The pavilion of the city of Beijing will be able to change appearance and look like four of the city’s landmarks: the Temple of Heaven (天坛), the Water Cube (水立方), the Bird Nest (鸟巢) and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (大剧院).

To realise this, the pavilion has been wrapped in panels of LED lights supported by movable arms. By changing their inclination and colours, these panels do the trick.

Traditional Changing Faces performance:

Chinese sources: 世博会北京馆采用LED屏实现变脸效果(组图); 上海世博会北京馆采用LED屏实现“变脸”

To ease the visitors’ journey, the World Expo is turning to water mist. A system of outdoor tiny water mist sprinklers will be installed on strategic sites of the expo area. The evaporation of the water mist has an endothermic effect, which results in a drop of temperature.

According to Wang Junfeng (王军锋), vice dean of the Energy and Power Engineering Faculty (能源与动力工程学院) of the Jiangsu University (江苏大学), where the technology was first developed, this system can locally make temperatures drop up to ten degrees centigrade. Furthermore Wang says it is very energy savvy and doesn’t emit any pollution. It was already put into use at the beach-volleyball site of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

TTC Rubymist, a company specialized in these kind of equipments that can also be used for esthetic reasons, will equip many of the expo’s pavilions as well.

Chinese sources: “细水雾”让游客夏日在室外享受”凉爽世博”

As noted in Ford’s official announcement, “the sale is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010, and is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approvals.” But the fact, that both Li Yizhong (李毅中), China’s minister of industry and information technology and Maud Olofsson, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and minister for enterprise and energy were present at the signing ceremony in Gothenburg is a sign that the deal is being supported both in Beijing and Stockholm.

Earlier this year, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial (四川腾中重工机械有限公司) said it didn’t receive the approval of the ministry of commerce (中华人民共和国商务部) to buy the Hummer brand from General Motors. The acquisition of a brand associated with secure and well designed cars (Volvo) by a company already making cars (Geely) should go more smoothly.

In 2009, Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings (北京汽车工业控股有限责任公司) agreed to buy some intellectual properties belonging to another Swedish brand, Saab, from General Motors. For Geely, Volvo is not the first overseas acquisition. At the beginning of last year, it bought Drivetrain Systems International, an Australian car parts maker.

The deal says, that Geely, which is China’s biggest private car manufacturer “will own 100 percent of Volvo Cars and its related assets”. Geely intends to maintain Volvo’s factories in Europe.

In fighting southwestern China’s current drought, the local meteorological departments all rely on their rain provoking rockets and on the army’s planes. This is no miracle solution. It can only help bringing down the water from already existing clouds or expand the scope and volume of expected rainfalls. It means waiting for days for the right conditions.

A specialist from the “municipal command center for man-made weather impacting” (市人工影响天气指挥中心) of the city of Chongqing (重庆) says: “We have been waiting for that group of clouds for half a month. The amount of water currently provided to Chongqing by the sky is too miserable and not enough to alleviate the serious drought. We can only rely on our own methods and bring down the most possible rain from the clouds.”

The rain provoking method consists of injecting silver iodide into the clouds. This induces chemical reactions, which result, if the conditions are right, in rainfalls. The method is fairly easy, cheap and without side effects.

In all of the affected areas, the provinces of Yunnan (云南), Sichuan (四川), Guizhou (贵州) and the city of Chongqing, “man made” rain has been falling these days.

Chinese sources: 重庆千枚炮弹打下及时雨; 我国空军增调14架运输机执行人工增雨作业

The very likely next step is that Google.com.hk may be blocked in the mainland. And Google knows this very well: “We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.”

This is where Google is strategically clever. The company will be able to say that it didn’t completely stop its mainland search activities by its own will; that the authorities blocked them.  They will be able to pose as the unwilling victim (even if they knew exactly what would happen). Thus less questions will be asked about the attitude of a company which speaks as if it was morally superior and pretends to give lessons to a country’s government. It has to be noted that at the same time Google expects big profits from the sales of mobile phones based on its Android software in that same country.

China has a long tradition of strategic thinking and Google’s move will be recognised for what it is. Not more, not less.

Google’s blog post

Capable of transporting 27 passengers or 15 injured and lifting up to 13,8 tons, the helicopter is designed for a wide range of civil applications like disaster relief, fire-fighting, sightseeing, etc… It has a maximum autonomy of 900 kilometers.

Its flight capabilities are suited both for assistance work in densely populated urban areas as well as for reaching remote mountainous places. It is thus an important tool for China’s diverse geographical and demographical realities. China Flying Dragon Special Aviation Company (中国飞龙专业航空公司) will be the first to make use of it.

Chinese source: 中国飞龙专业航空公司

Shanghai Hongqiao Airport (上海红桥机场)’s new Terminal No. 2 as well as a second runway officially opened on March 16. Hongqiao is the city’s second airport after Pudong International airport (浦东国际机场). It is mainly a big hub for inland flights. The new construction will increase the airport’s flight capacity by 60%. It will also improve the passengers’ comfort and diminish queuing time. Furthermore it is well connected to the city’s public transportation network with a new subway station.

During the reorganisation and expansion of the airport, a lot of effort went into energy saving measures like solar energy, etc.  As a result, the rejuvenated airport will be able to save up to 65% of its energy costs.

The opening comes in time, a month and a half before the beginning of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. The extension of the airport is part of the city’s equipment enhancement plan for this event.

According to the airport’s homepage, almost all inland flights have been moved to the new terminal.

Chinese sources: 上海虹桥机场2号航站楼16日投入运营; 上海虹桥机场2号航站楼正式启用(组图); 虹桥机场改扩建后节能65%

In China, “oil painting” is used as a synonym for Western style painting, since this technique wasn’t known in China before it was introduced to the country by representatives from the West. An ongoing exposition at Beijing’s Capital Museum (首都博物馆) entitled “Matteo Ricci: An Ambassador of Sino-Western Science, Technology and Culture” is dedicated to the man who, among other things, first brought the oil painting technique to China during the sixteenth century.

Taken too strictly, Yang’s statement could be interpreted as the expression of a cultural essentialism, which wouldn’t fit with a long history of exchanges and mutual borrowings. Artists like Giuseppe Castiglione and Xu Beihong (徐悲鸿), to mention just two famous names, illustrate the fact that Western techniques can very well accommodate themselves to the Chinese tradition.

The same is true for modern and contemporary China in general. The country has massively absorbed both Western ideologies and technologies in a conscious move to modernize itself and catch up with the West. Inevitably this has led to big transformations. But this doesn’t mean China has become a Western country.

Yang Jiechi as the representative of a party that has been leading the development of  its country by juggling between two Western ideologies, communism and capitalism, reminds us that history matters. He reminds us that each country has its own way and history, whose knowledge are indispensable for a true understanding.

Video of Yang Jiechi’s talk with English simultaneous translation

Chinese source: 杨洁篪:坚持原则与立场强硬是两码事

Every year on new year’s eve the Chinese Central Television (中央电视台) broadcasts a special live New Year’s Evening (春晚) program. For many, watching this program with the whole family has become part of the new year celebrations. It consists of a series of humorous sketches, performances by famous pop singers, acrobatics (杂技); etc.

With the massive popularization of the internet, this one-time event has now been multiplied in a series of small sequences that live on and can be viewed and reviewed on the net.

All big internet content providers have their dedicated page, where one can watch videos of the different performances from that night. If television provides a sense of synchronicity, where a whole family and most of the country, watches the same program simultaneously; the internet now offers the possibility to delay the viewing of the program and split it accordingly to ones preferences.

If you are just interested to see how Wang Fei (王菲), the famous actress and singer, performed on the stage of the Year of the Tiger program, you can do so. If you have been avidly following the Winter Olympics and didn’t have time to celebrate the new year, you can still catch up.

All big internet platforms are competing in celebrating the new year and offering related services to their readers. Even Google (surprise, surprise,…) is offering a special version of Google Maps, where one can check the train and plane timetables for the period of the spring transportation (春运).

Embedded bellow is a Chinese acrobatics performance from the Year of the Tiger show. The Chinese word for acrobatics, translated literally, means “mixed skills”. Chinese acrobatics are a variety of ancestral techniques and instruments. When done well, the result can be very entertaining:

Happy Year of the Tiger (虎年) to all our readers!