I don’t want to sound like I’m being xenophobic towards China or anything, but is it okay to say that I’m not surprised at how Chinese media censored President Obama’s inauguration speech? As someone who hates censorship in any forms, it’s ironic that I can sort of see why they did it, but at the same time I do not agree with it.

Censorship is a mean to hide or prevent information from being known to the common public. However, it just seems odd that the Chinese translation of the speeches are changed, but they left the speech alone in English — but then again, the English speech is already all over the internet, so I guess they can’t do much about it. Nonetheless, I guess the Chinese officials are hoping that most of their people do not access English website or know English to understand the original speech. I do hope they realize that there are multilingual citizens in China, so to censor the information around like that is pretty pointless.

On a more positive note, yay for President Obama! Woo hoo!

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Following the rumor that the Chinese government had banned the Taiwanese film Cape No. 7 (海角七號; Hai Jiao Qihao) from being released on the mainland, comes new word that Cape No. 7 will indeed be released in China. According to the Taiwan-based English language newspaper China Times, Cape No. 7 will see a Valentine’s Day release in China.

Cape No. 7, the highest grossing Taiwanese film of all time, shot to the top of the Taiwanese box office this past summer. In short, the film tells an optimistic love story between a Taiwanese musician and a Japanese model/manager. At the same time, a love story, from 60 years prior, is told through letters. More »

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Gomen ne, I never got around to listing the dramas I’m looking forward to this year (back in the EotY TV Show special), but I finally put together a list of the first-quarter dramas that have caught my eye. Here we go! More »

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The Taiwanese government recently announced that it is finally ending the restrictions it had placed on mainland Chinese singers from coming to Taiwan to record music and to hold solo concerts. Since Taiwan is the place to be if you want to make it big in the Mandarin music world, this move could easily mean the birth of new superstars. It’s doubtful that we’re going to see someone suddenly topple Jay Chou (周杰倫; Zhou Jielun), Jolin Tsai (蔡依林; Cai Yilin), or even “Queen of Cute” Rainie Yang (楊丞琳; Yang Chenglin), but let’s take a look at some of the most promising talents from mainland China. More »

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January 5th begins a month long festival, which turns the city of Harbin into a wonderland of ice and lights. This tradition, which is held in Zhaolin Park, began in 1963 and is now in its 25th anniversary year. Each year, the locals of this northeastern city show the world a culture based on ice and snow. 

Harbin’s winds come directly from Siberia, so even in the summer, the temperatures are only mild at best. Their winter weather boasts below grade temperatures of -25℉, which helps this spectacular event to become one of the world’s top winter attractions. More »

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As most variations of history teach us, one of the greatest threats to an organized body of authority is the intellectual-activist. Of course, there’s the legitimate argument that those equipped with bombs and ill will are the most imminent threat, but what quintessentially drives any dissident – whether or not they’re the “goodies” or the “baddies” – is ideology: a system of ideas they are willing to stake their lives on.

Although my college roommate (endearingly) dubbed me “the angry one,” regarding Mainland Chinese politics, my initial reaction to Liu Xiaobo’s recent detainment abduction isn’t a simple case of hotheaded groans. Instead, I find myself generally level-headed about this situation simply because I feel like I’m not understanding a crucial aspect of it. In other words, something about this has me extremely confused and unable to fully digest the context of this particular case. More »

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Or so says this article. But then I read this article and go HUH . . .

I can understand the reluctance from South Korea’s side. I can sort of understand how some South Korean officials do not want everything to be “Japanised.” However, I can’t help but think, uh, sorry South Korea, but Japanese mangas, novels, and etcetera intrigue me more. Heck, even this entry just sort of proves from my side of the world that Japan rocks in certain areas. I admit that I am more biased towards Japanese products and media than I am towards South Korea’s, but I’ll blame that on my Japan-oriented hobbies. More »

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Everyone in China and Japan, come to South Korea! This article shows how weak the won is compared to Chinese Yuan and Japanese Yen. So weak, that right now would be a good time to visit this place. I mean seriously. My friend’s relatives are going to visit here next week from Japan. They are staying for three nights and four days. The plane ticket and the hotel fees all add up to $200 a person.

That’s a real, darned good bargain if you compare $730 to a three-night, four-day trip to Tokyo back in May. Oi. If only it would cost $200 to go to Tokyo . . . I’d be shipping my butt there for my birthday next month!

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2008 has been an exciting year for a fair number of Asian celebrities. On deciding who to spotlight, I took into account the recent histories of the celebrities’ careers and how 2008 is a good indication of what they stand to gain in the future. And of course, I filtered out celebrities that had any publicized drama, career blunders, and/or scandals; this is the happy section, after all! A couple of these picks may not be the biggest names, but I’m more than sure they’ll be riding their notable upswings well into 2009 and beyond. More »

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Um, wow. I’m actually quite speechless about this. A hacked up Chrono Trigger for the NES of all systems? Why that one? I didn’t think anyone would actually still use the NES in the first place! Well, I know of one person, but she’s not Chinese, so I don’t think she’d play this game and understand it.

And to read that they did the same thing to Final Fantasy VII. Oi. Some people have too much time on their hands! More »

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Apparently some girl in her 20s who lives in Zhuhai, China was left partially deft following a passionate kiss with her man (full article here).  According to the doctor who treated this bitch, her boyfriend, who apparently had “kissed too hard”, reduced the pressure in her mouth and pulled her freaking eardrum out. Holy shit! Was he really kissing her, or sucking the life out of her? He’s probably a 1000 year old freak who needs to feed on people’s lives to stay young. Wait, is her boyfriend fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld?

Anyway, the incident prompted a media frenzy with newspapers in major Chinese cities reporting the dangers of strong and forceful kissing.  China Daily even wrote that “While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution,” This is why I am not big on sucking face. I do like to suck this but I bet it has dangers of its own.

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During the days of November 18-21 my school, Fayetteville State University, held the event “China On The Screen” A Chinese Movie Week. We were shown four films: Shanghai Dream, Still Life, The Drifter, and The World in the language lab in our univesity. I attended all screenings and enjoyed the movies. My favorite was Shanghai Dream. The organizers of the film week were FSU faculty and staff. They included my Chinese language professor, Dr. Hongbing Zhang, Dr. Yali Li, Director of our Language Lab, and Yikang Bai who assists Dr. Li in the lab and teaches Chinese language. Dr. Li worked very hard to ensure that the films shown ran smoothly and she was a wonderful hostess during Chinese Movie Week. I spoke with Dr. Zhang a little about the background of China On the Screen. More »

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The Hana Yori Dango craze is spreading like wildfire with China the next to join in.

It is reported that Chinese network Hunan TV will be doing a remake based on the storyline of Meteor Garden (Taiwan). The producers are hoping to bring on the Taiwanese band F4 in addition to pop stars Hankyung of Super Junior and Yu Haoming in addition to Ariel Lin to play the role of Makino.

While it is all talks, part of me is hoping they’ll do it whereas the other half is like that’s a lot of HYD. The Japanese movie just came only over the summer and Korea has already gone into production with their version. A lot of fans feel the same way but even if they do pull through, it’s not like everyone won’t watch it.

Source: Seoulbeats

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Here we go again - Japan’s ministry of health has ordered its retailers to stop distribution of all frozen beans imported from China, after a woman fell ill eating beans with 34,500 times the legal limit of pesticides. The woman is fine - she checked in to the hospital after vomiting and feeling “numbness in her mouth” after eating a dish made with the beans, and was released following an overnight stay, but given the recent milk powder debacle, the ministry of health wanted to take no chances.

Tests by the Tokyo government revealed the high pesticide content of the beans, which were manufactured by Yantai Beihai Foodstuff in Shandong Province in eastern China. Investigation results showed no problems in the manufacturing process, as the detected pesticide (dichlorvos) has never even been used by the company, deeming the contaminated batch of beans an isolated incident.

Here’s where the story gets even weirder - a pinprick was found in the package, suggesting that the beans may have been sabotaged after leaving the manufacturer. It’s unlikely that the pesticides would have remained in such high concentration had it been a manufacturing error, as the beans are washed and boiled before being frozen, which would have likely diluted any residual pesticides.

Is somebody deliberately trying to soil China’s reputation? While the government has cleared Yantai of any wrongdoing, the damage has already been done, in the wake of toxic toys, deadly dumplings, and the malignant milk powder. It’s clear that Chinese manufacturers need to get their act together and prioritize the safety of their products over the extra bit of profit margin, but deliberate acts of culinary terrorism isn’t helping the cause.

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I’ve got one too many turbos in my car to be seen as eco-friendly, but even punk drivers like me feel the burn on their wallets at the gas station. The energy crisis is affecting everyone, and while gas prices are somewhat subsidized by the government in China, there will come a time when our oil wells dry up. As China is poised to take over the US as the largest consumer of oil, the race for alternative energy is now hotter than a bowl of bi bim bap swimming in Blair’s 16 Million. More »

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Hurdler champion Liu Xiang has been the center of attention in recent Olympic news after he had walked away from his most anticipated race.

Liu Xiang has been the center of attention since the 2004 Athens Olympics where he became the first Chinese man to win an athletics gold in the 110m hurdles. He has also set a world record in 2006 and captured a world championship in 2007. Liu then became more than an athlete but a hero to China.

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China has certainly had her fair share of natural disasters this year. A 6.1 magnitude struck China’s Sichuan province early this morning (NY time). It killed at least one person and seriously injured five others. The Sichuan region is still recovering from the after-effects of a devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake in May. The Olympics is only less than a week away so let’s hope there is no more natural disasters for China (or anywhere in the world) for a long long time. It’s time to send Sharon Stone‘s ass over there to do some cleaning up. Brainless big mouth needs to do some good to make it up to the Mainland Chinese.

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