Featured cafe: Mr. Sea Monster
Posted on by Jason Li
Mr. Sea Monster (海怪先生), a cafe in Gulangyu (鼓浪屿), Xiamen.
Exact address: 鼓浪屿乌埭路2号
Via Samantha Culp. Photo sources: 1, 2.
Middle Class Losers
Posted on by jinge
On June 4, I was invited to talk about middle class discontent on BBC World’s live program Impact. Since it was June 4, as a self-protection I again spoke optimistically about the future of Chinese middle class. The truth is even my friends and I, considering ourselves part of China’s middle class, often swing between extreme optimism and pessimism about…
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In Defense of Memes Defending Themselves
Posted on by An Xiao Mina
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PDHyUEIqrA]
My talk at the Personal Democracy Forum at NYU’s Kimmel Center
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDDi4Dj-EQI]
My talk at ROFLCon III at MIT
Political memes have been on my mind as of late. It started with ROFLCon at MIT and moved on to more discussions, Skype chats and journal…
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The Online Chineseness Test
Posted on by Jason Li
Village-in-a-city, 城中村
Posted on by Jason Li
From the Atlantic blog, by Dan Chinoy:
This suburban expansion has taken place so quickly that in some places, it has created what are known in Chinese as 城中村 or chengzhongcun, which translates roughly to village-in-a-city: older mud and brick houses and abandoned fields surrounded by brand new apartment complexes. Often,…
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Interview with Marco Sparmberg, Hong Kong-based trans-media filmmaker
Posted on by Jason Li
The following are the excerpts of an informal email conversation I had with Marco Sparmberg, a trans-media filmmaker & content developer based in Hong Kong.
Q: What brought you to Hong Kong?
A: I grew up with the 80s and 90s HK films running at the midnight slots of German…
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Book review: Understanding China through Comics (Vol 2)
Posted on by Jason Li
This is a follow up of our review of Volume 1.
Understanding China through Comics, Volume 2 picks up where its predecessor left of – on a hyperspeed journey through Chinese history starting with the Three Kingdoms era. As before, Liu employs illustrations and diagrams to explain events and lighten the…
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Featured design: Navel
Posted on by Jason Li
Text reads:
- Down the left: “Give me one too!”
- On the right: “Navel is a kid who can’t grow up. He takes his studies, play, love and work seriously and lives seriously around us. He has the heart of someone who can’t grow up, he is every one of us…”
…
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Shanzhai State of Mind
Posted on by jinge
The literal meaning of Shanzhai (山寨) in Chinese is “stockade village on the mountain”, many factories of Shanzhai products indeed started as small underground workshops in marginalized areas. But Shanzhai has evolved from the synonym of low quality copycat to a mode of production so efficient that even the global tech giants have to take it seriously. Culturally Shanzhai is…
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Calligraphic lettering on buildings old and new
Posted on by Jason Li
Spotted in Shenzhen on the west side of the Nanshan district.
Anyone know how the lettering is made (the old and new instances)?