Respect: to the man who said “c’mon, we’re in China!” when I foolishly said “Are we in a queue?” as we struggled to get through the door of the Shamrock on Friday. You made me laugh.

Un-Respect: to the westerner who elbowed me out of the way to get served at the bar. Being in China is no excuse.

Maglev from Shanghai to Hangzhou to go ahead, 30 mins to Shanghai sounds good.
FT.com / China / Business – Beijing approves one of two ‘maglev’ rail lines

So I’m still on the fence regarding buying music electronically.
Arguments against:

• Like to have CD in box on shelf
• Can do what I like with it (i.e. keep copy on multiple computers and MP3 players)
• Quality is CD quality
• Unless my house falls down I’ve always got the CD to fall back on

Arguments for:

• I live in China and therefore don’t have access to a decent record shop and ordering from the web is time consuming and costly (assumption)
• Being 100% electronic must be better for the environment
• Being 100% electronic feels right somehow like a paper-less office and I have this feeling that my desire to have something to put on the shelf is somehow wrong, being material or vain.

So a test: I want some new music to listen to, nothing specific in mind, only thing I remember thinking I should buy is more of the Buddha Bar stuff.

Amazon option
Gives me some reasonable recommendations given the limited number of CDs I’ve bought through them. I decide to buy the recommendation and another Buddha Bar.

• Lights Out Vol.3 [Limited Edition] – Steve Lawler] £15.99
• Buddha Bar Vol.2 – Claude Challe £22.99

Adding P&P and taking away the VAT gives a final price of 38.25, so I’m no worse off that if I was doing this in the UK (except that I have to wait 8-12 business days for my CDs)

iTunes option
Also did good recommendations and the review stuff which is all good. Outrageously the Steve Lawler one is the same price and Buddha Bar doesn’t seem to be available.

Given up and placed order with Amazon – not quite ready for electronic music purchasing yet. Getting it straight away is tempting but iTunes Music store is so slow through Chinese internet connection that I’m dubious about the download.

CPPCC proposes to put Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping on Chinese bank notes.
Xinhua – English

Nice to see that politics of ideology hasn’t lost out completely to all this focus on the county-side.

eh?

what!

…CENSORED…

Possibly not how I would have translated it but…

Once again the US State Department has released its ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices’ for last year.
US State Department on China in 2005
Once again China’s State Council has responded with its ‘Human Rights Record of the US in 2005′
China’s State Council on US in 2005

Discussion of property law taking place in China.
FT.com / China / Regulation