This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

One of Beijing’s newest landmarks, the Bird’s Nest, will soon be put to another use. A concert combining classical, pop and Chinese folk music will be staged at the end of June at the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The concert line-up is a big surprise. Famous Chinese folk singer Song Zuying, Asian pop king Jay Chou, world renowned tenor Placido Domingo and piano prodigy Lang Lang will present a crossover concert on June 30th at the Bird’s Nest.

The concert will have some firsts including a debut collaboration between singer Song Zuying and Lang Lang.

Song and Domingo sang a duet at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. And her performance during the 2009 CCTV Spring Festival Gala with Jay Chou was also a big hit.

The teaming up of the two top Chinese folk and pop music stars promises more amazing collaborative efforts at the summer concert in the National Stadium.

At a press conference in the stadium, Song said she will work hard to prepare for her performance. As always, Song believes that singing is the best way to express her feelings. The veteran sang “Thanks A Lot” for the gathered press.

Also at the press conference, Jay Chou performed a piano piece which he created specially for Song. He called it “River” after his impressions of Song, who has brought Chinese folk songs and culture to the world like a river flows to the ocean.

After more than six months’ preparation, the Beijing-based newspaper the Global Times will launch its English edition together with its website on Monday.

Published under the official People’s Daily, the Global Times was established in 1993, specializing in coverage of international affairs.

The English edition will cover the world from a Chinese perspective, and reflects the standpoints and opinions of Chinese people on significant international issues.

“It marks a new beginning for the Global Times,” said Hu Xijin, the Editor-in-Chief of the Global Times. “The world of English language was new to us. But with the launch of the Global Times English edition, we have gained confidence to make it a success, to make friends with foreigners and to facilitate communication between China and the world.”

According to Hu, the English edition, instead of a translated version of its Chinese newspaper, is based on an independent team of reporters, editors and foreign experts.

It will be printed daily from Monday to Friday in pace with the Chinese edition and distributed nationwide.

The web site address is http://en.huanqiu.com or http://www.globaltimes.cn.

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The construction of 10 major infrastructure projects will begin this month in Beijing, with investment mostly focused on southwestern downtown Beijing and projects for ecological conservation, the local government said yesterday.

Liu Yinchun, deputy director of Beijing municipal commission of development and reform, said the 10 projects cost a total of 19.6 billion yuan ($2.9 billion), of which 10.4 billion yuan would be spent this year.

The projects include construction of expressways such as the Puhuangyu expressway, linking the third and fifth ring roads, in southern downtown Beijing, and the renovation of No 111 national highway in Huairou district.

In addition, a number of water conservation projects – including a canal and a reservoir supporting the mammoth south-to-north water transfer project and renovation and two sewage disposal plants – will be started.

The construction of three riverside forest parks, in Tongzhou, Miyun and Yanqing, will begin this month, with an investment of 1.2 billion yuan this year.

Liu said Beijing will focus on 59 major infrastructure projects, including 33 new ones this year, with a total investment of 70 billion yuan. Of these, work on 10 began during the first quarter.

The Puhuangyu expressway is expected to boost the development of a comprehensive business district in southwestern downtown Beijing, said Fengtai district government chief You Guangbin.

Fengtai district government is kicking off the construction of a business district, combining shopping, hotels, catering and entertainment this year.

“The proposed business center and the Beijing railway station south division will together drive the economic development of southern downtown Beijing,” he said.

The district will cover nearly 15 hectares along the Subway Line 5, with a construction area of 653,900 sq m.

Beijing’s well-known temple fairs are an essential activity during the Chinese new year, the Spring Festival. But many travelers miss the opportunity to visit the fairs when they are in Beijing at different times of the year. Now, thanks to the opening of a Beijing Flavor Street, residents or visitors can taste an authentic Beijing every ordinary day.

The sound of hawkers conjures up images of old Beijing. The Beijing Flavor Street, in the downtown Wangfujing area, will help visitors experience the old Beijing.

Vintage buildings, stone sculptures and snack booths are ready to welcome the crowds during the May Day holiday. The organizers are offering favorable discounts for folk artists to rent booths, encouraging them to perform here.

Gong Weiping, the director of Beijing Flavor Street said, “Each day, there will be three to four Tian Qiao stunt performances to treat visitors. There’s a mini theater to hold shows such as Beijing drum performances.”

Artists making figurines from dough and sugar will also be featured along the Beijing Flavor Street. There will also be stunts like stilt walking and diabolo playing. Of course the repertoire will also include Peking opera, Pingju opera and story telling.

But the most tantalizing items are the snacks. A snack plaza and more than sixty restaurants will serve all kind of Beijing snacks and dishes. Beijing Flavor Street is expected to be a new landmark in the capital to display the traditional Beijing culture.

Oliver Radtke believes Chinglish mistranslations may be fun, but are not to be made fun of.

More than that, they have become serious business for the German Sinologist, who believes the portmanteau adds spice to the alphabet soup that is English today.

“My message on Chinglish is: It should be conserved.

“It shouldn’t be treated as a cheap joke for foreign tourists to laugh at but as a cultural treasure,” said the 32-year-old multimedia designer, who frequently visited China for almost a decade before moving to Beijing in 2007.

“I’m trying to challenge the notion that there is only one type of standard English – the English that’s spoken in America or in the British Isles – which is shortsighted, because Chinglish is already being used by millions of people to communicate with one another.”

So, since 2005, the scholar has collected more than 5,000 specimens of “the wonderful results of an English dictionary meeting Chinese grammar” on his website www.chinglish.de and has published two books on the subject.

The website receives about 10,000 visitors a week, he said, and his first book, Chinglish: Found in Translation, has sold nearly 50,000 copies since it was published in September 2007 by Gibbs Smith Publishers. His new book, More Chinglish: Speaking in Tongues, hit the shelves this month and is available in Beijing at the Wangfujing Bookstore and The Bookworm.

“The two books are unique in that they go beyond the fun book you pick up at the airport in that they talk about this approach of conservation, the academic value of Chinglish, the creative combination of English and Chinese, and why we should keep it,” Radtke said.

Patricia Schetelig, who works for the German Embassy in Beijing and regularly contributes to www.chinglish.de, said she appreciates Radtke’s approach to Chinglish.

“What’s important to me is that he’s not making fun of the way things are translated,” she said.

“There are other websites doing similar things, but they’re making fun of Chinglish or saying it shouldn’t be done this way.”

Some of Radtke’s favorite phrases include: “Welcome To Presence”, “Wash after relief”, “Little grass has life, please watch your step” and his first specimen, which sparked his interest in Chinglish in 2000 – “Don’t forget to carry your thing”.

Another darling is “STELIOT” – the mirror image of “toilets”. Radtke said he loves this example because it came from the sign-maker’s presumption that since Chinese characters were once written from right to left, English letters could be, too.

Part of his mission, Radtke said, is to preserve rapidly disappearing Chinglish specimens.

He was anguished while watching the government replace Chinglish signs with standard English ones in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

“That was a sad day for me and a sad day for Chinglish,” Radtke said.

But American David Tool, who has been closely involved in cleaning up Chinglish in Beijing since 2001, disagreed.

“(Chinglish) takes away from the aesthetic, educational and cultural value we want these signs to provide,” the advisor to the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Committee said.

“We get distracted when we’re trying to explain something. It’s not dealing with the issues with respect.”

Radtke said that while Chinglish is swiftly vanishing from the public sector, it’s still thriving in the private sector.

“Restaurants, private institutions, little shops – Chinglish will never die there. There’s a massive amount of Chinglish being produced every day, and I’m happy about that.”

He said he has contacted local governments, sign-makers and park managers to suggest they change their signage “back to something more creative and more local” but has received little response.

Radtke believes the fact that both English and Chinese are second languages to him is a boon, rather than a bane, to his understanding of Chinglish.

“Because I have this outside perspective, I’m far away from finger-pointing.”

He added that he asks native English speakers to assess the Chinglish he collects.

Radtke said many Chinese web users were furious when he first started his blog and he often received hate mail.

“But that’s all changed, because more people understand my point, which is that Chinglish is a window to the Chinese mind for non-Chinese speakers and a cultural bridge between the West and China.

“It should be regarded with pride.”

To let the World better understand China, and the city of Beijing, Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, Information Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the Beijing People’ss Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Beijing Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment host the photo contest in the name of the City of Beijing in the Eyes of Foreigners, featuring works from foreign photographers working in China or other parts of the world, from April to July 2009.

The theme of the contest is the New Images of Beijing, The contest try to give foreign friends a good opportunity to better understand Beijing-its charms and, in particular, its changes. We are currently accepting submissions of photographic work exploring the new images of Beijing in everything from travel and recreation, to life and work in Beijing, All foreigners who have lived or traveled in Beijing are welcome to enter the contest.

Photos will be selected by a committee of experts. Prize-winners would be invited to Beijing to participate in a press event, and would be presented with a special collection of the prize-winning photos.

Submission of photos to the contest will be taken as tacit approval for publication and display of those photos. Information and promotional material for the context will be released through print media. At the conclusion of the contest, the organizing committee will hold an exhibition of top quality photos in Beijing, in addition to publishing them in an album.

The deadline for submissions of photos is July 10, 2009. Participants should note the following:

1. Entries can be black and white or color images, and submitted either electronically or as prints. Group entry is limited to 4 photos. Digital photos of JPG format should be no less than 500kb.

2. Submitted print photos should be 10 inches along their longest edge, un-mounted.

3. Digital photos should be delivered as high-resolution files (no less than 18MB each), burned on CD or DVD. The entries can be submitted by email, mail or dropped in at the registration office of the organizing committee. Please write photo Contest ¨Cthe city of Beijing in the Eyes of Foreigners on the envelope. While the organizing committee will do its utmost to care for images submitted to them, it is not responsible for damage or loss incurred during the mailing process. The entries will not be returned to the participants after the event. The Organizing Committee is held responsible for the final right to interpret the event.

4. Entries should be accompanied by the attached registration form and sent to:

Organizing Committee, Photo Contest—Beijing in the Eyes of Foreigners

No.97,Nanheyan Street, Dong Cheng District, Beijing 100006, China

Tel: 010-65221475 010-65212270

Email: bjeyes@photobtmbeijing.com Website: www.btmbeijing.com

According to news released from the municipal committee of communications on April the 5th, driving restrictions will continue in Beijing for another year when the first round of restrictions ends this weekend. 30% of public service vehicles will continue to be kept off the road, and private cars off the road once every week. Let’s take a closer look at Media opinions.

One article in the same paper points out that 30% of official vehicles were off the road since the Beijing Olympics, and it has no adverse affects. The commentator questions that if taking up to 30% of the public service vehicles off the road would not affect day-to-day work, then why not auction these vehicles? The writer says the auction could reduce vehicle depreciation and other expenses.

One review from ‘Legal Evening Paper’ by Liang Qianli echoed the idea, saying selling the 15,000 decommissioned cars could save up to 150 million yuan at least for taxpayers. The article suggests the government should take this into strong consideration.

Another comment from the Xinhua News looks into another aspect of the traffic restrictions. It says although the policy gets support from most of the citizens, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best way to relieve traffic congestions. If the government doesn’t take comprehensive actions to improve road planning and management, the positive result of restriction on cars on the road will quickly disappear.

I think you might be interested in this stuff:

Mourn quake victims on Tomb-Sweeping Day

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2009-04/04/content_7649619.htm

China Telecom began to release third generation, or 3G, cell phone numbers in Beijing on Friday. Users in the capital can now register for its 3G network service using valid ID cards.

On the first day of the commercial launch, China Telecom sales centers saw many customers subscribing to the new service.

People around the world are being invited to vote on Beijing’s 10 best modern buildings in the fourth such poll since the 1950s.

    The results of the poll would be revealed before Oct.1, when the country celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, said Xun Yongli, secretary-general of the organizing committee of the selection campaign.

    The project was aimed at highlighting the achievements of the reform and opening-up in Beijing and promoting the city’s image ofan international metropolis, said Xun.

    The public were welcome to vote via newspapers, a website or by SMS text message for their favorites among the 100 buildings listed on www.shidajianzhu.com, the official website.

    The public vote would count for 60 of the final tally and expert judges for 40 percent.

    Recommended by building experts, the 100 candidates were built after 2000 and include the main Olympic venues of the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, and the National Center for the Performing Arts.

    The selection was jointly organized by the Beijing Daily Group and Beijing Construction Association, and co-sponsored by key Beijing media.

    Public votes for Beijing’s best 10 buildings were held in the 1950s, 1988, and in 2000-2001.

    Among the favorites in the previous polls have been the Great Hall of the People on Tian’anmen Square, Beijing Railway Station, CCTV’s former office building, China International Exhibition Center, and the Capital Library.