1. Buy houses for his mistresses
2. Trips to Macau for gambling
3. Crazy expensive cars
4. Play the stock market, day-trader style

Think of your own list, then read this article from from the Wall Street Journal’s China Realtime Report:

On trial is the head of a finance company who stands accused of bribing bank officials in return for more than 700 million yuan, or more than $100 million, in loans for fake mortgages and small businesses, according to Chinese media reports.

The 30-year-old head of the Beijing Huading Credit Security Company, Hu Yi, allegedly paid officials at the Beijing Rural Commercial Bank to help him apply for loans with fake names and businesses from the end of 2007 to February 2009. A total of 18 people are on trial, eight of them senior bank officials.

The official allegedly used the money to gamble in Macau, invest in mines and buy calligraphy and paintings, most of which turned out to be fake, according to the Legal Mirror. Only half of the total 708 embezzled yuan was recovered, the Chinese reports said.

Bonus points if you guessed that the expensive paintings and cultural artifacts were fake.

The combination of the yappy, Taiwanese-accented newsreaders, the bizarre stories chosen for coverage, and the overwrought emotions on the digital “actors” is irresistible. Hire some English-speaking anchors, and NMA will surely become the next TMZ, no? I just hope they keep their subtly Chinese perspective on America’s celebrity, gossip, and entertainment news.

Sunday morning 9 am, intercom rings.

– Excuse me does ODB live here?

– Who is asking?

– I am from the local police department. May I come up?

– Sure. Come on up.

ODB buzzes the kind lady in only to realize that although his papers are all in order he forgot them at the office.

Police lady knocks on the door. ODB answers.

Pointing to a sheet of paper with names on it she asks:

– Is this your name?

– Yes.

– I need to check your passport and residence permit.

– Why? What’s the matter?

– There is going to be an inspection tomorrow morning.

Pointing to another name on the list:

– Does this person live here too?

– Yes, but only for a few days. She is traveling in China and will go back to her home country in a few days.

– Is she here?

– No she is traveling at the moment.

– Will she be here tomorrow morning?

– No she will not. Actually neither will I.

– You both won’t be here tomorrow at around 9am for the inspection?

– Nope. Will be at work.

– Are you certain?

– Yes.

– Thank you for your cooperation.

Police woman leaves without checking passport.

7:10pm: Sitting on the plane for over an hour now. Pilot’s last message: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally been cleared for takeoff. However, the car that was supposed to push us back has disappeared. I will try to contact the tower.”

UPDATE 7:15:

Last message: “Ladies and gentlemen, the tow truck arrived and disappeared again. This is not an organized airport. I apologize.”

UPDATE 7:20:

All announcements are in very good English. Chinese versions are toned down… Last message was English only.

UPDATE 7:24:

We are finally moving. I guess they found the missing truck. Just one hour late…

UPDATE FROM SZ: The flight was almost two hours delayed. I spent 5 hours on the plane, only 3 hours of which in the air… It is July and the weather in SZ is better than Beijing…

This recent China Daily article attempts to draw attention to the accusations of “group licentiousness” against a teenage girl in southern China:

GUANGZHOU – A 17-year-old girl who is suspected of participating in group sex parties has been put on trial in Dongguan No 2 People’s Court in Guangzhou.

Li Jie (alias), a sophomore at Houjie vocational school, is being charged with group licentiousness in Dongguan.

In the public indictment, the prosecution said Li, who repeatedly had sex with several male students on one occasion, committed group licentiousness.

It would seem unlikely that the girl not only participated parties where she had sex with multiple men, but also agreed to be filmed doing so. Unlikely, but not impossible, especially in Guangdong province, where in the past few years it has become something of a fad for teenage girls to gang up on a classmate, hit, kick, and slap her, pull her hair, rip off her clothes, and otherwise humiliate her, and then film the whole thing and put it online.

Equal consideration is given to both sides of the story — whether the girl knowingly plotted “group licentiousness” or was simply drugged with ketamine and gang-raped. It is both enjoyable and sad to watch the author drop hints, in the most tortured and indirect of ways, that the accusations against the girl are perhaps a bit over the top. No mention is given to any actions taken against the three male students she supposedly “partied” with.

Even more interesting to me, though, were the links in the two right-hand columns. Top billing in the “Specials” column goes to World Cup, which is being played in South Africa. Just below it is an AP story about black slave children in the antebellum United States. Actually, it’s about a photograph of black slave children. This key piece of news was deemed more important than an analysis of China’s economy, which is listed third among the “Specials”. For those who were too dim to catch on, the leading piece in the adjacent “Columnists” section is titled “Africa, World Cup and neo-colonialism”.

A letter passing through offices in China lately warns against the dangers of the smoke from the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland:

转发: 从今天到28号，请大家不要淋雨。
Fwd: Avoid exposure to rain from today until the 28th.

从今天到28号，请大家不要淋雨。750年一次的酸雨，被淋到后患皮肤癌的几率很高。因为欧洲的一个火山的大爆发，向高空喷发了大量硫化物，在大气层7000~10000米的高空形成了浓厚的火山灰层，强酸性。请大家注意，把这个信息转发给你身边的人。
Avoid exposure to rain from today until the 28th of the month. Every 750 years there is a major occurance of acid rain, and the probability of getting skin cancer high if one is exposed to it.  The volcanic eruption in Europe has spewed a large amount of sulfides into the atmosphere, and a thick, strongly acidic layer of volcanic ash has collected at an altitude of 7000-10000 meters. Please take care to pass this information to those around you.

The note appears to be based on a similar rumor spread in parts of Africa in February and March. This is from The Punch, Nigerian newspaper, and is dated March 24, 2010:

A United Nations space chief, Mr. Takao Doi, has allayed fears of acid rain accompanying the current harmattan haze accross the country. . .

A text message circulating through mobile networks had warned that there could be acid rain in the country between March 20 and 28.

The text message said, “Be careful from the 20-28th of this month. There is the possibility of an acid rain. The dark circle appeared on 17th of last month and this is an indication of acid rain. Apparently this happens once in 750 years. It rains normally but it may cause skin cancer if you expose yourself to it. This information is from the National Space Agency in the United States.”

The “dark circle” supposedly appeared around the moon, but this part of the rumor was left out of the Chinese version. Other versions used “NASA” instead of “the National Space Agency in the United States.”

Nator: [as we pass my normal bus stop] Aren’t you going to stop?

Driver: No.

Nator: Why not?

Driver: I don’t stop there.

Nator: Where is the next stop?

Driver: Ahead.

Remember last month when Baidu was hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army?

Well, Domain Name Wire explains the hi-tech coding techniques used to perpertrate the crime:

Here’s how Baidu alleges the hacker got access to one of the world’s most popular web sites domain name account in under an hour:

1. Hacker starts online chat session with Register.com representative, claiming to be an agent of Baidu.

2. Register.com representative asks hacker to provide verification information. Hacker provides invalid information, but Register.com goes ahead and e-mails a security code to the email address it has on file for Baidu anyway.

3. The hacker doesn’t have access to that e-mail address, so he/she relays a bogus security code to the Register.com representative via chat. Baidu claims the representative didn’t bother to compare the code to the actual one.

4. Hacker asks Register.com representative to change email address on file to antiwahabi2008@gmail.com, and representative does.

5. Hacker now uses “forgot password” link at Register.com to request the username and password to the account. Hacker can then log in and change the name servers.

Baidu is currently suing Register.com but they could have simply avoided this whole debacle by paying a few extra  dollars a year for increased domain security. After all they do rely on their website being available for their core business. But it’s easier to blame it on the idiocy of a Register.com tech support guy.

I’m watching the NBA 2010 All-Star Weekend festivities right now on BTV 6, Beijing’s sports channel. (CCTV 5 would probably have this in other years, but today it’s showing the Winter Olympics.) After Steve Nash won the skills competition, Dwyane Wade stepped to center court and gave a short speech asking people to contribute to relief efforts for the Haiti earthquake. At the end he said, “And now please listen to this special message from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.”

The broadcast immediately switched back to the BTV studio, where the three hosts babbled for about five minutes straight. I can’t imagine that the NBA didn’t allow this message to be shown in China, so I can only assume it was BTV’s decision. I haven’t found any video clips posted online yet, but I did find the website for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which somehow hasn’t been blocked in China. Here are some excerpts from the homepage:

On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense. . .

Our immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs. . .

We ask each of you to give what you can to help ensure the people of Haiti can build back stronger and better than ever.

It’s too bad the ex-Presidents haven taken such an extreme position and chosen to use such inflammatory language. I can only hope that broadcasters around the world, American ones included, followed BTV’s lead and did not let this message go out.

UPDATE: NBA China uses oblique means and stealthy feints to implant another controversial message from Dwyane “Time Delay Capsule” Wade. This time he smiles and wishes the Chinese people a happy new year — in Chinese! Disgusting.

From PhilStar yesterday:

BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in Beijing unveiled a plan Sunday to make the Chinese capital more bicycle-friendly in the hopes of reducing the city’s choking pollution and alleviating congestion. . .

Beijing has 17 million people and four million cars, a figure that continues to grow and strain the city’s already overloaded road system.

Meanwhile, 19.7 percent of Beijing residents ride bicycles, and authorities hoped to raise that to 23 percent by 2015, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The city will restore bicycle lanes that were cut to make room for cars and buses, and build more bicycle parking lots, particularly next to bus and subway stations, the report said, citing Liu Xiaoming, director of the Municipal Communications Commission.

In addition to the moves aimed at encouraging bicycling, the government will also implement new restrictions on car drivers, Xinhua cited Liu as saying, without giving specifics.

This announcement is reminiscent of the government’s “plan” for the Beijing subway system, which started off well enough in the mid-20th century but languished for years in the 1980s and and 1990s, even as it became clear that roads alone wouldn’t be enough. It was not until Beijing was awarded the Olympics in 2001 that things really got going.

Aside from a well-developed subway system, bikes are the most obvious way to improve traffic in Beijing. Anyone who cycles in Beijing knows this: The landscape is flat, the roads are wide, and many bike lanes are protected from cars by curbs and rows of trees.

That’s why it is so frustrating to see cars taking over the city at the expense of bikers, pedestrians, and everyone else. I walk to the subway on the road because the sidewalks are filled with parked cars. I ride with my fingers not on the handlebar but hovering over the brakes, waiting for the drivers who play chicken and appear to move as if all the bikers and pedestrians simply weren’t there. I become the Weird Guy when I ride: When a driver behind me honks impatiently, I let him pass, but if he then gets in my way, I scream at the top of my lung for him to move. (After all, isn’t a car horn really just a substitute for a screaming voice?)

I remain skeptical that things will get better for those of use who ride bikes in Beijing, but I am happy to see this article. Only one complaint — why announce it on January 24, when we’re all freezing our asses off and few people are riding?

UPDATE 20100127: A recent “Spacing Toronto” post has some observations about the roads and traffic in Beijing and Shanghai:

In Shanghai and Beijing, it is the norm is to have sidewalks cordoned off from the roadway with barriers forcing pedestrian traffic towards overpasses. While pedestrian grade separation is most common at intersections, in Beijing it is also quite common mid-block. Beijing has adopted a car-dependent design of very wide avenues with multiple degrees of separation. Down the centre, several lanes of heavy traffic crawl through congestion while a low speed access road, parking and wide sidewalks occupy the storefront side of a barrier fence.  Pedestrian flyovers here almost always have one steep staircase and one very gradual. The overpasses also often provide stairway connections to bus stops, a considerable investment in bus infrastructure.

What this setup gains in easy access for motorists it loses in attractiveness of the pedestrian environment as the pedestrian is distantly removed from the other side of the street. It also must cause obvious difficulties for the disabled.  In many ways, it really seems that the human scale of the city has been lost, and it is not uncommon to hear Beijingers complain about the loss of the old city.

I too was a lot more concerned with “attractiveness of the pedestrian environment” my first couple of years in China. Having settled in a bit over the years, though, I find myself caring more that things just run reasonably well.

But for the most part it is a city of unapologetically wide avenues and broad, open thoroughfares, built on a grand scale rather than a human scale. At least Beijing has found some kind of solution to keep traffic somewhat moving without allowing highways near the city centre.

It sounds as though the writer has stayed on the ring roads and the newer sections of the city, where tens of tens of thousands of policemen, doormen, and security guards are required to keep the lanes open and the sidewalks clear of cars.