Fake Mickey Mouse Joins the Olympics

Forget those athletes, Japanese media has been going heavy on the appearance of fake Mickey Mouse at the Olympics.

Classic denial translated by Pink Tentacle from the Yomiuri:
When asked about the resemblance to Mickey, a spokesperson replied, “They have square holes in their ears. They are not copies.”
The spokesperson suggested the statues are unique because they […]

Amusing Coverage of Opening Ceremony

The Globe and Mail ran the above amusing cartoon while, elsewhere in Canada, the Edmonton Sun’s Terry Jones could not praise the opening ceremony highly enough. Wonder if even the China Daily had a lead this strong.
Olympic opening ceremonies the best ever
By Terry Jones, Edmonton Sun
BEIJING – If any future Olympic Games is ever credited […]

Cross-postings to Danwei from this blog

This e-mail just arrived:
Hi - I recently discovered your blog and enjoy your way of doing things. However, since you’re now also posting on Danwei, I find it redundant because I follow both blogs with rss feeds. I just thought I’d let you know I’m on the verge of quitting your rss feed, as I’m […]

Athlete-Bloggers at Beijing Olympics - Updated List

To follow the Olympics via the participants, I have been searching for Olympic bloggers and have found a few sources, largely thanks to help from the ever-lively crowd on Twitter at #080808.
US Rowing - Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal’s China Blog has 2 Olympian Bloggers so far, both from the US Rowing Team: Jason […]

2 Parent Policy for Chinese Olympic Athlete

Funny story by Geoffrey Fowler in the Wall Street Journal revealing an official Olympic sponsor with advertisements that are not entirely truthful (Cue: sounds of pained shock and horror).
Turns out that the “parents” pictured here with hurdler and gold-medal hopeful Liu Xiang’s are fake.
The ad, for the milk drink Satine, reads: “A delicacy among dairy […]

Best way to follow the Olympics

In case you are not already doing so, Twitter has been a great way to follow (and participate in) Olympics coverage.
For the opening ceremony a large group of us wrote 140 character postings with the agreed tag #080808.
Lonnie Hodge - who also Twitted - blogged about the outcome:
And yesterday’s hash mash (a way to […]

UBS Economist: Olympics “No Big Deal”

Jonathan Anderson, an economist at UBS, today released a study using Olympic history and population to assess likely economic impact of the Beijing Olympics on China’s economy.
His conclusion: The Olympics are “no big deal”.
We published this chart twice before in our Asian economics coverage - but with the continued flood of interest around the […]

Jewish Shanghai Worth the Visit

I highly recommend Dvir Bar-Gal’s entertaining and informative walking tours of Jewish Shanghai. You will see a side of Shanghai that most people don’t know exists and gain a greater understanding of the city’s past. Dvir is working to preserve old parts of Shanghai, something that interests too few people.
Old […]

Shanghai To Cruise Ships: Duck

Matthew Crabbe’s Access Asia newsletter reports a rather unfortunate piece of planning in Shanghai.
It appears that cruise ships headed for Shanghai’s much vaunted new cruise terminal first need to duck under a low bridge. Not good news in the era of super-sized cruise ships.
There has been much reporting lately of the new Beijing T3 terminal, […]

Dvir Bar-Gal

Dvir Bar-Gal offers highly entertaining and informative walking tours of Jewish Shanghai. You will see a side of Shanghai that most people don’t know exists.
Dvir is a Shanghai-based Israel-born journalist who has dedicated himself to saving the building, memories and trying to build a memorial to the Jews of Shanghai. He has collected for preservation, […]