The WSJ article below about EFL education is very sobering to anyone wanting to get involved in that area as the segment may decrease in size in the long-run due to institutional changes at the city and provincial level.

Thanks to James M and Sinocism for a few of the links.

• Google Boosts Hong Kong Entrepreneurs from The Wall Street Journal
• It’s Hollywood vs. Canada in Battle for China’s Animation Market from The Wall Street Journal (lakes of cash…)
• ZQgame, Shanda Launch JV In Shanghai Free Trade Zone from China Tech News
• Why Are Overseas Chinese Students Not Returning to China? from China Smack (if they can find a job and/or start a family, they typically stay for many reason)
• 10 things Japan gets horribly wrong from Rocket News 24 (meh, same problems in nearly any country outside the West, not unique to Japan)
• English May Be Losing Its Luster in China from The Wall Street Journal (lots of potential either way in the long run, especially for speech coaches)
• U.S. Banker to China: Hold Off on Those Reforms from The Wall Street Journal (what about capital controls, non-floating currency, introduction of bond market, etc.?)
• K-pop group Girls’ Generation beats Miley, Lady Gaga at first YouTube awards from CNN
• Skateboarding kids in Mongolia are building a skate park in Ulaanbaatar. Here’s how you can help. from Boing Boing
• Taiwanese Singer Draws Chinese Ire With Flag from The Wall Street Journal
• Watch: Paul Smith Returns to China from The Wall Street Journal (never heard or seen before anywhere i’ve been to in asia)
• China’s Top for Expats (When You Don’t Count the Pollution) from The Wall Street Journal (there are expats and then there are expats, most foreigners do not come to china on an “expat” package, thus this study is quite selective in sample size/scope)
• Chinese Collectors Snap Up Western Art at Christie’s Auction from The Wall Street Journal
• Chongqing Restaurants Serve Cultural Revolution Nostalgia from The Atlantic (when i lived in bengbu there were several restaurants that were decked out in Mao-era memorabilia, this despite the fact that Anhui was one of the hardest hit by the great famine)
• Chinese professor builds Li-Fi system with retail parts from Network World (line of sight problems that hit IR, how would they be avoided in real-world applications?)
• Kicking the Luxury Habit from The Wall Street Journal (lots of wealthy special interest groups that have benefited from guanxi with SOE and government institutions, hard to see how they will voluntarily give this up)
• Chinese used ice-path sleds to move Forbidden City’s stones from ArsTechnica
• Samsung Overpowers Smartphone Rivals in China from The Wall Street Journal (i’ll believe it when i see fewer samsung devices when i’m travelling on the shanghai subway, yesterday it looked as if everyone had either a samsung or apple device, just a dash of others from lenovo or huawei)
• The Extreme Tilt of Chinese Internet Politics from The Wall Street Journal (unfortunately has only gotten worse in the 5 years i’ve lived here, yet some companies have still thrived)
• China Kick-Starts the Economy With a Big-Spending Duck from The Wall Street Journal (unbelievable that the “artist” is threatening to sue or suing “copycats”… how do you say prior art in Dutch?)
• How China Profits From Our Junk from The Atlantic (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure)
• What drives Chinese investment in Australia? China Changing Lecture in Beijing from Lowy Institute (just need to not be a geographical part of China to be a popular destination for investment right now)
• All in the family from Foreign Policy (account of teacher having to help evict her own parents from a home seized by local government. there is a new landed aristocracy and they are those connected to SOEs and Party)
• The Sound of China’s Future from China File (hope they find their voice and their niche, got to be hard in either country)
• Nothing to smile about: Asia’s deadly addiction to betel quids from CNN (smelled really disgusting when i lived in kaohsiung, taiwan… didn’t see it much in zhongshan, guangdong)