Photo: Zuoxiao Zuzhou dances Gangnam Style with Ai Weiwei. Straits Times

Quotes from around China this week

“If Xu dares to swim in the river for 20 minutes, I will pay 200,000 yuan.”
- Hangzhou entrepreneur Jin Zengmin daring Xu Yihuato, a local environmental chief, to swim in a heavily polluted river that runs through Rui’an after Xu denied that the pollution was all that dangerous. Jin later extended the dare to any local environmental agency official.

"I've never put any hope in Chinese politics. The people of this soil have no hope. There is a big problem with our education. For the past 60 years, people have been brainwashed. Everyone is too selfish. No one has any faith."
- Chinese rock star Zuoxiao Zuzhou. NPR 

"The police came and said this was a family dispute. It was obvious they thought it was a small problem. I called the police six times in total, but their response was to always tell me to hide if I couldn't take the beatings."
- A 28-year-old woman recalls what happened when her husband brutally beat her. Global Times

“We may see some Chinese partners in these Sino-foreign ventures exit the [insurance] market, particularly the non-financial Chinese partners. Many of the JVs aren’t profitable yet, and insurance is no longer a business focus for some of these Chinese partners.”
- Peter Enns, head of the financial institutions group for Asia Pacific excluding Japan at Goldman Sachs Group. Wall Street Journal

"The US media has been sensationalizing the so-called Chinese cyber attack to increase the world's unnecessary wariness against China and it would also give its military forces excuses to invest more in its own cyber espionage technology."
He Hui, vice director of the Public Relations and Public Opinion Institute of the Communication University of China. Global Times

“Regardless of any setbacks and obstacles, I am confident that China is building up a significant population of socially responsible netizens, who will make a difference to the future of China. I can't wait to return when my hiatus ends!”
- Kaifu Lee on being suspended from Weibo for three days after his criticism of the Jike search engine. LinkedIn