Spanish Basketball Olympic Team accused of racism but guilty of stupidity

Spanish media took a picture from the Spanish Basketball team and they decided that it would be funny to act 'Chinese' in the picture. Maybe it was funny at the moment, now is just giving them a big headache. As The Guardian informed they weren't being consciously racist, but probably pretty stupid.

Since I saw the news in The Guardian I have began reading in different Chinese media (and international media too) an increasing attack against the team. I am convinced it was not a clever think to do and not exactly disrespectful, however, thanks to the media, this is being magnified and exaggerated.

The way Spaniards are pictured in most countries all over the world have always been and probably will continue to be through stupid topics (many times these are not even true). You shall think this is not the same as talking about race, it is about culture, and in many places around the world people takes culture and traditions more than seriously, and Spaniards don't make an international issue about it.

The team shouldn't have done that, but little stupid things can NOT be used as an excuse every now and then to create a conflict. People worldwide have to learn respect and, more important, to be able to go through misunderstandings and differences.

This would help us all.

Picture from The Guardian.

China fakes the Olympics

Spectators watching the fiery footprints trekking across Beijing's sky for the opening day of the Olympics Friday saw a digitally enhanced tapestry of images, according to several news agencies.

In fact, the images had been created up to a year in advance and were superimposed onto live footage of the event to embellish what might have been a less dramatic show if the city's hazy weather had put a damper on the ceremony, said MSNBC.com, which said that the Beijing Times first revealed the enhanced video.

The Daily Telegraph said Beijing Olympic Committee members had also reasoned that the pilot in any helicopter that would have followed the route of the fireworks display, which consisted of 29 footprints walking along the city to symbolize 29 Olympiads, might be at great risk.

The 55-second display took almost a year to create, visual effects team leader Gao Xiaolong told the Daily Telegraph. It consisted of fireworks and massive footprints appearing as if walking over the city. While the display did in fact take place, the organizers wanted to be sure the effect would not be plagued by weather issues that could have distorted the view.

It was not only seen by millions of television watchers, but attendees at the ceremony seeing the fireworks display on giant screens at the Olympics arena, Bird's Nest National Stadium, were also treated to the elaborate, if fake, display.

"Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible," the Daily Telegraph reported Xiaolong as saying. "They sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to re-create the hazy effects of Beijing's smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter."

Text from News Day.

Picture from Kotaku.

I am wordless

Li Ning, Addidas and Nike... everything is possible!

For those who don't know - everyone outside China I believe - Li Ning is a Chinese sports brand which takes its name from its founder, Li Ning, who won three gold medals for gymnastics at the 1984 Olympics.

So far so good, but the problem lays down to the logo and slogan of Li Ning. The brand's logo is suspiciously looking like Nike's swoosh and the slogan, "Anything is Possible" which one would say weirdly sounds like adidas' "Impossible is nothing".

Li Ning is not an official sponsor of the Olympics, however the brand has had its first big hit. I bet you that Adidas, large sponsor in China, is NOT happy about it.

China's devotion for brands hasn't yet translated into the ability to create them. Chinese companies have to learn that branding is basic to play in the big league and at the moment I haven't seen any signs they understand it.


How the IOC have allowed this flagrant international "launching" of a company shamlessly based on copying, I wonder if they are going to do something about it... well I don't.

Picture from Danwei.

Google fights Baigu back!

Baidu Inc. dominates China's Internet search market even with Google Inc. and the key to the mistery is in the amount of ilegal amount of free unlicensed music downloads that Baidu offer.

Google now is about to fight back in a joint venture with Top100 Inc. with free music downloads (licensed).

The idea: Better-quality files will draw users away from unlicensed downloads, and give labels and search companies valuable data needed to make money from advertising, say people familiar with the plans. Also let record labels know how often their music is downloaded.

At the moment just Vivendi SA's Universal Music is the only big company in the project but EMI and Sony BMG are thinking about it.

We'll see how this works, if it does be sure you'll be able to read it here.

Picture from Music 2.0 and information from Shanghai Daily.

Mariscal and Roca for Beijing Olympic Games

Mariscal Designed the limited series of hand basins that Roca has produced for the Chinese market on the occasion of the Beijing Olympic Games, Mariscal has come up with a commemorative decoration, starring some of the most popular Olympic sports: swimming, tennis, cycling and the marathon.

Pictures from Decoestilo.

US and India have a nuclear moment

Yesterday, Indian MPs voted a confidence motion to their Government in order to seal a civilian nuclear agreement with the United States government so India can meet its energy needs. Despite being a large producer of oil, India's oil meets just 40% of the country's rapidly increasing consumption. India pretended to be in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but seems it never had a real will to sign it. That is a sine qua non condition to receive this technology ... until now. I wonder what kind of precedent this exemption is going to create? Especially now that Iran's nuclear developments are in vogue.

If this was not enough, the icing on the cake was when the MPs began waving wads of cash in Parliament - a supposed bribe to abstain. I expected more of India, whose prime minister Manmohan Singh, as far as I know is an intellectual with first class honours from Cambridge, Oxford, et cetera. Wether it is true or not, he has shown that he is leading a corrupt party (not that the opposition does much better), not knowing what is going on in his own party or encouraging this behaviour! As The Asian Age said parliament has "sullied the fair image and reputation of the Indian parliamentary system earned over six decades", and most media used adjectives such as pyrrhic and shame.

As a country that possesses nuclear weapons, couldn't India finance programs to develop its own civil nuclear energy? Are they meritous enough to deserve this kind of help? The answer is no, but with China threatening America's supremacy, an India is emerging stronger and stronger and could be a great ally to content a China (which is already biting America's heels). Morever, Mr. Bush - always willing to fight terrorists - has elevated its position to India when compared to Pakistan. I want to see how well it goes for General Pervez Musharraf to implement anti-terrorist policies lead by the US; I bet Pakistanies will be belly, belly happy.

There have been so many detractors around this matter in both countries. I already mentioned Indian media but the prestigious (a little less every year) New York Times also published more than one editorials about George Bush and Manmohan Singh's nuclear moment ... not happy I must say.

Picture from killeenroos.

Is it true? Is it cool?

Is it true? I don't know, I have tried to solve the mistery... I couldn't.
Is it cool? Well, it would be pretty another 'cultural revolution'.

Here goes the transcription:

The longest recorded piece of graffiti was painted by a student in the toilets of his college, Changsha, China in 1915. It consisted of over 4000 characters criticising his teachers and state of Chinese society. After completing this masterpiece the student handed himself in and was paraded in front of the school and threatened with expulsion. The student was a 22 year old Chairman Mao. A graffiti artist who later founded the People’s Republic of China and was responsible for the deaths of over 30 million people."

Chiang Fang, Chinese Army Magazine, Dec 1968

Source http://www.banksy.co.uk; shii

Chinese musketeers need no Dartagnan

These three men are not well known outside China but Chinese people know them so it is not the Chinese fault that the world are yet to meet them, it's because (as always) Foreign media just talks about what they want to talk about.

Wang Lequan (mastermind of Chinese policy towards the ethnic minorities)

He established an hierarchy that brought stability to Xinjiang, all that was necessary to improve the economy in that zone. Which is already getting better and giving its citizens an oportunity for a better life.

Quote: "No matter what nationality, no matter who it is, wreckers, separatists and terrorists will be smashed by us. There is no doubt about that." Isn't what all western countries are saying right now? Especially in Europe, France even intended to do DNA tests on immigrants, Spain trying with all means to criminalize political parties asking for greater autonomy ... and I could go on with a large list of countries.

Zhang Qingli (Tibet secretary)

Quote: called the Dalai Lama “a wolf in monk’s clothes, a devil with a human face”. The Dalai Lama has used as much money and weapons from the CIA as he could to fight the Chinese, and the whole world still treats him as the most peaceful thing on Earth, well he is not.

Quote: “those who do not love the motherland are not qualified to be human beings”. That may sound a little extreme but at the end of the day it is what almost all politicians around the world have in mind, and if when feeling their own sovereignty threatened, everything necessary will be done to fight against it. People think their own countries are not to blame but what is to be said is: Anyone who is without sin shall cast a stone at China.

Is believed that he was there to just destroy Tibetan culture, what no foreign media says is that he built schools, hospitals and services that Tibet would have never have had without China. Even the Dalai Lama says so.

Li Dezhu (the Party’s racial theoretician)

He is attacked for writing a book about destroying independent cultures and disintegrating religious minorities by promoting materialism. That's one lecture, my lecture is that if people have a better quality of life, people are going to care less about cultural and racial differences and live in harmony.

He is accused by foreign media of trying to dissolve Tibetan culture by refashioning Tibetans rather than trying to help their culture. Question: would any government on Earth not try to do the same when having a region that causes this sort of big trouble?


These are not statements. Some may agree and others may not but disagreement doesn't make something a lie. China is accused of the same actions that any country in the need of them would do or have already done to stabilize their own country, China is doing the best thing to be done! China should not be the target of a worldwide boycotts of the Olympic Games, let's make this an opportunity to help to improve this country and improve the friendship amongst everyone, not one to destroy it. The Olympic Games should never be used with political intentions and that is what Tibetans, specially de Dalai Lama, are doing. Chinese people would never ever understand a failure in their Games, and they would not because there is no fair reason for it.

Image from flickr.

About China

News about China ’s troubles within the country are increasing exponentially, not just due to the Olympics but it’s weight in the international community. Parallel to that grows, sinophobia around the western world meanwhile non-western serious and rich countries that are supporting China on their policies, Singapore for instance.

There are governments talking badly about China that are just afraid to lose some votes, and press groups with the doubtable target of informing the world, which gets huge attention from all the media even if all this organizations are quite sinister and not really reliable. Reporters Without Borders are now increasing their activism against China now that Tibet is a riot. However they reported recently Spain as a country where there is an important lack of free press since the government shut down a newspaper that extolled ETA terrorists. These people would rather see 100 Israelis dead than a Palestinian arrested without a proper police report.

Opinions about China should be deeply meditated, forming a proper impression about this country requires an accurate analysis which should include the whole world in it, not just China . This country needs improvement, but doesn't all countries need some? The whole Great China will be soon a more powerful country than USA or the European Comunity. They will reach the so-desired free market economy to be on the same level as Singapore and soon all their big cities will be as rich as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Have to be added it is believed by many that the USA and Europe should move in the same direction or they will just become insignificant. The next century is not ours; time will make Asia right.

China does not mess with anyone outside their borders, they just want to develop their country with their own sweat and blood. Not like Europe that had to colonize half of the planet! The main problem is not China because the global/western monotheist inquisition is not going to tolerate that a non-occidentalized, heretic, different country makes good progress. And that is just aligning half of Asia, Africa and Latin America with China, because people not without reason is tired of the West. We shouldn’t project our western way of viewing entirely different societies against the whole world.

This country must to go towards becoming a technocracy or a unique party democracy such as Singapore. A region as big and populated as China is not going to work with a populist model of democracy like in all developed countries right now, we have confused so easily fulfilling hoi polloi demands for just giving them the show they need. Developed Asian countries have done what had to be done so far, no matter who agreed or disagreed with their actions, they just did the right things.

Often forgotten is that any citizen from a poor region of the world when asked about what he wants and desires, he is going to have this clear: First life itself, then quality of life which in many countries does not go hand-in-hand with liberties. However so far “Confusionist Capitalism” works really good and has no rival.

• Image from Singapore Art Gallery Guide.

Buddha woulda shoulda coulda

"Free Tibet". There neither was nor is such a thing. Tibet’s freedom would just mean another dictatorship, when in all those decades have you ever listened to this lazybones - a.k.a. the DL - mention a word about establishing a democracy there? When for God’s sake someone has mentioned as a free country a place where the head-of-state is the all-powerful chosen by Buddha/God?

People hate the Chinese so much - and they are good people! - that no matter what you may show about Tibetans, they wouldn’t find water in the sea! Let us be serious, Tibet for many periods across history and along thousands of years have belonged to China and Tibetans are not saints. Tibet alone when the Brits had is as a colony had slave commerce as a current activity!

China does what every country should do to give their citizens a good present and an even better future. Should be said Tibetan’s have not been caring much about themselfs. I am not trying to be on a side, but it is important to take all the data into consideration, and I have never heard anyone questioning Mr. Thubten Wang Chen, a.k.a. DL. He himself organized and supported fully the CIA financiering of the guerrilla force during the 50s; he is just now asking for peace when he has seen that force wasn’t working! Furthermore, never apologized for such things, and has worked hard over the years to keep the particulars of those plans hush-hush.

• Read what other bloggers have to say.

• Image from El País.