| Video Pick of the Month |
Bus Fire in ChengduWARNING: This video is deeply disturbing and should NOT be viewed by young children. We include it here because it attests to the power of citizen video in China. On June 5, a terrible fire engulfed a diesel bus in Chengdu, Sichuan, resulting in 27 deaths and 76 injuries. Initial findings are that the fire was not caused by mechanical problems, but rather by gasoline that a passenger had brought onto the bus. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that it was deliberately set. The bus driver emerged as something of a hero, having pulled several people to safety. A Youku user shot this, and the video has since been viewed over 4 million times. We repeat the warning that the video is extremely disturbing to watch. If you read Chinese, check out the insanely long posts analyzing this video footage on the popular Tianya Forum here. The longest among them is here, and a shorter one from Tianya here. |
| Youkulest |
Like people the world over, Chinese have spent the last week mourning the passing of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, on June 25. We particularly liked this real-time video of Chinese artist Su Dabao (苏大宝) rendering Jacko in sand. Su Dabao has done well for himself doing impromptu sand art for fashion magazine soirees (he did one for such an event I recently attended) and various business ceremonies. Check out more of his work at his website here. And check out these videos from Youku of his art for the 2008 Olympic Games here, in celebration of China's 60th National Day here, and a page of Youku results for his work here. Related: This video of a Chinese student doing a Michael Jackson impression back in 2007 got blasted around on China's leading social networks, Kaixin and Xiaonei. Check it out! |
| Hot Topics |
Recently, more than 10 million Chinese high school graduates took part in the annual National Higher Education Entrance Examination, a.k.a Gaokao exams. For most of them, they’ve sacrificed countless weekends and holidays for this incredibly high-pressure exam, because they’ve been told that to enter a top university is their only way to attain a bright future in China. Well, that and join the Party. This video recorded a graduation ceremony in Hantai High School, Hanzhong, Shanxi. The students tore up their books and papers and threw them into the air. Besides their adolescent hormones, you can also catch the distinct whiff of deep desperation. |
Do you still remember the fuzzy agent in the Get Smart movie? Well, it seems that some high school graduates from Jilin province are much better than him: They used the latest cutting-edge equipment to cheat on the Gaokao exams. Honestly, as a former journalist, I’ve never seen stuff this unbelievable before - a mini camera hidden in a ruler that sends a video stream to a distant place outside the examination room, so that “experts” can send back the correct answers via the invisible earphone — the kind of thing you only see in 24. China Youth Daily (中国青年报) was the first news outlet to reveal the dark secrets of Gaokao in Jilin province this year. There is a really huge industry behind all this — RMB 300 equipment sold for RMB 10,000! Unbelievable. |
| The Month's Most Viewed |
On June 6th, 40 mini coopers in a convoy 2 kilometers long, drove along the 4th ring road for 40 kilometers for about 90 minutes. The event was organized by 9IMINI Club. Surely they aroused suspicion that there was a bank heist in the works, no? More pictures here. |
A Youku user spotted a Ferrari "black cab" -- an unlicensed taxi -- in the Tiantongyuan neighborhood of northern Beijing. The Ferrari driver says with a thick Beijing accent, "To the subway station, 20 RMB." Another woman driver shouts, "To the subway station, 10 RMB!" "It's different. I'm Ferrari," to which she replies, "You can't get up any speed." After bargaining for a while, the Ferrari agrees to 15 RMB, and off go the driver and passenger to the sound of a fine-tuned, roaring engine. |
| (Bad-taste) Viral Ad of the Month |
Google is known for never having done any marketing in its native U.S., and perhaps they should have kept it that way in China too. China's a different market, as we all know, but seriously -- this? The cartoon ad is based on the famous tale of legendary Three Kingdoms era strategist Zhuge Liang, who defends a city by emptying it and throwing the gates open while he sits atop the gateway playing a zither, making his enemy believe some trap is about to be sprung. In this take on it, Zhuge Liang plays seasonally-themed music -- free MP3s from Google China's free download service -- to stave off an attack. Try again, guys. |
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