Supergirl Li Yuchun (李宇春) is taking a Chongqing advertising agency to court over the unauthorized use of her portrait in a One Child Policy poster.

Seen in Shizhu county (石柱县) in Chongqing, the Supergirl’s portrait appears under the slogans “Boys are just as good as girls” and “Girls also continue the family line.” Already seen as sexually ambiguous in the public eye, she has been ridiculed on the web for appearing overly boyish. But as far as whether the ad agency promoting the campaign had malign intentions is being debated on the web. Some think the “designers” purposely put Ms. Li on the poster to poke fun and make some sort of underhanded statement.

But after examining the poster, it seems much more likely that it was the result of hasty photoshop work rather than malicious designers trying to damage the image of Li Yuchun. What the agency should be sued for is their lack of creativity, not image rights infringement.

Links & Sources

• ifeng
• joy.cn

Michael Jackson, the 50-year-old “King of Pop” in the world, died after suffering cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home, this morning 05:26 Beijing time.

Two great MJs are famous to Chinese people: One is Michael Jordan and another one is Michael Jackson. In the last two decades of 20th century, these MJs has greatly influenced Chinese people on how they think about the American culture. Although China was not so open to the outside of world at that time, Michael Jackson’s position in Chinese fans’ heart will never change.

Today, many Chinese fans mourn Jackson’s death throughout the Internet. There is no other star that has bigger impact on pop music than our Michael.

Many popular Chinese websites have devoted a special section for Michael. 
SOHU | 163 | Baidu | SINA | TOM |

The recently “elected” Mayor Zhou SenFeng of Yi Cheng City in Hubei province has made headlines. He is 29 years-old and was elected by an anonymous ballot during the meeting of the local People’s Congress on 21 June 2009. With a master’s degree in management science and engineering from Tsinghua University, he is the youngest Chinese mayor to date and has created a stir of concern as to whether he is capable of fulfilling his mayoral duties. Moreover, a People’s Daily poll showed that over half of netizens are concerned that China’s youngest mayor is “susceptible to corruption.”

To add to the spectacle, Chinese netizens are up in arms about a photograph where Mr. Zhou’s assistants are holding an umbrella for him while he inspects something. China’s dearest politician, Wen Jiabao, would never have someone else hold his umbrella. Given this comparison, people are even more doubtful about this young mayor.

There is a Chinese saying 不比不知道，一比吓一跳 meaning “If you don’t compare, you’re in the dark; The moment you do, you get a shock.”

Links & Sources:

Youngest Mayor: Please Hold Your Own Umbrella

China News Wrap

Reminiscent of the “Very Yellow, Very Violent” scandal, a Chinese university student named GaoYe was interviewed on CCTV’s Topics in Focus (焦点访谈) about the recent report about Google.cn containing pornographic (”yellow”) pictures and vulgar content. He criticized Google.cn, saying:

我觉得黄色、淫秽信息在网上的毒害特别大，特别是经过像Google的链接，那种毒害特别大。
就我一个同学吧，他以前就是青少年比较好奇这些东西，他就去点那些黄色网站什么的。然后就搞到那段时间心神不宁，然后后来国家打击黄色网站了，他就没上，那段时间就好了。结果后来他又发现通过Google这些用户比较多的搜索引擎可以打开这些网址，然后又进入了这些黄色网站，Google里面的链接特别多，然后就导致他又反复了。
I think that obscene information on the Internet is extremely poisonous, especially on Google.cn. For instance, I have a classmate, who was like every other youth, very curious about such things. He visited those porn sites and lost his mind in it. Later, the government blocked the porn sites and he could not visit them anymore. He felt better after not having access to those sites. However, he used Google.cn’s search engine and he could open those websites again. After using Google.cn he lost his mind in it again.

This would be a typical news story if it weren’t for the fact that web-saavy Chinese used 人肉搜索 (Human Flesh Search) to point out that GaoYe is an intern at the CCTV studios. This raises questions about both the integrity of the already dubious CCTV reporting and Human Flesh Searches; Chinese netizens have even made public searches on GaoYe’s girlfriend.

For a full Human Flesh Search on GaoYe, see this Hudong post.

A girl who killed a government official is exempted from criminal punishment.

These last days, ** is huge in China. An ordinary resident and staff at a foot massage center in Hubei province, Miss Deng stabbed a government official to death and wounded another after they sexually harassed and verbally abused her. After the incident, the web exploded with concern and support from Chinese citizens.

On June 16th, the first session of the Badong People’s Court trial of Deng Yujiao concluded that she is to be exempted from criminal punishment. The court ‘s conclusion wass based on the following 3 points:

1. Deng’s behavior was a form of “excessive self-defense”;
2. Deng turned herself in at the authorities (PSB);
3. Deng had limited capability to take legal responsibilities; “According to forensic assessment made jointly by the Hubei People’s Hospital and Wuhan Mental Disease Hospital, Deng has developed a manic-depressive reaction, which deprives her of full capability of taking legal responsibilities.”

After the court hearing she told XinHua News Agency that she was surprised about the judgment and was very satisfied. She thought she would have been penalized harshly because of the murder. She expressed her gratitude to the public, especially netizens, for their concern and support.

This might be a simple case in the West, but could be a precedent to China. The question everyone is asking now is “Without the explosion of public opinion, what would the result of Deng’s case be?

Just this month, the Chinese government has announced that, beginning July 1, a filtering program called Green Dam must be pre-installed in every PC in China before sale on the market. This software is designed to monitor user behavior. If the user types in sex-related or politically sensitive keywords, the software then reports it to authorities. Its slogan is “关爱孩子健康，绿色上网“, or “take care of children’s health, internet surfing goes green”.

This has become a hot topic on the internet in China. One survey from Dayuwang asked “Do you want your computer to be filtered?” Over 86% of the 4346 participants answered no. Obviously, only few people believe it can do something helpful.

Some views from Chinese netizens:
1. People’s right to know is not respected; such a national-wide decision should not be announced less than one month before its implementation;
2. Does it also monitor the personal information? Infringement of privacy?
3. Why is there only one software provider? Why only Green Dam? Does it break the competition law? What is the background of the developer?
4. Are all netizens children? Don’t we have self-discipline?
5. How do western children grow up? Those adult magazines, Playboy and Penthouse can be easily purchased in their nearby supermarket.
6. The government has spent 41.7million RMB (6 million USD) only for buying a year’s annual fee? What if users just re-install the system and un-install the software?
7. Why don’t we have the public hearing?
8. Does the Green Dam over-protect? It is just a normal software: nothing hi-tech about it. It may block some information which is not really sensitive.
9. Is the software able to filter the undesirable content in English/French?
10. Is the software perfect software? Many hackers have already prepared to attack the software or may use it as platform to attack other people’s computer.

Most people believe the government’s initial idea of protecting children from harmful internet information is acceptable, but very doubtful whether this Green Dam project is a proper way to realize this.

More related readings:
Information Week: China ‘Green Dam’ Censorware Called Security Risk
People’s Daily: 今天你被”花季”护航了吗？- Have you been escorted by “HUA Ji Green Dam” today?
UMICH: Technical Analysis of the Green Dam Censorware System
Global Voices：China Green Dam PC filtering
The Wall Street Journal: China Squeezes PC Makers
Danwei: Is the Green Dam filter experimenting on computer users?

Once again the 2-day marathon test, Gaokao, has begun tormenting Chinese high-school students across the nation. More than 10 million of China’s youth will be subjected to this gruesome gauntlet that determines the rest of their social and professional life. But just over half will be admitted to universities, where rote learning and standardized tests still dominate. The Gaokao tests everything students learned since kindergarten and can have some serious psycological impacts on testees.

The Gaokao isn’t waterboarding, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would not have been able to survive 183 gaokao’s. Critics point out that the Gaokao can lead to “faintings, increased drop out rates, and increasing rates of teenage depression and suicide.” There have even been cases of doctors prescribing birth control pills to make sure girls are not menstruating during the test. In order to ease the stress of the test, some cities cordon off streets to ease traffic, offer free taxi rides, and cancel noisy construction projects near testing centers.

But this seems to be the best form of stress relief:

Links & Sources

• China’s SAT (via Slate)
• 中国1020万考生　为进理想高校大冲刺