An important part of studying Chinese is listening to the language to learn new words and to get used to the sound flow for the words with their tones. One of the ways to help Chinese students do that is by listening to some Chinese Podcasts that can be found around the web. Since I've been asked about Podcasts a few times, I thought I'll collect all the links I know of into one list to make them easier to find. Please note that all Podcasts are provided free and that their profit usually comes from selling Podcast transcripts and other extras built upon the Podcast content. -  Chinese Lessons with Serge Melnyk …

Israelis are studying about China Chinese language, and Asians are studying about Israel and the Hebrew language The connection between the Jewish people and China has a long history going back hundreds of years. Wikipedia even has a special long section on the topic, detailing the historical timeline and key figures : Jews and Judaism in China have had a long and often enigmatic history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty… This week, Danwei's lovely (Jewish) Sufei explores the Jewish community in Beijing :

The contrasts between Jewish folks, like Sufei and myself, to the …

Reading Chinese for those not Chinese born is a difficult task. I've seen some good Chinese students stay away from reading Chinese material because they figured it's an impossible task. So, here's my small guide on how a Chinese beginner, such as myself, can read through Chinese based websites using simple extensions provided for the Firefox browser. In my humble opinion, and I know some would disagree, Mozilla Firefox is the ultimate browser. It's not because Internet Explorer has security bugs, and not because Opera isn't a great piece of software, but rather because there's a big community of coders built around Firefox to provide it with endless extensions to give extra functionality. Mozilla Firefox is a great browser as …

The Times Higher Education Supplement has issued its 2006 report for the world’s university rankings this week, so it’s a good opportunity to update the "Top Universities in Asia 2006" list and discuss Asian academics.
Times Higher continues to show its appreciation for the Asian universities as the Asian universities continue to climb the rankings. Here’s the list of the top university in every country (name; Asian ranking ; 2006 world ranking ; 2005 world ranking ; up/down) :

Beijing University, China - 1 ; 14 ; 15 ; up.
Tokyo University, Japan - 2 ; 19 ; 16 ; …

The China-Taiwan situation is a big political mess, based on years of built up emotions and complicated interactions. No Taiwanese or Chinese that I've met, of the few I was able to discuss this with, sees any kind of solution to this difficult problem without some sort of crisis happening sooner or later. The US has been trying for years to walk the fine line between the two countries. The world's biggest and finest have failed to help ease this situation. Do you think it's hopeless? No need to worry. Israel is here to solve everything! Israeli hutzpa-cheek breaks another record with one of the Israeli parliament members suggesting that Israel holds the key to a China-Taiwan reconciliation. Here's the …

OMG! This is the most wonderful story I've heard about lately. Running on Youtube for a while now, reaching 2 million hits, is the Free Hugs campaign :

The story behind the campaign : "Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man who's sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives. In this age of social dis-connectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal. As this symbol of human hope spread across the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity …