Yesterday I customized some widgets in the two sidebars and changed its header image to ‘my own’ – a piece of famous ink brush painting work dating back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). What you see in the blog header is just a tiny part of the whole picture. How big is the original work? Some statistics:

According to some books, there are altogether 1,643 people and 208 animals illustrated in the picture.

It recorded people’s lives in the then Capital of Song – Bian Jing (now Kaifeng of Henan Province) around Qing Ming festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival). The whole work covers the scenes of the prosperous city center and part of the countryside along the Bian River（汴河）. The following picture is a glimpse of the city and Bian River of today.

Another development of this weekend is my right eye has been hurtful since yesterday afternoon and today it’s literally cherry-red! Guess I need to take a little rest after this post and REALLY stay away from my PC for one day. {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/BYCimuB2Cg_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”WordPress Theme Changed, Eye Red As Cherry ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/hTrAv2MGnA”}}}

‘Boomtown Beijing’ approaches Beijing Olympics from common people’s eyes. For event updates and movie trailer, visit Boomtown Beijing web site. To reserve tickets and for venue information, visit this link.

The report also quoted that the Tory leader David Cameron said: “Does the prime minister agree that our relationship with China is vital… But we must be absolutely clear in telling the Chinese that this is unacceptable.”

“But we must be absolutely clear in telling the Chinese that this is unacceptable”? Mr. Cameron sounded like it was in 1840 when the British Empire attacked China in the Opium War. Maybe these guys never want to see a China that is strong and independent. Just as they can’t like Russia, they can’t like China.

The mobs in Tibet attacked civilians not only Han, but also Uygurs. Foreign tourists in Tibet saw innocent people beaten to death by these same guys wielding long knives, and shops set to fire. Do you call this peaceful protest? CNN footage shows Lamas were among the rioters damaging public facilities. Are they peaceful Buddhists? Ridiculous!

If memory serves me right, history tells me that it was just the then British Empire that had wanted to separate Tibet from China even before the 14th Dalai Lama was born. They invaded India, sent their King into exile. They exported opium to China to poison its people… Now they are “telling the Chinese”.

Tibet has always been part of China. Before it was peacefully liberated (not as the western media say it was invaded) from a cruel feudal system, the serfs had no basic human rights. Even in the 1950s, to celebrate Dalai Lama’s birthday, they used human sacrifice! Lamaism was used as tool to slave the brainwashed people. To learn more about the feudal rules of old Tibet from a literary perspective, I suggest Tibetan author Alai’s novel Red Poppies. Here’s a review by Guang Yue.

Further resources:

A Few More Words Regarding the Tibet Issue（西藏问题再啰嗦几句）blog post by drunkpiano
http://www.my1510.cn/article.php?8ea5a6e56d721111
(in Chinese with pictures from the rioting)

Tibet Violence Deepens, with Violence and Rioting by By Christopher Johnson (the Christian Science Monitor) details how PLA soldiers were beaten without attacking back even though they were equipped with riot gear, how innocent Han and Muslim Hui people were beaten up and police cars were burned. The ‘peaceful’ protest is a lie.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080315/wl_csm/ostreets

*Update*
A blogger wrote about first-hand Tibet situation. The protests were not peaceful from their observance (March 14th):
http://kadfly.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-from-lhasa.html

It was reported that Netease removed the article soon but sohu still has it in Chinese, whose title clearly indicates the information was neither independent nor confirmed（传土豆网… Source says Tudou…）.

Later this information was translated into English and appeared on some influential blogs. China Herald said its source came from a Twitter update! Danwei.org quoted China Herald, while China Herald quoted Danwei.org.

Then the rumor was everywhere, even long after the overnight denial of the shut down from Tudou on March 7 (news report appeared on March 6). China Herald’s article was published exactly on March 7 but clearly it never followed up on that denial even with two updates!

Furthermore, it says, “Tudou.com is the world’s largest video hosting firm, claiming three times the traffic volume of number two, YouTube.”, which can not be independently verified but rather doubtful. Here are the statistics I got for Tudou and YouTube on Alexa, Compete and Quancast:

So where and how did this Tudou to Shut Down Rumor get started?

The ‘media source’ mentioned by Sohu article on March 6 was probably just the deleted Netease report. But after the March 7 report from Beijing Business Today that Tudou denied such a report, the whole thing would have died down if without the ‘help’ from some of the outdated/slanted reports from some bloggers.

And who benefits most from this rumor? Definitely Tudou. I’d never visited Tudou before the rumor appeared, but have been there a dozen times since then. That’s probably why our ancestor said: 塞翁失马，安知非福 (Misfortune might be a blessing in disguise.)

The lesson learned from Tudou to shut down rumor: NEVER trust online journalism.

¹ Tudou means potato（土豆）in colloquial Chinese.

However, recently when I read my own entries on those pages I felt the font size was too small and the background color didn’t give enough contrast. I guess most readers’ eyes must be strained by those two factors. I was told that most Internet readers never read online but browse through articles. Ah… I’m one of them myself!

Now I changed the theme to WordPress default. Simpleness is sometimes more beautiful.