Starting Tuesday, Chinese netizens looking for google.cn found their browsers redirected to google.com.hk.
The sound and fury in the United States over China's valuation of the yuan reminds me of nothing so much as a scene in Avatar in which the soldiers from Earth prepare to destroy the Tree of Souls on Pandora.
My friends and I celebrated International Women's Day on Monday by going to dinner at a restaurant near our office. While we were still looking at the menu, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by cigarette smoke. More than a dozen men had just taken their seats at nearby tables and immediately lit up.
"Equal rights, equal opportunities, progress for all" is the theme for the celebration of International Women's Day at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.
Sunday is the lunar new year. Red lanterns are raised, giant posters with the word fu - meaning happiness - are posted, and extended families gather to feast, accompanied by crescendos of firecrackers. These are just a few of the rituals that have been revived, after being banned during the 10 years of the "cultural revolution". Nor was that the first time traditional lunar new year celebrations were suppressed.
Since my column "Do three errors mean breaking point for IPCC" appeared last week, it has been all over the Internet. I've also received many emails from readers, most of them questioning the scientific value of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Quite a few scientists have offered me their research data, challenging the IPCC's position on global warming.
While covering the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, I took a morning away from the main venue to attend a forum of "climate skeptics".
Since late December, I've been watching TV reports from Ningxia and Shaanxi in the northwest, as well as Guizhou and Guangxi in the south, showing farmers enjoying the benefits of clean tap water.
Two more names were added to the roster of top national science award winners on Monday. Once again, to the surprise of my young colleagues, the winners - mathematician Gu Chaohao and missile scientist Sun Jiadong - are octogenarians.
It is sometimes interesting to resist the winds of change.
Li Kang (196 - 265 AD) is not one of China's best known writers, but this verse surely ranks among the "top 20" ancient Chinese words of wisdom:
Two groups of journalists - one from the United States and the other the United Kingdom - were already discussing the previous day's events when I reached the media center of the UN climate change conference, or COP15, at 7:30 am on Wednesday. And I couldn't help overhear their conversation, because they were discussing the conflicts of opinions between the US and China.