Mad About Shanghai

Stat of the Day

400 million Chinese play or watch basketball. More than the entire population of USA.

- Time magazine

A Wedding to Remember

Their wedding shoot at the famous 100-year-old Church of the Annunciation in Pengzhou , China .

Very early morning May 12, photographer Wang went about preparing to shoot wedding pictures for a young couple, this was the test shot before the shoot.

Pengzhou is located in the Sichuan province. It was morning May 12, 2008.

And then it happened.... the earth quake! 7.8 on the Richter scale.

Bricks fall from the building during the earthquake, which turned Wang from a wedding photographer into a journalist.

'Thank God we were only shooting from outside the church!' remarked a helper.

The stunned couple huddles together at the church ground during initial tremors.

'I shouted to people, 'Run! Run!'' said photographer Wang Qiang.
'The ground shook and we couldn't see anything in the dust.'

As the dust began to clear, the true extent of damage was only beginning to appear.

A cracked facade was all that remained of the 100-year-old Church of the Annunciation after the quake. Most of the church 'collapsed in 10 seconds,' said Wang, who lives in Chengdu , capital of hard-hit Sichuan province.

Soon after the quake, the people at the seminary set out for a nearby village, but residents warned them the route was blocked. 'We could still hear landslides,' Wang wrote in an online account of the disaster. So they stayed overnight in a tent and made it to the village the next day, thanks to help from a truck driver.

A scarf from a wedding dress lies forgotten in front of the seminary.
Wang said he thought the catastrophe would strengthen the bonds of  the couples who were there that day: 'Having gone through a life-and-death test, they surely will clasp hands and grow old together.'

No one was harmed at the above location.

They'll sure have a wild story to tell their children!

Pics of the flood in Southern China

It was emergency flood alert last week in GuangDong. Almost 18 million people were affected with more than 140,000 homes wrecked or damaged.

My colleague sent me these pics which are taken in Dong Guan.

People are literally fishing in the streets!

 

Quality of Living global city rankings – Mercer survey

Just released.

You can catch the survey here.

No cities in China made it to the list.

Homestay for Beijing Olympics 2008

The Beijing Olympics is just under sixty days away.

If you got a ticket but still cant find accommodation amongst the already fully booked hotels, try homestay!

Check out this site for more info:

http://www.homestaybeijing2008.com/

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) recently issued a set of "legal guidelines" for foreigners visiting China during the Games. 

Check out the guidelines here.

National Geographic May Edition (China Special)

Grab a copy of the National Geographic this month if you are not a subscriber yet. For the month of May, its a  issue focusing on China.

Heaps of China related stories in this issue.There's one by Amy Tan about a remote ethnic  minority village in Guizhou, and two by Peter Hessler about China's  present and future, and a story about Olympic architecture and the superhuman efforts to create them.

Also, view two online archival stories from long  ago National Geographic issues that are not in the May print edition : a 1955 story about Tibet by an escaped Austrian POW who  became tutor to the young Dalai Lama, and a 1971 story about a  Canadian woman who returns to China after having lived there before  the Cultural Revolution. 

Plus lots of photos and extras !

Catch the online version and a preview of the print edition here.

Virtual Protest

When I logged into my MSN today, I thought my laptop had been hit by a  msn virus. I saw a sea of red hearts with the word "China" beside it. Also, it seems that the hearts are beside the contacts who are China nationals.

I msned each of them and asked what this is all about ?

I got several different replies:

1) To support China's stance against Tibet

2) To protest against France for considering not to attend the Olympic opening ceremony

3) To protest against the "slanderous" remarks of Jack Cafferty from CNN.

Picture from Xi'an

This time, pictures from Sophia, taken in Xi'an at the Terracotta Army Museum. 

Manufactured more than 2000 years ago, these clay soldiers were built for the Qin Emperor Mausoleum.

The first of the Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974 by a group farmers drilling a well.

If Chinese history interest you, then a visit to Xi'an is a must. Xi'an is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China for it has been the capital of 13 dynasties.

This place is in my travel checklist.

Countdown to Beijing Olympics (Pt 2)

And pics from the Beijing National Aquatics Center, better known as "Water Cube".

Also from Tracy:

Shanghai maintains the highest quality of life in mainland China

"Shanghai maintains the highest quality of life in mainland China for Asian assignees, followed closely by Nanjing, Tianjin, Beijing and Shenzhen, according to the latest Location Ranking Survey on expatriate living conditions by ECA International, the world’s largest membership organization for international human resources professionals. The survey also sees second tier cities such as Shenzhen move up the ranks while the first tier cities of Beijing and Guangzhou move down."

Source: ECA International. You can read the article here .

Click on image to enlarge.

Incidentally, this is our 600th post!