matsch's blog

The reputable Kaiser Kuo in a seminal talk on the case of the Internet in China:

UPDATE: Video now after the jump!

(Via: bTWEEN 08)

Interessantes Videointerview von Danwei mit drei Shanghaier Writern: Popil, Mr. Lan und HKer. Zum Schluß spielen noch 21 Grams aus Shanghai.

Bei den Related Videos gibt es noch mehrere zu entdecken...

(Via: Shanghaiist)

Für alle Liebhaber chinesischer Rockmusik sei an dieser Stelle nochmal auf den Online-Shop von Fly Fast Records hingewiesen, der, neben vielen anderen Werken, auch die neusten Alben von Carsick Cars, Snapline, Joyside und Hang on the Box anbietet. Daneben sind auch die Alben von Post-Punkern PK 14 und Folk-Hero Xiao He sehr zu empfehlen. Der Shop verschickt (mindestens) europaweit.

Shanghai Band Muscle Snog @ NOIShanghai X

NOIShanghai, die 10te Installation, in Foto und Video von Junky, dem Initiator der NOIShanghai Reihe und Frontmann der Harsh Noise Band Torturing Nurse (diesmal sogar bildhaft untermalt ).

Graffiti ist in Shanghai und ganz China immernoch ein selten gesehen Gast. Vor allem illegale Sprühereien sieht man fast gar keine. Der Rest ist auf irgendwelchen Werbeveranstaltungen, in Galerien und teilweise bei Musikveranstaltungen zu sehen.

In Shanghai sind jetzt erste Graffitis auf der U-Bahn aufgetaucht. Man kann nur hoffen das sich da schnellstmöglich was entwickelt...

Shanghai Metro

(Via: Shanghai Public Transportation blog)

With just over 400,000 people, Yanjin (zoom out) is a small city located in far-northern China on the North Korean boarder. But according to an article on Shanghaiist this little town has so much more to offer.

Yanjin -- China's beat-boxing epicenter: Tipped off from a 5-minute video of a Chinese youngster showing his incredible beat-boxing skills, multi-talented video editor Liu Feng ventured all the way from Shanghai to Yanjin to shoot the trailer above (and hopefully more!?) on this little town.

What he apparently found, was a city full of the beat-boxing spirit. Every school boy and girl seems to be practicing it and most of the people of Yanjin at least heard about the art of beat-boxing.

Another music clip-like video made by Liu Feng is shown below:

Cross posted to Rock in China bog

Azcheal, the main person behind the whole Rock in China-Universe, now established a non-commercial label on last.fm to promote the Chinese Rock scene to a broader audience. Many bands already joined the effort from the very beginning and are offering songs to listen and most of them are also download-able as mp3.

Bands who joined so far are Tookoo, Hang on the Box, Joyside, SMZB, Hollow, Reactor, The Noname, Dead J, The Fuck'ndrolls and Blood Funk. See the whole playlist here.

In Deutschland hat man ja schon vor einigen Tagen Gerüchte gehört, dass der DaimlerChrysler Konzern die Chrysler-Sparte eventuell doch wieder verkaufen möchte. Nun gibt es heute weitere Gerüchte, dass der größte chinesische Autohersteller FAW an Chrysler interessiert sei.

Das wäre, nachdem SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) schon von den Briten Rover abgeknüpft hat (oder so), der zweite große Coup für Chinas Automobilindustrie. SAIC hatte die Marke Rover damals in Roewe bzw. Rong Wei ("Wrong Way") in Chinesisch umbenannt. Ich bin schon Neugierig was sie sich bei Chrysler einfallen lassen würden.

Auch wenn ich die Übernahmechancen für FAW nicht sehr hoch einschätzen würde wäre das einfach zu geil, wenn die Chinesen jetzt auch noch Chrysler von den Amis übernehmen *haha*. Marc van der Chijs vergleichte es auch mit dem IBM-Lenovo-Deal in der PC-Branche...

Fons Tuinstra von China Herald sagt auch noch, dass FAW neben einigen anderen ein erfolgreiches Joint Venture mit VW und Audi für deren hochklässigere Wagen betreibt.

Warten wir ab was passiert.

Via: Marc van der Chijs' Shanghaied Weblog, China Herald

Yeah! Here it finally is - Re-TROS new music video from the song TV Show (Hang the Police) of their Cut Off! EP. It's quite a nice video as well.

Joyside

Endlich ist es soweit. Es kommen chinesische "Rockbands" nach Deutschland! Ok ok, es ist lange nicht das erste mal. Aber zumindest das erste mal, dass ich das miterleben darf *sigh*. (Siehe die Berichte hier und hier)

Joyside ist eine recht aktive und auch "kreative" Punkband aus Beijing. Der Sänger Bian Yuan macht auch Solo was. Man kann ihre Musik eindeutig in die Punk-Schublade stecken. Sie sind vor allem inspiriert von den Dead Boys, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols und den Stooges, was man auch an ihren Texten merken kann (wie z.B. in Drunk is beautiful). Zusammen mit Joyside kommt auch endlich der von Deutschen gedrehte Dokufilm Beijing Bubbles über die Band, sowie auch über Hang on the Box, New Pants und anderen Bands in die deutschsprachigen Kinos. Das ist ja so scheiße an Festival-Filmen, dass man sonst nie die Chance hat sie zu sehen... Joyside kommen übrigens am 21. April ins Kassa nach Jena (das einzige Datum was ich bis jetzt weiß).

SMZB

Eine nicht minder als Punkband zu bezeichnende Gruppe, die aber trotzdem eine ganze andere Kategorie darstellt, sind SMZB. Sie machen auch wieder auf Europa-Tournee in Deutschland halt. Da freue ich mich auch schon drauf. Ich hoffe nur sie stoppen irgendwo in einer "bequemen" Stadt für mich.

SMZB hingen ja immer in Shanghai rum (da sie aus Wuhan kommen, was nicht besonders weit entfernt ist). Aber irgendwie hab ich es nie geschafft, als sie mal live gespielt haben. Zu ihrer Record Release Party war ich gerade in Beijing. Schicksal...

Ich hoffe nur Joyside und SMZB ziehen noch andere hochkarätige Bands aus China nach sich. Subs, Re-TROS, P.K.14, TooKoo, Glorious Pharmacy und und und... wären da so ein paar meiner Favoriten.

(Click!)

There is a very nice episode on Current TV about the underground hip hop scene in Beijing. It features Beijing MC Young Kin competing against some Taiwanese guy in an MC Battle.

Check it out on Current TV: MC Beijing Battle

(Via: YouMeiTI 有媒体)

Cross posted to Rock in China blog

Pan Yue (潘鉞): An Apology to Manet; a re-creation of The Luncheon on the Grass (more at Fotomen.cn)

Via: Letters from China

After I first reported back in August 2006, when the New York Times Frugal Traveler hit China they finally published his adventures in the fair city of Shanghai.

Well, not much adventures taken on his weekend trip in Shanghai. Shanghaiist legitimately argues about the frugality of his journey as he was only dining in some of the more expensive restaurants in town - and not one Chinese...

Read more at the New York Times.

(Via: China Herald)

Loongson CPU

The People's Republic of China, namely the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has longtime developed their own CPU under the codename Godson or Loongson [2]. The first reports about these developments started in 2001 with the then called Fangzhou-1 processor [9].

The reason behind China's research in this field is mainly to become independent from foreign hardware manufacturers, which actually produce in China or Taiwan but none of this technology is owned by the country.

The economic powerhouse has long been dependent on expensive foreign microprocessors, which make up one of the few remaining areas the US' boasts an unarguable technology lead over Asian rivals. [6]

Recently, in September 2006, the newest version of the chip called Godson 2E or Longxin IIE was announced. It is a 64-bit MIPS III RISC processor designed to run at 1GHz and developed by the CAS. The performance was said to be equally to the Intel Pentium IV but with a much lower power consumption between 3 to 8 watts. The processor is 95% MIPS-compatible but is said not to use patented MIPS instructions and thus not to violating Intellectual Property regulations. Due to the fact that it is not based on the x86 architecture, Windows operating system will not run on the CPU and thus Linux and other UNIX's can be used.

What is quite interesting about the project is the speed of the development by the Chinese researchers.

On November 13, 2006, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Li Guojie announced to the public that "Godson 2E is ready for mass production. Li Guojie told the public that from Godson 1 to Godson 2B, the capability of the chip has tripled, and from Godson 2B to Godson 2C, from Godson 2C to Godson 2E, the capability has continuously tripled. On the average, the capability of Godson series chip doubles every year, four times of what Moore's law claims, and China should accumulate small successes into large success." [2]

Li Guojie also announced that at the end of 2006, scientists would start to upgrade Godson 2E to Godson 2F, which will improve performance by about 30% and power consumption reduced by about 50%. By 2008, Godson-3 is scheduled to enter production. [2]

Lemote Box

The newest development surrounding the Godson CPU is the so called Lemote Box or Fulong mini-PC [1], which entered production and is currently been shipped to 1000 test users. The Lemote Box is a 18 x 14 x 3.7cm small PC installed with the Godson 2E CPU running at 666MHz. The processor again works at only under 5-7W power (4.07W in a recent test) and the mini-PC uses laptop parts (i.e. memory and hard disk drive) and thus overall power consumption is very low.

The company Lemote produced only 1000 boxes for shipping, but in the first week after the announcement more than a 1000 orders came in. It is sold at CNY 1,599 (around 160 EUR / 200 USD) per unit excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse. Now with this boxes they encourage users to take part in the software development (mainly porting the OS and application software) and thus shipped the boxes to customers by their technical background.

"We wish all users carry forward the spirit of opensource community and we will appreciate any help." said by Lemote official.

They have a website and a BBS forum. The system shipped is either Debian GNU/Linux or some new-born Linux distribution called "OpenRays". There is a fairly long video showing the box running Debian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvoBf3hFCk

I don't know if their hardware development is somehow open source (since it's mainly a state-funded research project), but I do hope they can catch up and build an alternative to the AMDs and Intel's out there... China is the country, which maybe can do something against all the Intellectual Property craziness in the rest of the world. They are kind of on the verge of laying their path.

(Via: Virtual China)

Links:

• [1] My CPU Is Loongson(Godson)!!! blog
• [2] Godson/Loongson @ Wikipedia
• [3] 14.09.2006 - Reg Hardware (The Register): China's sub-£100 PC launches
• [4] 18.08.2006 - heise online: China plant Superrechner mit heimischen Prozessoren [de]
• [5] 17.03.2006 - heise online: Linux-Laptops fürs chinesische Hinterland [de]
• [6] 25.07.2005 - The Register: China's chip gaining GHz quickly - report
• [7] 11.12.2003 - heise online: AMD eröffnet in China Entwicklungszentrum für Thin Clients [de]
• [8] 07.03.2003 - heise online: 64-Bit-Prozessor aus China [de]
• [9] 15.07.2001 - heise online: Chinas erster 32-Bit-Prozessor [de]

Update: Glyn Moody from the Open... blog points out two reasons, why this news is interesting.

First, because the chip was designed and made entirely in China, making the country independent of Western chipmakers; and secondly, because as a non-standard chip architecture, the new chip can't run Windows. Which, means, almost inevitably, that it runs GNU/Linux. If China wants to be truly independent, free software is the quickest and easiest way to do it.

On Danwei I read an interesting anecdote about the statements on internet censorship in China by young Chinese working in a multi-national company in Beijing. Here are some of the reactions the author got, when recommending a new censorship circumvention tool:

Ignorance
Zhao: This site is for what?
Me: Accessing blocked Internet sites.
Zhao: There are blocked Internet sites? I never noticed that.

Apathy
Xu: Thanks, I'll check it out. But I don't really care about surfing blocked sites. I've got better things to do with my time.

Denial
Zheng: What do you mean, you can visit blocked sites with it? If you can visit them, they aren't blocked!
Me: No, the sites are blocked. You can't access them directly in China. This site enables you to access them indirectly, through their own server.
Zheng: Well, the government must know about this. And since they don't block Proxzee, it means there actually aren't any blocked sites. If you can visit them, they aren't blocked. Maybe the sites you think are blocked are just down from time to time. Maybe you don't have your browser settings right. Don't jump to conclusions.

Paranoia
Wei: Oh, no, no thanks. You must be kidding. If I get onto such a site, there's surely somebody monitoring it, watching every keystroke. This is bound to be some trick. I wouldn't use such site if I were you. This is just a sure-fire trap to find people who are visiting illegal sites.

Downplaying
Cao: Oh, great, thanks. But I don't think this is so useful nowadays. Sure, ten years ago it would have been helpful. But there are so few blocked sites these days, right? They just block the most radical or dangerous websites. Such fringe stuff doesn't interest me.
Me: Well, the BBC has been blocked. That's not exactly fringe stuff.
Cao: But you can get the same news on CNN or whatever, so what's the big loss? The BBC probably did something to piss the government off. I don't think this is such a big issue now.

Nationalism
Liu: What do you expect me to do with this? Get on a bunch of human rights sites that curse China? I already fully understand Western propaganda against China, I don't need to read any more of it. Thanks anyway.

Mild Interest
Du: Really? That's good to know. I haven't looked into this kind of thing, but I know that Internet censorship exists. I guess I could learn about a lot of things they don't tell us about. Thanks for the recommendation.

This is quite interesting. But on the other hand Chinese citizens know pretty well about the internal problems their country has, but they mostly dislike the high level of criticism mainly Westerners direct towards them - and it's almost only criticism they point out (me included at times).

It was also my experience, that they know about those situations but dislike "us" pointing them out to "them". I.e. when I was pointing out about the air being not so clean today again in Shanghai.

This is from a comment by Shan on the article, which goes in the same direction:

The responses to the anecdotal situation have next to nothing do do with the purported subject, ie. "blocked websites and apathy about same".

They have absolutely everything to do with the hypersensitivity to "criticism of my mother/father-land by damned furreners" that is exhibited, globally, by almost everyone.

I can discuss Australia's terrible record on Aboriginal issues with another Australian freely -- but hearing Australia criticised for same by foreigners, especially when they don't seem to be taking into account the painful steps the country has made, is almost unbearable.

To the topic at hand: I've heard Chinese citizens discussing internet censorship, the Yasukuni Shrine, and other issues maturely, freely and fully -- amongst themselves. But then moment I attempt to join such a discussion, one of the responses that Ann Condi accurately summarizes is on everyone's lips.

If you want to hear an overheard Yasukuni conversation go from tolerance to racism in no time flat -- watch a foreigner join in.

How would you feel if everyone is complaining to you and think again about those reactions above.

Link:

• Apathy - Glimpses Inside the Chinese Media by Ann Condi

Update: I forgot to mention Andrew Lih, who is the prime source for information about the Great Firewall and internet censorship from inside China. He also is an active Wikipedian and recently has a lot of posts about the Chinese edition and its unblocked/blocked statistics. Andrew also comments on the Danwei article above.