Ben Ross recently gave some great insight in a post about his recent voyage to Tokyo. For those who think that Japan is all about customer service and being polite — well, I’m not saying that this is an exception to the rule (I’d be a tough if I owned a hostel too), but it certainly shows a side of Japan that I didn’t see when I was there. Read about it for yourself on Ben’s Ben-tastic Blog.
In any case, I’ve been really enjoying the Japanese Restaurants in Dalian. Maybe too much. But aside from the food, I have the say my favorite thing about Japanese culture (that I’ve seen so far) are fucked up TV shows.
Check out the latest video to take Japan by storm. The Butt Biting Bug. He’s awesome!
Seems as though the longest lunar eclipse in 7 years is in process, and should be visible in most of China:
For Chinese watchers the first phase of the eclipse, which will last about three hours and 33 minutes, will begin at 4:51 p.m. Beijing time.
The eclipse will begin as the Earth’s shadow moves across the surface of the moon’s eastern edge. It will take just over an hour for the earth’s shadow to cover the moon. By 6:37 p.m. the moon will be completely hidden in the shadow and will begin emerging again at 7:23 p.m.
If it’s not cloudy in your city today, be sure to go out and see if you can see anything thought the haze we have come to know and love as the Chinese atmosphere.
Ok. No doubt, if you’ve spent two minutes in China, you’ve certainly come across someone who has an usual English name. I’ve met “Crazy Chick,” “Superman,” “Lionheart,” “Merovingian,” and an unfortunate kid named “Beak” who had a larger than average nose.
In any case, the Chinese preoccupation with choosing a name that has a good meaning quite often will result in a name that just induces stifled laughter among all who first meet them. This is common when choosing an English name. Just ask Chris about his old students Nazi and Christ.
And of course this all stems from the Chinese tradition of choosing a good Chinese name for their kid. While in English, the name Bob doesn’t mean jack-shit, in Chinese the name Xiaohong (literally, Little Red) could imply her parents love for their country or possible affiliation with the Communist Party.
For anyone here in China who uses Skype to chat with family and friends in your home country, you may want to check out Sightspeed.com.
Like Skype, you can get a free or pro account. But for the most part, you can do everything you need with a free account. If you did however want to try the pro account, there is a 30 day free trial for skype users.
The pro account has a neat record feature which would be very cool for anyone who wants to make a video podcast.
With regards to the China Blogosphere, I’m surprised that no one has started using the Pamela Skype recorder to make a neato radio show yet.
I’d say that this is shocking news, but well… to be honest, it’s kinda par for the Sino-course.
Here are the highlights from the piece:
“China has ordered its media to report only positive news.”
“Media controls have been tightened, Aids activists detained and NGOs shut down.”
“Chen Shuqing, who is a founder member of the banned China Democracy party, suffered the toughest punishment meted out so far when he was found guilty on Thursday of “inciting people to overthrow the government”. 4 years in the big house. Read more here and here.
“The domestic media have been banned from conducting independent investigations of food and product safety stories.”
During the four day Beijing car ban, journalists “can only report on the improvements to the environment and transportation. Interviews with inconvenienced commuters or images of overcrowded buses are forbidden.” More on the car ban here.
Media is also forbidden to report “on the collapse of a bridge in southern China which killed at least 41 people. Reporters said local officials punched them and chased them from the scene of Monday’s disaster.”
I mean, really… The face that China is trying to put on for the world is becoming increasingly transparent, as new media keeps finding innovative ways to circumvent the Chinese censors.
But you gotta admit, these days China’s mask is being torn off a lot more frequently than it used to be.
I think hitting the front page of Digg, as this Guardian article did — well, that certainly counts as an public unmasking in my book.
You may have heard about the activist Lhadon Tethong who caused hundreds of black-suited Zhongnanhai officials to simultaneously piss themselves a little while back by slapping this banner on the Great Wall.
Well, I hope the boys in Beijing have an extra change of clothes tucked away in the back office. Ai Weiwei, one of the designers of the Olympic Stadium known as the birds nest has come out and said some pretty pee-inducing stuff:
The Chinese artist behind Beijing’s spectacular new Olympic stadium has said he wants nothing to do with the propaganda for which it will be used during next year’s games.
In an attack on the “disgusting” political conditions in the one-party state, Ai Weiwei told the Guardian he would not attend the opening ceremony a year from now, or allow himself to be associated with either the government or the games.
“I would rather be disconnected or forgotten,” said Ai, one of China’s most prominent figures in the arts.
And indeed he may be in some serious danger of being blacked out from any and all Chinese media if he continues to talk in this manner. But Ai is seemingly fearless of any official retaliation:
It is not opposition to the state, but rather in fighting for individualism and freedom of expression, freedom of human rights and justice … If you read newspapers today you see the problems created by this structure and by the effort to maintain power. It is against everything that human society should be fighting for.
Indeed, retaliation from Beijing anytime soon in this case would only thrust the situation further under the international spotlight. And officials have likely learned their lesson about that.
They’ll probably just keep fighting to restrain the voice of the artist and those like him via media censorship. But it certainly looks like they have their hands full with Ai Weiwei.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 00:00 – 19:33 Or Guinness Day, will be on 17th March. I noticed that in Beijing they're celebrating by having a Guinness price war, with several bars cutting the 60 Yuan plus drink to 30 Yuan. That's about wholesale price when accounting for a little wastage. What's happening in Dalian? […]
