People's Bank of China blamed a business newspaper

It is rare for a Chinese government agency to blame a Chinese newspaper. But today I saw it(the link to the central bank's statement in Chinese) The annoucement said the central bank strongly blame the July 27 report on China Business News saying China could acommodate the yuan to increase by 5 percent in a year. The paper quoted an expert saying that China may first step increase 2 percent or 3 percent, and finally make a 5 percent rise. The central bank spokeman said the paper didn't check the accurancy of the sources properly.

The last sentence is the central bank strongly condemn this non-responsible operation of the paper.

Say first, currency is always the most important or sensitive topic for the central government. I still remember some foreign reporters were jailed due to reports on currencies. This time, it is about a Shanghai-based paper belonging to Shanghai Media Group, the second-largest media corp after CCTV. Unfortunately, the paper itself didn't live well these days as the group wants to sell it, though it reported a lot of interesting stories. As the first daily business newspaper in the mainland, it lacks a strong group to back up.

Behind the currency topis, I see the different situation for official media and non-official media to live in the current time. Foreign media always call all the mainland media official ones; in fact, it isn't true. For some of them such as China Business News and 21st century Herald, they are living on themselves, depending on good stories instead of government ties to survive. It is hard in terms of both revenue and reputation. Say how Central bank blames China Business News, you will know the difference. But it is those papers or media trying to bring fair business environment in China. Free media will help setting up a fair, transparent and stable securities market. Have a look at Hong Kong where media is free to say everything. It is hard to try in the current Chinese market, but someone trying now will become the hero.

bad Mozilla Firefox

When I first started to use Mozilla Firefox two year ago, I thought it is really cool. Sunny brand, plus convenient function of opening multiple pages in one window.

Now I really hate it especialy when I open the task manager and see how much space it took from my laptop's RAM.

The space Firefox takes seems bigger and bigger, or biggest of all. Basically, it loses the advantage as a thin tool. Of course, it adds much more function, but more complicated. To persons such as me who like simple things, Firefox becomes boring. Even today when I opened Asiaexpat.com, a website said it preferred Firefox, the software could only open half of the pages, and then stopped, saying "done".... what a stupid software la.

So I opened the IE to work on everything, though it is troublesome to open so many windows. hoho, back to something familiar, the feeling is not that bad.

I like simplie stuffs, finally found...

bad Mozilla Firefox

When I first started to use Mozilla Firefox two year ago, I thought it is really cool. Sunny brand, plus convenient function of opening multiple pages in one window.

Now I really hate it especialy when I open the task manager and see how much space it took from my laptop's RAM.

The space Firefox takes seems bigger and bigger, or biggest of all. Basically, it loses the advantage as a thin tool. Of course, it adds much more function, but more complicated. To persons such as me who like simple things, Firefox becomes boring. Even today when I opened Asiaexpat.com, a website said it preferred Firefox, the software could only open half of the pages, and then stopped, saying "done".... what a stupid software la.

So I opened the IE to work on everything, though it is troublesome to open so many windows. hoho, back to something familiar, the feeling is not that bad.

I like simplie stuffs, finally found...

Last week in BJ

Outside a bar in Shi Cha Hai, the most popular bar site in Beijing these days.

I really like BJ. People are nice, peaceful and open. The atmosphere just feels like home. Maybe I should seriously consider go back there.

Beautiful Hangzhou

Beautiful Hangzhou and West Lake, though I really had no time to enjoy. Run, run, run!!! flight, airport,hotel, airport, flight. Life is just a circle!!

Crazy Amy in a crazy Hong Kong

It' s always interesting to begin a new job, except that it always makes me crazy. New environment, new colleagues, new style and more important, new pressure. Am I a gongzuokuang, meaning crazy working type? I guess so. I could work for non-stop eight hours, and then water, and then another four hours. Even in the dream, I am still working.

Life is just like a box of chocalate and you never know what you will get from there. That's exactly true. Now what I get is a hard Swiss black chocolate. It is not easy to bite but really chanllenging. Also, you feel more and more sweet flavor for the process.

I've been thinking about the role of newspaper in the era nowadays. Peter Lynch, the famous fund manager, once said that newspaper is such a good and profitable business. Right then, but now so many competitors around the newspaper. For example, websites, companies don't need to release information to newspaper; instead put infos on the website. Another example, newswires who could operate for 24 hours and update every seconds.

So what will make a newspaper special? The content, the specific content, and the breaking content. That will make people curious to know the "new" thing from the newspaper, not the thing already given in the press release, not the repeating of the stock market annoucement. It is hard to maintain the principle as reporters are so easily attempted to do the easiest job. But newspapers have to maintain the principle, just as they have to maintain the balance way.

Something new, something I must get.

SCMP.com will provide free content

I've been hearing complaint from several friends on the website of South China Morning Post, the largest English newspaper in Hong Kong on its restriction of the free content. Now, according to reliable source, it will soon, only in a few days, allow readers to access to part of its content without subscribing the newspaper. (www.scmp.com)

Good news for those expats only reading English but caring about China. Congratulation, the paper has its first step to attract the online readers.

With more and more media covering China, the country has become a hottie among reporters and editors. Someone who has the vision to report the China in a balanced and neutral way will finally beat others. Hope the Post would be the one.