反动 臭闻 照片 视频 博文 汉学 翻译 禁书专政是效 率最低的执政方式，因为人们没有权利，就没有责任
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| You are Welcome to China | Inspired by the Chinglish signs at China's International border crossings | ||
| I want to be a Chinese | I want to be Chinese; my first article published in Hong Kong's Open Magazine, banned on the mainland | ||
| Who Deleted My Website? | Who deleted my website? published by Trends magazine in August 2011, banned on the mainland | ||
| Shanghai-Expo | The Shanghai Expo was used by the Communist Party to mobilise its forces in another repressive crackdown.Published by Trends Magazine in 2010, banned on the mainland |
My satirical article in Hong Kong Open magazine "I want to
be Chinese" is now on sale all over town. It is also on the Open Magazine site and can be read here 
Yesterday I tried to upload another video on
the theme of attaining Chinese nationality to
Youku.com. But for some reason, not only was
it immediately censored, but it also
triggered the censorship of both the
previously uncensored videos on the same
theme on the site, which I had uploaded last
week. I'm not sure exactly why; one
possibility is that I was wearing a T-shirt
with the letters six and four in one of the
frames of the video. Apart from that there
was nothing very anti-Communist party.
This is not my first experience of having a
video censored in China, but it is the first
time that I have had a video censored which I
had taken a lot of time and trouble to make.
As usual there was no explanation for the
censorship.It's a learning experience which
makes me understand and sympathise with
mainland China users of such websites. It's
very disheartening to go to the trouble of
uploading video, only to find it has been
deleted, to the extent that it puts me off
wanting to use their website in future.
Websites in the West go to great trouble to
make it easy for users, and avoid
discouraging them. Websites such as this
would never have a chance to compete if they
were exposed to competition from uncensored
sites. It's so strange that a company like
this can raise hundreds of millions of US
dollars on the NASDAQ in New York
It must be fun to be a Chinese artist
A woman hangs out her washing beside a large
rooftop propaganda poster celebrating the
foundation of the People's Liberation Army.
So propaganda does have a use after all; to keep the washing dry!
Someone once said that the flag of the Republic is stained
with the blood of the the People, but this one
looks like a foreign victim. I saw this in an
art exhibition in Chai Wan, Hong Kong a few days ago.
Modern art has been successful spreading ideas which are subversive and new; Ai Weiwei is just the best-known example of this trend. 
This flower is on the Hong Kong flag and it is one of the symbols of Hong Kong
I added myself to the picture with eyes that
cannot see and mouth that cannot speak. That
is what I used to be like! This picture is
composed of 10,000 banknotes, composing
another ironic artistic statement about the
late Chairman Mao.
Monument to the dead of the Tiananmen massacre
of June 4th, 1989, outside the students union at Hong Kong University. I heard that this would be moved to another
site recently, to make way for the
building of the west island Mass Transit
railway, but as of last month it was still unmoved. It remains a powerful monument to the unjustly dead, their families, and their dreams of a fairer world
As a young woman,Isobel Thompson worked as
Volunteer nurse along side Norman Bethune in
north west China during the closing stages of the
civil war in China between 1947 and 1949.She is
now retired in New Zealand and her memoirs
have been translated into Chinese. Unfortunately although she shares a surname with me she's not a close relative. Otherwise perhaps I could claim to be from a family of old friends of China, and belong to that small category of foreigners who are genuinely welcome 
With out the Japanese invasion, the CPC would
not have come to power, said Mao Zedong on
several occasions
An exhibition of photos relating to the end of
the Empire 100 years ago is being shown at
Hong Kong University
Demanding the reversal of the verdict on June
4 1989 and the release of all political
prisoners
A large market specialising in counterfeit
clothes, bags and watches can be found in the
basement of Science and Technology Metro
station. There was a lot of publicity about the closure of the previous market in another street, which supported the notion that the Shanghai government was getting serious about cracking down on counterfeiting. But it's alive and thriving underground; you can see it as soon as you pass through the ticket barriers. 
Seen in the fashionable Harajuku area
Heavy handed policing during the visit of Li
Keqiang on August 18th led to claims that
freedom of speech at Hong Kong University was
dead. Students were prevented from going anywhere near Li, and reporters were prevented from filming this. Even so, a government spokesman claimed that it was completely rubbish that Hong Kong people's rights had been infringed
Good food
This from the latest Private Eye is the finest
story I have seen about the rights in Britain
so far!
An English translation of the popular banned book Shengshi (盛世) by Chen Guanzhong (陈冠中) has now been published with support from English Pen and financial help from Bloomberg. Reviewing it in the Guardian, Jonathan Fenby calls it "a dystopian portrait of the world's most deceitful superpower" 
The hysterical tone and US-centric perspective put me off what could other wise be an interesting book 
Appallingly bad service used to be universal in China, but I've almost forgotten what it was like until I stayed at this hotel.Hoping to get an early flight, I stayed in this hotel 10 minutes drive from Pudong airport. It had a curtain-less window painted blue which gave the impression of dawn, so that I woke at 4:40 AM. 
I was pleasantly surprised by Shanghai library. The big open space in the middle reminded me of Hong Kong Central library. There were plenty of foreign newspapers to read, although they seem to be rather out of date. They even had the China quarterly!
Enthusiastically celebrate 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Seen at the entrance of Shanghai library
One of the nice things about visiting Japan is that it is the only country in the world I know of where nobody makes cellphone calls while using public transport.
I took this photograph shortly after taking off from Pudong International airport late in the afternoon
At this small cosy Indian cafe I had a ball of spinach curry and a piece of cheese Nan for 850 Yen. Cheap food and cheerful service.
A short propaganda video was repeated every
few minutes on this copy machine in Pudong
airport to celebrate the 90th anniversary of
the Communist Party. In the picture, Mao and
early party members
To me, few things are more English than a cup of tea accompanied by a chocolate Kit Kat biscuit after a game of football on a rainy day, but in fact this is fusion food par excellence. Tea in Britain is usually drunk with milk and sometimes sugar in mugs more often than cups. The British prefer black tea to the green tea grown in Fujian province of China from where the word tea originates and where the best Chinese tea is grown.
Communist Party propaganda celebrating the
90th anniversary of the CPC foundation is
still ubiquitous in Shanghai
Once again I have appeared as an example of a
foreigner in the 新民晚报. However the
journalist got his facts wrong and did not
check with me
When I first arrived back in Shanghai in 2006,
I could not see any English-language
newspapers for sale except for this one,
because they were banned after 1989
Foreigners must show passports during University
games when having a massage
these are the condiments which accompany the
jiaozi dumplings at the Dumpling restaurant
Is it just me or are there too many
McDonald's, Kentucky fried chicken, Starbucks
and Pizza Hut restaurants in China? 
This meal had a bit too much meat for me.
heart disease and cancer are increasing in
China; food for thought
This display was prominent at the People's
Square Underground railway station
Another propaganda display at Pudong airport
This friendly Chinese policeman shows the way
towards immigration controls at Pudong airport 
Would you like propaganda or sugar with your
coffee?
Fancy a wee dram to get you on your way?
Chivas seems to be pushing hard to sell
Britain's number one export, Whisky
Airplane meal served on China Eastern Shanghai
Hong Kong flight
70% of doctors in China are so unhappy with
the profession that they don't want their
children to join it.What the newspaper did not
and could not say is that nearly 70% of
Chinese people do not want to be Chinese; that
would cross the border line between
constructive and systemic criticism
Chinese people say foreigners have big noses and call us 大鼻子
A lot of rich Chinese employed me as their "butler" （英式管家）
This book which I bought in India would be banned if it was written about China. It exposes the arrogance of the rich and their contemptuous abuse of their servants, one of whom eventually revolts. It is told in the form of a conversation with Wen Jiabao (温家宝).
Foreigners and self-censorship.
a nightclub
rain
Rich man's house
Last year I took a train ride on the Wuhan-Guangzhou rail line and enjoyed it. 
This franken-montage of my head and Ai Weiwei's body was created by a friend who prefers to remain anon. While Ai was in prison, he was kept in a tiny cell with lights on 24 hours a day and two guards glaring at him. This reminded me of room 101 in 1984, by George Orwell. See here http://www.stephen-t.com/The-place-where-there-is-no-darkness.html
The latest issue of Trends magazine is out in Hong Kong, with my article in Chinese. See http://www.stephen-t.com/Your-site-is-most-likely-NOT-accessible-from-within-mainland-China..html
Not a bad meal for just 3 pounds. 
Lamma Island is a peaceful, healthy place to live but not from the centre of Hong Kong. It has beaches to swim and hills to climb, and its many paths are almost untouched by motorized transport. The hills provide good views of neighbouring islands and the busy shipping channels around Hong Kong. Woods and bushes cover much of the island and provide shelter to the many reptiles, amphibians and birds who live here.
This is one of my favorite trees on Lamma Island, the Banyan. The Chinese name is 榕树 róngshù，(Yungshue in Cantonese) and our local village Yongshuwan (Banyan Bay) is named after the tree
This is where I spent the night of July 13th, 2011. It is reasonably priced and quite clean, and is conveniently located near Marine Drive. 
After checking with greatfirewallofchina.org, I found that my new Travel Photography Blog has already been blocked by the GFW (Great Fire Wall). At first this was puzzling, since the content is similar to the other sites, such as photocol.org and shanghaidiary.org which are all accessible, and all have a kind of basic self censorship built in; blog posts with prettier pictures are shown first to readers with simplified Chinese browser settings. But I had forgotten about the sensitivity of Tibet. The photo of Tibet which I had ranked highly as a photo, and which had Han porters carrying tourists up the mountain on sedan chairs, in a place where Tibetans are not allowed to work, a fact I commented on in the post, was definitely sensitive.
My initial reaction was that perhaps the explanation is that the url may be sensitive because it has the word blog in it. The url may indeed have attracted attention, not only for the blog word but also for the co.uk, because Britain is a country about which China has special historical grievances. These may have attracted attention, but when I looked at the photo, I realised immediately that the main reason for the block was the photo of Han Chinese workers struggling up a hill with with tourists on their backs, and the accusation of racial discrimination towards Tibetans in the text. . Here is the offensive photo
Deng Xiaoping famously declared the greatest ideological u-turn of history by saying that it does not matter if a cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice.As the state got out of peoples lives, the economy started to grow, and the Communist Party was praised for doing nothing. This so-called economic miracle was an accident waiting for the energy of the Chinese people to be unleashed. In the 1980s, the so-called four dragons, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan showed how so-called Confucian work ethic could lead to rapid growth. Of course the biggest benificiaries of the boom were the Communists Party themselves, who control the biggest companies and their profits. The politbureau now resembles a board meeting of a large conglomerate rather than a revolutionary party. Powerful ruling families have interests in industries; the Li family dominates the power sector, Wen Jiabao is strong in the gem sector, Zhu Rongji is big in finance. And in recent years, they have been strengthening their monopolies
Orwell worked here and foresaw the future of China
A bus map with subversive stickers. 
When Britain sunk the Argentine ship Belgrano in the Falklands war, there were complaints about the needless loss life of five hundred sailors. Critics pointed out that the ship was outside the 200 mile exclusion zone and heading in the opposite direction when attacked. Yet the Sun Newspaper rejoiced in the bloodshed with the famous headline Gotach! 30 years later, Private Eye got it's revenge this month with this front cover, as the Murdochs were compelled to close the gutter rag News of the World with the loss of 200 jobs. They were also dragged through a publicity storm regarding the hacking, improper political influence and paying the police for information by News of the World.
What option is there for parents who want there children to have a secular education in this part of london? Parents, many of whom are hardly religious themselves, have been fighting to get their children into religious schools lately, whether they be Catholic, Jewish,Islamic etc. Has this led to increasing religious intolerance and conflict in society?
One year ago I visited Parliament Square in the last hours of the so called Democracy Village, a group of anti-war protesters and other protesters camped opposite the houses of Parliament. Yesterday I returned to see what has happened there in the meantime, and found that the square is still fenced off and out of bounds for the public. It seems the British state has not found a way to release the square for public use and has adopted a dog in a manger attitude. Along edge of the pavement, protesters are still camped on the pavement, just inches from the swirling traffic and constant exhausts fumes. It is in this harsh environment that veteran cyclist Okhwan Yoon has been staging his hunger strike for a month already. His aim is to attract attention to the plight of the 20 million North Koreans trapped for sixty years in what he describes as a prison camp, ie the Democratic People???s Republic of Korea.
A year has passed the eviction of the anti war protesters. Time to look back on the dramatic events of those last hours.
As I'm planning a trip to the former Portuguese colony of Goa in India, I was intrigued by this restaurant, just off Tottenham Court Road. I wonder whether they speak Portuguese? 
A classic shot of the author from my year as a Chinese language student in 1984-5.Those days, the whole of China was technically off limits to foreigners, and you would find these signs on the edges of cities. The whole Fujian province was off-limits. We were told we were not allowed to go Tibet, but one we got chatting do we found the local Public Security Bureau more interested in our permit fees. I was twice made to leave places in North West China deemed too poor for a foreigner
I have often read about CPC officials fabricating statistics during the Great Leap Forward, and this FT article confirms the practice still goes on.
On my first day in India, I stayed at the YWCA in downtown Mumbai. Too excited to stay in bed, I got up about 5am and headed down to the waterfront promenade known as Marine Drive, one of Mumbai's hallmarks. It was full of people jogging, strolling, or just sitting and watching the view of the "Queen's knecklace", as it is called; the bright lights which ring the bay. 
I was hanging around Aldgate Station waiting for a friend, after reading the book Street Photography, which features work by a dozen photographers. It inspired me to take some shots of pedestrians with my cellphone. I was impressed by the variety and colours of umbrellas. The British know how to enjoy rainy weather!
A part of the top thirty best sellers (non fiction) in WH Smith at Heathrow Airport. There was not a single book on China. In the quality papers today there were no stories on China, apart from a few in the FT companies section. Why is this? Isn't the rise of China supposed to be a world-shaking event? So why no so little interest?
This is my first post from Mumbai, India, where I arrived this morning. My timing was bad; three terrorist bombs have gone off in the city tonight, killing several, and spoiling my initial impression of the country.
This 2009 documentary by Peng Xiaolian and Louisa Wei tells the story of Mao's 1955 anti-Hu Feng campaign, when he attacked, persecuted and imprisoned a group of leftist writers who had written for the July 1 and Hope magazines in the 30s and 40s.Peng's father Peng Boshan was imprisoned until the Cultural Revolution, when he was beaten to death by Maoist "Rebel Faction" members.
There is a famous Chinese expression; renshan, renhai; 人山人海 it means people mountain, people sea, or in other words; a lot of people!
I remember when swimming in the lake at Dingshan new Shanghai in the 1980s being struck how people used to take inflated inner car ties in to the water. These days you can buy an inflatable rubber ring for just 10 yuan. But I couldn't help thinking, after the government spent 44 billion on the Olympic Games, and beat the United States in the gold-medal tally, many Chinese still don't know how to swim. Perhaps the money would have been better spent on encouraging sport at the grass roots. Which reminds me about the Chinese national soccer team which didn't get a single goal in its last World Cup appearance in 2002...
In Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway stations, you can often see air pollution warnings like this one. On the other hand, in China the government tries not to publicise the subject. They even went to the extent of forcing the World Bank to censor a report which links lung cancer deaths with local air pollution statistics.some information does slip out; last December when the air pollution index in China touched 300, a local newspaper reported that the government was advising people to avoid going outdoors. The WHO maximum safe limit is 20.
On the July 1st 2011, the 90th celebratory day for othe anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party, the China daily published this articlea bout the history of the Chinese Communist Party.This illustration shows the general theme of article; I happy march through the decades, as though the history of the Communist Party was one of continuous progress rather than a series of abrupt U-turns. The tragic anti-rightist campaign is not mentioned, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are skipped over
I have read on the Internet about the popularity of Ossam Bin Laden in China, but yesterday I found a bit more anecdotal evidence; these copies of Chinese ID cards with Bin Ladens photo were being sold on the street. According to the vendor, idea is to peel off the sticky backing and stick it on the back of your travel card. Or, she said, stick it on the back of your cash point card. Either way, you will have the pleasure of imagining that you are a Chinese Bin Laden every time you swipe your card - and all for just 2 yuan. 
There were 220,000 people in the Hong Kong July 1 handover anniversary protest. The main themes were for the chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Donald Tsang to resign, for his cabinet to resign, for an end to monopolistic policies of the real estate developers, and for universal suffrage. The police tried to reduce the numbers by closing off roads and making people wait for hours in the hot sun. They stationed photographers all on the route, filming and photographing demonstrators in an exercise of surveillance and intimidation. I joined the march at Wanchai station and marched to the government headquarters. As far as I could see the demonstration was completely peaceful.
The Beginning of the Great Revival: this is the English title of the Chinese Communist Party propaganda film currently making its rounds in cinemas in China and Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong handover holiday annual pro-democracy July 1 demonstration has become the single biggest popular political event of the annual calendar.Hong Kong people still do not have the right to vote, 14 years after the return to China, even though this right is enshrined in the Basic Law which was written by the Chinese government. This has become a source of anger too many Hong Kong people who see that there aspirations are being continuously delayed by the Chinese Communist Party.
A full-page article in the Oriental Daily today graphically illustrates the dramatic loss of confidence in the Chinese Communist Party, which has become increasingly conservative and aggressively repressive in the last few years. 
The theme for this year's demonstration is the call for universal suffrage which has been repeatedly delayed by the Chinese Communist Party
This book from the mid-90s says what I've been trying to put into words for along time; growing up in the 1970s we were too willing to believe Maoist propaganda because we were against Western capitalism.
As the Chinese Communist Party gears up to celebrate the 90th
anniversary of its founding, a documentary film is being heavily pushed at a cinema in Shenzhen and I suspect
throughout the country. In the foyer of the cinema, a series of wall panels exhibit the history of the Communist
Party, ignoring troubling details such as the Great Leap Forward and the great famine, the Cultural Revolution, the
June 4 massacre and the ousting of General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. A group of young people walk through but show no
interest in the wall panels, they stand with their backs to them.
This is the Sing Tao Evening news from May 25, 1989, when the initial military attack on Beijing was halted by combined action of Beijing citizens
This is the Singapore evening news from June 5, 1989, when the news finally became clear of the extent and barbarity of the massacre in Beijing.
this year the commemoration included messages from Wang Dan and Ding Zilin and the full texts were included in the programme as well as the words of the songs which was sung.
the candles won't be snuffed out
Tonight was the 22nd anniversary of unforgettable the Tiananmen Massacre, and once again, Victoria Park was crammed full of people who came to listen to the speeches, ceremonies, songs and messages of support. 
In the Lago do Senado, probably the busiest tourist attraction of Macau, a graphic display of images and text tells the story of the 1989 Beijing June 4 massacre which is unknown or forgotten to many mainlanders. This weekend was a public holiday and the number of mainland tourists large; the display advertised a candlelit vigil like the one in Hong Kong.
A display at the Shenzhen Book City (深圳书城）of books which have not been censored. Works by successful business people such as Li Kahsing and Steve Jobs seem to be most popular.
A story in Hong Kong's Apple newspaper about the mothers of the victims of the June 4, 1989 massacre.
The coverage has been subdued this year, since the death of the charismatic leader of the patriotic Alliance for democracy Setzo Wah who led the commemorations of the June 4 massacre for 21 years until his death last year. 
The Communist Party of China has recently been gearing up to celebrate its foundation.
This propaganda poster photographed in Shanghai earlier this year is published by the Shanghai Municipal Medical Union. It announces a number of activities to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party:
According to a recent article in the South China Morning Post, there is a very high rate of fatal traffic accidents on Nathan Road, and this is one of the blackspots. Hundreds of pedestrians cross every few minutes to get to the shops on Sai Yeung Choi Street （西洋菜街）
According to the newspaper report, a project to make the road safer has been quietly shelved, presumably to appease motorists, who are a powerful lobby in most cities including Hong Kong.
below are some more pictures of fast moving traffic and pedestrians crossing Nathan Road at about 8 PM last Thursday evening
NO U-TURNS 
Monday's South China morning Post reported that the Hong Kong book prize committee has shortlisted two books which have been banned on mainland China, including one called China's best actor (zhongguoyingdi wenjiabao/ 中国影帝温家宝）by Yu Jie (余杰）.The other book is a memoir by AIDS activist Gao Yaojie.
Hong Kong is a photographer's paradise with his nightlife, mountains, seascapes,and cosmopolitan culinary fair.
Shots from a 2007 photo shoot for Abril,Brazil. 
The spring tea harvest is in in Fujian, where they grow the famous tieguanyin (铁观音). in China, the degustation of tea is something akin to wine, with experts paying large sums for the best leaves, but unlike wine, tea is best drunk when it's just picked.
As the skyscrapers tower over the bay, this little boat gives scale to the scenery
Hong Kong's Apple daily newspaper today featured a report about the most obese child in China who has come to Hong Kong for treatment. On the paper's website there is a fat kid video of his first day in Hong Kong. 
Skype has been sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion. For mainland China users, this may facilitate communication across the great firewall. Only recently, there were reports that Skype had been declared illegal by the Chinese government.at present however, users who download Skype in China are redirected to a version hosted by Tom.com, which filters Skype chat and saves records on servers in China.
The nexus of money and power has always influenced the Western media, giving the lie to the idealised notion of an unbiased free fourth estate. Chomsky's work also systematically showed hypocrisy with his twin pairs of respected Western media. Rupert Murchoch dumps the BBC from his satellite to gain access to China's media market; this is not an isolated example. Recent studies have shown how overseas Chinese media have become silent on sensitive themes as their economic interests coincide more with mainland China. Here in Hong Kong, we can distinguish newspapers which are critical of China from those which have business interests on the mainland. In the case of Western China observers, we can see a long record of sympathising with Maoism and from "Was Mao really a Monster; the academic response to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao, the Untold Story " that many of them have still not forsaken Mao. I would like to interview some of these old Maoist sympathisers before they pass away. I have many family connections with this group of people which should facilitate such research.
China also has sympathisers on the right wing of the political spectrum. Ronald Reagan famously remarked that the Russians are bad communists and the Chinese are good communists. Although censored by Mao, Edgar Snow's Red Star over China was widely influential for a generation. Henry Kissinger also famously fell in love with Zhou Enlai and began a lifelong infatuation with China. Earlier generations of western observers were impressed by Chinese culture and willing to suspend judgement of authoritarianism, whilst criticising Russian or German dictatorships stridently. Thus a bedrock of sympathy facilitated China's propagandad efforts.
Michael Gove, the Minister of education in the United Kingdom recently commented that it was a Maoist, that he wanted to carry out a cultural revolution, and a long march. It seems impossible that he would have quoted Stalin or Hitler in such a way. Yet for many Chinese dissidents, Mao is the most evil of the 20th century's three great mass murdering dictators.
I agree with him that self-censorship occurs in the case of China, because Western journalists have an internalised sensor that they are not even aware of which makes them support the status quo and their interest in it. I also believe that a huge media bubble has grown up surrounding China's so-called economic miracle and that many observers have an interest in maintaining this bubble. Western media do not seem to be fully aware of the propaganda nature of China's media and often repeat these new sources uncritically, even when more accurate information is available online. ( BBC).
Borrowing and adapting George Soros' concept of reflexivity, it seems that the Western world has eagerly gobbled up the fantasy of the China's economic miracle, excepting at face value in this positive statistics coming from China's propaganda machinery because they want to. Shuzi chuguan, Guan Chushuzi. An alternative analysis of China's economic growth could point out that, as China has failed in its 60 years to keep pace with neighbouring countries, and in 100 years since the end of Manchu rule China has fallen further behind the Western world, that economic growth rates in this previous 100 years have been unspectacular, that despite overtaking Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, GDP per capita is still less than 1/10 of GDP in Japan, and so on. Yet China seems to be the curious exception to the rule that good news does not get in the papers. We are constantly bombarded with information about the Chinese economic miracle. It seems that this is an example of an intellectual bubble which has accompanied the bubblelike rise of China's export economy. I will not attempt to predict at what point this bubble will collapse, only that we should be aware of it, and try to keep a balanced view in the midst of so much hyperbole. Ever since China announced that its population had reached 1 billion, it's as though we have all become infatuated with the Coca-Cola dream of every Chinese citizen drinking a can of Coca-Cola and the fizzy pop has come to our heads.
On the other hand, there is also great deal of negative reporting of China which the Communist Party seeks to counteract.
Own goals in the propaganda match. As the Chinese government becomes increasingly assertive and indifferent to Western criticism, its actions have undermined its efforts to create soft power and woo foreign audiences. Opinion polls have shown that negative attitudes toward China are increasing. The arrest of avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei may be relevant to the vast majority of people in both Britain and the UK, but the impact on the British elite will be significant, as Ai Weiwei was arrested just as his major exhibit dominated Britain's most prominent modern art gallery. Recent rough tactics towards journalists have alienated previously sympathetic sections of the Western media. China's campaign against the noble committee is also created a lot of negative propaganda. Ultimately, China's leaders may be faced with a automatic choice between getting their voice heard and have been there behaviour excepted.
Recently the Chinese government announced that for the next three months, until the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, there will be only "red " TV programmes broadcast.
This is a 1973 film by Italian director Antionio, which was censored and banned by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1970s because it included images which were unflattering, such as the bare feats of China's top surgeons while conducting operation, or the endless nights all carts being pulled around Tiananmen Square.It also shows the lack of enthusiasm for Chinese participating in compulsory political debates.
Speed of light
On a Hong Kong street post, a picture of Ai Weiwei scowls the question: who's afraid of Ai Weiwei
Pinghe county in Fujian province is famous for its pomelos. The locals make a good living with family income around 10,000. They also make wine from the pomelos. And grow tea
The new Guangzhou railway station from where high speed trains reach Wuhan in just three hours. But the station is in the remote suburbs and the ticket prices are high, so the trains are mostly empty. Recently the chief of the railway ministry was arrested for corruption and train speeds are being reduced to save money.
Mickey Mouse in China
Since a rather well known artist was disappeared by police on Sunday, there has been a lot of media interest. The general consensus is that this seems to be some kind of turning point, because if even a person with such a famous father and such a high level of international celebrity this mostly from arbitrary detention, no one is safe, and it is hard to imagine what the future will bring. The FT summarises it nicely: Ai-Weiweis-detention-suggests-the-bad-old-days-are-returning-in-China.html
A solitary wind battered figure, Chen Jinghui nears the finishing line of the Trans-Europe Footrace, after running 3.500 miles from Sicily, an average of 50 miles per day. 
As the name suggests, tombstone is a heavy book, both in subject matter and in sheer physical size. It's a labour of love, and a memorial to the author's parents, who both starved to death in Mao's great 1960s famine, as well as to the 36 million other victims.
A group of people going for a walk down the street in Hong Kong announce some views which would not be allowed on the other side of the border.
Ten years later 
A traditional style of house in Fujian. 
Following the route laid out in this well-written guidebook, I spent an afternoon looking at old houses in the French concession.
The photos are from numbers 1,2 and 3 on the walking trail pictured. The large hotel is now the Jinjiang Hotel, formerly the Cathay complex.
Nixon stayed there during his famous 1970s visit to China. 
Horse riding has been making a comeback in China recently and has become another favourite hobby of the rich, along with golf, yachting, collecting art, wine and antiques. One of Shanghai's best-known riding clubs is the Huihuang Racing Course, near Luheng Road subway station in Minhang.
George Marshall stayed here in December 1945, when President Harry Truman sent him to China to broker a coalition government between the Nationalist allies under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Communists under Mao Zedong. This mission failed and civil war followed.
The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation train or Maglev for short is probably the world's fastest train, and has heralded a new age of high-speed rail construction in China. Unfortunately, it does not reach Shanghai city centre, and is therefore underused and losing money. This explains why there are only three trains per hour outside of peak hours and the last train leaves at 9PM. However I suspect that the costs of the project may be offset by the value of the technology transferred to China by its German inventors as a result.
Unfortunately, there are doubts about the cost effectiveness of the network which charges high prices and is shunned by most train travellers. Apparently some of the construction has also been shoddy and will need to be redone. Recently the railways minister was fired for corruption.
As well as being the world's fastest train, the train ride provides one of the best collections of Chinglish I have seen, and the airport at the end does just as well ( or badly ) so here's my English guide for Maglev/Pudong airport.
| Chinglish | English |
|---|---|
| Traffic Guide | Transport Guide |
| Don't Follow Other Drivers | Don't Take Illegal Taxis |
| Backhaul | Return Trip |
| Leave Away the Glass Fences | Don't Lean on the Barrier |
| Detention Charges | Hire Charges |
| Special Reclamation Orifice | Recyclable Waste Chute |
Using the Samsung Galaxy in China. This is a review of the Samsung Galaxy 1900 which I have been using for six months now. In China, a smart cellphone is a necessary accessory in business life, just like a good necktie, polished shoes and a nice briefcase. The Samsung Galaxy is stylishly thin with a very big screen, it costs as much as the iPhone 4 and it has one of the best cameras on the market, with a resolution of 1024 times 768, so it should both "give face" and be very useful. It also comes with the popular Google android operating system, which according to the Vodafone salesman who sold me the phone is faster than the Nokia Symbian system. Android is well integrated with Google's services such as YouTube and Gmail.continued... 
The
Shanghai Spring Real Estate Trade Fair was held at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre at 1000 Yanan Middle Road. 
On a cold late winter morning in People's Square, people enjoy a scary ride.
A cafe on a creek in Suzhou. Nearby is the imperial canal which was the major national north-south transport route in imperial China.
Hongqiao airport is Shanghai's second airport. It is handles mostly domestic flights and is closer to the city centre. It has recently been enlarged and now has too terminals. It is connected to Shanghai's growing subway system, already the largest in the world. 
This is the heraldic shield of the luxury real estate development managed by my company, UPCS. Designed by Dahling Group, there are some French influences such as the steep Mansard roof and the dormer windows in the loft. The houses are grouped on artificial islands formed with water drawn from the lake and have about plots of about 3000 square metres including the built area, gardens and swimming pools. They range from 900 square metres to 1,800 square metres, with three stories, including huge basements. These contain wine cellars, indoor swimming pools, personal swimming pools, personal gyms, snooker rooms, etc, while the ground floor has a series of dining rooms, sitting rooms and two kitchens for Chinese and western cuisine, and the second floor has a number of large bedrooms with onsuite bathrooms.
A truck removing a tricyle. China used be the land of the bike, and seemed to follow a model of sustainability but with the world's largest car market, bikes are being pushed off the roads to make room for cars. 
This room is available for 1,970 yuan at the Ruijin hotel,Shanghai, although it can not be booked in advance, as it belongs to the Communist Party whose leaders have priority at all times. It was once slept in by Chairman Mao
The luxury goods market is growing, as China's economic growth without political reform concentrates wealth at the top. There are hundreds of millions living on two dollars per day, but onstentatious of displays of wealth are common place. BMW, Rolls Royce and Bentley are all doing well. Chinese consumers are pushing up the price of wine, and property prices are as high as Hong Kong, though average wages are much lower.
The city of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, separated by the Shenzhen River. On the left is the border fence, which keeps Hong Kong people from escaping to China - or perhaps it should be the other way around.
A uniformed security officer over looks a group of building workers at Buxin, site of one of Shenzhen's new underground train stations. Shenzhen led the nation in economic development in the 1980s but recently it's underground train network has lagged Shanghai's. There were only two lines in 2010, but this year line was has been extended to Shekou, Shenzhen's port. However the trains only run until 7:30pm.
On a spring sunny day, I took a few new photos of the sales office, which came out better than before, as the rooms were better illuminated with natural light seeping in through the windows.
A tricycle rider stops outside a news stand to read a copy of Reference News, a newspaper consisting of translations of foreign reports which are often revealing. The newspaper used to be restricted to certain government and party officials but is now available in news stands for 7 jiao.
I last visited Yunnan Province in the 1980s, but today I went to lunch in a cheap but pleasant Yunnan restaurant on Anfu Road in the Shanghai French Concession which serves a selection of dishes from the province. For 48 yuan, I chose from the set menu a kind of mashed potato, some fried cheese and a beef and peppers fried dish accompanied by hot lemongrass tea. Good value, quick service, pleasant atmosphere.
People waiting at the Huashan hospital on Huashan Road in the French Concession, Shanghai. The tall glass views provided good views on this sunny day in early spring 2011. 
Like a weekend tourist, I spent Saturday and Sunday snapping Shanghai landmarks, like the International Finance Tower in Pudong, the lonely hearts corner and the funfair in People Square, Shanghai Fine Art Museum, the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, the Jinjiang Hotel and some other colonial era buildings in the French concession.
The lonely hearts corner was the most interesting because as I translated the advertisements out loud into English, I attracted a number of English speakers who corrected my translations and explains local marriage customs to me. The adverts almost all had the same feature set: the person's age, height, salary, real estate, educational history, but some of them added interesting details; one person claims to be from a household approved by the local neighbourhood committee while another emphasised owning several houses and having a degree from a famous university.
This chair has interesting devil like heads, possibly representing Pan the Greek God of music, perhaps it was used in a music room. Recently it was purchased by a wealthy Chinese collector who asked me how much it was worth
Last week the famous Greenpeace battle ship was on display to the public in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, and I hopped on board to take a look and chat to the crew members,who told me that the ship will be converted to a floating hospital in Bangladesh. Greenpeace has been fighting for the environment for over 20 years but the ship is now showing its age, it was built in the 1950s, so will now be retired.
The exhibition raised awareness about the ongoing anti-nuclear fight in Hong Kong. I wrote my BA dissertation on the protests against the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station in 1987. Recently there was a leak at the station, and the public were not alerted, even though it is downwind from Hong Kong.
Today I went to two meetings of associations of homeowners who are unhappy with their property administration company services.
These associations are in some ways the closest that Chinese citizens get to participating in a democratic process.
According to Chinese law they are allowed to organise themselves and cancel a service company's contract and appoint a better company through a competitive tendering service.
Today's bids were restricted to Shanghai companies, because the Shanghai housing administration bureau illegally refused to allow the bid by a non-Shanghai company,
even though it belongs to a better category of company and promised a better service.
The company originally planned to come to the meeting and make a fuss, but eventually backed out, fearing reprisals by Shanghai government.
This is the Wukang Road sales office of Dianshan Lake Villas
A few days ago, the light had a special quality, and cast clear shadows on the pavements of the French Concession
A workman holding a hammer. The cicular hole on the right will be a swimming pool
A different perspective on Hong Kong tall buildings
Winter is nearly over, and the lovely flowers blossoming all winter on the wall next door have started to wilt. Means spring must can not be far away.
In the office, last summer. Around me are various bit of furniture collected by the boss
Printing was a good business ten years ago but competition is cruel and many companies are being bought up. The game these days is to offer added services
Low shutter speed. wide aperture, blur gives a sense of motion.
London's canals make great walking and cycle paths, although the still water cast an air of gloom especially in autumn. This one cuts across north London.
At the famous floating restaurant in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. The jumbo has its own private ferry service. It serves Chinese food, including reasonably priced dim sum menu until 6pm. 
A factory which makes Xmas Cards
I met this Russian biker, who incidentally is deaf, and who has motorcyled across a large part of the world, at the entrance to the Star Ferry. I don't think they let him take his bike on.
Best time to visit is early morning, as the buddha looks east and his gold paint lights up nicely in the early morning sun.
Isolating walls have a new lease of life in China with the Great Fire Wall of China, a digital barrier to which the government expends huge amounts of labour and expense, probably to little avail, because it can be easily jumped. The original Great Wall was also jumped by, amongst others, the mongols. By the way, it is not true that the Great Wall is visible from the moon to the naked eye. 
The last year of the Pig began in February 2007. Apparently some parents like the idea of giving birth to a piglet and planned their families accordingly. This porcine scene was in the Yu Garden, until the 1990s a collection of 18th century wooden housing which were pulled down to make way for a fake old style shops. In the middle a lake with an old tea house survives.
Taken on the route from Mianyang to Jiuzhaigou
The largest park in Shanghai, and a new one. It lies on the east side of the Huangpu river in Pudong. 
Reclining Jade Buddha,at Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai, taken on Money God Day. The Buddha was carved from a large lump of jade brought from Burma in the 19th century.
A personal trainer at Pure Gym called Monkey having a work out with punch bag
just a few hours drive from Shanghai, Anhui: a world which time left behind. With its sleepy villages, cultural revolution relic architecutre, civil war battlefields, ancient history and relatively unspoilt countryside, it is more worth a visit than most people now. This is a clip from a piece I wrote the Best OF issue of Thats Shanghai.
A very large chair and table on Hampstead Heath
A village on the borders
A beach on the River Negro or Amazonas at Manaus, in the centre of the Amazon rain forest. This was in 2005, before the current droughts began 
Stately home near London
The Manaus Opera House, built during the height of the rubber boom
A ruined castle in Wales
Digging through my hard disk I found this photo which from 2005 when the latest land reclamation was just getting underway.
This man walked off the boat with the dragon dancers last new year looking cool
In Hong Kong, the extremely rich live on the Peak, the ordinarily rich live on the mid-levels. One compensation is the view of Victoria Habour
At Sokuwan on the south end of Lamma Island, there are lots of sea food restaurants and a special ferry service to get there
I actually took this last March, but have only just uploaded it
The estate of villas I am selling is located between two yacht clubs but this yacht I snapped in Lamma Island, Hong Kong.
This morning when I woke up in Shanghai, the city was covered in a light blanket of snow. It has been snowing for the last couple of days, but it didn't settle on the ground until last night. Shanghai is a subtropical city with plenty of palm trees and they look incongruous covered in snow. 
This is me in Dianshanhu Sales Centre garden in Shanghai in the winter
This is my old friend wang, who still has a good sense of humour, even though he is dying of stomach cancer.
This is me posting a letter to the UK
After standing in my garden for half an hour in Shanghai this morning,my shoes were covered in a thick layer of dust.
This is the thermometer which I bought when I thought the office was to hot a few weeks ago. Now the central heating has broken, its 4 degrees here
McDonald's has a free version of the board game on its disposable tray mats and it promotes this gimmick on Hong Kong Mass transport railways.
For the last few months, I've been working in a real estate office. These are the mansions which when finished in the spring will sell for 40 million yuan apiece.
Chateau Lafite is enjoying a boom in China recently, with this bottle on sale for 10,000 HK dollars. No one is sure who started the craze.
Tesco is called l gu in China, and the name means 'happy shopping', but to me it sounds like l g?u which means happy dog. The shop is pretty different from the one in the UK; it caters mostly to local taste, although there some are a few imported speciality teas and biscuits.
Couples often go to parks in China to take their wedding photos. I snapped these in a Zhabei Park.
Despite increasing pollution and reducing catches, it is still common to see people fishing in Hong Kong
Linda Carty has not had a fair trial and will now be executed for a murder she probably did not commit. Reprieve have made of a mock up her cell behind Saint Martins in the Fields
Jeremy Corbyn MP talked about the eagerness of some Conservatives to spend billions on atomic weapons while cutting back on building schools
Jeremy Corbyn spoke about the continued need to renounce nuclear weapons and criticise the Conservative party member of Parliament who says we should strengthen our nuclear and military capability in order to strengthen our control over dwindling energy and natural resources
Ken said that the bomb was perhaps the first attack of the cold war, rather than the last of the Second World War, against an already beaten Japan
Photographed on Hiroshima Day, August 6th 2010
I took this on the top floor of a number 24 bus passing through Trafalgar Square during an afternoon shower in early August. The bus route takes passengers past or near several famous London landmarks and I had took several shots through the rainy windows, focusing on the raindrops for an impressionist effect. When I got home and enlarged the photos, this one stuck out for the myriad reflections of Nelson's column in the raindrops
The last night of the anti-war protest known as Democracy Village in Parliament Square, Westminster, London. This is one of the last photos, taking just two hours before the bailiffs moved in at 1 AM this morning.
Grown in the back garden. We think of apples as quintessentially English, Americans think they are as American as apple pie, but apples were not grown in England until the Norman invasion in 1066, making them an early of example of fusion food.
not far from Shanghai railway station, I saw some statues on the pavement, which made me think. What is this for? why solidify two young girls in short skirts and high heels into bronze statues?
then I saw this group, and this was really scary, because their feet have been buried in concrete. For me the meaning represents incompetence, an absence of culture and a frightening lack personal freedom.
People under 1.60 metres are not welcome in this job advert in Shanghai.
Stalin's portrait hangs outside a classroom in the Chinese countryside
An article in today's Southern Metropolis warns of the dangers of street snacks, including my favourite, smelly tofu (臭豆腐). According to the article, in 2007, a number of factories were closed down in Shenzhen after it was discovered that they were manufacturing 1000 pounds of smelly tofu every day, using excrement to produce the characteristic smell. 
Zhu Houze's memorial service on the 11th of May was a rare and grand occasion with a style all of its own. The attendees lost no time in spreading the news from mouth to mouth, and everybody who should have been present turned up. Some described it as the largest meeting of democrats, including both system insiders and outsiders, in the 21 years since the June 4th massacre. Sadness at the departure of Zhu Houze mingled oddly with happiness as old friends renewed acquaintances, giving the occasion a special flavour. More importantly, they were saying goodbye to an era, to hopes which they had once held: Zhu Houze was a leading democratic thinker within the Chinese Communist Party; while Li Rui, Hu Zewei and others were also important democratic leaders within the Communist Party, Zhu's thinking on the existing system, on changing society, on China's future as well as on constitutional democracy within human civilisation was the most advanced. In an anti-intellectual, a reactionary one-party dictatorship, his theoretical training, strategic vision and maintenance of personal integrity despite the forces of the political whirlpool were beyond what most people can hope to achieve. He was considered to have combined the best qualities of both Hu Yaobang and Zhao Zeyang; he had Hu's selflessness, innovativeness and courage and Zhao's methodicalness and adaptability, so naturally he was seen as hope for the democratic faction within the Communist Party.
Before he died, Hu Yaobang said: "I don't care about my on resignation, I just feel that I have let down two people, that's Zhu Houze and Bai Jinian. Because Zhu Houze is someone who could have been General Secretary." Zhu Houze and Hu Yaobang were very close; in a manuscript commemorating the 20th anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang, Zhu Houze wrote: " Comrade Hu Yaobang always complied with Communist Party organisational discipline but in his later years, his ideas were always ahead of other people, he truly and sincerely strove for reform, and adopted every possible method and even compromise to promose a transition, you could say he really spared no efforts...Hu Yaobang was the last person who tried to attempt a breakthrough within the traditional system without turning his back on the rules." The same could be said of Zhu Houze himself.
In the 20 years following the June 4 massacre, Zhu Houze and the ideas which he advocated were frozen; although Zhu Houze had already refocused his energy on to the (problems of) the lower levels of society, to constantly changing new technology and to the environment, the unstinting interest group in Zhongnanhai ( ie Chinas top leaders) complained that he was a nuisance and so he was hated, put under surveillance and prevented from travelling abroad; even after he died they insisted on covering his coffin with a Communist Party flag; Zhu Houze's whole spirit and body was unfailingly castigated and consumed by them. It's unfortunate that somebody so talented was shoved aside and those with far less ability took command.
Zhu Houze once said, " I'm somebody who grew up with revolutionary work, practically my entire life has been spent in the struggle, but the cruellest struggle did not come from the KMT, it came from within the Communist Party. The Communist Party's struggle against its own members is the most harsh, Chinese people's struggle against Chinese people is the harshest". Shortly before his death he raised his grave doubts about the cruel struggle and sacrifice of human rights of the so-called " Chinese Model" and forecast that this would become a great controversy in the 21st-century.
What made Zhu Houze different to others is that he had a very clear knowledge about himself and the Communist party's democratic faction and he warned " the survival of us old folks (meaning those inclined towards political reform) gives young people hope, but in fact there is no hope". He emphasised this saying: " There is no hope. The hope which you see is because you see us old folks are still alive so you have these fantasies. But we ourselves no longer have such fantasies." Some people describe this as Zhu's last political testament.
With the departure of Zhu Houze, all hope for political reform in China and all hope of internal democratisation within the Communist party is irrevocably destroyed. Hope that this system can improve itself and can transform itself is completely destroyed. Hopes that people like Hu Yaobang, Zhao Zhiyang and Zhu Houze can turn the tide with their herculean efforts is also lost. This is not just the tragedy of Zhu Houze, it is the tragedy of China and the whole world which has been kidnapped by the Communist Party. It is not surprising that someone was heard to sigh at the hemorial service: "I I fear this is the last meeting of its kind".
Birds eggs in a nest found by a farmer in Pomelo country, Pinehe, Fujian. I spent a few days in Fujian with a family of farmers. The son and his wife look after their son make their living from repairing motocycles while the parents do the farm work. The house has three stories with broadband internet and satellite TV. 
Is Premier Wen Jiabao a dissident or a reformer?
Alfred Bosshardt was kidnapped and forced marched across China in appalling conditions by the Red Army in the 1930s, this article in China Now was based on an interview I did with him when
Seems like I was fooled, those tiger feet on the street were fake! See them on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1op2GpHe7bc
From the Human Rights in China Report. The topic is censored in China
To understand how Google really feels, imagine that you had been helping your neighbour to cover up a murder which happened two decades ago, because, well, you feel it was a long time ago, you don't really understand the circumstances very well, maybe he is a reformed character, so why not give him the benefit of the doubt, after all, through your new business venture, you may be a positive influence on him to reform.
But as time goes by, he keeps asking you to cover up more and more of what he has done, and you feel increasingly uncomfortable. Finally you discover that he has burgled your office, to steal private information entrusted to you by your clients. You know he intends to use this information to harass and persecute them. What do you do? Carry on as normal?
The State Secrets Law is used to suppress freedom of Speech in an absurd and arbitrary way. It make the law a laughing stock. This topic is censored in China
The old 1960s rebel is still a dangerous political subversive by the ruling CCP, and his China tour has become another victim of censorship, according to today's South China Morning Post
The Apple News Paper reports a large number of people paying their respects to former premier Zhao Ziyang today. According to the report, the authorities sent in the police and are nervous. 
Lawyer Yu Jianrong, whose father was persecuted in the Cultural Revolution, sympathizes with striking workers and embattled farmers, but the authorities need his information, because they don't trust the information of local government. He has suggested that local law courts should become independent as a first step towards a fully independent legal system, democracy and freedom of expression 
Battling against cancer, veteran democratic activist Wah still hopes to join the commemorations of June 4th, starting this month, and climaxing with the candle vigil in Victoria Park on June 4th. Numbers will be boosted by young radicals and concern about growing political repression in Hong Kong and mainland China
Wang Dan listens to Cui Jian, the 1980s Rock icon who inspired and moved young people to hope for a better world, and bemoans the prematurely mature youth of today. Wang Dan's book is censored in China
Every country it goes, the Olympics seems to cast its cursed spell. In 2007, China saw a wave of repression that is still continuing, and justified showing a tidy house to the world and by the "threats" of separatists and rights activists. Nothing good happened to China's mass sports such as football which still can't field a decent team. 40 billion was spent, when 100 million still live in absolute poverty and education, health care and environment have been neglected.
The Olympics is a trick by tyrannical governments to defraud and oppress their people with "patriotism"
Zhao Lianhai, helped parents whose children got kidney stones from poisoned milk, was tried today.
"You call him the accused, we call him a hero" said one of his supporters outside the courthouse, who were not allowed to observe the trial.
Zhao got involved after his own son developed a two mm kidney stone. His group tried to help other parents get compensation from the government, which suppressed news of the poisoning.
News of the trial is censored and the groups site has been blocked www.jieshibaobao.com.
This from the Hong Kong Ming Pao
The purpose of political reform is to strengthen Party leadership. 
Frank Ching wrote some nonsense about google and censorship in yesterdays SCMP. People like him have no sense of moral outrage. Google helped the CCP to cover up for years, and in return, the CCP hacked Google's servers to steal information on rights activists, which will presumably be used to persecute these people. It's as if you lied to help your neighbour cover up a murder, and then you found he had burglarized your office, stolen files and was planning further crimes. I wrote to Frank, who has sent me this reply:
Thank you for taking the time to write. I just came across something in the paper that might answer your question. I am therefore pasting it in here. I apologize for its length but I think it does suggest that the Internet is helping to reform China.
Best,
Frank
Mainland media feisty despite Beijing's efforts
Wang Xiangwei
Updated on Mar 29, 2010
While the jury is still out on what really prompted Google's partial retreat from the mainland and its future uncertainties in a country with the world's biggest online population, nearly 400 million, one thing is certain. The company has thrown a global spotlight on the mainland's internet freedom - or lack of it.
Gleeful human rights activists have wasted no time piling in, hoping the Google episode will draw international attention to what they see as increasingly harsh controls over media and a crackdown on political dissent, and put more pressure on the Chinese leadership.
This is likely to reinforce views held by many outside China that the increasingly repressive mainland regime has kept the media tightly muzzled, internet chat rooms closely monitored, and dissenting voices silenced.
But, as many overseas visitors discover after spending some time on the mainland, the reality can be different from what they read or watch about China in the international media. There is no doubt that the mainland leadership has tried to step up control of media and the internet and meted out more severe punishments on political dissidents in recent years.
Editors who penned editorials challenging government policies have been punished, and dissident Liu Xiaobo was jailed for subversion after he co-authored "Charter 08", a petition that merely called for broad political and democratic reforms. Many activists who initially harboured high hopes of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao for political liberalisation in their early days of power have now turned their eyes to the next generation of leaders, who will take over in 2012.
In addition to political dissent, the mainland's ominous and massive security and propaganda apparatus is also cracking down and censoring reports on ethnic minorities in Xinjiang or Tibet seen as advocating independence, Falun Gong, and those calling for a review of the June 4 Tiananmen crackdown. Speculation on the personal lives of the top mainland leaders has also been banned.
But there are fewer areas that are off limits to mainland media and the public compared with even 10 years ago, and the scale and strength of control by the state is less effective than it looks. The mainland media, and particularly the internet, is as feisty, lively and aggressive on a wide range of issues as can be - contrary to the prevailing view outside China.
Much has been written about China's Great Firewall and how its army of censors can effectively filter out or delete politically sensitive or pornographic materials, leaving the vast number of mainland internet users ill-informed or sexually starved. Well, as the Chinese proverb goes, while the priest climbs one foot, the devil climbs 10. Thanks to technological progress and the determination of internet users, there are many ways to circumvent the firewall and other controls.
Overseas media reports and comments on China, particularly unfavourable ones, circulate quickly through chat rooms, blogs and e-mail, despite efforts by censors to delete or block them.
The Chinese government launched a major drive to crack down on pornographic content on the internet last year. It claims to have succeeded, but hardcore porn is still available. In the past few weeks, two videos posted online have generated hundreds of thousands of hits every day - one showing a car show model called Shoushou having sex with her former boyfriend and another with footage of a young girl losing her virginity. Despite controls, citizen journalism is also flourishing.
Internet posts have become a key source of news for both domestic and overseas media, exposing major corruption and pollution cases, social and legal injustices as well as government follies. For instance, a recent blog post led this newspaper to break the story about a Ministry of Education notice ordering mainland universities not to work with Oxfam, accusing the well-respected international charity of an ulterior motive without providing any proof.
Senior mainland officials also acknowledge the benefit of the internet, with blog posts alerting them to wrongdoings by local officials who in the old days could easily have covered their tracks.
Even in the traditional media of newspapers or television, over which officials can exercise better control, efforts to seek truth and stand up to powerful officials are also alive and well. The powerful propaganda officials may regularly call in chief editors and brief them on hot topics to cover or avoid, but enterprising reporters and editors are pushing the boundaries every day to report news that matters, even if it is embarrassing for authorities and puts their jobs on the line. On any given day, newspapers are not short of articles criticising government policies on property development or the household registration system, hukou.
While directly criticising central government leaders is strictly forbidden, the number of officials being assailed in the press and on the internet is rising. Li Hongzhong , the governor of Hubei province and former party secretary of Shenzhen, found himself in hot water earlier this month after he scolded a Beijing reporter for asking him about a scandal at a press briefing open only to mainland journalists. Details of the episode were on the internet that day and commentaries appeared in several official newspapers, prompting open calls for his apology and resignation. This may not sound a big deal to those outside China, but it would have been unthinkable on the mainland even five years ago.
The Akmal Shaikh case seems to symbolise the bias against the defendant in China's legal system for Jerome Cohen, who links the case to the Rio Tinto. This time China has again disregarded a legal treaty, in this case one which entitles consular representatives to attend trials.
The arrival of the Internet has altered the dynamic between the CCP and the dissident community - Chase and Mulvenon, 2002
Sometimes these Party elders step out of line and criticise the CCP. Apparently they were censored and even harassed afterwards. It is hard to dispute their argument that the verdict damaged the CCP's image though. This from Ming Pao
Early Western visitors to China remarked on the Chinese love of tradition and linked to a lack of developmental progress
Under a bridge on Lamma - not sure what it means though
Dragon dance dancing through Yung Shue Wan
Dragon dance dancing through Yung Shue Wan
People looking at goldfish in a popular olde worlde style pedestrian street, with shops, restaurants, and a temple. Entrance to the street costs 20 yuan
Buddhism has made a comeback. People worship the money God amongst others
Buddhism has made a comeback. People worship the money God amongst others
These security guards were having a mock fight as I strolled by
Mao's Red Army fought for and won this bridge during their Long March, which was really a rout but became a victory in their propaganda
Aleksandry Buravsky describes how the story of seige and deliberate starvation of over one million people in Leningrad by the Nazis was censored and suppressed by Stalin because he did not like the city. This copy of the film was also censored for China, with several scenes of a policewoman rough kissing her boss removed. 
People don't seem to smoke as much as they used to, in China a lot of the new trains are non smoking now, although some people ignore the non smoking signs. But the government makes a lot of money from tobacco and smoking rates are still high, especially for men. 
Akmal was a dreamer, a mad man, who like John Lennon but without the talent, hoped to change the world with a song. Here is John Lennon's song:
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Here is the SCMP piece on Shaiks madness
Pei Meixin explain's China's trap, and the prospect that China will experience long term stagnation.
This quote from Deng explain's why China is willing to pay the price
Amber in front of her amber shop
A river runs through Yaan, in western Sichuan province, on the border with Tibet. The bridges have been lit up with decorative lights since a new mayor took over 
"In comparison with other East Asian countries, the cancer of corruption embeds itself deeper into China's body politic". Huang Yanzhong, in "Is the Chinese State being revamped?", published in "China Under Hu Jintao, by Tun-jen Cheng, Jacques Delisle, Deborah Brown, 2006.
In conversations with Chinese, many say that their CCP cadres are all corrupt, that cadres do not get anywhere by being corrupt. Others say that there are exceptional honest ones, and Zhu Rongji is sometimes given as an example.
China's fast new railways are excellent, if you can afford the high prices. Some in China are not happy with these high prices, and even describe the new trains as an example of guojinmintui, or "the country is advancing but the people are worse off".
This is an example of content which was not censored: http://comment.news.163.com/news_shehui2_bbs/62F32FUA00011SM9.html
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Street Sleeper outside Guangzhou East Railway Station
In the Great Leap Forward, the CCP said China would overtake the UK GDP in 15 years. It actually took 45 years, and was accompanied by a doubling of the population of China.
The Great Leap, which included wasteful backyard furnaces, led to the starvation of 30 million. Much labour was diverted from the fields to chop trees and smelt iron, so that crops were left to rot in the fields, while CCP cadres lied about agricultural output, to keep leaders happy, and then confiscated what the farmers needed to survive.
Here a worker carried a lump of red hot metal in a factory in a pipe factory in northern China
Why do CCP cadres repeatedly report false figures to the centre? This article by Zhao Shiying explains that fabricating statistics is the way that CCP cadres advance up the Party career ladder. The saying in the title, guanchushuzi,shuzichuguan, sums it up nicely. Zhao's book is censored in China
This Catholic Church in Moxi, west China, was opened in 1892, and closed during the Cultural Revolution, when worship was not allowed. It was opened again in 1982 and now has an active congregation.
Superstition was not allowed after the CCP took power, but has made a comeback since the "opening up" process began. The CCP prefers Buddhism, because it is not seen as a foreign import with trojan horse tendencies. Buddhist monks have been seeing driving expensive cars, and there are concerns about the accountability of temples for the donations they receive.
The owner of the Ya'an noodle shop cooked for Jiang Zemin. After coming to power, Jiang, recognisable for his oversized spectacles and fixed grin, kept China's former Premier Zhao Ziyang under house arrest until his death in 2005, because Zhao refused to accept Deng Xiaoping's decision to take control of Beijing by massacring Beijing citizens.
Zhao said he owed a duty to history and did not want to go down as a premier who massacred his citizens.
Anne-Marie's study is the first book-length study of China's Propaganda system in recent years. But the system is big and she has not covered it completely; school education is not included for example.
And propaganda is not the only way that Chinese chauvinism is spread, it is deeply embedded in the culture.
LV shop in Hong Kong. China's luxury goods market has boomed, fueled by the economic boom, corruption, and rampant consumerism and materialism.
In the first 30 years of CCP rule, equality was an aim of governance, but then Deng Xiaoping abandoned egalitarianism and China has greater income inequality than Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China before the CCP took power in 1949.
Kids in Yunnan's stone forest, near Kunming.
According to this newspaper, Google has been linked with the CIA in media attacks.
The Yong Shu Wan pier at night
My first publication, co-written with Yang Li-wen and my father Paul Thompson, who pioneered tape- recorded oral history research in Britain in the 1960s, and who visited China with me in 1985. At the time, we were rather lost in China and couldn't really track down much oral history, without really being aware of why. Even in the UK, oral history had a subversive nature, with the potential to subvert established historiography, and I wasn't yet aware of controlling role the Chinese Communist Party in rewriting and rewriting history for propaganda purposes, which explains why there was so little interesting writing available in the early 1980s. But things were loosening up and Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China, translated by W.J.F.Jenner in 1984, seemed a significant break through. In fact, we were on the edge of a golden age of literature in the mid-1980s; after the end of political campaigns in 1983 people poured out their stories in "Wound Literature"; and many autobiographies were translated into English in the 1980s and 1990s. The country also experienced a reading boom as foreign literature was allowed in again; people queued up all night outside bookshops to buy the latest translations of western classics. These days China has become more prosaic; bookshops are full of books on how to beat the stock market. Also, with the explosion of blogging, people record there lives in new ways, and a lot of interesting stories survive despite censorship. But the process of traditional social research remains political and tendentious in China.
Sculpture in the Wuhan Art Museum 
me in wuhan
Another view of the Sichuan countryside from the bus on the route to Chengdu from Luding
These days, this kind of boat is used for for harbour tours
Up in the mountains on the border with Tibet near Hailougou glacier, I saw this family of primates 
These porters offered to carry me up and down the mountain to see the Hailougou glacier. They told me it is safer, because they are specially selected, and no Tibetan porters are allowed to work here.
According to CCP propaganda, the bridge in the background was the site of a heroic battle as Red Army soldiers swung along the chains into machine gun fire from Nationalists who had removed the planks. Recent research suggests the nationalists did not have any machine guns.
Every night, the locals dance on the river bed 
It's time
China often criticises the Japanese government for allowing the use of nationalistic history books in some schools. But China's history books also teach history in an unbalanced, partial and inaccurate way that deliberately fosters nationalism and revanchism
Taken on Yong Shu Wan main street, Lamma Island, Hong Kong
Deals with the subject of wife kidnapping, and purchasing in impoverished rural China. By Director Li Yang, who made the Blind Shaft, which was about mining accidents in north China.
The impressions of Lord McCartney, the first English ambassador to China, who the Chinese Empire received as a tribute bearer. This account of Macartney's 1793 mission to China suggests plus ??a change. More recently Susan Blum's book Lies that Bind looks at cultural mendacity in China and the West.
Deals with the subject of wife kidnapping, and purchasing in impoverished rural China. By Director Li Yang, who made the Blind Shaft, which was about mining accidents in north China.
Tiger Year Tiger Talk
Everywhere you go in China you can see attractive decorative displays of toy tigers, and apart from wishing everybody a happy year of the Tiger, we would also like to say we hope that in the New Year, China will become more amiable and more worthy of respect and not more detestable, terrifying and repulsive.
Decorative tigers are cute and lovely, but a nation which is seen as a tiger is terrifying. Both for China and for the world, the stronger such a country becomes, the greater the disaster. The fascist regimes of the 20th century are an example of this: not only did they bring disaster to the world, but in the end they also destroyed themselves.
After 30 years of reform and opening up, China is greatly changed, the economy has taken off and and quality of life is clearly improved and consequently the country has taken an important role on the international stage. This has been the dream of many Chinese for over a hundred years.
But advanced Chinese people want more than this. The revolutionary pioneers represented by Sun Yatsen called for the Three People's Principles and even the Chinese Communist Party swears by and strives to realise this political principle. But has it been achieved to them date? No, it has not. Today, not only is democratic freedom an empty phrase, even the CCP's much loved and repeated mantra of "Rule by Law" actually just means that the Communist party uses the Law to rule the people, while the powerholders themselves are above the law.
Despite signing international covenant on human rights, these have not been put into practice, and Chinese leaders have even made statements rejecting the universal values of democracy and freedom, rejected the tripartite division of powers and said that China is different. How can the Chinese leaders be so ignorant? It's shocking.
China is on the road to modernisation, and is truly rising in the global village. But modernising and rising are all very well. If you don't have freedom and democracy you will not be allowed into the court room of human civilisation. No matter how many shiny tall buildings, fast rail ways, gleaming airports, advanced missile systems, what matters most is the state of your people. Are your people free, do they have dignity? can they think freely, express themselves freely, make free choices? Are people equal? the People's Republic has been in existence for 60 years, but the power of the Communist party was seized with violence from the hands of the Nationalist party. The Chinese people never authorised the Communist party to exercise power. In order to maintain the party dictatorship, this party keeps tight control of the military, and still uses the slogan "the Party's absolute leadership of the military". From the point of view of the Chinese people, it's the private army of the Communist party, which" takes orders from the party" - this was one of the slogans formed by people's bodies during the 60th anniversary celebrations in Tiananmen Square. This does not smack of modernity.
Ever since the establishment of the People's Republic, the Commons party has monopolised society's resources, concentrated all power in its own hands, and its role has spread into every corner of society, so that the People's Republic has become a pyramid shaped machine. Because economic political and military power are highly concentrated in the party's hands and the party has never been authorised by the people and is not supervised by the people, and since the Party's power is concentrated in the hands of its leaders and the leadership is chosen by its predecessors, this kind of system inevitably creates a hotbed of dictatorship. Anybody who gets to the top of this pyramid can exercise absolute power; that's why Mao Zedong was able to launch the Cultural Revolution and why Deng Xiaoping was able to terminate political reform in the 1990s with his " four principles" speech
As China rises, the Chinese Communist Party is starting to resemble a tiger. As internal repression increases, it is throwing its weight around internationally. Diplomacy Is the extension of the internal affairs, and war is the extension of politics, as the sayings go.
It's inevitable that as the nation's power increases, it will put pressure on other countries. If it cannot achieve its ends peacefully war is inevitable. The Chinese Communist Party is inflaming nationalist fanaticism and only fascist regimes do this.
Nationalistic fanaticism reached a peak in 2008, but in order to raise the temperature this high, the country invested a huge amount and which was really excessive. Last year, with the military parades celebrating 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, the Chinese Communist party showed its true face. All that advanced new military hardware was there only to show the world China's military prestige. What kind of message were they sending?
It was the face of the tiger!
We hope that our interpretation is wrong, and that our concerns are unnecessary!
Happy Year of the Tiger!
Everywhere you go in China you can see attractive decorative displays of toy tigers, and apart from wishing everybody a happy year of the Tiger, we would also like to say we hope that in the New Year, China will become more amiable and more worthy of respect and not more detestable, terrifying and repulsive.
Decorative tigers are cute and lovely, but a nation which is seen as a tiger is terrifying. Both for China and for the world, the stronger such a country becomes, the greater the disaster. The fascist regimes of the 20th century are an example of this: not only did they bring disaster to the world, but in the end they also destroyed themselves.
After 30 years of reform and opening up, China is greatly changed, the economy has taken off and and quality of life is clearly improved and consequently the country has taken an important role on the international stage. This has been the dream of many Chinese for over a hundred years.
But advanced Chinese people want more than this. The revolutionary pioneers represented by Sun Yatsen called for the Three People's Principles and even the Chinese Communist Party swears by and strives to realise this political principle. But has it been achieved to them date? No, it has not. Today, not only is democratic freedom an empty phrase, even the CCP's much loved and repeated mantra of "Rule by Law" actually just means that the Communist party uses the Law to rule the people, while the powerholders themselves are above the law.
Despite signing international covenant on human rights, these have not been put into practice, and Chinese leaders have even made statements rejecting the universal values of democracy and freedom, rejected the tripartite division of powers and said that China is different. How can the Chinese leaders be so ignorant? It's shocking.
China is on the road to modernisation, and is truly rising in the global village. But modernising and rising are all very well. If you don't have freedom and democracy you will not be allowed into the court room of human civilisation. No matter how many shiny tall buildings, fast rail ways, gleaming airports, advanced missile systems, what matters most is the state of your people. Are your people free, do they have dignity? can they think freely, express themselves freely, make free choices? Are people equal? the People's Republic has been in existence for 60 years, but the power of the Communist party was seized with violence from the hands of the Nationalist party. The Chinese people never authorised the Communist party to exercise power. In order to maintain the party dictatorship, this party keeps tight control of the military, and still uses the slogan "the Party's absolute leadership of the military". From the point of view of the Chinese people, it's the private army of the Communist party, which" takes orders from the party" - this was one of the slogans formed by people's bodies during the 60th anniversary celebrations in Tiananmen Square. This does not smack of modernity.
Ever since the establishment of the People's Republic, the Commons party has monopolised society's resources, concentrated all power in its own hands, and its role has spread into every corner of society, so that the People's Republic has become a pyramid shaped machine. Because economic political and military power are highly concentrated in the party's hands and the party has never been authorised by the people and is not supervised by the people, and since the Party's power is concentrated in the hands of its leaders and the leadership is chosen by its predecessors, this kind of system inevitably creates a hotbed of dictatorship. Anybody who gets to the top of this pyramid can exercise absolute power; that's why Mao Zedong was able to launch the Cultural Revolution and why Deng Xiaoping was able to terminate political reform in the 1990s with his " four principles" speech
As China rises, the Chinese Communist Party is starting to resemble a tiger. As internal repression increases, it is throwing its weight around internationa
Maybe the most beautiful scenic tourist destinations in China, these remote valleys are so full of tourists, you have to get up early to take photos.
The Great Kungfu Master
Running in Shanghai
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
This is a book everybody should read about how our freedoms are being stealthily stolen by Government
Tiger in Harbin's Tiger Park, taken from inside a tour bus. Mao used to say that China's enemies are paper tigers
The Old Supreme Court Building, the art Deco one behind is the old Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank head quarters, while the brighly lit building on the left is the new HSBC building. 
Taken from the beach at low tide
So Google has had enough: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126333757451026659.html Also, if you send "sexy" text message in China, your cell phone service will be automatically suspended. http://news.163.com/10/0113/10/5STDIET70001124J.html
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;"
http://www.rwf2000.com/2000/23pslm.htm
"This is not Google withdrawing from China, this is China withdrawing from the world!"
The Star ferry and view of Kowloon
Hong Kong Chief Justice Andrew Li spoke of the need to maintain the independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong. This comes after recent "encouragement" from China for a more "co-operative" judiciary. Beijing recently praised the Macau judiciary for its co-operation. The Macau SAR also recently enacted China's new security law, which will allow increased surveillance there.
A group of people gathered in Hong Kong yesterday in a vigil for Lu Xiaobo, imprisoned on December 25 for 11 years for peace expression of his political opinions
In the SCMP today, John Lee writes that the next generation of Chinese Leaders who take over in 2012 don't remember the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution and may be more bold in their policies.
On the same page is an another article which describes the recent controversy over the high speed rail link.
According to another article by John Lee, the number of absolutely poor in China has been increasing for the last ten years, and a underclass of 1 billion people exists beside the new prosperous middle class.
The famous Saint Paul Cathedral, which was burnt down in 1835.
The ruins now consist of the southern stone fa?ade ?? intricately carved between 1620 and 1627 by Japanese Christians in exile from their homeland and local craftsmen under the direction of Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola ?? and the crypts of the Jesuits who established and maintained the Cathedral. The fa?ade sits on a small hill, with 66 stone steps leading up to it. The carvings include Jesuit images with Oriental themes, such as a woman stepping on a seven-headed hydra, described by Chinese characters as ' Holy Mother tramples the heads of the dragon'. A few of the other carvings are the founders of the Jesuit Order, the conquest of Death by Jesus, and at the very top, a dove with wings outstretched.
( From Wikipedia)
Another Brazilian friend is living on this island; the parrot Lulu, who lives with Caroline in Pak Kok.
How does one stop young people from following in the footsteps of drug users and peddlars? According to Chinese opinion, it is impossible; all British have "Pirate Genes" and "Smuggler Genes"
Workers of the world unite, hold high the glorious banner of Mao Tse Tung thought! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Cultural Revolution painting, at Macau Art Gallery
The Saint Paul Facade, seen from the old Fort
This is one of the cannon on Macau's historic old Fort
Chinese art followed the Soviet Union Socialist Realism style until the 1980s, with lots of healthy, happy model workers, students and peasants
In the China Daily, English Language mouthpiece of the Chinese state, the report of Akmal Shaikh's pending execution is published side by side with an article warning of a police crack down on the mentally ill.
When Akmal Shaikh was executed for drug smuggling, the high level of support in China was noted in the UK, and CCP media claimed high level of support in the UK too. In Hong Kong, Chinese language Apple newspaper was unusual in not linking the case to British Opium trade, and featured Shaikh's confused mental state and meglamaniac fantasy of stardom and world peace. The is from the Ming Pao
Akmal was a dreamer, a mad man, who like John Lennon but without the talent, hoped to change the world with a song. Here is John Lennon's song:
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Beneath the Christmas Tree
Another view from near the Peak, showing the 88 story (lucky number) International Finance Center Building. Taken at the upper mid Levels on Hong Kong side, looking towards Kowloon over Victoria Harbour 
A rare site is an old junk. These days, more likely a tourist stunt
We don't usually get such cold weather in November. Everyone is walking around in thick heavy coats, even though the temperature is only 15?C. They are not used to this kind of weather, especially at this kind of year.
The tallest building in Hong Kong, it tours above the hirozon on Hong Kong island. 88 is a lucky number, because it sounds like fafa, or get rich, in Chinese
Wood Sculpture in Russell Square, London
An Old Negro Jazz Drummer led the band last night at the Vortex in Dalston
Shambaugh gives an interview here in which he politely states his criticisms of the party-state, by prefacing them with a lot of praise. Interestingly the title of his book Atrophy and Adaption is mistranslated as jingjianheshiying - sounds nicer than weisuoheshiying??? - a case of censorship.
cf
http://www.cass.net.cn/show_news.asp?ID=245338
A Muslim woman outside a blue lit pub in Kentish Town, London
88 Floors, Hong Kong's Highest Building
Toyota Crowns provide HK's fleet
No more Mr Nice Guy seems to be the New Year Message for 2010 from China. The decision to re-start executing foreigners, which must have been taken at the highest levels after much debate of the impact on foreign relations, has resulted in the first death - of an innocent Briton...read more
Walking down East Road, I notice these trainers hanging on the telephone wires. It was about 5 PM in the afternoon, at the end of August, a sunny day with blue sky and white clouds
The Kick Boxing Personal Trainer at Pure Gym, International Finance Centre, Hong Kong
These are the Siberian Tigers in the Snow.This year, Chinese New Year will fall in mid-Febuary, in the same week as Carnival. 
This is the webpage of my great grandfather,Vice Adml Sir William Cresell, at the Australian War Memorial, /www.awm.gov.au/people/152.asp
Here is a picture of West Ham Park
Today, at Stratford station, for the first time, I bought food in a supermarket, and checked it out myself.
Life in London is comfortable, like these chairs. Today I got some legal advice by calling a help line I found out about at the Library. They told me I am not a landlord after all. Told "my tenant" to leave. Which he took badly, saying it would be "very dangerous" for me if I mentioned the subject of rent to him again.
Went into town and found out they are now "giving away" laptops if you sign up for a mobile phone contract.
Wrote a letter to my old Council to tell them they evicted me four years ago, so please stop chasing me for council tax. ( bailiffs letter through the door yesterday )
At Huang Long, Tibet, the heavy calcium deposits on the lake bed
Lots of Juice. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I had never seen Reindeer before and I did not expect these big animals to be so scared of me.
Granny lived to 105. Here she is aged 102, enjoying a sunny afternoon in her hammock
Sea and sun sets: One of the nicest things about living in Hong Kong
Morning in Parati, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil
A close up of the cathedral from within the grounds
Inside the arctic circle in Finland, at the height of summer, the light has a special quality 
At the most northerly point in Norway, where the sun shines 24 hours in midsummer, hardcore ultramarathonists flaunt their national colours on the closing stages of a gruelling 64 day, 4700 km road running race
Just hours away from the finishing line, the 30 runners to finish run bunched up in groups
The diminutive, wind beaten Chen Ching Hui, walking rather than running, on the last climb before North Cape Peninsula. No stranger to adventure, Chen immigrated legally to Brazil as a stowaway in the 1980s, and then made a fortune smuggling Chinese and Taiwanese manufactured goods between South American countries. He was awarded Brazilian passport in an amnesty
The longest ultramarathon on Earth ended at the Northern most point of Europe on the longest day of summer and I was there to greet the smuggler Chen Ching Hui, who was the first person from his country to run the race
China Breast Cancer Foundation 'Pink' Mothers Day Fundrasing Brunch, sponsered by champagne company at Beijing Westin Hotel, with young female models in sparkling wine 'bubbles'
They guard the entrances to Xian's medieval City Wall. I caught them on camera marching to work. A lucky shot??? It was early one summer morning in 2009, and I was walking along the top of the wall, from where there are great views of the city. The wall is the largest and most complete in China, and has recently been rebuilt. It was previously knocked down by the Communist government, along with a lot of other valuable old architecture. 
Taken from the 22nd floor of the Champs Elysee Gardens apartment block on Minsheng Lu in Pudong, Shanghai
Accidental internet billionaire Mario Letelier was looking for the next big wave when he came for me to help him get into the China market. I explained about China using his native language of Portuguese, as his English was not so good at that time. I helped set up his company, and I even developed his website,
infamy sports.com
In preparation for the Beijing Olympics, the city was sanitized, good time girls, tramps, dissidents and even street traders were all shunted off stage, leaving lots of policemen and neon lights to photograph.
Every year they carve ice statues in the freezing north city of Harbin
Happy Valley, a theme park, has a stage which can be viewed from a swimming pool
The famous Jumbo floating restaurant is accessible by free ferry from Aberdeen, on the south side of Hong Kong island. The restaurant serves a selection of reasonably priced Dim Sum snacks as well as other more expensive " power banquets"
Stephen Thompson worked as a 'Sales Consultant' at Harkin Mansions, a luxury apartment block financed by Harbin Pharmecutical and built overlooking the Song Hua River, in Harbin. read more in Business Forum and Shanghai Evening News 
Tai Chi practioners in People's Square, Shanghai
Bird Cages, People's Square, winter 2007, Shanghai
Tai Chi practioner in People's Square
Coated in Gold Paint, it gleamingly catches the morning sun on Lantau Island
Provincial Town, North East China, Winter 2007. The town was a short drive from Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang province. My companion asked the drivers to move the taxis into a line and stand outside by their cabs, but only two of them complied. It was at least 20 degree below zero.
I was the China representative for the International Association for the Promotion of Wine Culture, for Great Wines and Private Cellar. We sold wine coolers in oak cabinets and I was responsible for wine training which I did with cultural emphasis; I played flamingo and showed pictures of Picassos etchings of bullfights during tastings of Riocha
In the foyer of the Tate Modern
Saint Pauls Cathedral viewed from the Tate Modern Gallery
Another fresh bright morning in Parati, Brazil's 18th century historic slave and gold trading port
Early morning by the pier in Paraty. There are lots of boats here you can rent by the hour
Lone Jogger on Rio de Janeiros most famous beach, with the Sugar Loaf mountain in the background 
Paulistas spend their summer holidays on the North Coast of Sao Paulo State, although it rains a lot in the summer.
After the summer rains on the Sao Paulo literal notre, New Year 2004, people come out to play. . Almost a good photo, according to Alex.
The wide pavements of Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, display the heritage of Portugal, with their characteristic Portugueseblack and white swirly pattern.
Brazil was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery,in 1888. The slave owners campaigned for compensation for their loss, while the slaves were abandoned. This legacy of injustice is one of the main reasons why Brazil is the most violent society in the world, according to the Brazilian Government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil>wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil, http://www.nowpublic.com/world/brazil-most-violent-11-countries
The Blue Cave, in the Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brazil. One of the most peaceful and beautiful places I have ever been too.
A bar in Rio de Janeiro, shot on black-and-white 1600 ASA film
Acupuncture
Between Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo, the mountains drop precipitously from 5000 metres to the sea end of forest is filled with innumerable waterfalls,many with pools large enough to swim and dive in.
Away from the beach life in Rio de Janeiro carries on much as in any other city. Here, men enjoy the cool, early hours of the morning to read their newspapers. Topics include the latest corruption scandals involving elected politicians, the state of the water in Guanabara Bay, and the latest shootouts between drug traffickers and the police.
Here are many football T-shirts of Brazilian football teams on sale outside the stadium of Brazil's biggest football club, Corinthians, Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo does not have much natural scenery, but the view from this rock in the Serra Cantareira is impressive and popular with young lovers basking in the winter sun
There used to be a whole city of Buddhist monks living up here in the hills. All a bit superstitious, and the China has built a railway in Tibet, but maybe Tibet would be even better if the People's Liberation Army had never "liberated" it.
Maybe China would be even better if the PLA had not liberated it.
A boy in the Potala palace
This was me in China in 1985. Most of the country was still closed. I was asked to leave certain places by the police more than once.
I took this photo in 1985 on a long month-long journey around China by train with my mother and a friend. The most memorable places were in western China and Tibet. This photos was taken in Sichuan. Cheap plastic goods had not yet replaced traditional hand-woven baskets. 
The Le Shan Buddha in Le Shan is the world's largest Buddha, carved out of the rock of a cliff overlooking world pool where many ships were sunk, it was supposed to give them good luck on this treacherous stretch
Crossing a lake, near Kunming, Yunnan, the passengers clothes colour reflected in the water
Chinese men get hot in the summer, and when they do, they take their fans out. What I like about this photo is the contrast between the macho expression and the elegant fan
It has been a good sport year for Brazil. I just wish all Brazilians were good sports. Faster than you can say " we've paid off the debt, let's get in debt again" President Lula has signed up for two ruinously expensive corruption fuelling prestige projects.
