China Chronicles October 29, 2012
- before the beginning
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- Apple Siri 'too smart,' helps users find hookers
APPLE'S Siri, a popular voice-activated personal assistant app for iPhones, is now accused in China of being "too smart" as it may help users find illegal venues offering prostitution, Chinese media reported.
According to Xinhua news agency, some iPhone users with Apple's latest IOS 6 operating system and Chinese-language Siri said when they asked the assistant app "Where to find prostitutes," Siri showed 15 places with detailed locations.
While many netizens were shocked by the app's powerful search feature, some suggested it could help police crack down on houses of prostitution.
A reporter with Xinhua tried using Siri to search for prostitutes in Baoshan District in Shanghai and the app provided 12 locations in the search result, mostly entertainment venues.
The reporter picked one on Shuangcheng Road and went there in the middle of the night to see young women wearing sexy clothes at the venue's entrance.
A staff worker told the reporter that the venue offers prostitutes in KTV or karaoke rooms, while customers may pay additional fees to take prostitutes out of the venue.
Not all offer sex services
The reporter said he checked another venue provided by Siri and it was also offering such services. But apparently not all the locations were offering sexual services. The reporter checked a third on Shuichan Road W. only to find that it is a hairdressing salon that closes before 10pm.
According to Xinhua, Shanghai police said they are investigating the venues suspected of offering sexual services in the search list by Siri.
Police told the news agency that so far they haven't received any reports or complaints about the app involving sexual content.
Police said that they regard the app as only a platform to collect and exchange information. They encourage residents who have misgivings about search results on the app to report the locations so they can be investigated, according to Xinhua.
The Xinhua reporter said Apple hasn't rep! lied to the agency on the Siri issue.
However, a worker surnamed Lin with Apple's customer service hotline told the reporter that Siri could help users find prostitutes because so far the app has not been set to filter sensitive words. She suggested users turn off the app or set passwords for it to block children from accessing inappropriate material.
- Chemical factory expansion stops after thousands march in protest
THOUSANDS of protesters who marched through the eastern Ningbo City yesterday against the expansion of a petrochemical factory won a pledge from the local government that the project would be halted.
The Ningbo government said in a statement yesterday evening that the city and the project's investor had "resolutely" agreed not to go ahead with the expansion.
The city's Zhenhai District, where the chemical plant locates, said Ningbo's Communist Party chief Wang Huizhong and Mayor Liu Qi held discussions with residents on Saturday night.
The Ningbo government said in a short statement on its website yesterday evening that the project wouldn't go ahead and that refining at the factory would stop for the time being while a scientific review is conducted.
The demonstration is the latest this year over fears of health risks from industrial projects, as Chinese who have seen their living standards improve become more outspoken against environmentally risky projects in their areas.
Hundreds of residents headed from a city square toward the offices of the Ningbo government early yesterday. They were stopped by police at the gate. Tensions rose after about 200 riot police walked out of the gate, tore down banners that people had hung in trees.
Hundreds roamed along nearby shopping streets. Police diverted traffic to allow them to pass down a main road.
The protests began a few days earlier in the coastal district of Zhenhai. On Saturday they swelled and spread to the center of Ningbo. Residents reported that Saturday's protests involved thousands of people.
Authorities said "a few" people disrupted public order by staging sit-ins, unfurling banners, distributing fliers and obstructing roads.
Marchers included the elderly and children, as well as some pet poodles. Some protesters wore face masks and shouted slogans like "Protect Ningbo" and "Return my health."
"We have to do this for our future and our family's future," a 40-year-old protester surn! amed Jing said yesterday, as she pointed to the smoggy air. "The sky was so clear when I was a child. Look at it now."
Another protester, Yu Yibing, said he wanted the factory to be closed, not expanded, and his 7-year-old son to grow up in a clean environment.
"As the common people, we need to live in a green environment. This is a reasonable request," Yu said.
The planned expansion project was designed to produce 15 million tons of refined oil and 1.2 million tons of ethylene per year and belongs to Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co, which has invested 55.87 billion yuan (US$8.9 billion).
- Sounds of ancient bronze drums die out in modern age
WEI Zhenli has just finished teaching children how to play bronze drums. After they have gone he feels lonely, disappointed and worries about the inheritance of the thousand-year-old instrument.
"Television, cell phones and the Internet have changed the lives of villagers, and traditional culture cannot attract people's eyes anymore, the young people in particular," said Wei, a Lanyang villager of Hechi City in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
"People who can master the skills of beating bronze drums are few, and many of them are in their 40s or 50s," said Wei, who is one of the successors of the bronze drum, which is a cultural relic of ethnic groups living in south China.
Wei said the young people of his village migrate to cities for work, so people in their 40s or 50s take up the task in teaching the children to play the drums.
Culture needs protection
Dating from 200 BC, bronze drums used to be an important instrument for a family, and it has been a tradition of local people to play drums to pray for rain and a good harvest. Only 2,400 of the bronze drums are estimated to remain, more than 1,400 of which are in Hechi.
Wei still missed the days when every family in his village carried the drums onto a nearby mountain and played day and night. "Things are no longer the same now, and few people can play the instrument," Wei said.
Wei's father, Wei Wanyi, who has collected more than 40 of the instruments, has been considered the "king of the bronze drum."
As his father grows older, Wei Zhenli takes up the duty to pass on the bronze drum culture and teach people skills to play the instrument. He has also led the drum team of Donglan County to perform in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanning to promote drum culture.
"During the Great Leap Forward campaign from 1958 to 1960, almost all metal things, including the bronze drums, were melted down producing steel. Hundred-year-old bronze drums were destroyed at that time," said Liang Fulin,! the former director of the cultural heritage management station of Hechi.
Liang said entrepreneurs had rushed to his village to purchase ancient drums from local people for profit, which also led to the loss of the original drums.
"A single bronze drum is a story, and also an irreplaceable cultural symbol for this area," said Li Gang, director with Folk Opera Department of the Public Art Museum in Hechi. He added that they staged bronze drum performances last year calling on people and local government to protect and inherit the custom.
- Temples barred from selling market shares
CHINA is telling Buddhist temples popular with tourists: Don't let money be your mantra.
Authorities announced a ban last week on temples selling shares to investors after leaders of several popular temples planned to pursue stock market listings for them as commercial entities.
Even the Shaolin Temple of kung fu movie fame was once rumored to be planning a stock market debut - leading critics to slam such plans as a step too far in China's already unrestrained commercial culture.
"Everywhere in China now is about developing the economy," complained Beijing resident Fu Runxing, a 40-year-old accountant who said he recently went to a temple where incense was priced at 300 yuan (US$50) a stick.
"It's too excessive. It's looting," she said.
Centuries-old Buddhist pilgrimage sites such as Wutai Mountain in Shanxi Province, Putuo Mountain in Zhejiang and Jiuhua Mountain in Anhui all were moving toward listings on stock markets in recent months to finance expansion, according to state media.
The government's religious affairs office called on local authorities to ban profiteering related to religious activity and told them not to allow religious venues to be run as business ventures or listed as corporate assets.
Companies that manage temple sites may be able to bypass the prohibition on listing shares simply by excluding the temples themselves from their lists of assets. A Buddhist site at Emei Mountain in Sichuan already has been on the Shenzhen stock exchange since 1997 but its listed assets include a hotel, cable car company and ticket booths - not the temples, which date back several hundred years.
Shanghai lawyer Wang Yun said the new prohibition wouldn't likely affect Emei, but might make additional companies think twice before listing.
The ban on profiteering from religious activity is "just a reflection of the terrible reality of the over-commercialization in recent years of temples and other places," the Southern Metropolis Daily said in! a recent editorial. "People who have been to famous religious places should be familiar with expensive ticket prices and donations for all kinds of things."
Chinese entities from nature parks to religious sites are increasingly turning to commercial activities to pay expenses as government support dwindles in a society with little charitable giving.
Temples face heavy costs to maintain centuries-old buildings and gardens.
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- Typhoon Son-Tinh hits S China
More than 80,000 people in south China's Hainan Province have been relocated following the arrival of Typhoon Son-Tinh, which has brought gales and downpours to the region since yesterday.
The provincial civil affairs bureau said today that 82,326 people have been moved to temporary shelters, where water, food and medicine have been provided.
The provincial transportation department said the suspension of train services and shipping across the Qiongzhou Strait, which links Hainan island with Guangdong Province, will continue due to high winds and rains.
The meteorological observatory of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said the storm will make landfall in coastal areas in north Vietnam this afternoon or evening.
The typhoon also brought heavy rains to the cities of Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, Chongzuo, Yulin and Nanning today. Water levels on rivers in the worst-hit cities of Beihai, Qinzhou and Fangchenggang have risen significantly.
Meteorologists said the government should call fishing boats back to harbors and advise people to stay off the water for the time being.
The Guangxi observatory has warned tourism departments and aquafarmers to take preventative measures to mitigate the storm's impact. - Typhoon Son-Tinh brings gales, rains to S China
MORE than 80,000 people in south China's Hainan Province have been relocated following the arrival of Typhoon Son-Tinh, which has brought gales and downpours to the region since yesterday.
The provincial civil affairs bureau said today that 82,326 people have been moved to temporary shelters, where water, food and medicine have been provided.
The provincial transportation department said the suspension of train services and shipping across the Qiongzhou Strait, which links Hainan island with Guangdong Province, will continue due to high winds and rains.
The meteorological observatory of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said the storm will make landfall in coastal areas in north Vietnam this afternoon or evening.
The typhoon also brought heavy rains to the cities of Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, Chongzuo, Yulin and Nanning today. Water levels on rivers in the worst-hit cities of Beihai, Qinzhou and Fangchenggang have risen significantly.
Meteorologists said the government should call fishing boats back to harbors and advise people to stay off the water for the time being.
The Guangxi observatory has warned tourism departments and aquafarmers to take preventative measures to mitigate the storm's impact. - morning railroad blues
- Cold snap to sweep through China
CHINA'S central and eastern regions will experience temperature drops in coming days, while the southern parts will receive moderate to heavy rain, the national meteorological watchdog forecast today.
Strong wind will make temperatures in northeastern regions fall by six to ten degrees Celsius today. A blast of cold air is forecast to sweep across the central and eastern parts from tomorrow, the National Meteorological Center said on its website.
The center also forecast that fog will shroud parts of Hubei, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces this morning, reducing visibility to less than 1,000 meters.
Over the next three days, parts of South China will see moderate to heavy rain, and some regions may experience torrential rain, the center said.
Son-Tinh, the 23rd tropical storm of the year, strengthened to a super-typhoon last night and was located 260 km southeast of Vietnam's Thanh Hoa at 5am today.
Son-Tinh is expected to move northwestward at a speed of 10 to 15 km per hour and make landfall in Vietnam's northern coastal regions tonight, the center said.
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