I've been listening to NPR lately (as I do), and they've been all over China. Not just listening to classical music, either. They just had a big report on an AIDS activist getting some recognition despite the "AIDS? What AIDS?" official line.

Until Friday, the 80-year-old retired Dr. Gao Yaojie was under house arrest.

Gao says that since Feb. 2, she has been confined to her apartment, by as many as 50 policemen.

Their apparent aim was to keep her from traveling to the United States to receive an award from Vital Voices, a non-profit group that works with women leaders. The group's board of directors includes Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Apparently, Clinton wrote a few letters that got the cops called away. So that's news.

But what they're (OK, I'm) really into is the birth of Chinese reggae:

Bob Marley's classic album Legend is now on sale in China, nearly a quarter-century after it was released in the West.

Somehow, through the magic of journalistic necessity, this translates into a hunt for the Chinese Bob Marley, because of COURSE China has to produce an equivalent substitute for every Western icon.

(And they even consider the iconic every-Western-music-star-for-China Cui Jian, which is kind of ridiculous. He even says so himself: "Don't make that comparison, I'm embarrassed to even think about it that way," Cui says. "Maybe you could say we're his heirs....)

But anyway, there are some interesting sound bites of Chinese reggae musicians, an interesting bit of reggae's Chinese history (apparently, some of the first producers to record the slow-and-mellow version of ska were Chinese immigrants to Jamaica), and a notable absence of reference to the sacred sacr-i-ment of Ras Tafar-I what cure glaucoma and open the heart an mind to God's truth. (And, as we've just learned in the US, also helps with AIDS symptoms.) It does, apparently, grow copiously in China. Like a weed.

Maybe that's how some of the kids can get so very focused on unusual skills. (Apparently, his real middle name is "Hei" and he's from Hong Kong. I think. His big brother is faster, anyway. Apparently.)