30

The wife won't be pleased

Two Chinese brothers are trapped in a mine... no, this isn't the start of a joke. They survived for five days without food and fresh water, but their sense of humour remained intact. You have to read the full story to see which bit (I hope) might have lost some meaning in translation, because describing one's wife in such an ungracious way seems very un-Chinese!

Tags: China, joke

3

China was built by people like Mr Wu

Here's a clip from the recent series "Paul Merton in China", where Paul meets the ingenious Mr Wu. (More clips from this series can be found on YouTube.)

Related: China, robot, Paul Merton

22

Popular internet searches in...

China. The questions being asked by a nation's population says a lot about that country. Baidu has recently published what people in China are searching for. I'm sure there are some cultural observations to make here. As for other countries, well Google also has a Zeitgeist page you might want to check out.

See also: China, internet

21

Peking Duck

Have got a few minutes left in this internet cafe so thought I'd jot down some thoughts on China. Have done Tiananmen, the Forbidden City, The Great Wall of China and some typical city life too. All in all, it's not nearly as bad/restricted as the West make out (as far as I can tell)! Going to try and see Chairman Mao's mauseleum tomorrow. Oh, and though the BBC website is firewalled, the aforementioned picture (below) is in fact freely viewable.

Tags: China, Beijing

7

China Invades Taiwan

BBC News - "...China's most credible and immediate threat lies in its increasing battery of conventional short-range ballistic missiles.

These could be used as part of a more limited coercive strategy to produce a rapid collapse of Taiwan's 'national will'.

Worryingly, Chinese military doctrine emphasises the force-multiplying effect of surprise, so such coercive strikes might come out of the blue..."

This is not even vaguely amusing.

Related: China, Taiwan

14

"They've bought exactly the right ships and missiles from Russia to take it over... yup, with exactly the right ranges to destroy American aircraft carriers..."

So yeah, apart from Oli telling me yesterday how certain he was that China are going to invade Taiwan soon (probably when I'm out there next month), my weekend has been pretty good so far. Firstly, after a bit of a struggle I managed to set up a home network from my two computers. My old computer is now all ready to be a server when my broadband modem finally comes... More importantly though, I checked out the church down the road, St Mary's, Bryanston Square, this morning and it seems to be pretty sound. Yeah baby, I think I'm going to enjoy getting involved there.

See also: China, Taiwan

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