A Liuzhou man, named only as Mr Hong, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal access to citizens’ personal information. The self-styled “Mad Detective” started his detection activities as a hobby, using his computer to track personal information and is reported to be obsessed by detective stories. After successfully tracking down a missing debtor and [...]
I would be failing in my duty if I did not bring this to your attention. The local rag’s front page picture today is of two chickens. According to the caption and the accompanying story these Liuzhou chickens are wearing glasses! What becomes clear on closer inspection is that it’s the newspaper staff who need [...]
A disgraceful scandal has been uncovered. 柳娃 liǔ wá, the symbol / mascot of last year’s Liuzhou Horticultural Expo and later incongruously recycled to welcome in the Year of the Dragon, may not be all she appears. Is she a fake? A mere copy? Is she as innocent as she looks? Or has she been [...]
Someone has rather belatedly taken up the story I mentioned before about land grab arrests in Liuzhou. Unfortunately, they have found a Chinese article, stuffed it into Google translate and then believed the translation. They tweet on Twitter that 3,000 have been arrested in the village – which would be something of an accomplishment given [...]
Random Photograph No. 49 of photographs taken in Liuzhou which amuse, perplex or fascinate me.
Liuzhou prefecture’s Rong’an (融安) county is about an hour or so’s drive north of the city. The county town is basically a smallish market town serving the surrounding district. It is a poor place and the crime rate is relatively high. A few years ago, I passed through on a rather unpleasant bus journey to [...]
Several years ago, the open air night snack market which was just to the west of the northern end of the No. 1 bridge (Liujiang Daqiao) was closed down by the self appointed guardians of our morality and hygiene who much prefer cleaning up popular eating venues than than cleaning up their own filth. The [...]
Anyone who has been in China for more than five minutes will have come across the hello wallahs. These are people who yell “hello” at passing foreigners in some Pavlovian reaction. They are usually young and male, but not always. Notice I said ‘say “hello” at’ not “hello to”. The “hello” is usually followed by [...]
As any marketing wallah will tell you, brand names are valuable pieces of corporate identity. Keeping your brand in the public eye is a necessary way of keeping ahead of the competition. Of course it really helps if you stick the letters on in the correct order! I’ve seen a few of these anagrams running [...]
The ever entertaining and informative website, “How to be a Retronaut” has alerted me to a collection of pictures from New York Public Library which they mistakenly believe to be a series of illustrations from around 1804 showing old Chinese punishment methods. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact they are illustrative of [...]
Google News – Liuzhou