibet, and to those places where ethnic Tibetans live, for about 20 years. But never have I heard of thousand upon thousand of pilgrims converging on a single monastery-cum-temple purely on a rumour that the exiled monk had returned.

No Foreigners or Furniture Lovers

Things Chinese loom large on my horizon once again.

Outflows, for example. Outflows of Han Chinese in tour groups to visit the Tibetan plateau. Or outflows of every product the world desires -- games, toys, pearls, shoes, designed clothes and pretty much everything that Wal-Mart sells -- from Chinese shores. But there is an item that a couple of traders are hoping will not reach foreign shores, let alone foreign hands.

Retail Therapy on the Roof of the World

It's quite a shock the system to return to the low altitudes of Beijing after the lofty heights of Lhasa. To a city of steaming humidity after Tibet's clear dry air, and to streets filled with the bustle of modern life and without Buddhist faithful streaming around the temples on pilgrimages.

Fortunately, I did not return empty-handed. The shopping isn't bad on the Roof of the World.

The Octopus, the Pirate and the Naked Lady

China’s Johnny Depp fans are on tenterhooks. Will they see his latest release, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”, on the big screen? Or must they wait for the pirate DVD of the latest pirate swashbuckler?

It all depends on whether the movie that smashed box office records when it opened to U.S. audiences at the weekend sails into the same rough seas encountered by several recent Hollywood blockbusters deemed unsuitable for Chinese audiences.

Nuns, Nomads and Nightlife

A study in contrasts should be expected on the Roof of the World. I could talk about the weather, how my day began in the truckstop town of Nagchu at 4,500 metres in a light and chilly drizzle and ended in blazing sunshine and piercing light at about 3,200 metres in Lhasa.

Or I could mention a morning encounter with devout Buddhist nuns making a two-month pilgrimage and how the day ended with a tour of the Lhasa nightclubs and bars where young Tibetans and Chinese party until the early hours.

Old Tibet and New Lhasa.