YouTube - VideoHotpot - The Tone Police

Funny!!!!!!

Notes africaines: Lune de miel avec les Chinois

Notes africaines: Lune de miel avec les Chinois: "Comme l'a signalé dans nos colonnes notre correspondante au Nigeria, Virginie Gomez (lire article), les Chinois prennent d'assaut les marchés africains par la bande. On aurait tort, en effet, de croire qu'ils se contentent d'investir dans les champs pétrolifères dans le golfe de Guinée ou au Sud-Soudan pour alimenter en énergie leur formidable croissance économique. Dans de nombreuses capitales africaines, les étals regorgent de produits "made in China" à des prix défiant toute concurrence. De la cuvette multicolore au parfum bon marché, du vélo aux ustensiles de cuisine, on trouve de tout, de Kampala (en Ouganda) à Lomé (au Togo). Dans la capitale togolaise, l'an dernier, un entrepreneur français évoquait devant nous le dynamisme des Chinois en ces termes: "Quand nous mettons sur le marché local un nouveau parfum, quinze jours plus tard, les Chinois proposent le même à un tarif moindre."
Pour la clientèle locale, c'est tout bénéfice. A priori. A Bamako, au Mali, les motos chinoises font un malheur. Il faut dire qu'elles sont deux fois moins chères que les engins japonais... Les importations chinoises ont ainsi permis à une large fraction de la population de la capitale malienne de s'équiper, et partant de réduire ses temps de transport et de gagner en autonomie... Qui s'en plaindrait?
Mais dans d'autres secteurs de l'économie, le revers de la médaille est patent. Dans le textile, les productions locales sont étouffées par la concurrence asiatique, et pas seulement chinoise (indienne, sri-lankaise, etc.). Dans le BTP, notamment en Algérie, les entreprises chinoises débarquent avec leur propre main d'œuvre. Pas sûr, donc, que l'arrivée massive des Chinois permette de réduire les taux de chômage sur le continent.
T. H. Rédigé le jeudi 27 avril 2006"

'Dynamic Yunnan' to stage world tour

Xinhua - English: "'Dynamic Yunnan' to stage world tour
2006-04-29 08:14:24

Beijing, April 28 -- China's large-scale dance drama 'Dynamic Yunnan' will stage its world tour beginning this September.

The outdoor dance musical has been seen as an outstanding innovation on the Chinese stage in recent years.

China's entertainment giant, Pegasus & Taihe Company, has allied with the biggest performance companies in the United States and Europe to promote the world tour of the dancing musical.

There will be more than 450 performances conducted during the European Tour in September. Between 2006 and 2010, over 1000 performances will also be staged around the world.

'Dynamic Yunnan' illustrates the richness of Yunnan minorities' culture by blending the essence of traditional songs with folk dance.

The original ethnic dance musical masterpiece was created by Chinese dancer Yang Liping, who became an overnight success in 1986 after performing her solo dance 'The Spirit of the Peacock' in a national contest.

(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)
Editor: Yang Lei"

Transfer from Hong Kong airport(HKG) to Shenzen Airport (SZX)

Trying to get to Kunming from France, I found a cheap ticket from paris to Hong Kong (HKG) (on Internet, 565 euros everything included).
But plane tickets from Hong Kong to any China cities doesn't seem to be considered as a domestic flight: for example, HKG-KMG is more expensive than SZX-KMG although SZX is not so far from HKG (40km)
I thought there must be a way to use this opportunity to go to Kunming...
Of course, doing that is time consuming but it can make you save some money.

So there are several way to do that. And I could find lots of info about this on the web. direct ferry is an option. Subway to Hong Kong "border", then bus is another one.
Finally I took a direct coach. it costed me 206 Hongkong dollars (which is almost same with RMB) so about 20 euros.

Funny how we had to pass different borders... First for getting out of the airport. Then, to pass from Hong Kong to Shenzen, we had 2 checkpoints. one out of hongkong (the bus where waiting for us during walking through), and another one to enter "mainland china" if that's how they call it.... there, we changed bus. we were only 2 persons going to shenzhen airport but we had a bus for ourselves.
We just had a traffic jam at the end, when arriving to SZX. it took me 2 hours 30 min. but i guess it can take much more time if anything goes wrong.



Concerning looking for plane tickets on Internet:
Tickets from France: Mobissimo.fr or Easyvols.org
In China: Elong.com

Skype in China

Interesting post about skype in China:

Comments about Skype chat text filtering in
China

By Jaanus

Today’s Financial Times posted a story about how Skype’s partner TOM Online is filtering text messages in China. Skype has a joint venture with TOM Online. As part of that venture, we provide a co-branded version of Skype called TOM-Skype, which is the version of Skype that is available in mainland China. As part of the joint venture, TOM provides guidance to Skype about how to co-operate with local laws and regulations in China. In every country we operate in, we always work with local authorities to follow local laws and best practice. TOM operates a text filter in TOM-Skype. The filter operates solely on text chats. The filter has a list of words which will not be displayed in Skype chats. The text filter operates on the chat message content before it is encrypted for transmission, or after it has been decrypted on the receiver side. If the message is found unsuitable for displaying, it is simply discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere. It is important to underline: The text filter does not affect in any way the security and encryption mechanisms of Skype. Full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people’s privacy. Calls, chats and all other forms of communication on Skype continue to be encrypted and secure. There is absolutely no filtering on voice communications.

Rainy KunMing

;-)

Good map news!

Woaw! good news... google maps in europe! finally...
makes me happy to read about this:

We're excited to announce that we have just launched beta versions of Google Maps for France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. These sites include the full suite of interactive street maps, driving directions, and integrated local business search. This has been a global effort with Google teams in Paris, Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, New York, Mountain View, Kirkland, Sydney, London, Dublin, and Zurich working together for much of the past year to build a truly "local" product.

Accompanying this release, we have greatly improved high resolution imagery coverage for Europe in both Google Maps and Google Earth. Check out the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Olympiastadion in Berlin, and the Grand Canal in Venice.

To give you a preview of what's to come, we've also rendered street maps for many other countries in Europe. Developers, you can incorporate these maps and imagery into your own websites using the free Google Maps API Version 2.

Ze FRT and FNS connection - Group Map by Frappr Groups

J'ai créé un groupe de discussion partage sur Frappr. Le site tourne autour d'une google maps, et c'est plutôt sympa pour une promo...
on va voir comment ça évolue, mais c'est plutôt bien parti.

Frapper.com/engref

Chengdu 成都

Chengdu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Chengdu (Chinese: 成都; Hanyu Pinyin: Chéngdū; Wade-Giles: Ch'eng-tu), located in southwest China, is the capital of the Sichuan province and a sub-provincial city. It is the 4th most populous city in China and a political, cultural and economic centre of southwest China."

By 2004 the population was 10,596,900.

In 1979, Chengdu signed a sister city agreement with Montpellier, France，the first pair of Sino-French sister cities.

Official site, in English

Sichuan - Wikipédia

Sichuan - Wikipédia: "Le Sichuan (四川 Sìchuān — Seutchouan — « Quatre rivières », c'est-à-dire Mékong, Yang-tsé-kiang, Huang He, Salouen) est une province du centre-ouest de la Chine, dont la capitale est Chengdu."

La Chine est un modèle de développement économique

Courrier international : L'OPINION DU JOUR - La Chine est un modèle de développement économique: "'La Chine est sur le point d'adopter son XIe plan quinquennal, permettant la poursuite de ce qui est probablement la plus remarquable transformation économique de l'Histoire, tout en améliorant le bien-être d'un quart de la population mondiale. Jamais auparavant le monde n'avait vu une croissance aussi soutenue ni une si forte réduction de la pauvreté.' Ces louanges de l'économie chinoise ne viennent pas des caciques du Parti communiste chinois mais d'un Prix Nobel d'économie, le professeur Joseph Stiglitz."

Ce qui est le plus remarquable pour Stiglitz, c'est que ce développement se réalise en défiant le "consensus de Washington", siège des grandes organisations internationales financières que sont le FMI et la Banque mondiale, dont le dogme impose une "quête chimérique d'un PIB plus élevé". Pour sa part, la Chine "a clairement fait comprendre qu'elle recherchait une élévation durable et plus équilibrée des niveaux de vie réels". A cet égard, elle compte dans son plan quinquennal limiter la facture environnementale de son développement. De même, elle veut s'attaquer de front aux problèmes de l'aggravation des inégalités.

Nouveau livre de Ryszard Kapuscinski: Hérodote le héros

Libération : Hérodote le héros:
"Ryszard Kapuscinski
Mes voyages avec Hérodote
Traduit du polonais par Véronique Patte. Plon, 287 pp., 20,50 €."

Le Monde.fr : Ryszard Kapuscinski : "Il est possible de décrire le monde": "Ryszard Kapuscinski est un 'cas'. Un journaliste polonais au nom imprononçable pour les non-initiés, au service de la modeste agence de presse de la Pologne populaire."

Odeo: Toxic by Nickel Creek (live)

Chants de la Montagne de l'Ame

Buda Musique - Chine : Chants de la Montagne de l'Ame

Il faut écouter l'extrait - sample...
Je suis tombé là-dessus en cherchant des blog sur le sichuan: China Sichuan Culture

“Please Help me (qing bangzhu wo)”

Beijing This Month- The Case of the Missing Ring Road: "Manic Manny the Frenchmen (Faguoren) stumbled into my office at 11:30 a.m. with panic in his blues eyes.

“Please HELP ME (qing bangzhu wo),” he screamed with his entire body.

“How can I HELP YOU (bangzhu ni)?”

“I need help with love (aiqing de bangzhu).”

“Sorry, Sir, I don’t do THAT sort of bangzhu…anymore.”"

to be continued here