Tune into the beijingkids blog each Thursday as we take you on a quick tour of interesting and relevant items from around the web, all relating (however tangentially) to parenthood and family life in Beijing.
1. Charles Custer is a Beijing-based documentary filmmaker looking to raise money to produce a documentary on kidnapped children in China. They’ve already exceeded their goal of raising the $5,000 they need to make this film, but pledges are being taken through December 27. View a trailer for the project and send it your two cents by visiting their page on Kickstarter here.
2. Check out this Beijing baba’s cool blog 365 China Photo: One-a-Day in which he has been taking one picture every day, documenting his life in Beijing, much of it revolving around raising his infant daughter in a bi-cultural household. He’s been at it since Dec 31, 2008 — almost 2 full years.
3. Any Sophias in your house? How about Aidens? Check out babycenter.com‘s list of the most popular baby names of 2010 (anyone know if similar lists are compiled for Chinese baby names … and where to find this?)
4. A story of hutong life in Beijing in the days of SARS and the run-up to the Olympics … as told by two cats, Tofu and Soyabean. That’s the premise behind former Beijing-based reporter Pallavi Aiyar’s forthcoming book, Chinese Whiskers.Check out this enlightening interview from the blog The China Beat with the author of this book that would make a great read for older teens and adult readers.
5. Let’s hope you didn’t buy this edition for your kids … Malcom Moore, the The Telegraph’s Shanghai correspondent, reports that a Beijing-based publisher of children’s books released a translation of the classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in October … realizing only after its release that it had been translated from a Japanese-language erotic version of the tale in which Snow White gets busy with the dwarves. Ooops.
Chinese Brick Kiln Laborers And Their Children, via Chinasmack
6. You’ll realize how good you and yours actually have it by taking a gander at this photo essay via Chinasmack of Chinese brick kiln laborers and their children in Jiangsu province.
7. The fitness craze has now trickled down to infants, according to this New York Times article. What’s next, Weight Watchers pre-mixed diet formula bottles?
8. The ever-reliable Shanghaiist brings us links to three interesting websites that can help you to bone up on your Mandarin Chinese.
9. Speaking of Shanghai, a group of 15-year-old high school students in Shanghai have stunned the world of educational testing by essentially blowing away the rest of the known world in reading, math and science, the New York Times reports.
10. To conclude this week’s links, a tragic story of a student suicide in China — and how Tencent, the makers of the market-leading chat software QQ, has been held by Chinese courts to be 10% responsible for the incident. This post from Chinahush details the case.
