The number of
visitors to China dropped by two million last year to 130 million, despite the enormous
fanfare and draw of the 2008 Olympics. It was the first decline in visitor numbers since 2003, when an outbreak of SARS knocked the country off desired vacay location lists.
The slump has been attributed to the weak economy, which hasn't been kind to the tourism industry as a whole, stricter visa restrictions before the Beijing Olympics, as well as a May earthquake in the southwest of the country.
Now that the Olympics are long gone, and the world has its eyes off of China, the country's government has
returned to keeping an eye on what its 250 million Internet users can access. It appears China, which has the most web users in the world, only made superficial advances in freedom of the press during the games. In other words: censorship is back!
On May 2, a cyclone hit Myanmar (Burma), marking the worst natural disaster in the country's recorded history. Only days later on May 12, less than three months before Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics, a deadly earthquake shook China into the international headlines.
In the same month, natural disasters hit two Asian countries wary of international intervention.
Beijing has really been in the spotlight this year. Firstly for the
Olympics, and now Donatella has taken the Versace empire over there for the first ever fashion show for the brand in China. The charity show took place near Beijing's central Tiananmen Square and raised over $100,000 for survivors of the earthquake in China's Sichuan province earlier this year.
This ornate pair of cypress wood
Chinese Window Panels ($3,750) originally had an architectural (yet decorative) purpose in 19th century China. But, their
greek key pattern, which is
very popular these days, certainly gives the screen a sort of à la mode flair. I'd love to see them used in a home's interior, rather than its structure, and I'm wondering what ideas you have for them.
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are
set to adopt voluntary and uniform guidelines to govern their international business practices, this week. These Internet companies have struggled to find acceptable means to deal with countries like China, which silence the voice of dissidents on the Internet, and block certain websites. China has used emails sent by dissidents as evidence to put them behind bars.
