Here is a the front page of today’s edition of 南国今报, South China Modern Times, Liuzhou’s most popular newspaper. As you can see, there’s one large headline, a few minor headlines, then loads of advertising. Here is the front page of today’s edition of 广西日报, Guangxi Daily, the autonomous region’s most boring paper. As you [...]
Headlines indicating that a new species of human has been found in Guangxi came as no surprise to me. In fact, I’m fairly certain I have met some of them. There are a lot of odd people around. Most of them teaching English! It turns out that examination of a number of fossilised skulls and [...]
They are at it again. Announcing an opening date for an attraction before they have built the thing, then missing their own deadline, but going ahead and opening a building site instead. Why they can’t finish things, then set the official opening date, I can’t fathom. Opening unattractive attractions doesn’t quite cut it. Following on [...]
A reader has sent me a picture which he thinks may have been taken in Liuzhou, but perhaps not. I don’t recognise the place, but there are parts of Liuzhou I’ve never been (not many). The photograph was taken by my reader’s grandfather sometime during WWII, when he was based in Liuzhou for some time. [...]
Think of Liuzhou and the first thing that doesn’t come to mind is beat poets or writers. Jack Kerouac. Alan Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, or William Burroughs. The second thing not to come to mind are earlier writers such as Samuel Beckett or Jean Genet, and I’m fairly sure no one made a connection between Liuzhou [...]
I have come across some film of Liuzhou from 1944-1945, showing the evacuation of the city as the Japanese army approached, then some footage of the Chinese army having retaken the city some months later. Unfortunately, these videos are protected, so I have been unable to steal them as I normally would. Here are links [...]
It often surprises me that local people, especially young people, know so little about the city they live in. It seems to me that they spend so much time in school studying a nationally set syllabus to pass the nationally set exams that there is no time for anything local. Mao Zedong theory and other similar [...]
After a day of watching the Communist Party parade its phallic symbols across our television screens for hours on end (no, I didn’t watch it all. I did catch the female militia in their miniskirts and boots, though. Purely accidentally, of course), I thought I’d do a bit of time travelling to see where it [...]
Google News – Liuzhou