! Journalist of the Year Keith Bradsher, Hong Kong bureau chief International New York Times ! ! 1. Storm’s trail of destruction (p.2-3) 2. Residents urged to flee crippled city of Tacloban (p.4-5) 3. As relief efforts falter, a political dynasty takes a hit (p.6) 4. Aid slowly arrives for battered Leyte (p.7-8) 5. Nature turns tables on an island of green energy (p.9-10) ! SUZY MENKES ROGER COHEN UNEASY IN PUBLIC BUILDING RETURNING TO SALVAGING A BET A BAG BRAND BASICS ON IRAN ON BLACKBERRY PAGE 7 | STYLE PAGE 9 | OPINION PAGE 14 | BUSINESS ASIA WITH ... TUESDAY,NOVEMBER 12, 2013 Not seeking love, just great bargains Storm’s trail of destruction HANGZHOU, CHINA largest online retailer in China, said it had reached its target of 30 billion ren- minbi, or about $5 billion, in sales for the Chinese flood Internet dayvia its online payment system, on lonely-hearts day Alipay. That is two and a half times the total yielded last year by ‘‘Cyber Mon- turned shopping spree day,’’ the biggest e-commerce day of the year in the United States, which comes BY SHANSHAN WANG after the Thanksgiving holidayinlate AND ERIC PFANNER November. Analysts estimate that Alibaba accounts for two-thirds to After moving into anew apartment in three-quarters of total online retail sales this city near Shanghai in August, Yuan in China. Keru, a postgraduate student, and her The promotion was pioneered five boyfriend waited several months to buy years ago by Alibaba, which owns Tmall furnishings for their new home. Finally, and other e-commerce sites, when it on Monday, they splurged. latched on to an existing, unofficial At midnight, Ms. Yuan logged on to Chinese holiday dubbed Singles’ Day. her laptop, clicked on Tmall, an e-com- Forsome yearspreviously,young merce website, and began shopping. Chinese men had been gathering once a She selected a floor lamp, a carpet and year to lament —or raise atoast to — some wallpaper. Herboyfriend picked their single status. They chose Nov. 11 out aset of earphones. Finally,they because it wasthe only day of the year added a cozy touch: his and herscotton when the calendar showedfour 1’s, or slippers for the winter. ‘‘singles.’’ In all, Ms. Yuan spent 1,500 renminbi, In aculture where young women face or nearly $250, beforecalling it anight. considerable pressureto marry by the That, Ms. Yuan said, represented about age of 30 and whereyoung men areex- half a month’s living costs for her. pected to own ahome beforepopping ‘‘We love window-shopping in the lo- the question, this might have seemed cal department store,’’ Ms. Yuan said. likearejection of cultural mores and ‘‘But we have never spent so much consumerism alike. But, likeColumbus money in one day. Never!’’ Day sales in the United States, Singles’ Ms. Yuan and her boyfriend, a 3-D an- Day retains little connection with the imator, were just two people among tens people or events that inspired it. As a of millions of Chinese consumers who red letter day for shoppers, it has spread took to the Internet on Monday for the beyond lonely-hearts to Chinese con- latest edition of an annual one-dayon- sumers of all kinds —single or married, line shopping blowout that has bal- male or female, young or old, urban or looned into the world’s biggest e-com- rural. merce event. ‘‘Chinese people love to shop,’’ said Shortly after 9p.m. here, Alibaba, the Eric Wong, managing director for Greater China at Possible, an e-com- merce strategycompany, in Shanghai. PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS M. SABANGAN/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY ‘‘If you have the right excuse and the The Philippine town of Guiuan on Monday, after the typhoon flattened homes, and roads were strewn with debris and uprooted trees. The death toll was still uncertain on Monday. right occasion, they willspend money. One of the tacticstoget people to buyis CHINA, PAGE 15 TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES aid convoy to Tacloban had to turn back on Sunday after it stopped at a collapsed CHANGING ENGINE FOR CHINA’S GROWTH bridge and was nearly hijacked by a The service sector is playing an Strong typhoon ravages crowd of hungry people. ‘‘There is very increasing role in the economy as swath of Philippines, little food going in, and what food there China’spopulation growsricher. PAGE 14 was wascaptured’’ by the crowd,Mr. laying bare its woes Gordon said in atelephone interview on PART OF A MAJOR SHIFT IN THE ECONOMY Monday morning. QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES As China seeks to reorient its economy BY KEITH BRADSHER The storm posed new challenges for Yuan Keru shopping Monday on Tmall to toward individual consumption, the President Benigno S. Aquino III, who help furnish her apartment near Shanghai. buying spree seems to fitin. PAGE 15 Threedays after one of the most power- just two months ago struggled to wrest ful storms ever to buffet the Philippines, back a major city in the south from in- the scale of the devastation and the des- surgents. Mr. Aquino has wonplaudits peration of the survivors were slowly at home and abroad for his fight against coming into view on Monday. corruption during his three and a half Theliving told stories of the dead or years in office, leading to increased for- Same time, same channel? TV the dying —the people swept away in a eign investment and an impressive torrent of seawater,the corpses strewn growth rate. But he must still contend woos children who can’t wait among the wreckage. Photos from the with Muslim separatists in the south hard-hit cityof Tacloban showed vast and with provinces that have long been NEW YORK works’. Their expectations —that every stretches of land swept clean of homes, the domains of regional strongmen, res- episode of every showbe available any- and reports emerged of people who istant to government control. BY BRIAN STELTER time —give a glimpse into the future of were desperate for food and water raid- Now add to that list a storm that looks entertainment and arealready shaping ing aid convoys and stripping the stores to be one of the country’s worst dis- When Eric Nelson’s 6-year-old daugh- the decisions of media executiveswho that were left standing. asters, at a time when emergency funds ter,Charlotte, and 10-year-old son, Asa, are their grandparents’ ages. As Mondaydawned, it became in- have been depleted by aseries of other discover that they cannot rewind or Netflix, Amazon and other streaming creasingly clear that Typhoon Haiyan calamities, most notably a 7.2-mag- fast-forward a TV show, they are per- video services arecompeting fero- had ravaged cities, towns and fishing A survivor and her child aboard a military helicopter flying them to safety on Monday. nitude earthquake that struck the plexed —and their father is, too. It is ciously for children’s programming. villages acrossthe islands of the central The typhoon appeared to have brought a heavy loss of life to cities, towns and villages. middle of the country four weeks ago. hard to explain the limitations of live And networksthat cater to children are Philippines on Friday. By some esti- On Monday, after the reports of wide- television to children who have grown starting to show programs online before mates, at least 10,000 people mayhave spread raiding of stores and robberies up in an on-demand world. they appear on old-fashioned televi- died in Tacloban alone, and with phone the Philippines, lifting awall of water rupt and incompetent governments, are and rising fearsof abreakdown of law ‘‘They say ‘live TV’the way I say ‘do- sion. service out across stretches of the far- onto the land as they struck. By some some of the worstin Southeast Asia and and order, the government said it was ing my taxes’ —with resignation,’’ said ‘‘Kids todaydon’t knowaworld flung archipelago, it was difficult to accounts, the winds reached 190 miles often make traveling long distances a flying more police officers to the region. Mr. Nelson, a literary agent in Manhat- wherethey had to wait for aprogram,’’ know if the storm was as deadly in more an hour. trial. On Monday, clogged with debris Although deadly storms are not un- tan. said Tara Sorensen, the head of original remote areas. As aid crews struggled to reach rav- from splintered buildings and shattered usual in the Philippines, Typhoon Haiy- Charlotte and Asa, likemany chil- programming at Amazon Studios. The culprit increasingly appeared to aged areas, the storm appeared to lay trees, the roads in the storm’s path were an appears to stand apart, both in the fe- dren, perceive all of television to be As Ms. Sorensen’s title indicates, be astorm surge that wasdrivenby bare some of the perennial woes of the worse, slowing rescue teams. rocityof its winds, which some more Netflix than Nickelodeon: on de- Amazon and its rivals are commission- those winds, which were believed to be Philippines. The country’s roads and Richard Gordon, the chairman of the described as sounding like afreight mand and on their schedule, not the net- CHILDREN, PAGE 15 among the strongest ever recorded in airports, long starved of money by cor- Philippine Red Cross, said a Red Cross PHILIPPINES, PAGE 4 INSIDE TODAY’S PAPER ONLINE AT INYT.COM Merger plans for a brash brand Week of trans-Atlantic trade talks The two businesses that work together Trade negotiators from Europe and the to produce the Nitro Circus live shows, United States were expected to start a television programs and films plan to second round of talks in Brussels on become one company and extend the Monday aimed at reaching an accord to brand’s reach worldwide.