Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

Another summary of the Beijing Games from Marina Hyde, contrasting them with her expectations of the next games.

China is one of the fastest growing destinations for tourists and businessmen, but many visitors are intimidated by the language barrier. Now there's a possible solution from China One Call (0845 500 2122; www.chinaonecall.com) a translation service at the end of the phone which launches on 16 October. You dial up a call centre and explain what you are trying to say, then hand your mobile to the taxi driver/waiter/receptionist who is given the message in Mandarin. You pre-pay blocks of call time - 60 minutes costs £39.

Beijing University academic Michael Pettis worries whether the high expectations surrounding the Beijing Olympics will cause an economic depression.

Two mummies dance and hand out leaflets with the word "resume" printed on them to the audience. This is performance art by some creative Chinese youth trying to get society's attention to the difficulty of finding work for recent university graduates. Some Chinese also agree that work is now hard to find but many other netizens blame the students for having too high expectations.

t is very common to hear foreigners sitting around complaining about problems in China. Normally there is validity to at least some of the complaints, although often the way things are presented makes the comments come off badly. The line between legitimate criticism and excessive...

2008 coined the Chinese internet meme: 很黄，很暴力 (”very yellow, very violent”). Despite roundly being used in the most humorous of situations, few things truly exemplify the dark side of this meme more than two videos that have spread across the Chinese-language internet this year.

Most of the time Chinese people's expectation of policy innovation from each new leadership and their expectation for new major reform and opening-up measures are too high.

Leisure and business travel to China is booming, mobile phones services have caught up to developed world standards and the Olympics, which China is expecting to attract half a million foreign tourists, are two months away.

"China’s soft power offensive and the lure of the China Model remain, however, entirely official government programs. Where soft power has worked durably and has permeated connections among nations and nationalities, it has also involved civil society and the media, the arts, cultural attraction—the broad range of informal human contacts."