THE Chinese government could be the new owner of Liverpool Football Club, but the Chinese people may not have the chance to watch the team in action.

While China Investment Corporation, the investment arm of the government, is reportedly funding the Kenny Huang bid for the Reds, the English Premier League broadcast rights in China remain shrouded in mystery and confusion.

With just days to the first game of the new 2010/2011 season, local media is reporting that the company who had held the rights, Tiansheng TV - also known as Win TV - has gone bankrupt.

The small Guangdong province outfit had bought the rights from 2007 to this year for US$50 million (S$67 million).

It had leaked word to the public in March that it had once again won the bid to broadcast EPL in China. The contract was for the next three seasons and Tiansheng reportedly paid US$50 million again.

But no official statements were released by both EPL and Tiansheng in the past few months to substantiate the news stories.

Now, it seems it could all be a hoax.

It appears that Tiansheng has not updated their website (www.wintv.cn) since June. Calls to their hotline are also unanswered.

Sources now reveal that Tiansheng, which failed to persuade most Chinese fans to pay for EPL matches in the past three years, may not have even won the bid in the first place.

Investors in Tiansheng are believed to have pulled out, disillusioned with its abysmal performance as the popularity of the EPL nosedived in China.

Fans here have been used to watching EPL and the World Cup for free on TV and were reluctant to pay Tiansheng.

The station did not help its sales with its initial exorbitant rates of 1,888 yuan (S$377) a season. The charges dropped to a low of 588 yuan last season.

Reports now say that another little known Chinese media company, Xinyadi, has won the EPL broadcast rights in China. It would in turn sell it to local stations, potentially returning the matches to free-to-air channels here.

But the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) has already said that they are not interested in the English games, having secured rights to the Uefa Champions League, the Spanish La Liga and the German Bundesliga.

Whatever it may be, unless deals are struck soon, it looks like football fans here will not be able to catch Tottenham Hotspurs take on Manchester City when the new season kicks off on Saturday.

IN CHINA

URUMIQI: On the surface, it is difficult to see why ethnic riots exploded in Xinjiang on July 5.

Ask most Han Chinese in the capital Urumqi and they would tell you that the different ethnic groups had lived happily together for decades and they enjoyed eating the food of the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority.

Ask the Uighurs, and they would also share stories of hanging out with Han friends and colleagues and welcoming them to the far-west region.

Days after the riots which killed nearly 200 people and injured over a thousand more, in some parts of the city, it was as if the eruption of violence had not occurred; Across the city, Han Chinese hawkers went back to selling vegetables in Uighur neighbourhoods. Urumqi seemed so at ease with its ethnic mix.

Uighurs protesting in Urumqi after the arrest of their family members on July 6, a day after the July 5 riots in Urumqi.
ST Photo: Peh Shing Huei

But drag the interviews out a little longer, scratch a little deeper below the surface, and a latent racism appears.

A Han taxi driver proudly tells The Straits Times that he does not discriminate against the Uighurs.

"I don't pick and choose my passengers. Han or Uighurs, it doesn't matter," he says.

But ask him why the Uighurs complain bitterly of discrimination, especially in jobs and businesses, and you get a different view :

"You know, they are lazy. They are not willing to work as hard as the Han people."

It's the same with the Uighurs. Dig a little deeper and you hear accusations that the Han are interested only in fleecing Xinjiang of its natural resources and jobs, and that they should leave the region because it does not belong to them.

A Uighur mother and her two daughters crying as they walked towards foreign journalists on July 6. The family started the subsequent protests by more than 100 Uighur women and kids.
ST Photo: Peh Shing Huei

Both groups have latched on to convenient racial stereotypes, some based on personal daily life observations, others long-held biases passed down generations.

In times of plenty and peace, the venting of such gripes may seem harmless.

So what if you think that someone, by virtue of his race, is stupid or lazy? It's not like you are going to bash his head in just because of that, right?

But when tensions run high, as it did on July 5 and the days after in Xinjiang, these ethnic stereotypes turn virulent and offer a handy justification for violence.

It becomes easier to kill Han because they have already been branded as greedy people, out to steal jobs away from ethnic minorities.

And Uighurs are fair game for mob attacks because they are seen as lazy and therefore have no right to be complaining about discrimination in the first place.

Uighurs looking on at the the paramilitary forces who set up barricades along the Liberation North Road
ST Photo: Peh Shing Huei

The violence in Xinjiang has been attributed to numerous factors, from poorly-implemented ethnic policies to even the influence of exiled Uighur activists, if the Chinese government's assertion is true.

But at its root is an ingrained, and seemingly harmless, racism, one that has been lurking in the minds of people for years, decades and generations before July 5.

Read about issues of tribe & territory in this week's Saturday Special Report.

AN IMPRESSIVE Chinese oil painting of 100 famous historical figures has set the online community here abuzz, with netizens pouring over the fresco as they attempt to identify every single face.

SOURCE: PEH SHING HUEI

This 6m by 2.6m painting crams centuries of heroes, villains and celebrities together, mixing the East with the West, and the dead with the living.

Most people would have no problems identifying the likes of Albert Einstein, Gandhi and William Shakespeare.

But more obscure ones like Chinese opera artist Mei Lanfang and Russian emperor Peter the Great would probably stump many.

It is giving history buffs here, and increasingly in other places as well, endless fun in spotting the personalities and discussing their placements and depictions in the painting.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, for example, adopts a James Dean-esque expression and is seated on the floor, hardly paying attention to the floored boxer Mike Tyson.

Only two figures – Genghis Khan and Napoleon – have the honour of riding horses, although late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat seems to be on a camel.

The Chinese God of War Guan Yu, with his weapon prominently shown, is suitably placed next to three of 20th century's most famous dictators – Hitler, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein.

Saddam's nemesis, former US President George W Bush can be seen at the top right-hand corner of the painting, peering in the direction of the Iraqi leader through a telescope.

And in a cheeky slap on the American president's face, the artists placed elusive terrorist Osama bin Laden standing behind Mr Bush.

Given that the three artists - Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi and Zhang Anjun - are Chinese, it is no surprise that almost a quarter of the personalities are Chinese figures.

But while most would have no issue with Confucius, Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping, Chinese netizens feel that hurdler Liu Xiang, who limped out of the 2008 Olympics, does not belong to the pantheon of famous faces.

The athlete would probably not have been included, if not for the fact that the painting was done in 2006, when Liu was at the peak of his fame.

There was no such disdain for Chairman Mao Zedong. Netizens welcome the late Great Helmsman being given pride of place on the main table in the centre of the piece, with his face brightly lid.

He sits next to Abraham Lincoln and ancient Chinese poet Li Bai, who is sprawled on a chair and seemingly drunk.

The others on the “main table” include philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Leonardo Da Vinci, Stalin and Queen Elizabeth II.

SOURCE: PEH SHING HUEI

The artwork, titled Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante, seemed to be inspired by Raphael's Renaissance fresco The School of Athens.

Like Raphael, the artists also drew themselves into the painting, similarly tucked in the right-hand side. They can be seen peering at the famous ones, along with Dante.

The Chinese artists also followed Raphael in having a philosopher in the centre of the artwork. Plato and Aristotle had the honoured positions in The School of Athens. But it was Marx for the Chinese piece.

A nod to the Chinese Communist Party?

Check out this website People of Influence Painting for an image map of the painting. You can click on any figure and its name will appear. But note that there are some inaccuracies.

IN BEIJING

MRS Hillary Clinton charmed her hosts here when she used Chinese proverbs to describe relations between the United States and China.

But there is a little unfortunate story behind a proverb the US Secretary of State used.

In a speech in New York before her Asia trip, she said: "When you are in a common boat, you need to cross the river peacefully together," to suggest how US and China should work together to overcome the current economic crisis.

Premier Wen Jiabao praised her for the use of the proverb "tong zhou gong ji" during their meeting here on Saturday. He added that the proverb is from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese military strategist.

But what Mr Wen did not share with Mrs Clinton is the story behind the proverb.

It came about during the late Spring and Autumn Period (5th century BC), when a turbulent China was divided into various warring states.

Among them were the State of Wu (present-day Jiangsu and Anhui areas) and the State of Yue (present-day Zhejiang Province), which fought a series of wars.

One day, people from Wu and Yue were crossing a river while in the same boat. They regarded each other as enemies and were prepared to fight. But a strong wind came up when the boat was in the middle of the river and threatened to sink it.

The two people decided to put aside their enmity, and cooperated to steer the bat to safety.

It is all well and good and the idiom has since been used to describe people burying their differences during a time of crisis, pulling together to overcome difficulties.

Mrs Clinton most certainly used the proverb correctly.

But the story of the Wu and Yue states after the boat incident is something which Mrs Clinton probably did not know.

The two states went back to fighting and the King of Yue was even captured and became a slave of the State of Wu for three years.

He was allowed to return to his own state eventually, where he built up his forces again and annihilated the State of Wu. The State of Yue became the hegemon in the Spring and Autumn Period.

Some lessons there for US-China relations? I'm sure Mrs Clinton would hope not.

Maybe that is why Mr Wen did not tell her more of the story behind the proverb.

The skies in Beijing are no longer as blue, Olympic traffic lanes bear the five-ring logos but carry no special privileges and Michael Phelps has gone from medals to marijuana.

But something remains unchanged - the Chinese people's enthusiasm and pride in the Beijing Games.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

While the Olympic flame has long been extinguished, for the thousands who still head to the Bird's Nest daily, it is almost as if Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt was still galloping to gold in the stadium.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

The excitement starts miles before the stadium. On Friday morning, when I took the subway towards the Olympic Green, the squeals of delight could be heard the moment visitors switched to Line 8 - the four-stop Olympic subway line.

Camera started clicking at the station because it bears the name "Olympic Sports Center" and familiar Beijing Olympic tunes like "You and Me" and "Beijing Welcomes You" serenaded passengers.

It almost feels like August 8 again, as a mother excitedly told her young son that "we are going to the Bird's Nest, we are going to the Bird's Nest!"

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

Touted as a symbol of rising Chinese nationalism, the Nest is an architectural marvel that is now a must-see for Beijing tourists - joining a long and illustrated list that includes the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

Some 10,000 gamely paid 50 yuan (S$10.90) a day to enter the stadium and about a million reportedly lingered at the Olympic Green area - free of charge - during the recent Chinese New Year holidays, just to admire the stadium's impressive lattice design.

It was so crowded when I was there that the security officers blocked some visitors from approaching the ticket counter. They were allowed in only when those at the counter had purchased their tickets and moved into the stadium.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

And that is when you noticed the biggest difference between now and during the Olympic Games.

While the Games had thousands of smiling, polite and eager young Chinese volunteers to usher you in when you pass the turnstiles, they have been replaced by a bunch of non-smiling and surly workers and security guards.

"Go that way," barked a guard when visitors failed to take the right entry lane.

Yes, the Olympics is well and truly over.

Read the full story in The Sunday Times here.

IT IS not easy being a government translator in China. At almost all official press conferences and events, a Chinese-English translator would be around, required instantly to bridge the gap between the Chinese officials and the foreign journalists.

Most of the time, they do a fairly decent job. But a recent phrase from Chinese president Hu Jintao had translators, foreign media and even academics, flummoxed. 

During a commemorative event to celebrate 30 years of China's reform and opening up policy on Dec 18, Mr Hu took a rare break from official speak and used a colloquial phrase. 

His words "bu zhe teng" - or do not "zhe teng" - drew audible gasps and laughter from audience in the Great Hall of the People. "Zhe teng" is a phrase popular among the people in northern China, but rarely, if ever, used by central government officials in a formal setting.

What does it mean in English? Here's the tricky part. It is one of those Chinese phrases that seem almost impossible to be neatly translated into English. 

Some foreign English media translated it as "don't flip flop", "don't get sidetracked", "don't sway back and forth" and "no major changes". 

Perhaps finding the task too cumbersome, the official Xinhua news agency left the phrase out of its English dispatches altogether.

The wordy "don't do something over and over again, and to little effect" seem to capture it best. Essentially, the phrase "zhe teng" has negative connotations and is usually used to refer to someone who keeps trying new things, but in a messy and disorientated way and with no useful final product to show.

So when Mr Hu said "bu zhe teng", he meant to say that China, and in particular the Chinese Communist Party, should be focused on its current system of governance - socialism with Chinese characteristics - and not waste time searching aimlessly for a new model. 

During a press conference on Dec 30, when the phrase was brought up again, a State Council official translator simply gave up and said "bu zhe teng" in Chinese - but with a slight English twang.

I guess it's all just too much for the poor translators.

Do you have a better translation? Leave them in your comments here!

IN THE past three months since arriving in Beijing, friends - both foreigners and locals - have assured me that the winter here is quite bearable.

"It's getting warmer and warmer in Beijing in the last few years," said a few.

"It rarely snows in Beijing these days, but when it does, it is really lovely. You would love it," said others.

They lied. Beijing's winter can be unbearable and not very lovely.

On Sunday, the Chinese capital experienced its coldest December day since 1951. It froze at -12 degrees celsius. At its warmest, it was only -8.8 C.

For a guy from the tropics, it was like hell freezes over.

Strong winds from Siberia and Mongolia lashed the city, keeping Beijingers indoors and forcing some small shops to close.

It even tore off parts of the roof of Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications' sports stadium.

At a job fair in eastern Beijing, there were hardly any job seekers on Sunday despite the ongoing global financial crisis.

Not surprising since the lashing winds turned even a short stroll into a painful trek, with people spotted walking backwards so as to avoid having their faces pummelled.

Let's hope there are no more record-breaking climate feats in the next two months.

Although I must admit it would be nice to see a white Christmas here in Beijing.

In Beijing

TO BE an English Premier League fan in China is to be a very sad man.

While those in Singapore get a regular diet of EPL matches through cable TV almost every weekend, the ones here are starved of their Manchester United and Everton.

Since last year, EPL games have pretty much disappeared from the living rooms of mainland China.

The vanishing act started when a small pay-television station from the southern Guangdong province bought the exclusive rights to broadcast live matches in China.

The station, Tiansheng TV or WinTV, reportedly paid US$50 million for the three-year deal. That took the screening rights from ESPN Star and state-run China Central Television (CCTV), which used to broadcast the games free or at a cheap price.

Singapore EPL viewers would be familiar with something similar, when StarHub outbid ESPN Star for the rights to EPL matches last year.

But the difference is that while StarHub managed to get most EPL fans in Singapore to sign up for its package after some grumbles, WinTV has failed to do the same in China.

That is largely because Chinese viewers have been used to watching it for free and refuse to pay an extraordinary large sum of about 188 yuan (S$40) per month. It costs S$49 for Singapore viewers to watch the game back home, but average income in Singapore is about 15 times that of China's.

It didn't help that WinTV boss was rather smug when he obtained the rights. "The fans will have to endure the pain of the change. Let's say goodbye to free Premier League. No more free lunch in the future," said WinTV president Song Zheng. "Fans can enjoy the games in various convenient ways, and right now - they have to pay."

Also, WinTV does not have the nation-wide reach that StarHub enjoys, making it cumbersome for Chinese fans to sign up.

Viewership of EPL games thus plunged from an estimated 10 million to about 20,000. Chinese football fans turned to the Italian Serie A, the Spanish La Liga and the German Bundesliga, which are all available free-to-air channels.

The hardcore EPL fans, mostly foreigners, are reduced to begging, hunting or even taking on the law.

1) Begging

- The really desperate ones would beg friends or family back home to have video conferencing during matches and turn their webcams onto the TVs in Singapore. The plus is that they can still enjoy games from the comfort of their homes. The tradeoff is hopelessly poor resolution and erratic connection. There is also the option of streaming, but the performance is unstable. Erm, was that a goal?

2) Hunting

- Those who refuse to squint their eyes or simply do not have any friends back home would pound the streets hunting for a pub which screens the games. The pubs do so by installing a satellite dish. Resolution is great, screens are usually huge, but there are pubs which refuse to screen the games with volume. So if you dig silent football, sure. You also have to put up with smoky joints. And if your team loses, the cold ride or walk home late at night in winter Beijing adds to the pain.

3) Knock, knock

- Last, install a satellite dish at your apartment which would allow you to get Sky Sports and you are back in Singapore - EPL games in your living room! But there is a snag. Satellite dishes are illegal in China. So if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night, it may be time to say goodbye to Cristiano Ronaldo.

So yes, it is a tricky life to be an EPL fan in China. Good luck if you are one.

In Beijing

When I invite friends back home to visit me here in Beijing, they usually turn me down. The most common excuse is that there is nothing safe to eat.

That is just nonsense. As long as you steer clear of milk, chocolates, cookies, ice-cream, fish, poultry, pork, eggs and oranges, Beijing is a real food paradise.

Oh wait, include curdled duck blood - a popular dish for steamboat here and yong tau foo in Singapore - in that list too. It was just revealed a few days back that its delicious ingredients include industrial chemicals.

But my friends are often not convinced. And seriously, who would blame them?

The food scandal in China is so widespread today that some joked even emperors would not be able to escape being poisoned.

When it was revealed last week that Emperor Guangxu - the second last emperor of China - was poisoned to death a century back with arsenic, the quip was that there was a mistake. It must have been melamine which killed the Son of Heaven.

But what is worrying about this food crisis is that it is part of a larger culture of counterfeiting and cutting corners in China.

So while food attracts the most attention, there are many segments of China which are similarly in trouble.

The story of Mr Wang Yongxing is an illuminating one. He went to a state-owned shop in Beijing in 1995, one which purported to be an official dealer of Rolex watches.

Since it is a state-owned enterprise, he felt that it was a reliable place to invest in something which he would like to keep as a family heirloom for his son.

So he paid a princely sum of 240,000 yuan (S$53,000) for a gold Rolex. But after taking a swim with the watch, the 50-year-old businessman realised that it was not water proof.

That got him worried. But the shop took it back, fixed it and returned it to him after a month.

More years passed, and the "Rolex" started getting more and more erratic, hardly showing Swiss precision time.

He finally brought it to an independent evaluator, who told him that he has been duped. His heirloom has been a fake.

He is now suing the sellers for some 670,000 yuan in damages. But even he admitted to The Straits Times that the sellers may be victims themselves, such is the depth of the counterfeiting.

"They (the sellers) probably did not know that they were selling a fake too," he said. "It may be the suppliers, the manufacturers. There is just no way of knowing."

In many ways, there is the crux of the counterfeiting problem in China. It is very hard to find the real culprits. Very often, the shop is probably the last stop in a long, convoluted conveyor belt of fakery.

We see that in the milk scandal too. It was a problem that goes all the way from the dairy corporations like Sanlu to the farmers themselves. In between are melamine agents, who sell the farmers the plastic-making chemicals to boost the milk's protein content.

The problem is endemic.

That is why some people, like Mr Wang, are taking no chances. Asked if he has bought any more Rolexes, he laughed: "No no no, I have two more Omegas which I bought overseas. But I don't dare to buy Rolex again."