Why you’ll still be able to find the new Guns and Roses album in China

by Josh Lew on

Yes, I will put a shamed expression on my face and admit that I felt a bit of excitement when I heard that Guns and Roses was releasing a new album. Come on, I was an awkward, pimple-ridden junior high-schooler when Axl and Slash were still at the top of their game. I thought that they were the shit.

Well, the new album, which was actually made by Axl Rose and a bunch of session musicians, is less than mediocre. But when I heard that Chinese authorities were critisizing it because of its content and about to ban it, I had to laugh. Not because the government was taking a bunch of has-beens so seriously, but because I know that if I walked into a Shenzhen bootleg CD shop right now, I’d have a pretty good chance of finding a copy of the album. The same goes for pirated versions of controversial books and DVDs. I don’t have the official numbers, but I’d wager that over 85% of the music and movies sold in China are bootlegged. So your hip Shanghai record store might not have G&R, but the bootleggers probably will.

Outsourcing to China: Airlines?

by Iva Skoch on

This is an interesting piece of news. A small regional carrier based in Arizona, Mesa Air Group, has just signed a deal with privatized Chinese carrier Shenzhen Airlines, to create a joint venture called Beijing Airlines, to operate in China.

Mesa currently operates only within North America, primarily doing contract regional work for United, Delta, and USAir/America West, in 43 states, using 200 aircraft.

No jobs will be outsourced or off-shored. Quite the contrary, this marks the first time that a U.S. carrier has ventured into the Chinese domestic passenger market.

Beijing will start flights next year, with small aircraft, and hope to include routes to eleven cities rapidly. Part of the reason is their desire to have 20 planes operating before the Olympics in 2008.