Pictures

Here are some photos from the American v Chinese women's volleyball competition last nite in Guangzhou

Lang Ping, Chinese volleyball player extraordinaire and former coach for US Olympic team is now coaching the Chinese team,

evergrand

later

     
Click here to download:
Pictures.zip (12731 KB)

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Posted 7 minutes ago

It's February and...

Hey Everyone,

It's a new month and I'd like to think we've turned the corner on winter such as it is here in Nanjing. Rarely gets below freezing and only 2

days that it actually snowed. But, I'm from Minnesota originally so " waiting for the other shoe to

drop" but hoping it doesn't. 5 Celsius/40 F right now

Monday in Guangzhou a Twitter friend @maggierauch set up meetings + dinner with the

Chinese and American women's volleyball

teams.Maggie has a blog on sports here in China.

Lang Ping, the US coach is from China-all my students know her story plus the bad press she received when she agreed to coach

the US team. Some accused her of being disloyal.

I'm on holiday this month along with much of China as it gets ready to welcome the Year of the Tiger on February 14. And this will be

a "Golden Tiger Year "so people who can are buying gold. Oh how I wish I could! Most of the

students have left for home-Spring

Festival is a time for reunion, family, eating, and red envelopes filled with "kuai" (cash). Not

unlike Thanksgiving/Christmas in the US

If you're on Twitter and interested in sports from the Chinese perspective follow @maggierauch

and check out @lonniehodge and some of his photos via twitpic.

Until next time,

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Posted 1 day ago

GoogleChina links

Hi Everyone,

Do check out the website: ChinaWebRadar for Many links to issues relating to Google In/Google Out of China

Thanks to @elliotng for providing this information on Twitter

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Posted 19 days ago

Google in China or Out?

Good morning Everyone,

Yesterday GoogleChina announced it was no longer going to censor searches in China and possibly withdraw from China.

In the best of all possible worlds there would be no censoring but China without Google leaves a large hole in Internet services.

The blockage of web sites could become more intense and what about people using Google services? They would only be able

to access using a proxy, a VPN.

Google's motives are not clear-they could have been morally correct 4 years ago but they did not. 

The revenue from the China market is small now-only 2% according to one Twitter source.

The saying, "It's complicated" sums it up-watch here for more news_)

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Beijing Dispatch

Google Wakes

Gady Epstein, 01.13.10, 07:30 AM EST

Dreams of Internet openness in China appear to be a fantasy.

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Gady Epstein

Is a half-truth better than no truth? Is it better to have half the results that are misleading than to have no results at all? That is a very appropriate question to ask and one that I do not have an answer for you today. – Elliot Schrage, Google v.p. for corporate communications and public affairs, testifying before Congress about Google.cn on Feb. 15, 2006.

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. – David Drummond, Google senior v.p., corporate development and chief legal officer, in statement posted online, Jan. 12, 2010.

In the span of four years, Google has tested, and for the moment shockingly rejected, a thesis that an entire community of corporations and nations has relied on in part to justify doing business with China for decades: that engagement will “liberalize” China, and that the citizens of an increasingly prosperous and globally integrated China will one day rise up and slip loose the bonds of tyranny. Or something like that.

On a fundamental level that isn’t happening, and Google has decided, in a way that perhaps only one of the leading global companies can, to take a stand for free expression. Cynics can argue (as they have already) that this move is more about business, or that this is a convenient way to exit a floundering enterprise that is running a distant second in the China search business to Baidu. I instead find the more persuasive argument to be that angering the biggest market in the world might be bad for the bottom line, even if authorities there have been making it difficult for you to do business there.

Which brings us back to the thesis, expressed hopefully but with obvious reservations by Google before Congress in 2006, that "we can do the most for our users and do more to expand access to information if we accept the censorship restrictions required by Chinese law."

Now, I am not about to embark on a general repudiation of engagement with China: There is little doubt that the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have improved dramatically from China’s integration into the global economy over the last 30 years.

Real-Time Quotes
01/13/2010 10:01AM ET

But we would be deluding ourselves if we pretend that this path is leading, inexorably, toward a democratic China with Western-style civil liberties for all, some years or decades from now. That outcome is theoretically possible, but the notion that it is likely is a common self-delusion that was summed up nicely in James Mann’s 2007 book "The China Fantasy." Mann, who was Beijing bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times in the 1980’s and is the author of a previous account of modern U.S.-China relations, "About Face," writes:

"America hasn't thought much about what it might mean for the United States and the rest of the world to have a repressive, one-party state in China three decades from now, because it is widely assumed that China is destined for a political liberalization, leading eventually to democracy."

The Google ( GOOG - news - people ) experience punctures that fantasy for the Chinese Internet, even if it remains a space where many can test the limits of openness and expression. In the last year Chinese authorities have generally tightened Internet controls, both within China through the self-censorship and filtering that Google.cn submitted to, and at the country’s borders by blocking Google-owned YouTube and Facebook and Twitter, as well as numerous human rights, news and blogging sites deemed objectionable by Chinese authorities.

None of this will change anytime soon. It is doubtful that other companies will follow where Google dared to tread. Foreign companies have little choice but to play by the Chinese government’s rules, and very few, perhaps none, have the power and stature to act as Google has done here.

Eventually the shouting over Google will quiet down, and we will still be left with a censored Internet in China, with or without Google.cn. Chinese activists will continue to do what they can to build a space for civil society, online and off. But to suggest that this path we’re on is leading inexorably toward a free, open China is truly a fantasy.

Gady Epstein is Beijing bureau chief for Forbes. You can follow him on Twitter @gadyepstein.

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Posted 20 days ago

Happy New Year 2010


It's a New Year, 2010,and I wish you all the best wherever you live.

In pinyin,( romanization of Chinese) we would say xin nian kuai le!

and we'll say it again on February 14, Chinese New Year to people in the West and Spring Festival to the Chinese.

Soon it will be the Year of the Tiger according to the lunar calendar.

Spring Festival means returning to your family home, eating special foods and lots of fireworks. The celebrations are ongoing 

until February 28 and the Lantern Festival.

For the last month a few students have been coming to my apartment to practice their English conversational skills. I've added

their picture to this post. Wu Li is from Chengdu studying Vet Medicine and Zhang Jing is from Beijing studying Plant Protection.

Until next time,

betsy

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Posted 29 days ago

Facebook | Pamela Goetzke Diedrich's Photos - Christmas with the Diedrichs

The Wall of Stockings Christmas 2009-photo by sister-in-law Pamela
parents, 11 children, grandchildren

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Posted 1 month ago

Facebook | Pamela Goetzke Diedrich's Photos - Christmas with the Diedrichs

Grandson Edward (age 3)intrigued with a robot-Christmas 2009

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Posted 1 month ago

more Christmas decorations

Two more photos of Christmas displays in Nanjing

   
Click here to download:
more_Christmas_decorations.zip (3197 KB)

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Posted 1 month ago

Christmas in China

Hi Everyone,

It doesn't look very Christmasy here in Nanjing- no snow this week but the temp is 1C(34F) and my apartment remains drafty even

with the AC/heater running during the day and another smaller heater in my study where I tend to hibernate.

This Christmas season I've been taking some photos of the decorations of some of the buildings in the downtown area  called xinjiekou (City Center)

Hope you enjoy the photos

   
Click here to download:
Christmas_in_China.zip (3386 KB)

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Posted 1 month ago

TedxGuangzhou

Hey Everyone,
Last Thursday I took a 24 hour train ride from Nanjing to Guangzhou China to attend my first Tedx conference.
This was also an opportunity to meet many China Twitter people IRL and I was not disappointed.
Livestreaming of the event via Tudou.com plus pictures that you can view on Flicker will help fill in some of the details.
700 people were there-  a tribute to Lonnie Hodge, his team, and especially to Mei Feng his PA.
This is a photo of the crowd-I was lucky enough to be in the front row with my own translater

enjoy

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Posted 1 month ago