Posts Tagged china

Art-Out Moment: Chinese Space Posters are Colorful, Filled with Babies

Posted by mistergroonk in Art, Marketing, Space on March 10, 2011

“Little guests in the Moon Palace, early 1970s”

See more posters and learn the history behind them at Chinese Posters.net.
Read the rest of this entry »

1970s, 2000s, art-out moments, china, it came from the 80s, let us return to space, posters, space exploration now, taikonaut

No Comments

The Ghost Cities of China as Seen by Satellite

Posted by mistergroonk in Photography, World on January 13, 2011

As reported by Business Insider:

One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.

We’ve tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble: “Thereâ€™s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern equivalent of building pyramids. With 20 new cities being built every year, we hope to be able to expand our list going forward.”

Recent statistics show that there are about 64 million apartments and houses that have remained empty during the past six months, according to Chinese media reports. On the assumption that each flat serves as a home to a typical Chinese family of three (parents and one child), the vacant properties could accommodate 200 million people, which account for more than 15% of the countryâ€™s 1.3 billion population. But instead, they remain empty. This is in part because many Chinese believe that a home is not a real home unless you own the flat.

And so people prefer buying to renting, and as a result, the rental yield is relatively low.

Many many more photos at the source.

via business insider: 1, 2

bubble, buildings, china, Culture, empty, ghosts, real estate, satellite, vacant

No Comments

Our Strange Sky: UFO Buzzes Chinese Airport, Let the Mass Speculations Begin

Posted by mistergroonk in Video, World on July 16, 2010

Of course this happened last week(July 9). We suppose it takes this long for weirdness to escape from China.

Hangzhou, Zhejiang CHINA â€” An unidentified flying object forced an airport in a major Chinese city to shut down operations for an hour, various reports said.

According to state media outlet China Daily, the incident happened at Hangzhou’s Xiaoshan Airport on July 7, when the UFO was spotted around 8:30 p.m. According to the report, the object did not show up on radar.

The HuffPost says another sighting has been reported by Shanghai Daily.

A second China UFO sighting has residents on edge, just seven days after an unidentified flying object shut down a Chinese airport.

The new UFO sighting took place in Chongqing in eastern China on July 15. Witnesses said they saw the same thing: “four lantern-like objects forming a diamond shape that hovered over the city’s Shaping Park for over an hour.”

Like the one before it, there has been no official explanation to date for this latest incident.

Curious that the turnaround on this sighting was so short.

We’ve found videos on the July 9 incident and placed them under the cut.
Read the rest of this entry »

airport, alien invaders, alien overlords, china, Epileptic Trees, our strange sky, The End Times, ufo, Video, Weird, wild mass guessing, Xiaoshan Airport

No Comments

Man’s 1 armed, 1 Legged Monkey Slaughters 80 of His Chickens, Still His Best Friend

Posted by mistergroonk in Animals on July 9, 2010

Li Chun from the Yunnan province in China nursed a one-warmed, one-legged monkey back to health.

And then:

It has become to devoted to the family and performs many chores around the home – but it also copies everything Li does.

When it saw him crack some eggs to make a meal it went into the hen coop and smashed all of the eggs it could find.

And when Li slaughtered a chicken, the monkey copied him and has since killed about 80 chickens, reports the Chuncheng Evening Post.

“From then on, whenever it’s not occupied, it jumps into the chicken pen, and kills the chickens, no matter how big or small, and tries to pluck them,” said Li.

We really wanted to make the “no good deed goes unpunished,” quip until we read this part:

It helps look after Li’s dog’s puppies and even wiped away Li’s tears when he was grieving the death of his father.

Li said: “It sat besides me quietly and extended his only arm to wipe the tears on my face. He would softly pat my face and head, and look at me with great sympathy.”

Seriously. That almost melted the icy core of our heart.

Almost.

via Boingboing, orange news

china, crowning moment of heartwarming, crowning moment of wtf, Culture, everything is better with monkeys, make great pets, monkey see monkey do, monkeys!, Weird

No Comments

Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad Jailed by Beijing Police

Posted by mistergroonk in USA, World on August 21, 2008

This story on Brian Conley appeared in my email via Read or Alive‘s Ultimate Josh.

Beijing – Brian Conley, creator of the well-known videoblog, Alive in Baghdad, was detained with his friend, Jeffrey Rae, early Tuesday, August 19th in Beijing. Their detention appears to have taken place at the same time as that of international artist James Powderly, whose detention was reported Tuesday. Three other bloggers and activists, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, and Tom Grant, have also been missing since Tuesday morning. Conley, 28, Rae, 28, Goldin, 40, Liss, 35, Grant, 39 are all American citizens.

The five â€œcitizen journalistsâ€ and activists were in Beijing to support and promote human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom for the Tibetan people. They and numerous others have acted as an independent media centre for the dozens of pro-Tibet activists in Beijing who have sought to draw attention to the Chinese governmentâ€™s occupation of during the Olympics

Mainstream media seems to want to ignore this bit of news. I wonder why.

According to hotel staff, Rae and Conley checked out of their hotel in Beijing before dawn Tuesday morning. At 12:30pm Beijing time on Tuesday, Conleyâ€™s wife in Philadelphia received a text message from him reading â€œIn Jail. All fine.â€ A â€œtwitterâ€ message to Students for a Free Tibet suggested that they were being held with James Powderly, the artist and co-founder of Graffiti Research Lab who was preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. (See http://freetibet2008.org/globalactions/jamespowderly/)

Be sure to read the full story here.

It seems I made a note of Brian Conley’s efforts back in 2006.

If the mainstream won’t say boo about this, the blogosphere must. Spread the word as far and wide as you can. We must remember that the country holding one of the last few international gestures that immediately bring up the thoughts of hope and peace is the same government known to have committed terrible violations of humans rights.

Other blogs are talking:

Chris Brogan: Brian Conley Jailed in Beijing

Brian Conley and other American activists Detained in Beijing

Help Free Brian Conley, James Powderly and Others

Chinese Government Detain Western Protestors Shock

Why aren’t you?

UPDATE: Under law the Chinese government has “72 hours before it is required to notify an embassy about foreign nationals who have been detained.” It is currently 60 hours and counting.

UPDATE UPDATE: