八八吧 · 88 Bar

Unicycle + hockey + Hong Kong. (Also note that the field/rink is nestled betweed roaring buses and major roads.)

Thanks to Rachel Kalmar for the link.

I came across a BBS on Sina tonight, images from an exhibition of photos of Chinese inmates in asylums, period unknown, location unknown.  They looked uncannily like someone taking photos through a security camera…but then Jason figured out they were photos of photos hanging on a wall.

For non-Chinese readers, go to…

Continue readinglayers of looking: eerie images of Chinese mental illness

I recently received an email from a young Chinese friend who mentioned being inspired by amateur Welsh opera singer Paul Potts, who won a British idol singing contest last summer.   I’d never heard of Potts, but a quick Baidu search turned up a wealth of Paul Potts videos on Baidu video and…

Continue readingcan we get someone like him? The Paul Potts story in China

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

Danwei and billsdue have already blogged this stuff, but it’s just so brilliant that I have to repost!  China’s most popular indigenous MMO, ZT Online (征途), which is run by a guy who got rich selling a vitamin tonic, is described in a Southern Weekly article that was taken down after its publication online, but…

Continue readingChina’s exploitative MMO: ZT Online 征途

December 26, 2007, was the 111th Birthday of Mao Zedong. Chinese people held various ceremonies to memorize the first Chairman of the People’s Republic of China. In Beijing, over ten thousand people visited Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (mausoleum) to see dear Chairman Mao’s body. In Mao’s hometown, Shao Shan…

Continue readingMao Zedong’s 111th Birthday

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