Random Link Dump

Wan Yanhai released: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061127/hl_afp/healthaidschinarights_061127061946

An article from SFgate.com on gay life in rural China. I wonder how it compares to gay life in Idaho.

Some needs to teach the Brits how to apologize.

Recommended Viewing

The movement of Chinese peasants from rural areas to the cities has been called the greatest migration in human history. But not all Chinese peasants are moving to the wealthy eastern coastal provinces in their search of a better life. Han Chinese from Sichuan are also looking for higher wages in China’s far west – Xinjiang and Tibet. Ning Ying’s (寧瀛）documentary Railroad of Hope（希望之路）travels with migrant workers from Sichuan along the 50 hour train ride to the cotton fields of Xinjiang where they can earn more in two months picking cotton than in a whole year at home. The stories and images are searing. I highly recommend it to get a sense of what life under pressure is like in a rapidly globalizing society. The film does not touch upon what happens when these migrant workers get off the train in Xinjiang and come face to face with local non-Han communities. Maybe that is the subject of another documentary.

Stupid Linguist

Nicholas Ostler is the author of Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. Originally, I wanted to read this book, but I've since decided otherwise. In the latest issue of Time Asia there is a cover story about the new global rush to learn Mandarin which quotes Mr. Ostler:

"'China is like an imperial civilization, or the U.S. or Britain or France. It tends to view the world on its own terms,' says Nicholas Ostler, the British author of Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. 'In China, people talk in Chinese. More and more, they expect others to speak to them in Chinese, too.'"

Imagine that, people in China speaking Chinese?! How dare they? It must be evidence of their secret ambition to take over the world!