Title really says it all. As monster cities go, Shanghai has got to be one of my favourites — this video is a nice tribute to her.
China Videos Posts
History of China in 3½ Minutes
This is just all sorts of awesome. Created by the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors (bio below), the video delivers what’s on the box — the (abridged) history of China in 3 1/2 minutes.
Canuck expat loses it at train ticket office
Some Gems:
“Chinese people need to learn brains.”
“It’s 2011. Chairman Mao is dead.”
And the kicker:
“See, I’m Canadian, I don’t have to shut up. Chinese people have to shut up. Canada people [sic] don’t have to shut up.”
Bad Teacher, Good Teacher
Caught these two videos during my rounds today. The first comes from the Shanghaiist and shows why China should never trust a Russian screen their ESL teachers: Shanghaiist reader (and tipster), Alexander, explains why appending English phrases with “BLYA” makes videos of Chinese kids viral in Russia: On this video Laowai-teacher (maybe from Russia) teaches [...]
Review: Last Train Home
There’s an undeniable disconnect between being a foreigner in China and being a Chinese in China. Yeah, I know, thank you Captain Obvious. As self-evident as that statement is, it’s sometimes easy to neglect the truth in it and ignore the consequences of what it is to be Chinese in China.
Maybe this is only true for me, but when I first arrived in China I was fascinated with everything. I sucked it all in like a sponge. Every discarded baijiu bottle, weathered shoe repair person, steamy baozi vendor… it was all so noticeable. But after a time these things, and the millions of others of still frames that blur together to form a tapestry of modern China, began to blend into the background as I just got on with living. I shifted from being a curious tourist to a preoccupied resident.
Which is why I’m grateful for having caught Last Train Home, a documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Fan Lixin, as it re-humanized the mass of strangers just off the edge of my doorstep.
Major General Genre, Mao’s apple is far from the tree
There is a Chinese saying, 虎父无犬子, which mirrors the old Western adage “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Love him or hate him, it’s tough to argue that the late Mao Zedong wasn’t extremely charismatic and a commanding leader. The same is not as often said about his grandson, Mao Xinyu.
A new Chinese meme illustrates why. The meme, “Major General Genre”, takes a rambling, nonsensical dialog that Xinyu had with a reporter and applies it to different topics, mad libs style.
Here’s the original interview:
Video: Chinese flight attends shake things up with safety dance
I’ve been on my share of flights where the flight attendants tried to spice things up with a bit of comedy or improv, but this is a first. The video below shows three flight attendants from China’s Capital Airlines putting a bit of a shimmy in their safety instructions.
Video: 2011 Year of the Rabbit
So, it’s a little late and most of us have begrudgingly returned to work, but 新年快乐 fellow laowai.
I captured my own thoughts, photos and videos of my 6th Chinese New Year’s Eve on my blog, and so won’t waste space with a reiteration here.
However, I wanted to share this great short video by Jonah M. Kessel, Paul Morris and Kit Gillet:
China Geeks helping Chinese children find home
Our friends at ChinaGeeks.org have recently started an ambitious new project that I have been meaning to find the time to write about for a couple weeks now. Check out this video for an introduction to “Finding Home”, a documentary that will explore on a personal level the terrible practice of kidnapping and selling children in China:
The film needs all our of help to be made. If you have any means to, please consider donating what you can. Here is a note from the documentary’s director, well-known China blogger (and one time Lost Laowai contributor), Charlie Custer:
Video: “Miss Puff’s Goldfish Bowl”
Here’s a great short animated film called “Miss Puff’s Goldfish Bowl” by Beijing-based director Skin 3 (皮三) and his team at Hutoon Studio. The melding of animation with real scenery and people is great — somewhat reminiscent to Linklater‘s “A Scanner Darkly” and “Waking Life”, though in this the protagonist and major characters are all fully animated.
Neocha EDGE explains the film as follows: “The film explores the feelings a young woman has toward relationships and romance. The main character, Miss Puff, idealizes true love as everlasting and never-changing; a perspective that creates expectations she finds impossible to fulfill as she is torn between feelings of freedom and possession.”
The dialog is all subtitled, have a look:
