From Maria Cereghino at the Washington Post:

The Director of George Washington University’s International Development Studies Program and Cultural Anthropologist Sean Roberts will be available to discuss the growing unrest in Uighur. He has studied the region for 20 years.

The live discussion will take place today (July 8th) at 1 pm ET at the following link……

Continue readingLive online discussion of Uighur-Han conflict

Journalist and writer James Fallows has been collecting various viewpoints about the gaokao (高考) on his blog on the Atlantic. (The gaokao is the infamously brutal, standardized college entrance exam in China.)

I’ve selected quotes that portray various perspectives that I found interesting, or at least balanced each other out.

First off, two obviously pretty-privileged views:

…

Continue readingPerspectives on the gaokao 高考

Ani7ime Studio presents, “Brain Water,” the plot according their Vimeo page:

This is a story about mental pressure. In this story,the kids are constantly forced to bury themselves into their endless homework by those giant monsters behind them. The children’s brains are filled with water that can be heated by tension.If a kid is overstressed,the water in…

Continue readingChinese steampunk animation

My friend Charles who flits between Beijing and Thailand had a recent mishap with a taxi driver and a group of plainclothes police in Hong Kong. Keep in mind that Charles doesn’t speak Cantonese, and that the communication channels throughout this story are therefore pretty faulty.

Here’s my summary of the story:

• He was having problems talking to the taxi…

Continue readingA nasty encounter with Hong Kong’s plainclothes police force (updated)

Invoking nostalgia by:

1. Using a painting style that mimics the days when movie billboards were still hand painted.
2. Borrowing prototypical images of Hong Kong’s rags-to-riches past.
3. Referring to both in the copy and in the images the old Kai Tak airport.

Done by McCann Erickson for Cathay Pacific (the Hong Kong airline)’s…

Continue readingInvoking nostalgia: Cathay Pacific at 60

Highlights from Frank Yu’s presentation entitled, “The Coming Chinese Wave: History, Overview and Trends of Online Games in China.”

There are 3 waves of adoption, all of which still exist:

• 2000-2003: licensing / portals / korean-taiwanese games: subscription to local vendor
  
• 2003-2007: China MMORPGs / communities: free initially, monetization from avatars and virtual goods

  …

Continue reading3 Waves of Online Games in China

Jennifer 8. Lee talks about the spread of bastardized Chinese food around the world, and the origins of faux-Chinese items like the fortune cookie and General Tso’s chicken.

My favorite bit: Her theory how the non-centralized “spontaneous self-organization” of Chinese restaurants across the US has led to more basically-the-same Chinese restaurants as…

Continue readingChinese food diaspora: General Tso, Fortune Cookies and other mysteries

Above: Chocorange‘s latest piece entitled “Peach Alien Opens Bag (仙桃星人开包).” Love the collage of old Chinese illustrations.

I’ve featured his work probably a dozen times now 🙂

Background

• The clip is entitled “President Attacked by Shoe, Leads to War” (总统被扔鞋引发血战) in reference to the event last year when a journalist attacked US President Bush by throwing a shoe at him.
• It was produced by 胡戈 (Hu Ge), the man behind the original egao film, the “Bloody Case That Started from a Steam Bun” (see ESWN’s coverage of…

Continue readingPresident Shoe Attack Meme… Commercialized!

On May 16, BBC reported:

China is building what is billed as its first sex theme park, aimed at improving both the sex education and the sex life of its visitors.

Due to open in Chongqing in October, Love Land will include displays of giant genitalia, naked bodies and an exhibition on the history…

Continue readingChina opens sex theme park, closes said park