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 [...]
Archive for November, 2007
The Sound of Music
The day I lost my voice…
started with a phonecall from my friend:
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 [...]
Australia’s new PM: the Dashan of world leaders?
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 [...]
One Restaurant, Two Menus
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 [...]
Photo of the Week: Hanging Around
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 [...]
Insulation: It Isn’t Just For Heating Anymore
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 [...]
Shanghai Expats: Pay yo’ Bills Online
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 [...]
Ribbed hair bands, for her pleasure
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 [...]
Rediscovering MONKEY
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 [...]
Ode to a Chinese Landlord
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 [...]
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