What’s up in the Middle Kingdom, news-wise? It’s never a dull news day when surfing for Chinese news. My faves this week:

HARBIN: China’s freezing northern city of Harbin is building what organizers say is the world’s largest Santa Claus ice sculpture.

The giant Father Christmas, 160 meters (525 ft) long and 24 meters high, centers on an enormous face of Father Christmas, complete with flowing beard and hat.

…Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province on the edge of Siberia, is one of China’s coldest places. Winter temperatures can drop to below minus 35 degrees Celsius (- 31 F).

Every year the city plays host to a world-renowned ice festival. But the effects of global warming are taking a toll as the snow and ice now melt more rapidly than in the past.

Source: Reuters

I think the people of Harbin have erected a temple dedicated to global warming. Minus 35? No thanks. There are schools in Harbin that are always advertising for English teachers. No wonder the turn-over is so high.

BEIJING: A wolf has been captured by forestry workers near a part of China’s Great Wall close to Beijing which is popular with tourists, state media said on Thursday.

The wolf is being kept at a nature park and will be released in uninhabited mountains far from the Wall, Xinhua news agency said.

It was captured close to the Badaling section, it said, a restored part of the Wall many tour groups visit.

Sightings of the wolf prior to its capture had caused “widespread fear,” the report said.

Source: Reuters

I think the tourists fear the hawkers and ruthless Great Wall of China merchants (that follow you on your trek along the architectural masterpiece) more than any wolf. If they could relocate them to a distant wilderness area the wall would be a safer place.

Venus, Jupiter and the moon form a celestial smile.

The students were surprised to see the moon smiling when they arriving for classes on the evening of Wednesday, December 3, 2008, Yes, it’s true. It was pointed out to me in an excited mixture of English and Chinese, dozens of times.

Thanks to an unusual alignment of the planets Jupiter and Venus, and a crescent moon, those looking heavenward were treated to a celestial smile. I’m an idiot about astronomy, was this phenomenon visible in North America?

Photo: BBC

CHINA: A handsome and fearless Canadian Grade 1 teacher announced earlier this week he is taking a break from his online life. The Stevo, aka Sti Fu, aka Teacher-teacher!, aka that prick with the camera, has temporarily hung up his spurs. Chief Editor and bottle washer of the hugely popular China Travel Blog, asianramblings.com said his health has been affected by logging too much computer time.

“Who knew staring at a small screen could be bad for you,” he said, “I suppose the next bombshell will be that smoking and booze aren’t good for you either.”

Sti Fu, after being diagnosed with a neck malady which resulted in limited use of his left arm and hand, issued a statement informing all and sundry that asianramblings.com will start publishing quality articles and photographs for its huge base of readers. With the help of the best writers and photographers in the blogosphere, the site will publish material with fewer grammatical errors and typos, and will continue to do so until feeling returns to his arm, the pain killers run out, or he get really really bored.

“I’ve taught Grade 1 for so long I have a very short attention span,” he said, “Four minutes, maybe five, and I have to do something different. That’s what’s great about…. About…. What were we talking about?”

Stay tuned, he urged the million readers that visit asianramblings.com each month. Good stuff is on the way.

Who doesn’t want a free trip to Peru? Thought so.

Want to see the ancient Machu Picchu and and eat baked papas? Are you creatively bent and headed out to do a little vagabonding? You could:

Win a trip to Peru with World Nomads

Take Sanchez, World Nomads’ intrepid icon, on a travel adventure and you could win a trip to South America!

Enter your most creative photo or video of Sanchez and you could win a 15 day Intrepid trip to Peru, cool travel gear, World Nomads Travel Insurance and an iPod! Get your hands on Sanchez and enter today!

Monthly prizes will be awarded for the most creative photographs or videos. Entries close at the end of each month until October 31, 2008, with the major prize announced on November 10, 2008. See the Find out more »

What’s better than one Lonely Planet book? Two, for the price of one. The preeminent publisher of travel tomes has extended its Lonely Planet Buy One Get One Free promotion until the end of October.

Christmas is coming, and Lonely Planet books are always great stocking stuffers. Hot off the press are best sellers such as the New Zealand and Mexico guides, and the new full color Hawaii guide.

A getaway to Koh Samui sound or a visit to the ancient Angkor Wat Temples in your future? All covered in the new Regional Encounter Guides. Melbourne, Rome, New York and Singapore all have shiny new Lonely Planet City Encounter Guides rolling off the presses.

Some “professional” travelers scoff at Lonely Planet guidebooks. They do so at their own peril. There is always one in my pack. There is no better packable resource. I recommend the Lonely Planet China Guidebooks, I use them often when planning excursions.

The Lonely Planet Buy One Get One Free promotion ends October 31st.

TinEye is a new image protection program

TinEye: A possible way to protect your online images

It’s happened to a good many of us: Stolen blog posts. Have you been scraped? If you haven’t you’re among the minority. While Copyscape deals with text-based plagiarism, detecting the theft of images has been something of a conundrum. Until now. TinEye is a new image search that detects copies based on pixels, not on text. Users upload an image and TinEye searches its database for probable duplicates or derivatives.

Jonathan Bailey at PlagiarismToday posted a great review of the possibilities and current limitations of TinEye. This is technology that all photographers with a web presence should be interested in.  Don’t get scraped, protect your online images.

Taiwan Photographers moves to WordPress

Carrie’s and her global mind in Asia, has moved her brainchild, Taiwan Photographers, to WordPress.com. Citing the considerable power of WordPress compared to Blogger (boo, hiss!) Taiwan Photographers now has a brand new bag.  Stop by and see both Carrie and the new/revamped Taiwan Photographers.