A drought believed to be the worst in China's southwest in a century has cracked the land. Image source: QQ via ChinaSmack
As rain fell on the Seattle area this week – and at times, pelting the ground – a shortage of fresh water thousands of miles away in China’s southwest region is turning into an epic problem – believed to be the worst of its kind in 100 years.
Chinese officials have turned their attention to the drought, which is affecting an estimated 24 million people and has hit Yunnan and other provinces, according to this Wall Street Journal article.
If you think Portland architect Robert Harvey Oshatz is fascinated with round and curved shapes, it’s probably a good idea to look to China’s Fujian province for circular sightings.
Because in this eastern province, across from Taiwan, visitors can drop by Hakka round houses – or Earth Buildings, as Chinese call them – in Yongding.
My wife and I enjoy talking about many topics: The Three Kingdoms (the Chinese classic), how to cook tofu and whether or not lions – as you see in Lunar New Year celebrations – were indigenous to China when the tradition started.
She once told me that her father, a doctor from China, would use boiling water to remove a dent from a smashed-in ping pong ball. As some might say today: Buzzkill (But I don’t mean this in the fullest context).
And so I thought: I need to get some dented ping pong balls.
We all know that change happens – sometimes for the better and sometimes when there’s no opinion at all.
But it’s always good, I think, to pause to remember a place and its role in a community.
This time, the news involves China Gate, a restaurant in Seattle’s International District that stayed open late at night and dished up old-style and tasty dim sum.
Researchers at Tokyo University reportedly have made a robot that can conduct interviews, shoot pictures, search the Internet for background and crank out online stories. Image source: Charlie Catlett on Twitter
Perhaps, if journalists, content producers or information brokers – or whatever label you use – really want to get a jump on things in 2010, one logical step might be to enter the robot industry.
Why?
Well, robots might have the ability to do what human journalists do these days – at least, according to this blog entry from Singularity Hub which the Knight Foundation also noted.
But I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge one of my favorite broadcast news shows of all time – Nightline on ABC News.
I’m partial to when Ted Koppel’s deep voice and clear pronunciation were the hallmarks of the must-see broadcast for those inside the Beltway and news junkies in the country.
Producers at the show have posted a great interactive timeline, charting key moments in the show’s 30 years.
The show’s three-decade anniversary is March 24, 1980 – following the late show that Koppel hosted, “The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.”
I’ve been trying to get my mind around Monday’s announcement from Google that it would shift its servers from mainland China and to Hong Kong - a move which it viewed as legal but would let them run a non-censored Google.cn site.
That site, as we all know by now, would redirect users to Google.com.hk.
At the risk of tossing out a simplistic answer to a complicated issue touching free speech, sovereignty in a country that has seen uprisings, instability and occupation and increasingly complex U.S.-China relations, there is the thought that revolves around a simple phrase that people in Washington, D.C. are all too familiar:
The Chinese government has started blocking Hong Kong-based Google.cn, a day after the California technology company announced it was shifting its servers from Beijing to the former colony, The New York Times reported.
Google on Monday started to operate Google.cn without filters.
One fallout from the highly-watched spat stemming from hacked Google Gmail accounts and reports of stolen code is that Chinese and Hong Kong companies are ending relationships with the California company, or at least halting them for now.
These pandas were part of a museum exhibit last year in the United States. The exhibit looked at change, specifically in the design field. Image source: Portland Art Museum
Consider Google’s decision to stop censoring its Google.cn site and shift its servers to Hong Kong, both of which were announced Monday, as just a point on a very long line.
This is fascinating. But it is, by no means, the end point.
The Associated Press, in its report, called it a way around censorship. The New York Times moved a version of this historic episode regarding the Internet.
If there’s anything to remember about the epic view of Chinese history in this wave-making incident, it’s that, well, senior leaders have a good memory.
Just as leaders in any country like to win, they also are happy when they get their way.
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