10 « Week In China

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Back Issue

WiC 10 (Apr 10, 2009)

Always be selling

Telecoms How China Unicom added 48,162 new sales staff at no extra…

Zhou Hua, an employee at China Unicom believes that he has the world’s most stressful job: “When I open my eyes every morning, I feel like I owe ...

China and the World, Talking Point Rocket launch reignites debate over China’s relations with North Korea

China recognised Korea as a tributary state as far back as 1392, and the two countries’ relationship through history has been characterised by some ...

Entertainment A new movie about China’s foremost philosopher has stirred controversy

The introduction to the Penguin edition of the Analects of Confucius opens with a frank admission: “Despite his immense importance in the Chinese ...

Visa restrictions

Banking & Finance Getting a credit card in China isn’t as easy as it…

Cinema audiences got to see a lot of China Merchants Bank’s Platinum credit card in the movie, If You Are The One. The film, which broke Chinese box ...

Virtually happy

Internet & Tech Online gaming is booming, but at what social cost?

In the midst of a chilly market for IPOs, investors behaved with uncharacteristic warmth last week when Changyou, a Chinese online gaming company, saw ...

Here comes the sun

Energy & Resources Announcements may see more of China’s solar panels sold at home

The promise of solar power sometimes seems to have a lot in common with the campaign commitments of politicians. Both sound good in theory. But both ...

Qin Shi Huangdi

History Lessons No one lives forever

China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, was obsessed with acquiring immortality after several assassination attempts. Although he managed to ...

It’s not a kimono!

Society Why the hanfu is back in style

Nostalgia is big business. Everywhere you look, it seems that some era or another is being resuscitated and relived – fashion items, music trends, ...

Society The job no one wants

With his employment options in the UK having narrowed in recent months, maybe Sir Fred Goodwin could take on the job that 1.3 billion Chinese don’t ...

Society Funerals are big business

When the father of Miss Chen passed away, the first phone call she received wasn’t from relatives offering their condolences, but a funeral service ...

The world wide wok

Society The internet reaches Qianwei

The first mention of the information superhighway dates back to 1983, and a Newsweek reference to a plan for a fibre-optic cable link between Boston, ...

Red Star Yang Lan

Dubbed as China’s Oprah Winfrey, Yang Lan is China’s most popular television personality. Born in Beijing but educated in the US, Yang first rose ...

Twilight ‘zone’

Property A zoning debacle means the old Summer Palace won’t be rebuilt…

The old Summer Palace – ‘Yuanmingyuan’ – was as large as a city. Witnesses remembered it as more grandiose than the pyramids,” writes Mark ...

Beijing’s car go plan

Environment More draconian than a Ken Livingstone congestion scheme, but it works

Car sales, decimated across much of the world, are still holding up reasonably well in China. Sales growth has slowed a little but is expected to ...

A healthy thought

Economy How the nexus of thinktanks and academics impacts economic policy

In the 1990s you couldn’t say much here,” says Professor Cui Zhiyuan of Tsinghua University. “But today it is much freer and the internet has ...

Economy Chinese companies have been punting on derivatives too

It is a little over six years since Warren Buffett first warned that many of the more exotic financial instruments in circulation could be potential ...

You only love twice

Planet China The anonymity of online dating is one of its blessings. But…

The anonymity of online dating is one of its blessings. But as a man from Chongqing discovered, it can have bizarre consequences. The 30 year-old ...

An expensive trip

Cartoons An expensive trip

The G20 in London was China’s coming out party as a top-tier power. But as everyone knows London is an expensive place to have a party. For ...

And Finally Another example of a netizen outcry producing greater disclosure

There are all kinds of museums, with new ones opening all the time; the BBC, for example, reported this week that a man in Northern England had opened ...