Cultural understanding; it’s a lot of what this fine multi-authored blog is all about. So, in my latest missive for Lost Laowai, I’ll get straight to the point in trying to help you understand the sociological signage and semiology of contemporary Chinese male fashion.
All right, I’ll come clean, that’s just an excuse for a new cartoon. The subject is the thought-process behind a middle-income, middle-aged Chinese male - yes, men only - choosing clothes. Just remember, peeps, this is to be filed under ‘cultural understanding’, not ’satire’. Ithangyou. The cartoon is one image, which will load below:
I’ve often seen images of the Yunnan rice terraces, but they’ve all shown them as a lush-layered green. This is the first time I’ve seen them at harvest time, bringing to mind the cornucopia of colours that decorate the countryside of my home country, Canada, at this time of year. Be sure to check out photographer Benjamin Kong’s amazing collection of stunning photos.
Entitled “Reflections Of A Bridge Blogger”, Roland Soong’s CNBloggercon speech wonderfully sums up the transition that’s happened, largely due to the Internet, in China over the past five years that he’s been writing EastSouthWestNorth. Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, attendees at the 2008 China Blogger Convention in Guangzhou last weekend were unable to hear what he had to say. But fortunately for everyone, the entire text of “Reflections of a Bridge Blogger” has been posted on ESWN.
Okay I realize it’s been awhile since I posted, but I’ve been in a bit of a coma — a coma created by Ma Jian. His latest novel Beijing Coma is what did it.
The book is about the events in the building to that June day in 1989, and told through the memories of a protester, Da Wei, who was shot in the head and is in a coma as the novel begins. His memories narrate the story of how he got to his present state.
Sounds interesting right? Wrong. It’s heavily political and reads more like a political history textbook. I’m a fan of Ma Jian and I loved …
When it comes to being a lost laowai there are somedays where i feel like i’ve landed on Mars. However, on an equal amount of days i feel like i fit right in and this is perfect. But there’s still one thing i need help with and you are the perfect community for me to ask.
Picture this with me…
You are enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning at McDonald’s with two steaming hot pancakes and a beautiful cup of burnt coffee. You’ve got the iPod in and you’re reading a book you’ve been looking forward to for weeks. Then, out of nowhere, the guy who chose to sit three feet from you when the whole restaurant is empty decides that NOW is …
Well, that was pretty quick. Just two whole months since the worst of the melamine in Chinese brands of baby formula scandal - and tragedy - two of the companies involved in the food tainting, YiLi and MengNiu, are already starting PR drives to build up trust, and rebuild their shattered sales in the lucrative baby milk formula market.
The YiLi ‘rebuilding trust’ campaign has been the most prominent on TV in recent days - here is the video of their ad - and centers on the idea of “Rest assured in Yili” (伊利放心奶粉大行动 is the whole catchline) with various supermarket managers pledging, by touching their hearts, that they are suitably “assured” in YiLi’s products. Here’s a …
It’s not fair to make a judgement call on an isolated incident, but for past two months i have experienced the same situation time after time when dealing with taxi drivers in Beijing. The bottom line is this: I feel like they hate foreigners and don’t even want to try to deal with them.
My Chinese is not great by any stretch, but i know how to get around a city and i have a decent vocabulary. But when i get in a taxi in Beijing they look at me like i’m making up my own language. They don’t even want to try to understand. And when we do get going in the right direction it is awkwardly silent the whole …
I was standing on the street corner the other day waiting for a taxi beside a middle-aged foreigner doing the same. This isn’t uncommon, I live in a rather laowai-saturated area of Suzhou. The corner also works as an impromptu parking spot for people looking to dash over to the bakery, or pick up a bit of food from the long line of restaurants.
As we were waiting, in our awkward expat silence, a car pulled up to park. The only open parking spot was directly behind the other foreigner, but he made no attempt to make way for the car. Perhaps he assumed that it could just go around and park in a …
The other day I was listening in on a class of Chinese students who were taking an evening course in my native language, Swedish. Their task for the day was to change nouns written in singular form to plural, (that is: “cat” to “cats”). This can be complicated enough in English: How do you now that a bunch of small rodents are called “mice” and not “mouses”? In Swedish matters get even worse, since there are five
different ways to mark plural forms.
“So why is this form used for “apple”?”, a student asked.
“Uuhhm.. I don’t know. It just is…”, said I, feeling ignorant
The …
Ever since seeing Beijing’s punk poster-boys Reflector at Xining’s Material Life Music Bar, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about tattoos. This Material Life Music Bar was full of inked Chinese and foreigners; it was the highest volume of tattoos I’d seen in a while and the inspiration for the following rant.
There are two topics I’ve been thinking about: i) Having Tattoos in China and ii) Getting Tattoos in Foreign Languages (especially Chinese or Tibetan).
Tattoos in China
Even though in recent times tattoos have become slightly more acceptable in the Chinese mainstream, tattoos still carry a social stigma. This article from China Daily showcases the growing trend of tattoos among China’s young people, but also hints at the slow-changing …
I was watching this video (see below) of some dude reading a Chinese passage. I don’t know about you, but when I hear Chinese spoken in this way it gives me that nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling. Sorry no, it gives me that I-want-to-kick-you-in-the-nads feeling.
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