It’s May 1st – International Labour Day, no less. Up the workers and all that. And the world’s largest communist country* celebrates in true socialist style. By giving the middle classes the day off while all the actual working class have to go to work as normal. The street sweepers are still sweeping streets, the [...]
Not at all put of by their failure to have the place declared a “Civilised City” despite covering the city with propaganda telling people to be er.. civilised, the locals authorities have clearly had a meeting and are now trying to get us to be a healthy city. The way to do this is to [...]
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 [...]
I usually have a quick look at the BBC news site’s daily round up of news photos. Not every day but most. Today, Liuzhou turned up. It is a picture of the local constabulary incinerating supposedly confiscated “fake” cigarettes. This is something they do every now and again as a propaganda stunt. Sometimes cigarettes, sometimes [...]
Criticism has been levelled by various people - mostly in China Daily – about an apparent attempted cover up of the cadmium leak which led to Liuzhou’s drinking water crisis. Questions rightly being asked include “why was it not until Chinese New Year’s Eve (January 22nd) that there was any newspaper report in Liuzhou (and [...]
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 [...]
China’s disgraced Ministry of Railways had to dump several of its officials, including its main spokesperson, after the PR debacle following the July 23 accident near the city of Wenzhou, which killed 40 people and injured 191. But now they are coming up to their main task of the year – the annual migration of [...]
Tomorrow (Saturday) sees the start of Liuzhou’s “International Water Carnival”. Tickets are, as I predicted, impossible to obtain, but due to the practice of the dark arts, I will be reporting on the activities. In a masterpiece example of why political dipsticks and committees will never be able to organise anything like the Rio or [...]
Yesterday was election day! Didn’t you notice the lines of people queueing up to fulfil China’s promise of democracy? Well, perhaps something was lost in translation. Today the party leaders voted for the party leaders. Your average person in the street probably didn’t know it was happening because our beloved party leaders save them the [...]
For reasons only known to themselves, China Daily has decided to open a special, English language, Liuzhou section on its website. This features sub-sections on Liuzhou news, Liuzhou and ASEAN, investment, interviews, culture, travel, photos and specials. I would love to tell you what ‘specials’ are but the link only goes to a headline about [...]
Google News – Liuzhou