Usually my posts have a bit of levity, but today I have a more serious cultural question to pose. China is known for its knock-offs. We joke about that long and often. But how is it that world music is not protected?
The Chinese have a long history of creating music in a unique style that appeals to many. Even to those to whom it does not appeal, music from China’s long history is still seen at the very least as interesting and a special testament to Chinese culture. But, of late, Chinese pop music seems to lack this special flavor. In fact, I cannot recount the number of times I have been listening to Chinese radio and heard music, lyrics, …
F: Hi Tam
T: [croak]
F: Hello? Are you OK?
T: [croak, again]
[pause, filled with much muttering at my croaks]
F: You’ve lost your voice?
T: [croak]
F: Are you kidding?
T: [indignant croak]
F: Are you sure?
T: [laughing croak]
F: Oh my God. Is there anything I can do to help you ?
[pause while her brain catches up]
F: Don’t tell me. OK. Text me, text me. Don’t speak!
*****
My friend was characteristically kind in her offbeat Chinese way.
What do I mean by this? I asked (by writing on my notepad) my Chinese friend to help me to buy some “zhōu”, soft rice porridge perfect for eating with a sore throat. She expressed shock that I couldn’t make it myself… well, actually I can but I couldn’t …
George W. Bush earned kudos for speaking Spanish when he ran for president in 2000, and while it turns out his language skills are, at best, “halting to conversational,” having the confidence to use another language on camera in America probably still counts for something. Other heads of state are more legitimately bilingual, and a foreign president conversing in English on a visit to the White House is not all that uncommon (Nicolas Sarkozy is a notable exception).
But let’s see Xiao Bushi, or most any world leader, do this:
That’s Kevin Rudd, or 陆克文, as we’ll likely hear a lot in the future. Australia just elected him prime …
Several times recently I’ve been out at restaurants that I’ve been to frequently, only to discover they’ve been ripping me off for ages.
The trick is a smooth one and I can only blame my unfailing trust in humanity for allowing it to happen. The scam? The Laowai Menu.
Living in a tourism-supported city like Suzhou, even the smallest food spots in the downtown core tend to sport some form of English menu. Perhaps because the menus are quite clearly far-too-direct translations of Chinese dishes (ie. “the pig’s intestines soup”, “couple lung slices”, etc.), I always assumed the prices were as well. However, after recently A-Bing the English and Chinese …
Our Photo of the Week comes from Graeme Nicol, a laowai in Dalian who makes fine use of his camera. Graeme easily has some of the most interesting and most original photos I’ve had the pleasure of looking at.
Every week we’ll feature a funny, interesting or otherwise noteworthy photo here. If you have a photo you think might make a good Photo of the Week, throw it in the pool at the Lost Laowai flickr Group and if you’ve got a great caption for it, send that to us as well.
The Chinese are marvelous builders. Anyone who has been to China and has witnessed its dynamic physical development cannot help but nod in agreement. The Great Wall, the Shanghai subway network, the Starbucks-in-a-Temple - all prime examples of what the Chinese can accomplish when they put their cute little noses to the architect’s grindstone. But in their haste in constructing, well, every apartment I have ever lived in thus far (total tally = 7), they seem to have forgotten one thing: insulation.
Allow me to preface this by saying, my complaint has nothing to do with temperature - I’m plenty warm in the winter and plenty cool in summer (provided my air conditioning hasn’t died inexplicably). No, people often forget …
It’s times like these that I wish I didn’t live in this backwater hole in Dalian… Actually, I’m sure there’s a way to pay your bills online up here too, but likely just not in English yet.
Anyway, all you guys in Shanghai, consider yourself lucky - SHFFT has just created an online bills payment system and yes, Virginia, there is an English version. (Nevermind that their company name sounds like how you’d spell a fart - ha ha, SHHHFFFFTTTT!)
What can I really say to this, other than: if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is her sick and twisted evil half-sister.
BEIJING (AFP) - Used condoms are being recycled into hair bands in southern China, threatening to spread sexually-transmittable diseases they were originally meant to prevent, state media reported Tuesday.
In the latest example of potentially harmful Chinese-made products, rubber hair bands have been found in local markets and beauty salons in Dongguan and Guangzhou cities in southern Guangdong province, China Daily newspaper said.”These cheap and colourful rubber bands and hair ties sell well … threatening the health of local people,” it said.
Despite being recycled, the hair bands could still contain bacteria and viruses, it said.
This is for anyone who has turned on Chinese TV and wondered what (in Buddha’s name!) the monkey, the pig and the monk are actually doing…
I didn’t exist for part of, and was then quite little for the rest of, the 1970s. Which is why all I remember about a TV series about a kungfu-fighting monkey is a kungfu-fighting monkey. So, imagine my surprise when I happened across a Chinese novel, and not just any novel, but one of the four great works of Chinese literature about - you guessed it - a kungfu-fighting monkey.
I then put 2 + 2 together, as countless millions have obviously done before me (you only need to google it to …
What is it - to be usurped? It is not to be transferred. Or relocated. Or even neutralized. Actually, I’m not even allowed to use that last one. It’s sole property of the American CIA. Which is then licensed out for the Chinese government’s occasional Falun Gong crackdowns.
But to be usurped - driven from one’s (supposed) property - does that not seem somehow wrong?
Six months ere, I stumbled upon my first encounter with usurption…Wait, strike that. Back it up a little. My first encounter with usurpation (I know - the first one sounds better. But usurption is not a real word and, somehow, usurpation is. Look it up if you don’t believe me). I was but a mere babe - …
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