This has obviously been a big year for China with the World Expo being hosted in Shanghai, and later the Asian Games in Guangzhou. But other momentous events — both good and bad, happy and sad — also took place. As 2010 comes to an end, let’s review some of the year’s highlights.
On January 4, the movie Avatar premiered in China with as much fanfare as everywhere else: long lines, blue faces on social networking sites, “I see you” becoming a catchphrase, the whole shebang.
On January 13, Google infamously blogged about its “new approach to China,” as the post was titled. (Here, if you’re not behind the Great Firewall.) Much speculation arose in the following weeks about Google’s future in China.
On March 23, Google’s search service in China was no more as google.cn started redirecting its visitors to Google’s Hong Kong site at google.com.hk.
Sometime in early April, the upcoming World Expo’s theme song, “2010 Waits for You” — which featured Chinese celebrities Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Li Bingbing and others in its music video — was discovered to sound a lot like a Japanese pop song from 1997. Ouch!
On May 1, Expo 2010 started its 6-month stint in Shanghai with spectacular fireworks in its opening ceremony and around 200,000 visitors on its first day. Its goal in total visitor count: a whopping 70 million.
Also on May 1, Xinhua News reported that China’s online population had reached 404 million users, surpassing the national population of every nation except China and India.
Throughout May and later, a disturbing number of Foxconn employees in Shenzhen committed suicide by jumping off buildings. Speculations abound over why.
In August, China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. Just another piece of “rise of China” trivia.
On September 2, long lines sprawled out of theaters again as Inception premiered in China. Did that spinning top keep on spinning or not?!
On September 7, a Chinese fishing boat and two Japanese coast guard vessels collided near some uninhabited and disputed islands northeast of Taiwan. Peaceful but notable protests over the incident occured outside embassies in both China and Japan.
On October 24, a week before its closing, Shanghai’s World Expo surpassed its goal of 70 million visitors. Congrats!
On October 31, Expo 2010 ended. Its highest number of visitors in a day topped 1 million, and its total tally for the six months was over 73 million visitors. After this day, slowly but surely, the population of Haibaos in Shanghai started to dwindle.
On November 5, after a decade of planning and negotiations, Disney and the Chinese government signed the deal to build a Shanghai Disneyland. Latest reports put the park’s estimated opening date in 2015 or 2016.
On November 12, the 2010 Asian Games began in Guangzhou. The event featured 42 sports and finished on November 27.
On November 24, China’s neighbors North Korea and South Korea had a brief artillery skirmish. While the incident isn’t related to China, it dominated the news in the region.
Nothing exciting in December so far, but we’re expecting a joyous Christmas and New Year’s Eve for all of you! And that concludes our review of 2010 in China. Ah, the memories.