Watch out, for after enduring years of mockery for ineptly-translated English-language signs, China is finally going to get its own back. The backlash starts at the Shanghaiist who shares a soon-to-be classic example of "Zhonglish" at Coney Island in New York.

You have almost certainly heard the assertion that Chinese companies are a bit rubbish at innovation. But China Tracker has found one shining exemption: appliance-maker Haier, who has tailored its machines to suit (rural) Chinese uses—for instance, washing a load of potatoes.

Frog in a Well takes a trip, camera in hand, to the Jianchuan Museum Cluster in Dayi's Anren (a day trip from Chengdu and home of China's most famous pig), noting the nationalistic character of the war-related exhibits as well as the explicit criticism of various aspects of the Mao years, including the politicization of everyday objects such as tea cups.

If you can't get enough of the football this week, then there's plenty of World Cup-related offerings all over the China blogs to keep you busy. The China Tracker for one dismisses the often-touted reasons for China's much-derided football team's failure to qualify for the tournament. Always one to ruffle some feathers, China Divide speculates that China's attitudes to its national team reflects its internal lack of confidence in China's prowess overall (requires proxy). And The Useless Tree has two posts looking at the beautiful game through a Daoist's eyes.

Following on from the government's release of a White Paper on the Internet in China, Rebecca Mackinnon at Rconversation lays out an astute analysis of the role of the web in China (requires proxy), arguing that the government is pioneering what she calls a self-serving "network authoritarianism." And in a related Internet post translated by China Digital Times, a Chinese netizen plays with the statistics from the White Paper, making the very dubious claim that 98 percent of all posts on the Chinese Internet are "harmonized."

Finally, you might like to check in again with the guys over at Portrait of an LBX who have been trying to be more like true nomads by camping like kings and, less nomadically, fuming at woefully bad road-sign design in Yunnan.

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