Tag: china

Ideographic Myth

The concept of ideographic writing is a most seductive notion. There is great appeal in the concept of written symbols conveying their message directly to our minds, thus bypassing the restrictive intermediary of speech. And it seems so plausible. Surely ideas immediately pop into our minds when we see a road sign, a death’s head label on a bottle of medicine, a number on a clock. Aren’t Chinese characters a sophisticated system of symbols that similarly convey meaning without regard to sound? Aren’t they an ideographic system of writing? The answer to these questions is no. Chinese characters are a phonetic, not an ideographic, system of writing, as I have attempted to show in the preceding pages. Here I would go further: There never has been, and never can be, such a thing as an ideographic system of writing. How then did this concept originate, and why has it received such currency among specialists and the public at large?

2008 Paralympic Games

i wish they had wheelchair boxing. i would pay for that!

Olympics Opening Ceremony

Beijing held its formal opening ceremony today for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The ceremony, held in the National Stadium known as the Bird’s Nest, was attended by 100s, and watched by millions more on television. Below are some highlights of the nearly 4-hour performance.

crazy

Deserted

Chinese farmers and herders have transformed 400k km2 of cropland and verdant prairie into new deserts.

China Visas

4 days $130 for us citizens

Shanghai PJ

The book, which is essentially about the look and style of Shanghai, features dozens and dozens of pictures of people wearing pyjamas outdoors, as well as close-ups of Chinese footwear, Shanghai shoppers, and futuristic looking motorcycle riders.

Sichuan Earthquake Imagery

at the same time the chinese government doesn’t allow mapping services to have satellite images for their sites. make up your minds, politburo.

Trans-Siberian Railway

let the planning commence.
2008-07-07: uhm? this is my upcoming vacation, and they already have a movie out about it?

Chinese Insourcing

But Liu is investing $10m in South Carolina, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China. Liu spent $500k for 30k m2 in Spartanburg — less than 25% what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan. US electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn’t have to put up with frequent blackouts.

you won’t hear this from the dobbtards

60% of Paintings

Dafen is responsible for cranking out 60% of the world’s paintings. The overwhelming majority of the paintings are slavish reproductions of famous paintings. The artists doing the work are very talented, however. We asked selected individuals to imagine themselves in their professional medium.