Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

[tag]Google China[/tag] has a new name and the linguists are still out on the right meaning.

The current translations are “Valley Song”, Harvesting Song, [tag]Song[/tag] of the Grain, Song of the harvest of grain and even Happy Song. Eric Smidt, CEO of [tag]Google[/tag], calls it a “Fruitful and happy song”.

The whole renaming seems to be aimed at re-branding Google in [tag]China[/tag]. A bit silly to chinafy a brand name that is pretty much well known already by about 100 % of the average [tag]Chinese[/tag] internet users.

Will more people start using Google search because they will feel more comfortable using an [tag]esoteric [/tag][tag]valley song[/tag]? Time will tell, but probably not.

[tag]Google blog[/tag] China has a flash movie where the name is introduced.

It’s a dreamy, stylish movie based on the average [tag]Chinese calendar[/tag].

The text is used to introduce the new name, [tag]Guge[/tag]’s mission and that in the face of information everybody is equal and that links are votes.

I added (my pretty bad) translation to the flash movie so the non-Chinese readers among us can have an idea about Google [tag]marketing[/tag] in China.

Click here to see the flash movie with the translated text of the Google Valley Song Presentation (pop-up).

The name isn’t received everywhere in the Chinese society with heaps of joy. There is already a No Guge website where Google fans vent their opinion. Some of the quotes:

“The name “GuGe” makes us feel ill! Even more, it makes us disappointed!”

“It’s a bird name, a poor peasant busy doing the spring plowing”

One thing is for sure, it has given GuGe a lot of free publicity.

Sources: Virtual China, Google Blogoscoped, RConversations, Google China Blog, No GuGe

In a drive to purify the internet even further the leading [tag]Internet[/tag] portals (among them [tag]Sina[/tag].com, [tag]Sohu[/tag].com, [tag]Baidu[/tag].com, and [tag]Yahoo'[/tag]s [tag]Chinese[/tag] Website) have drawn up a joint proposal to stem “unhealthy Internet cultures.”

“No indecent texts and photos, no search agents for such contents, no links to unhealthy websites, and no carrying games with sex and violence contents,” it proposed.

[tag]China[/tag]daily is not mentioned as part of the websites to join this admirable form of progress. I wonder why if you see their pic galleries.

Source: Joint proposal to stem “unhealthy Internet cultures.”
More pictures: More fashion No nipple A goat

P.S.: And don’t forget, in Shanghai there are plans to set up a citizen advisory panel to prevent advertisers from erecting billboards featuring scantily clad women and other images that might offend local sensibilities.
Source: SH Daily

[tag]CCTV[/tag] has a new website for all [tag]English[/tag] speaking people around the world.

The [tag]American[/tag] [tag]Fox[/tag] Cable network is one of the partners which seems a match made in heaven.

Biased + Biased makes Unbiased?

I have visited the site a couple of times and at least half of the time pages don’t render.

Their slogan is “Your window on [tag]China[/tag] and the [tag]World[/tag]”.

Source: CCTV Link