China’s milk powder supply is once again making headlines around the world. On March 1, a Hong Kong emergency export limit restricting travelers to mainland China to a maximum of two cans per purchaser became law. The measure is a response to the non-stop stream of suitcases jam-packed with milk powder passing through the Sheung [...]
Launched in February, an emergency two-can limit on exports of baby milk formula was made permanent Hong Kong law last Friday. The South China Morning Post reported that by Saturday last week, customs officials in Hong Kong arrested 26 Hong Kong residents and 19 Mainland Chinese for attempting to smuggle baby milk powder across the border [...]
Last night’s disastrous ferry collision near one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands, which took at least 38 lives, is now one of the top trending topics on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter. While most netizens mourned for the victims or lamented the unpredictability of human events, a side controversy has developed over the coverage of the tragedy [...]
Through months of protests, sit-ins, and even hunger strikes, thousands of Hong Kong residents successfully compelled the municipal government on Saturday to revoke a 2015 deadline for introducing a Beijing-backed plan for national education. As protesters retreated home that night with a decided sense of triumph and vowed to repeal the curriculum entirely in future [...]
It was hard not to be stunned to by recent images of protests in Hong Kong, a massive sea of people of all ages donning black to rail against Beijing’s plan to enact national education. Hong Kongers deemed Bejing’s efforts “brainwashing” (洗脑), a paternalistic move from to inculcate the special territory into the mainland’s ways. [...]
The “brainwashing” will have to wait. Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung has just postponed the deadline on which the city’s controversial mandatory national education curriculum would have been adopted. Mr. Leung hopes to calm the wave of opposition on the eve of Legislative Council elections in Hong Kong. Protesters, including hunger strikers, celebrated Leung’s decision as a [...]
Have China’s people created her government? Or has China’s government made its people who they are? Following recent protests in Hong Kong against changes to the city’s educational curriculum–which residents say include overly positive coverage of the Chinese Communist Party and constitute “brainwashing”–prominent microblogger Li Chengpeng took to the blogosphere to ask this question. On [...]
As any self-respecting booklover in Taipei knows, you can immerse yourself in the endless variety of glossy printed books at the Eslite Bookstore on Dunhua South Road. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Moreover, the flagship store near Taipei 101 stocks toys, stationery, music and lifestyle goods in addition to three floors of [...]
It’s the most shocking case in cosmetic history. In Fuzhou, the capital of China’s coastal Fujian province, a 40-year-old female died Friday after using Watson’s White Pearl Mask, a popular face-whitening product. Although there was no evidence that the mask was the direct cause, the Watsons Company has already yanked this product from the market. [...]
An exponential curve seems to describe most things in modern China–cars, housing, Louis Vuitton handbags, ice cream, iPads. It also describes the growth of drug use and addicts. Only 25 years ago, narcotics and illicit drug use were nearly unheard of. Today, Chinese society and government authorities are increasingly grappling with the explosion in drug [...]
China’s ruling party is “progressive, selfless and united,” while “hard battle among political parties brings disaster to the people” of America. At least, this is the reality according to a new pamphlet handed out to elementary and secondary school students in Hong Kong, the former British colony, 15 years after its handover to China. The [...]
Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Hong Kong this weekend to swear in the city’s new chief executive, C.Y. Leung, and to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the city’s handover to China. Many took to the streets, not to celebrate the inauguration, but to protest what they see as the Chinafication of the metropolis. Over [...]
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