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Shards of China

~ Fragments of Expatriate Life

Shards of China

Category Archives: Media

T-11: Shenzhen’s shining light – real reporting from Shenzhen Daily

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by shardsofchina in China, Everyday Life, Media, Shenzhen

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

china, English Teacher, RenRenLe, Reporting, Shenzhen, Shenzhen Daily, Travel

Actually I may be lying when I say real reporting but in fairness this is the first time since the Cook report where I’ve come across a simple piece of investigative journalism, over a relatively trivial matter, that’s resulted in violence against the journalists.

Pssstttt... wannna buy some squid? Only a few days out of date? Yummy. Discount? What do you mean discount? Get out - you heathen...

The bold reporters from Southern Metropolis Daily, headed to Renrenle – a Chinese supermarket chain, to prove claims from customers that they were stocking produce that is past sell-by. It was, so instead of perhaps purchasing the goods and taking a few photos – our heroes decided to stuff the offending products into carrier bags instead. Unsurprisingly, shop staff saw this as an act of shoplifting.

The two men were “beaten about the chest” and the police were called and those doing the beating were subsequently hauled off to jail. I like the comment from the marketing department that essentially says; “Skanking our customers is inevitable, we sell so many products that we can’t take any responsibility for them.” As being sold out of date crap is a daily occurrence in Shenzhen, I’m more puzzled why they had to go all the way to Longzhu to find a supermarket pulling this stunt.

They could just take a walk around Louhu and find fifty stores that do this daily, my favourite was the store trying to sell a loaf of bread that must have been about 3 weeks past sell by – as it was now just a bag of wet soggy mould.

A better headline for this piece would be – idiots get the kicking they so richly deserve…

I’m also a fan of the well researched piece featuring an industry professional that adds keen insight into our understanding of a city or country. Sadly Shenzhen Daily has no idea how to write one of these – so we’re left with this quality example of a “what I did on my holidays” essay instead.

In essence Darian Gier has lived in China for 18 months and in that time he’s found a favourite restaurant, and his “keen sense of observation” leads him to conclude; “I witnessed things happening at this time.” – as opposed to walking around with your eyes, ears and nose taped shut?

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No Sunday Papers and Coffee For Me

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by shardsofchina in Media, Shenzhen

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

china, China Daily, Coffee, Media, Newspapers, Shenzhen, Shenzhen Daily, Sunday

When I was back home, which now seems more years ago than is reasonable, one of my favorite activities in the world was relaxing with my Sunday Paper and a cup of coffee. When I first came to Shenzhen, I sought to continue this little tradition (which I’d maintained all through my years in the Gulf). Sadly it was not to be.

Foreign media is completely banned in Mainland China so the chances of picking up a copy of the Observer or The Sunday Times or even the rather nasty but almost always available Mail on Sunday dropped to zero. But that’s OK, it’s not the end of the world there are English language newspapers available in China.

The bad news is that here in Shenzhen there are only two English language newspapers commonly available – Shenzhen Daily and China Daily. Shenzhen Daily doesn’t come out on Sunday and even if it did, you probably wouldn’t get too far through a cup of coffee before you finished it. It’s essentially a cut and paste Reuters feed with perhaps four articles relating to Shenzhen in it and a Sudoku puzzle which is printed so small it’s impossible to fill in.

China Daily is worse, anemically thin at the best of times; it’s practically non-existent on a weekend and never has anything worth reading in it.

And even if these two offerings were better, it’s very hard to track down a copy of either – when I first moved to Shenzhen the local coffee shop used to stock them, but I’m guessing no-one ever bought them so they stopped.

Shenzhen Daily may be the only newspaper in the world that doesn't include its masthead on its website - preferring instead to use this random graphic

Reading the news online just isn’t the same as reading a paper, and once again Shenzhen Daily excels by having the worst website on earth. This is something local webmasters are grateful for as they can reprint articles verbatim and gain the Google ranking for it. China Daily’s web presence is better, in that at least there’s some well-structured and well organized content even if it’s all a little bland.

It’s a shame that Hong Kong’s “South China Morning Post” doesn’t make it across the border, as though it’s a little dry it is full of actual content and better still has puzzles you can fill in without a shrink ray.

For now though I’ll continue to rely on the Grauniad, the Independent and the BBC websites for my news, and as I can’t be bothered to carry my computer to the coffee shop – it’ll be without coffee too. I know, I know I should learn Chinese – but after three years, that’s not looking all that likely.

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