Congratulations to new GoChengdoo user paulgo, who is the proud winner of the RMB100 Panda Club voucher.

Instructions on how to claim the prize are in your inbox.

Thanks to all who played, and see you next week for yet another giveaway!

China's not often praised for the quality of its museums, but perhaps they are given more of a rough deal than is deserved. While the government plans massive investment in museums all over China, Evan Osnos of the New Yorker blog Letter from China talks to the authors of China: Museums, a book that reviews China's strange (600 horse skeletons, anyone?) and mundane museums.

If you want some hardcore and thoughtful reading about national identity in China (who doesn't?), Danwei this week features an academic, "Imagined Communities" take on what it is to be Chinese from University of Manchester's William A. Callahan's new book, China: The Pessoptimist Nation.

China's contemporary art world is a complicated thing despite its short history, but to see how art has dealt with the Cultural Revolution, head over to read an article at Inside-Out China, translated and with notes by Xujun Eberlein.

I don't know whether I should call oatmeal raisin cookies the "national American cookie" or not, but it surely gives me a very "American" feeling (chocolate chip cookies might play the same role though). It makes me think of some country fair in the States, where you can buy these filling snacks: crispy, tasty, big in volume--totally country style. But the history of it might be another story. I somehow remember that it was Scottish people who ate oats, but English people used it to feed their horses, so maybe this cookie actually originates from the UK. Let me know if anyone knows.

Ingredients:
110g butter (vegans can use margarine)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup unbleached flour
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup raisins

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 175 C.
2. Soften the butter at room temperature and cream it with sugar.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl and add it to the butter and sugar mixture batch by batch. The texture should be dry and loose. You can use your hand to mix but don't expect it to form a ball.
4. Use 1/4 cup as a mold. Loosely pack the dough inside and press with a spoon until it reaches half the depth of the cup, then pour it out. If it loosens when it is out, repeat the action. You could ask your children or boyfriend who is not good at cooking to help--it should be fun for them as well.
5. Bake 10 to 12 mins.

Sichuanese native and Chengdu resident Annie blogs about her adventures in cooking vegetarian meals, adapting recipes from around the world. Recently she has translated some of her favorite posts into English for GoChengdoo readers to enjoy. The original, Chinese-language version of this post can be viewed here. Photo by Annie Chen.

Last Wednesday, Zheng Xiaoming, chief of the planning and construction bureau of the Chengdu National Hi-Tech Zone, announced the development of the first large foreign-only community in western China--a haven in which western families can go to church, shop, and send their children to school without crossing paths with more than a handful of locals. The Tianfu International Community will occupy 250,000 square meters in the Chengdu's Hi-Tech Zone, and will include modern, government subsidized housing for 5,000 residents. The community will be staffed by a cadre of English-speaking locals, but no local Chinese will be allowed to rent the apartments or villas. This ridiculous restriction has triggered outrage among netizens and Chengdunese, with some comparing it to the foreign concessions that followed the Opium Wars in the mid-1800s, which were off-limits to Chinese people.

When asked about the policy by the Global Times, one Mr. Wang, an employee of the Chengdu Hi-Tech Investment Group's marketing department, said that "the foreigners we are talking about are those Western-looking people. We want to ensure that the international community is pure." According to the Times, this means that "foreign passport holders who look like a Chinese" may also be denied access to the complex. Other news sources have been quick to take this interpretation even further; AFP has stated simply that "ethnic Chinese--even foreign passport holders--will not be welcome" though it is not clear that this was Mr. Wang's actual intended meaning.

In other land use-related news, last Friday the state council presented amendments to the laws governing land acquisition in an attempt to decrease the number of violent and abusive evictions and demolitions, such as the eviction last November in Chengdu that led to one woman's self-immolation in protest after the eviction crew beat her family. The new law would require developers to offer property owners compensation based on the market price of the property, and would prohibit coercive and violent means of eviction. Also critically, it would force evictions and demolitions to stop while a lawsuit is in progress. Shen Kui, one of the law professors from Beijing who met with the deputy director of the State Council Legislative Affairs Office to argue in favor of such an amendment, said that although the new law has some problems, he was "basically satisfied."

A Sichuanese man who says his four-year-old daughter went missing last month has started chaining his two-year-old son to a pole outside of a shopping mall while he works as an unlicensed motorbike taxi driver in Beijing. The man has refused aid from the local government, offers to adopt his son for money, as well as requests by the district government to return to Sichuan where his son can legally enroll in kindergarten.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding has begun searching for a Sichuanhua teacher and a boyfriend (chosen by a vote among "panda fans worldwide") for Mei Lan, a three-year-old giant panda who will be FedEx'd tomorrow from her current home in Washington.

Compiled by Isaac Myers

This week, Panda Club is offering a lucky GoChengdoo reader one RMB100 voucher.

The two-story, loft-style club hosts weekend electronic-music parties and was recently voted "Best Club" by CHENGDOO citylife Magazine's readers.

How to enter:
1. Click here to register for GoChengdoo.com (it's free) if you haven't already done so.
2. Rate and review any five venues listed on GoChengdoo.com.
3. Send your name, registered GoChengdoo username, and your mobile phone number with the message "Panda Voucher" no later than 11:30 p.m. on Friday, February 5, 2010.
4. That's it! The winner will be contacted via e-mail and SMS by Saturday, February 6 with instructions on how to claim the prize.

The winner of the RMB50 Leanna's Bakery voucher is lucky GoChengdoo reader 6sheepsheep.

Congratulations to the winner and thanks to everyone who participated ... and stay tuned for more great GoChengdoo giveaways next week!

At 5:36 on Sunday morning, a 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck the border of Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality, killing one and injuring 15.

The epicenter occurred between Suining--a city with a population of 3.8 million and 140km east of Chengdu--and Chongqing's Tongnan county, at a depth of 18.6km. The casualties were suffered in three villages of Moxi town near Suining, where more than two hundred houses were also destroyed. In Tongnan county, the quake damaged at least 4,700 homes, costing an estimated RMB30 million. The civil affairs authority of Chongqing sent 40 tents and 1,500 cotton-padded quilts in response.

Only three minor earthquakes--all around 2.0 on the Richter scale--have occurred in the immediate area in the past 20 years. Seismologists were initially unsure if the quake was a late aftershock of the 12 May 2008 earthquake, but today Lu Yipei, deputy director of the Sichuan Provincial Seismological Burea, ruled that out.

Image above from Vancouver Sun. More photos can be seen here.

Isaac Myers

For those of you who need your fashion fix, here are the second and third episodes of Project Runway Season 7 starring Chengdunese Ping Wu:


Episode 2


Episode 3

Plus an interview.