Author: Jason Li

Jason Li is an independent designer, artist and educator. Once upon a time, he studied engineering and ran a news site about fan translations of video games.

Occupy Hong Kong one year later: the coming colonization of cyberspace

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Governments are increasingly playing catch-up and sometimes even leapfrogging ahead of social movements in the use of digital tactics.

A recent paper by Lokman Tsui, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and longtime member of Global Voices, offers a chilling look at how authorities in Hong Kong outdid…

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Digital murals of Cantonese proverbs and profanity… translated

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Digital mural of Cantonese profanity By Ahto

Graphic artist Ahto (阿塗) has just released his second digital mural documenting modern Cantonese in Hong Kong: this time, it features Cantonese profanity. Originally featured in City Magazine, Ahto has released an animated version online!

Kind commenters on the Cantonese subreddit have translated some of the terms depicted above. Here’s a selection of…

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Toy puzzle celebrating the Orochen, an ethnic minority in Northern China

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From their website:

Orochen Forest Family is a children’s wooden puzzle we designed after staying with one of the smallest remaining ethnic minority groups in Northern China, the Orochen. They shared with us stories about their cultural past, taught us the basics of their crafts, and took us into nature to fish and…

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Interesting Times’ recommendations of Chinese indie rock

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Interesting Times is:

A podcast about songwriting in Asia, by Krish Raghav. Twice a month, we ask musicians and bands from across the continent to talk about one of their new songs, and how it came together.

They do a remarkable job of interviewing and featuring musicians from the region, which of course includes the Greater China…

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Hong Kong Anime-Game-Comic Con 2015: merch, toys, mobile games and a Chinese Hatsune Miku

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Panoramic photo of the entrance booths at ACGHK2015
Gundam and PS4 dominated the main entrance at ACGHK 2015

ACGHK, Hong Kong’s closest equivalent to the San Diego Comic-Con, comes hot on the heels of the book fair every year in late July. Attended by a much younger (and more male) demographic, the “animation, comic & games expo” is, in reality, dominated by toys and comics-related…

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Ethnography of Tech

Your surrogate-cool-cousin guide to creativity and karaoke in China

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In case you haven’t noticed, organizational designer and ethnographer extraordinaire Christina Xu has joined us here at 88 Bar. She was responsible for our articles about Chinese people looking at QR codes, Chinese public mascots, amongst many others.

Just today, she’s announced her latest endeavor: Multi…

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Hong Kong Book Fair 2015: a hodgepodge of concepts, publishers and distributors

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Panoramic photo of entry way
The view upon entering the book fair from the main entrance

Unlike book fairs elsewhere, the Hong Kong Book Fair targets the general public. Instead of a fair where publishing companies to get together to negotiate rights and licenses, the Hong Kong Book Fair is a giant discount-books supermarket, where visitors are encouraged to buy in bulk. Many do by…

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Our very own job board for tech/media/design in Asia

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88 Gong screenshot

We’ve been pretty quiet about it, but a while back, Tricia and I got together with our friend Adrianna to launch 88 Gong – the world’s first job board for tech/media/design gigs in Asia. Since its inception, we’ve had over 400 postings featuring jobs from not only China but also India, Singapore, Malaysia and countless other places. Plus, we’ve been…

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Starting Up in Shenzhen

Robots, Diaper Monitors and Putin: What We Saw at Maker Faire Shenzhen 2015

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Photo of Maker Faire mascot

Now in its fourth year, the Maker Faire Shenzhen was bigger than ever. Aside from ever-larger booths and robot sculptures (see above), there was also a much larger corporate presence from sponsors, and, given Premier Li Keiqiang’s recent interest in “maker culture,” probably a great leap in government support. In short, Maker Faire Shenzhen has grown up.

As…

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