LiLei and Han MeiMei were the two main characters from a series of middle-school English textbooks used by Mainland Chinese students in the early 80s. I’ve unearthed a small wave of nostalgia about them online, including speculations on their love triangle with Englishman Jim Green and an annotated cast of characters.

Then …

Continue readingLiLei and Han MeiMei

James Fallows has a wonderful little post up on the Atlantic entitled, “Workshop of the world, fine arts division.” Mostly his post has some great photos (like the one below) of his trip to Dafen, a fine art reproduction village outside of Shenzhen.

An artist and his “works.”

For…

Continue readingDafen fine art factory district

In the past decade, the pollution in Hong Kong has been getting more and more serious, and most of it is attributable to the winds that bring the haze from factories in the Mainland.

But sometimes, it’s our own fault, or, if you prefer, the fault of the big corporations in Hong Kong, as was the case a few days ago:

…

Continue readingHong Kong steps up and pollutes itself

Featured art!

Mayming (= Semay Wu and Seaming To, two British-born Chinese musicians) collaborated with Michael England (who did the visuals) on “a short movie to a virtual film festival presented by Toshiba in Second Life”:

Michael describes these as stills from an improvisational audio piece: “…I treated it as
a game almost, with each…

Continue readingFeatured artist: Mayming

I recently discovered Charles Frith’s blog, Punk Planning, which details his journeys through China as a planner from the advertising world.

(FYI: In the advertising world, the planner is the bridge between the consumers and the writers/producers. They’re typically the ones running focus groups and interviews, and are responsible for crafting creative briefs to capture the essence of the consumers’…

Continue readingAn ad man explores China

I’m going to tell this story backwards from the way I read it on billsdue, because I have a different take on it.

Part 1: BaoBao BengBeng (宝宝蹦蹦)

BaoBao BengBeng is a safe, candy-coated virtual world for kids. See the video above — there are…

Continue readingSafe virtual worlds for Chinese children?

Great factoid found from a (somewhat old) SF Chronicle article about Alibaba (the China-based company best known for their web service that connects
manufacturers from China with customers around the world) Specifically, how they
get manufacturers in middle-of-nowhere China aboard and online:

“Beneath its high-tech sheen, the success of Alibaba.com relies on
the…

Continue readingThe door-to-door salesmen of tomorrow

Apparently this was floating around the internet a while ago: a YouTube/youku video featuring Hong Kong mega popstar Andy Lau entitled 德华成都演唱会怒打保安救歌迷 (Andy Lau attacks security at a Chengdu concert to save his fan). The video shows:

• The fan clambering towards the stage with a bouquet of flowers.
• The fan shakes Andy Lau’s hand, in the middle of a song.…

Continue readingAndy Lau saves fan; deed shared by fans online

I can’t quite get a good read on this conference, it has a mix of design/branding/art/architecture people from all over, and the scope stretches across innovation, design and brand. It has potential, and isn’t egregiously expensive, and would be good to check out if you’re in Hong Kong then.

http://www.bodw.com

I was clicking through news portal Daqi and noticed this obviously fake yet incredibly evocative photograph:

The author is 麦田精灵 (wheat field fairy), and the picture seems to have been hand-picked from a non-Daqi forum: the 云南信息港 (Yunnan Information Port)’s photo sharing forum. The user profile doesn’t yield much information about…

Continue readingA pseudo-realistic photograph at the frontier of photo sharing