Please don't pick trees and flowers

More dumb signs on D'uh!!

Censure chinoise

Courrier international : L’ECRIVAIN CHINOIS YAN LIANKE CENSURE - Un aphrodisiaque nommé Mao: "En mars dernier, à la veille de la session parlementaire, un court roman intitulé Wei renmin fuwu [Au service du peuple] a été interdit par les autorités chinoises. Ce texte, qui brise de nombreux tabous politiques et sexuels, avait été publié quelques semaines plus tôt par la revue Huacheng [“La ville des fleurs”], un bimestriel littéraire de la province du Guangdong. Le département de la propagande du Comité central du Parti communiste chinois (DPCC) a émis une directive interdisant la diffusion, la reproduction et la publication d’extraits de l’œuvre, ainsi que tout commentaire et reportage à son sujet. Par ailleurs, il a ordonné que la revue soit retirée de la vente. Le DPCC estime que le roman dénigre Mao Tsé-toung et son noble but de “se mettre au service du peuple”, qu’il nuit à l’image de l’armée, qu’il porte atteinte à l’idée de révolution, que ses scènes de sexualité débridée sont de nature à semer le trouble dans les esprits et, enfin, qu’il fait l’apologie de concepts occidentaux erronés."

Courrier international : Dossier Le boom de l'économie en Chine

Courrier international : Dossier Le boom de l'économie en Chine:
"Avec une croissance de 9,1 % en 2003, la Chine a accédé au statut de puissance économique mondiale et est en passe de doubler certains pays européens, la France et le Royaume-Uni en particulier. L'empire du Milieu est devenu un eldorado pour les investisseurs internationaux. L'Europe a tout à y gagner : selon certaines prévisions, l'Union européenne pourrait devenir en 2005 le premier partenaire commercial de la Chine.

Mais le boom actuel n'est pas sans effets pervers, car les besoins en énergie de la Chine sont très élevés et posent des problèmes d'approvisionnement et de flambée du cours des matières premières. Le pays doit faire face à une augmentation spectaculaire de ses importations, due à cette forte demande interne mais aussi à la baisse des tarifs douaniers.

Au moment où les investissements et la croissance industrielle explosent, le secteur agricole stagne. Le fossé entre la Chine rurale très pauvre et les zones urbaines ne cesse de s'agrandir. Dans les villes, la consommation des ménages augmente rapidement, alors que le pouvoir d'achat dans les campagnes régresse.

L'extraordinaire croissance économique de la Chine se voit par ailleurs freinée par le manque d'eau et la surexploitation des nappes phréatiques, ainsi que par la vétusté de ses infrastructures. En effet, les ports, les routes et les chemins de fer sont au bord de la rupture."

Suitcasing: No need for answers 2

Suitcasing: No need for answers 2: "A dreamer, then?

Is there any higher calling?

Didn't all the dreamers die?

Can anyone who dreams ever die?

Isn't it living which is hard for them?"

The cloud and the flower

the cloud and the flower
Originally uploaded by songo155.

new pictures on flickr

light (in a temple) 

patchwork - Powered By Bloglines

patchwork - Powered By Bloglines

"Wicked guitar playing and vicious vocal"

ARTE radio.com : Keith B. Brown Blues"Musicien et chanteur américain, Keith B. Brown a interprété le rôle du bluesman Skip James pour le film 'The Soul of a Man' de Wim Wenders, produit par Martin Scorsese. Lors d'un concert au Plan (Ris-Orangis), il nous offre une leçon de delta blues et évoque ses maîtres Robert Johnson, Skip James, Son House ou Muddy Waters. "

Weekend souvenir

D under her Umbrella

Raining season?

Raining season has arrived in Kunming.... maybe. it has rained many times yesterday. but it's actually very pleasant, it rains for a very short time. it's refreshing.

Yunda 

Jizushan (Mt Tali)

Jizushan (Mt Tali)
Originally uploaded by mutikonka.

Text by Mutikonka (flickr) :
"Near Dali, in Yunnan. This shot taken in 1944.

This beautiful view of Jizushan (Chicken Foot Mountain) near Dali was taken in 1944 by an American transport pilot called Don Downie.

He has written a wonderful book about the pilots who flew the Hump route from Assam and Yunnan during the war "Flying the Hump". It is crammed with fantastic colour pictures of planes flying betyween Yunnan and India in the last two years of the war.

And while most of the pictures are of aircraft, there are also some interesting scenes of everyday life in Yunnan as Joseph Rock would have encountered it. Coolies, soldiers, mud huts, poverty and squalor. It's easy to forget that Rock lived in pre-revolutionary China when things were very different from today.

These colour pictures bring us a little cloer to that now far-off world."

There is no combination of words

Jack Johnson
Better together (lyrics)

There is no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
And no song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia tone loving

Love is the answer
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Why are we here and where do we go
And how come it's so hard
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing
It's always better when we're together

Mmm, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments just might find a way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone when the morning light sings
Or brings new things for tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too, too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression I was somewhere in between
With only two, just me and you, not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be, we'll sit beneath the mango tree now

Yeah, it's always better when we're together
Mmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together (mmm)

I believe in memories, they look so, so pretty when I sleep
And when I wake up, you look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together

Tab: for beginners without changing the tuning
Intro:
e------------------------------------------------------------------
B—------8-----6-----3------1--------3--------6-------8-------6----
G---5/7----7/5---5/2---2/0---0/2------2/5------5/7------7/5-----5--
D------------------------------------------------------------------
A------------------------------------------------------------------
E------------------------------------------------------------------

Verse riff:
F 133211 Dm 557765 Bm 113333 Gm 355333 C 335555
Chorus: (also Bridge:)
C 335555 Bm 113333

This song is in my radio.blog (see the sidebar of this page! near the top...)

Tags: song

Old friends

old friends
Originally uploaded by themexican.

Text from "themexican" on flickr :
"The man with the paper spoke Spanish. He had been a teacher in Cuba during Mao's time (in 10 years of travels he was the 4th Cuban trained teacher I met). The things he missed most about Cuba were the girls, the music, and the dancing. Apparently he had fallen in love, but "relations" were forbidden and when he and his girlfriend were discovered he was sent back to Yunnan.

"Nobody wants to learn Spanish here," he said, "only English." Years later he married a local Kunming girl. His wife forbids him from playing his Son and Changüi records, but he does anyway when she's out."

Sécheresse en Thailande

Libération : La Thaîlande pleure des rizières: "Faculté d'adaptation. De leur côté, les agriculteurs font preuve d'une étonnante faculté d'adaptation à ces conditions adverses. Beaucoup ont abandonné le riz pour se tourner vers des légumineuses à cycle court, par exemple le soja, qui nécessitent beaucoup moins d'eau qu'un second cycle de riz. D'autres ouvrent des petites échoppes ou partent à Bangkok travailler pendant les longs mois de la saison sèche. Cette capacité à répondre aux défis climatiques sera de plus en plus nécessaire si l'on en croit les experts locaux de l'effet de serre : selon eux, dans cinquante ans, la température dans le Nord-Est thaïlandais se sera élevée de 3,5 ° alors même que les précipitations n'auront pas augmenté."

[update] CHINE - L'empire du Milieu va manquer d'eau

Benoit-Benedict

Technorati: Search for benoit benedict "XVI": "Benedict XVI, or Benoit XVI in French"

"Correction", post de versac

England added to GoogleMap.... 

How to deal with anti-Japanese riots in China? (China Herald)

China Herald: "How to deal with anti-Japanese riots in China?

“So much for Shanghai as an international city.” Some of the assessments of observers of the anti-Japanese riots in Shanghai last Saturday were pretty harsh. Many questions come up at foreign invested companies in China, also the ones that are not Japanese. A few answers. This is a unique moment to show some moral leadership in your company.

1. Do not underestimate the anti-Japanese feelings at your work place. Chinese have a longstanding tradition of hate against the Japanese. Although very few people have for example read the much-discussed Japanese history books and the rhetoric is often flimsy, you should take those anti-Japanese feelings serious. Especially when your people have to deal with Japanese customers or suppliers, it makes sense to discuss the issue. In some cases you might even have to reassign people.
2. Do not make the issue bigger than it is. Although the riot was racist in nature and became violent, the violence had a rather symbolic value, compared to the damage violent demonstrations sometime cause outside China."
[...]

chinese faces by odd-fish media

odd-fish media - Blog Archive - chinese faces: nice portrait, and nice way to present it. (flash is really something i should try)

Bullets & Honey: Ryszard Kapuscinski

Bullets & Honey: Ryszard Kapuscinski: The Literary Vulture Circling African Suffering [@nonymoused]: "I am not for disguising the violence and poverty that afflicts parts of Africa - in fact I am for it enough that I am writing a doctoral thesis on the place of genocide in political life by studying Rwanda. But I know that I am not the only one who is sick and tired of these European writers who come to Africa to wax on about bloodthirsty militias, corrupt and stupid officials, and, of course, good hearted prostitutes. Certainly all these observations are true, and to a large extent I agree with them. What I hate though, is how Africa for too many European writers and humanitarians is merely a mirror to confirm their superior humanity. "

[...]

"Extract from Granta 48 Africa Issue:
The European mind is willing to acknowledge its limitations, accept its limitations. It is a sceptical mind. The spirit of criticism does not exist in other cultures. They are proud, believing that what they have is perfect. "

"Extracts from Shadow of the Sun:
Let us remember that fear of revenge is deeply rooted in the African mentality.
The European and the African, have an entirely different concept of time.
In Africa, drivers avoid traveling at night darkness unnerves them they may flatly refuse to drive after sunset.
... in Africa a cousin on your mother's side is more important than a husband.
The kind of history known in Europe as scholarly and objective can never arise here because the African past has no documents or records, and each generation, listening to the version being transmitted to it, changed it and continues to change it..."

I was curious when i learned in another post that:
"Ryszard Kapuscinski will be speaking at various fora in New York City starting on Saturday the 16th of April 2005 - invited by PEN America"
but the rest of the post is on how he is a liar... there seems to exist some people who really hate him. i'll try to understand but i'm affraid i won't...

Thailande

Courrier international : THAÏLANDE - Entre développement et chaos, il faut choisir
"Bangkok jouit pourtant des pires conditions de circulation du pays, et même du monde. L’air y est terriblement pollué. La Chao Phraya, le fleuve qui la traverse, et ses canaux ne sont rien de plus que des égouts à ciel ouvert. Et le bruit y est tout simplement assourdissant. Bangkok possède moins de surface d’espaces verts par habitant que les capitales de nos voisins, et moins encore que des grandes villes comme Paris ou Washington."
"Le développement anarchique est en train de tuer le charme de Chiang Mai et de Phuket, deux cités qui étaient dans le passé si agréables à visiter. "

Mon journal de Chine : le pape au Ningxia

Mon journal de Chine : le pape au Ningxia bcp, bcp de commentaires.... certains interessants (mais j'ai même pas tout lu)

Fuel shortage

Looks like there can be fuel shortage here too in Kunming. i was told that a tourist bus was blocked in shilin (stone forest) cause it was impossible to get gas... i don't know if it's just a local shortage, or if it is bigger than that. but the other comment i got from my source is "strange that it happens now, this is not the season... normally it happens at the end of the year"

update : this article in reuters about benin fuel shortage

update 2 : Maoming-Kunming Oil Product Pipeline set to begin delivery: "Sinopec Corp's 1,700-km Maoming-
Kunming Oil Product Pipeline, designed to fuel southwestern China, is to
begin deliveries next week.
The entire line, with a designed annual capacity of 10 mln tons, is to
go into operation in the third quarter of the year, transporting oil
products from coastal areas to in the city of Kunming, capital of the
Yunnan Province."

mise-à-jour 3 : Lib�ration :�P�trole, attention au choc: "demande chinoise croissante"

upadate 4: The New York Times > Business > World Business > The Great Engine of China Is Low on Fuel: "GUANGZHOU, China, April 15 - Service stations across China are starting to run short on diesel this spring, while electricity blackouts here in southeastern China are growing worse as power stations cut back on purchases of fuel oil."

Wo diushile wode xiaonanhai

Le studio Ghibli - Buta Connection, un site francophone consacré à Miyazaki et Takahata "Selon les dernières rumeurs, le prochain film du Studio Ghibli serait l'adaptation d'un roman chinois pour enfants intitulé Wo diushile wode xiaonanhai ("J'ai perdu mon petit garçon") de l'écrivain Yishu. Il s'agit de l'histoire d'un petit garçon, Mimi, souffrant d'une maladie d'une maladie cardiaque, et qui rencontre d'étranges personnages au cours de ses voyages curatifs.

Selon l'auteur, Miyazaki viendrait en Chine en juin afin de confirmer ou d'infirmer le projet. Le film sortirait sur les écrans en 2006. Il a également annoncé également le départ à la retraite de Miyazaki après son prochain film (mais l'on connaît les nombreux revirements de Miyazaki sur ce sujet depuis quelques années maintenant!)

Cependant, dans une autre interview, Suzuki a annoncé que le studio travaillaut sur trois projets, un film de Miyazaki, un film de Takahata, et un troisième fondé sur l'adaptation d'un roman pour enfants. Ce dernier projet pourrait donc concerner le roman de Yishu et l'on ignore donc le rôle réel de Miyazaki dans cette adaptation (scénariste? producteur?). L'information reste donc à confirmer! "

New Pictures (Hiking, north of Kunming)

Photo Album on msn.space
I have to admit it's quite practical.... not that i will move my blog to msn, nono....

"Techies"

Libération : Appels gratuits à la pelle: "«Techies». Les familles éclatées, les globe-trotters ou les expatriés forment le socle des premiers adeptes de Skype. «On reste dans un marché de "techies" (fans des nouvelles technologies)», note Roland Montagne, analyste de l'Idate, un institut d'études sur les télécoms. Des familiers de l'outil Internet, très à l'aise quand ils engagent la conversation devant un écran. Ils en sont les meilleurs zélateurs."

Sur l'internet chinois

Libération : Sur l'internet chinois, le pape aussi tabou que le sexe ou la démocratie: "La cyber-police chinoise, qui disposerait de 30.000 employés, contrôle étroitement internet. Elle a établi une liste noire de mots clés, notamment sur des thèmes religieux. Ces mots interdits, au nombre d'un millier, sont placés sur des filtres connectés aux serveurs chinois. Mais si cette méthode ne ralentit pas trop le flux pour les internautes chinois naviguant d'un site à l'autre, elle a la particularité de freiner de manière importante les discussions sur les messageries instantanées qui doivent passer par ces filtres. Surtout en Chine où le nombre de personnes connectées simultanément peut dépasser les six millions sur «QQ», le programme le plus utilisé. Pour cette raison, la cyber-police chinoise a discrètement entrepris d'intégrer en 2003 une liste noire de base dans les programmes de messagerie instantanés disponibles en Chine. Ce programme caché en «cheval de Troie» a été découvert l'an dernier par des hackers sur QQ. Lorsque QQ est installé sur un ordinateur, un programme appellé COMToolKit.ddl s'installe automatiquement. Celui-ci contient tous les mots mis à l'index. On y trouve côte à côte «baiser», «inceste», «salope», «démocratie», «merde», «liberté», «Falungong» (une secte interdite)... Environ 15% des mots interdits touchent au sexe, tous les autres concernent le domaine politique. Parmi les noms propres, on trouve un grand nombre de noms d'officiels chinois et de leurs familles (15% du total), et ceux de dissidents, d'écrivains et d'intellectuels. Certaines publications étrangères sont également interdites, dont la BBC."

Kunming International Culture and Tourism Festival on Xinhua

Xinhua - English - PicturesChinese monks perform kung fu during the Kunming International Culture and Tourism Festival in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province, April 10, 2005.

Antoine's picture album
My friend went there the day after me, on saturday.

Kunming International Culture and Tourism Festival. D. took me there, on friday night, and it was great stuff, especially when you don't expect a so big event!
 

Une chine antijaponaise

tsr.ch - actu - monde: "Vingt mille personnes ont manifesté dimanche dans le Sud de la Chine, poursuivant une campagne antijaponaise malgré une vive protestation du Japon après des violences la veille contre son ambassade à Pékin."

Suitcasing: They always never

Suitcasing: They always never
I opened the door of a cafe's toilet the other day, and a middle aged Chinese woman was inside, about to unbutton her jeans and crouch down." [...]
"Beyond trivial things like toilets and chopsticks, there a lot of deeply strange differences."[...]
"I hate writing stuff like this, it makes me wonder how stereotyping I've become."[...]
"Expat society is a very fertile environment for stereotyping"
[...]
great post, i think :-)
(Dan lives here in kunming, and i met him)

Cornel West

Libération : Afro jojo: "Cornel West, 51 ans, philosophe américain iconoclaste. Adulé par ses étudiants, détesté par les réactionnaires de Harvard, il s'est frotté au rap et a joué son propre rôle au cinéma."

Gilberto Gil et Caetano Veloso

La Blogothèque mp3blog audioblog - London, London: "Un jour de 1968 Gilberto Gil et Caetano Veloso sont arrêtés par la police et enfermés pour cause de créativité débridée, un crime dans un Brésil sous régime dictatorial militaire."

2 g/km de CO2 gagnés en trois ans

Effets de terre: Co2 mon amour - Posted by Denis Delbecq: "On vit une époque formidable. Aujourd'hui, l'Ademe a publié son palmarès des émission de gaz carbonique des voitures présentes sur le marché français. Et qu'y lit-on? Que les progrès en matière de conception sont si lents (2 g/km de CO2 gagnés en trois ans) qu'il faudra 21 ans pour parvenir au seuil de 120g/km que les constructeurs se sont engagés à respecter… en 2008 (1). Tout cela prouve quoi? Qu'il ne faut jamais faire confiance à un constructeur automobile. Ni aux autorités d'un pays où la bagnole fait vivre des centaines de milliers de personnes. Ni aux consommateurs qui, comme chacun sait, préfèrent les grosses."

Kunming: new Airport

ET Net News: "Yunnan Airport Group president Liu Ming said the company plans to
invest Yuan 16 billion to build a new airport in Kunming.
Upon completion in 2008, total passenger throughput of the new airport is estimated
to hit between 16 million and 18 million a year, with annual cargo throughput of 400,000
tonnes.
The existing Yunnan airport recorded total passenger throughput of 9.8 million and
cargo throughput of 210,000 tonnes last year."

Year of France in China, Carrefour bus 

I took many pictures of that, but non of them are perfect 

Friday night, near the french cafe. 

Minority Village. this is from the Zhuang people part i think (or maybe tibetan?). Miss P. wanted to take me there 'cause she thought i would like it (she likes it). we couldn't stay for the music (we were so hungry) and so, we were a little bit disappointed. 

Visit of the Minority village

Minority village
Originally uploaded by antoine102.

on saturday, we went to the minority village, near Kunming, where many minorities are represented (cloths, music, architecture.... shops!). it's not so nice (i'd rather travel around yunnan to discover each minoity...). The good thing is: we went with miss P. she's the owner of our favourite cafe (near home). she asked I. to help her (Miss P. always says "my english is very poor"). I. is now a teacher, and she is a good friend of ours.
We had a nice time ^_^
Then, at 4pm, after visiting miss P. (very nice flat, impressive!), we went to her daughter's english class to "teach" for 1 hour and a half. There were 10 years old, and it was quite difficult, but interesting.

oh yeah, and we had lunch at the restaurant of one of Miss P.'s friend.

we were tired at the end of the day!

Tags: Kunming 昆明

Traffic in the Sky

JackJohnsonMusic.com
Traffic in the Sky

there's traffic in the sky
and it doesn't seem to be getting much better
there's kids playing games on the pavement
drawing waves on the pavement - Mmm hmm
shadows of the planes on the pavement - Mmm hmm
it's enough to make me cry
but that don't seem like it would make it feel better
maybe it's a dream and if i scream
it will burst at the seams
this whole place will fall into pieces
and then they'd say:

well how could we have known?
i'll tell them it's not so hard to tell - Nah nah nah
if you keep adding stones
soon the water will be lost in the well - Mmm hmm

puzzle pieces in the ground
but no one ever seems to be digging instead they're looking up towards the heavens
with their eyes on the heavens - Mmm hmm
there are shadows on the way to the heavens - Mmm hmm
it's enough to make me cry
but that don't seem like it would make it feel better
the answers could be found
we could learn from digging down
but no one ever seems to be digging
instead they'll say:

well how could we have known?
i'll tell them it's not so hard to tell - Nah nah nah
if you keep adding stones
soon the water will be lost in the well - Mmm hmm

words of wisdom all around
but no one ever seems to listen
they're talking about their plans on the paper
building up from the pavement
there are shadows from the scrapers on the pavement
it's enough to make me sigh
but that don't seem like it would make it feel better
the words are all around
but the words are only sounds
and no one ever seems to listen
instead they'll say:

well how could we have known?
i'll tell them it's really not so hard to tell - Nah nah nah
if you keep adding stones
soon the water will be lost in the well
lost in the well - Mmm hmm


Tab:
D 557777 F#m 99'11''11''10'9 c 335555 Em 779987
A G# G ( 577655 > 466544 > 355433 )
A D B G bis ( 577655 > 557777 > 224432 > 355433 )

Ryszard Kapuscinski quote

Baheyya: Egypt Analysis and Whimsy: Whither Egypt?: "It is authority that provokes revolution. Certainly, it does not do so consciously. Yet its style of life and way of ruling finally become a provocation. This occurs when a feeling of impunity takes root among the elite: We are allowed anything, we can do anything. This is a delusion, but it rests on a certain rational foundation. For a while it does indeed look as if they can do whatever they want. Scandal after scandal and illegality after illegality go unpunished. The people remain silent, patient, wary. They are afraid and do not yet feel their own strength. At the same time, they keep a detailed account of the wrongs, which at one particular moment are to be added up. The choice of that moment is the greatest riddle known to history. Why did it happen on that day, and not on another? Why did this event, and not some other, bring it about? After all, the government was indulging in even worse excesses only yesterday, and there was no reaction at all. 'What have I done?' asks the ruler, at a loss. 'What has possessed them all of a sudden?' This is what he has done: He has abused the patience of the people. But where is the limit of that patience? How can it be defined? If the answer can be determined at all, it will be different in each case. The only certain thing is
that rulers who know that such a limit exists and know how to respect it can
count on holding power for a long time. But there are few such rulers."

Giant Steps by Michal Levy

Giant Steps by Michal Levy Animation Flash sur la musique de John Coltrane...
Via