Little Red Mansion, China, Shanghai, Yangpu District, 632 Xuchang Road, Baidu Maps
The Little Red Mansion, Yangpu District, Shanghai, China has been in the news lately. This is a well known brothel that was frequented by government officials for over 20 years. While I can find it on Baidu maps, the streetview is blocked by China.
中国，上海 ，杨浦区 创富大厦(许昌路店)
上海市杨浦区许昌路632号
Address: 632 Xuchang Road 许昌路, on the corner of Huimin Road 惠民路
Plus Code: 8Q337G4F+QH
GPS Coordinates: 31.256937,121.523938
Baidu Map URL: here
Little Red Mansion, China, Shanghai, Yangpu District, 632 Xuchang Road, Baidu Maps. Streetview was not working.
Galanz Soymilk maker DP15002C. There is no online user manual. Photo by Don Tai
A neighbour gave me this Galanz Soymilk maker machine 格兰仕 豆浆机, DP15002C, and I like to drink soymilk (豆浆). I thought that it would be pretty simple to find the user manual. Unfortunately, there is no user manual for this machine. While Google Search has almost nothing on this machine other than where to buy it, I did find a lot more on Baidu Search. There’s a lot more marketing and hype about this machine that actual useful information, such as a user manual.
I am a QQ user, which is part of Chinese social media. From Tencent 腾讯 in China, QQ is a simpler messaging and social media ecosystem than WeChat 微信. In the past couple of months I have been noticing more content is blocked to me here in Canada. More concerning is that China is beginning to use new protocols on the internet that are unique to China.
Geoblocking is regularly used by Chinese stores. I search for their products on Baidu, find images but cannot go to their web pages because they detect that I am not in China and block me. While this is annoying, at least I can understand the technical mechanism. They do not want Western eyes looking at their web pages, and that is their prorogative.
Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, found on Baidu Maps
As I work in IT, I have always been fascinated by internet addiction. While in the West we do not seem to have many formal programs to counter internet addiction, China has gone the radical route of military style boot camps. One such institution is the Adolescent Psychological Development Base, Beijing, run by Tao Ran, an ex-army psychologist.
Jufuyuan Gongyu hotel, Xinjian Cun, Daxing Qu, Beijing, China fire, killed 17 people. 2017 Nov 19. Prompted Beijing to expel migrant workers. Hotel front door. New Image taken between Nov 19 and Dec 04. Image updated 2017 Dec 03. Pretty impressive, Baidu
The big fire in Xinjian Cun, Daxing District, Beijing, China at the Jufuyuan Gongyu Hotel killed 19 people, and sparked the forced expulsion of migrant workers in Xinjian Cun, followed by the destruction of all buildings. It was a tragic event that followed with some heavy handed government clampdown on migrant workers. For sure migrant workers deserve to be treated better, but after seeing some images I now wonder about the circumstances of the fire. Seventeen people were killed, and that is tragic, but the aftermath might also be 10s of thousands of migrant workers expelled from Beijing.
China, Beijing, Daxing, Xinjian Cun, where the government has destroyed the neighbourhood of migrant workers and evicted everyone. South Gate
A large fire in a Beijing 北京市 suburb Xinjian Cun 新建村, in the Daxing District 大兴区 that killed 17 people, has prompted Beijing authorities to urgently begin investigations into illegal buildings, resulting in the destruction of a Beijing suburb called Xinjian Cun. Most of the residents there are migrant workers, have had a difficult time finding new accommodations. Their businesses and buildings have been bulldozed. The migrant workers have been told to go back to their villages. This, a forced mass expulsion of Chinese people, from a Chinese city, and in the middle of winter.
Recently there was a fire in a Beijing suburb. The fire was located in an area and building that housed migrant workers. This trigger sparked not only the fire but the legal expulsion of a large number of migrant workers and their businesses from Beijing. These expulsion movements are not new and have occurred with regularity in the past. Use and abuse of migrant workers in China has long been a point of contention. This article also mentions the migrant workers, poverty and the hukou program. Chinese intellectuals have spoke out against the mass evictions in the middle of winter.
China is a sovereign country, the same as any other independent and the world must respect this. What is unique about China is their willingness to use any means to exert their influence far beyond Chinese jurisdiction. I see that here in Canada, but there are reports of the same tactics being used in Australia and New Zealand.
Tactics include: Funding education programs that have a pro-Chinese viewpoint
There is great concern here in Canada about their funding tactics. While it is great to encourage the study of Mandarin language, China is using this platform to teach a pro-Chinese viewpoint to very young kids. More than worrisome, this is meddling in the internal affairs of Canada. The Toronto District School Board had signed an agreement with this group, but the decision was reversed.
China, Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, west 8km, Nanyang Village (Lougang). Google Maps
A friend said his ancestral village was in China, Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, Changsha District and mentioned something about Lougang as the village name. The Google map he sent me was confusing, in that yes, it was Guangdong Province, but not exactly close to Kaiping City. I investigated.
Zoomed map of Handan, Changzhi, Licheng and Dongyangguan, overlayed with a topographical map. From Google Maps and topographic-map
Air pollution in China is at an all time high. Specific to China’s terrible air in general is Xingtai 邢台, a prefecture-level city of Hebei 河北, the most polluted province in China. The article calls out the county-level city of Shahe 沙河, on the southern outskirts of Xingtai. In looking at pollution in the area, I wondered how this would affect the people in the general vicinity, specifically in the nearby Taihang Mountain 太行山 range in Shanxi Province, such as Changzhi 长治, Licheng 黎城 and Dongyangguan 东阳关. Here are some Google maps of the area, overlayed with topographical maps to show how air pollution might affect the area. Here are the current Air Quality ratings for Changzhi
