Singers Fined For Lip-Synching

Two Chinese singers have become the first people in the country to fall foul of new rules banning lip-synching nearly two years after widespread criticism of miming at the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony.

The two young female singers were spotted lip-synching during a concert in southwestern China’s Chengdu city last year, the official Xinhua news agency said on its website.

“No signals were received from their microphones while the show was on,” it quoted an official with the local government’s cultural affairs office as saying.

The two have been fined 50,000 yuan ($7,329) each, Xinhua added.

China’s feisty internet users frequently blame famous singers of short-selling their fans by lip-synching on stage.

But some have also wondered why these first fines were leveled against two almost unknown singers rather than more famous stars.

“Why do they choose to keep their eyes closed when it’s a famous singer miming?” one commentator wrote on the website of the Beijing Daily.

Man Detained Over Poisoned Dumplings

China has detained a man suspected of poisoning frozen dumplings that were exported to Japan two years ago, sickening 10 people and causing tension between China and Japan.

The suspect, Lu Yueting, 36, put a poisonous substance in the frozen dumplings when he worked at a food plant based in China’s Hebei province, state media reported quoting the Ministry of Public Security.

The poisoned dumplings, which sickened 10 people in Japan in 2008, caused a food safety scare and sparked tension between China and Japan with the latter saying someone had deliberately poisoning the potstickers with insecticide.

State media reported Lu acted out of revenge as he was dissatisfied with his pay and colleagues.

Lu has apparently confessed and police have found injectors he used to poison the dumplings and collected several witness accounts, the statement from the ministry said.

Those Copycat Chinese Automakers

With the news that Geely is buying Volvo, let’s take a look at some of the more popular Chinese ‘designed’ cars – notice the overall lack or originality.  Wonder if they actually have any copyright laws in The People’s Republic:

Which is the Vauxhall Frontera and which is the Landwind?

Which is the Mercedes C and which is the Geely Merrie 300?

Chinese Theme Park Highlights Challenges Facing Dwarfs

Sitting in a valley in southwest China sits an unlikely and controversial theme park — the Little People’s Kingdom of Dwarfs.

Here, dwarfs perform in fairytale costumes for tourists, drawing both curious crowds and a fair share of criticism.

For many of the employees, the park is a rare opportunity to find work, and, as unlikely as it seems for men and women doing daily spoof performances of Swan Lake in tutus, respect.

The park, near Kunming city in Yunnan province, employs 108 dwarfs from across the country, who twice daily gather on an artificial hillside to dance and sing for tourists.

As well as a host of dwarf guardian angels, the fantasy world has a king, an army, a health department and even its own foreign ministry, and all must pretend to live in a miniature hilltop village of crooked little houses.

For 80 yuan ($11.72) — not a small sum in China — tourists can watch skits, sentimental group dances and acrobatics some may view as more than a little reminiscent of medieval freak shows now deemed politically incorrect in many parts of the world.

The show’s centerpiece, a farcical rendition of Swan Lake, sees performers both male and female dressed in pink tutus and pretending to be little swans.

Geely to Buy Volvo From Ford

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group signed a binding deal Sunday to buy Ford Motor Co.’s Volvo Cars unit for $1.8 billion, representing a coup for the independent Chinese automaker which is aiming to expand in Europe.

The purchase gives Geely a European luxury car brand with a reputation for safety and quality at a time when China, which last year surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest car market, is eager to improve its competitiveness by acquiring foreign automotive brands that might help it improve its technology and expand into overseas markets.

The price, which includes a $200 million note with the remainder to be paid out in cash, is far less than the $6.45 billion Ford paid for the Swedish automaker in 1999. The U.S. automaker has been trying to sell Volvo since late 2008 to focus its resources on managing its core Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands.

“We think it’s a fair price for a good business, and yes, we’re happy with the deal we’ve achieved with Geely,” said Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth on Sunday at a news conference at Volvo Cars headquarters in Goteborg, on Sweden’s west coast. Booth added that his company believes that, under Geely, “Volvo can continue to build its business and return to profitability.”

The agreement was signed by Booth and Geely’s chairman, Li Shufu, and witnessed by Li Yizhong, the Chinese minister of industry and information technology, as well as Swedish Minister for Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson.

Should Naked Men Pull Boats?

A row has broken out in China over a plan to revive a custom for naked men to haul boats through a tourist beauty spot.

Political adviser Yao Benzhi suggested the move to restore local culture and boost tourism in the Shennongxi Stream Gorge in Hubei province.

Yao even volunteered to be the first naked boatman – but he has been criticised for seeking economic growth at the cost of the boatmen’s dignity.

People came from far and wide to see the naked boatmen until they were ordered to cover up in the year 2000 to avoid offending women and children.

But the number of visitors has actually fallen sharply since the estimated 1,000 boatmen were told to start wearing pants.

Liu Zhong, of the local Jiangshan Travel Agency said: “Many tourists come here to see the naked boat trackers and they are disappointed to see them dressed.”

Chinese Youth Accused Of Not Being Fighting Fit

China must urgently address the physical fitness of the nation’s youth or run the risk of raising a generation incapable of fighting the Japanese in a future war, the head of the country’s top sports university said.

The government must immediately invest some of its new wealth in ensuring that children take regular exercise, Beijing Sports University president Yang Hua told the sports group of the largely ceremonial advisory body to China’s annual parliament.

“It is time for the Chinese nation to improve the physical fitness of our next generation,” said Yang. “If we miss the next three to five years a whole generation will be next to useless.

“If there was another war against Japan, would the younger Chinese be able to fight the Japanese one-on-one?

“The government has enough money for banquets and for luxurious office buildings, do they not have money for children’s physical education?” he added.

Japan invaded and occupied much of China between 1931 and 1945. Rancour over Japanese wartime atrocities has subsided as a diplomatic flashpoint, but it continues to shape Chinese public attitudes toward Japan and its people.

Giant Panda Found Eating Like A Pig

Hunger drove a wild panda to break into a Chinese farmer’s pig pen and eat their food, which was meat and bone, rather than bamboo.

State-run China Central Television said the giant panda had apparently descended from the mountains in a region of southwest China’s Sichuan province and was spotted in a field before the animal was found inside the pig pen, chewing on bones and spitting out the meat.

After eating its fill, the panda quietly left.

Although classified as carnivores, the giant pandas’ diet is mainly bamboo, but it also eats other foods including honey, eggs, fish, oranges and bananas when available.

Scientists believe there are around 1,600 giant pandas living in the wild in China, mostly in the mountains of the southwest.

The endangered species are considered a national icon and its existence is threatened by logging, agriculture and China’s increasing human population.

Weatherproof To Take Down Obama Billboard

Weatherproof Garment Co said it will take down a Times Square billboard of U.S. President Barack Obama wearing one of its coats, agreeing to a White House request even though the company said it had legal grounds for using his image in its advertisement.

The privately held New York company said it made its decision after speaking with White House lawyers last week.

The ad, which shows the president during a visit to the Great Wall of China, went up without Obama’s permission, clashing with a White House policy disallowing use of the president’s image or likeness for commercial purposes.

“We made the commitment to the White House, and we are going to take it down even though it’s a very gray area and we were advised by a lot of people to leave it up,” company President Freddie Stollmack told Reuters.

“In this case, discretion is the better part of valor,” he said. “We don’t want to alienate the White House and win the battle and lose the war.”

The ad won’t come down immediately. Stollmack said a new advertisement had to be created first.

Smoker Stops World’s Fastest Train

The world’s fastest train hit its first speed bump in the form of a disobedient smoker less than a week after it began running in southern China.

A cigarette triggered an alarm that forced a two-and-a-half hour stoppage, nearly as long as the train takes to cover the 1,100 kilometer (684 mile) distance between Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, and the central city of Wuhan.

Managers of the bullet train, which debuted on Saturday, were unable to catch the smoker who fled the scene before the alarm sounded, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

“Smoking is strictly forbidden on the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed train, even in the toilet,” a spokesman with the Guangzhou Railway Group Corporation was quoted as saying. “It could trigger the alarm and even cause equipment failures.”

The train was in the Guangzhou rail station when it was delayed and had not yet begun its 350-km-per-hour journey, Xinhua added.