Archive for July, 2007

Sometimes you find great music in bizarre places…

孙智谦 on 19 Jul 2007
 
Ok, this one technically isn’t Chinese-related since the piano isn’t a Chinese instrument and there are no lyrics to this song, but I don’t care because it’s a great piano piece that happens to be in a Chinese movie, and I’m rather in love with the piano as an instrument. In fact, if it were possible to marry a piano, I probably would.
 
It’s a scene from a Chinese movie called 十分爱 (which is nothing like its English title. The Chinese means “complete love” or something similar, but the English title is “Love Is Not All Around”). I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I probably will, even though Kozo at LoveHKFilm.com gave it a crappy review. The actor playing the piece is also a musician/singer, so he may have written it himself. Anyway, the piece is very moving, but short. I wish there were more to it.
 

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PMP can do ANYTHING. Really. The reviewers say so.

孙智谦 on 17 Jul 2007

PMP
The Portable Media Player, which can do pretty much anything
 
Check out this Portable Media Player (or PMP - which just so happens to be a very similar name to Sony’s PSP, a handheld gaming system with a similar design). It can apparently do basically anything entertainment-wise, even read novels! I wonder what it thought of Pride and Prejudice. Look at the Chinglish-laden features list below:
 
Portable Game & Media Player integrates such functions as watching Movie, enjoying Music, Playing GAMES, Reading novels, sound Recording, browsing Pictures and Take pictures. Feature : Game Player : Game Emulator support NES, SNES & MD/SMC ( Sega 16bit ), You can run thousands of game which you can download from Internet Movie Player : Support AVI of MPEG-4 format ( DIVX 3.11/4.X/5.X and XVID codec : Sizes : 320*240 @ 30 fps ) Music Player : Support MP3, WMA, FLAC , with Equlizer Camera : Digital Camera Function with 1300K pixel Video Recorder : Record in 320*240 MPEG4 Voice Recorder : Voice Recorde in MP3 format in 128,192 and 256KPS E-Book Reader : Support E-Book in TXT format Picture Viewer : Support JPG, GIF , BMP format Build-in 1G memory, Support Max. 4G external SD card. Build-in Litum Rechargable battery wth 12000mah , Continue Video play for 6 hrs, or Music play for 20 hrs. With Auto Shut down, Firmware upgradable, 3.6″ screen size ( 960*240) TFT , Theme Select, Multi Language support ( English, French, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese ) , Wallpaper changable
 
And apparently it’s a high-quality product! Just look at the customer comments below:
 
  • X-Box Man says, “Very professional! All kinds and all in readiness. Almost you can find every kinds of product in it.” That’s great because I need some more toilet paper, and now I won’t have to go to the store to get some. I can just look in my new PMP and find it!
  • Gunter Maske says, “Humanly design and easy for carrying . You will find every design is close to user’s requirements. Good!” As long as the design is humanly, I’m sure it fits every user’s requirements!
  • S. Yung has problems with self-esteem, but the PMP makes him feel more confident in his worth as a person. He says, “The products have many functions which make me feel more exciting! And all of them are work well ! How perfect!”
  • Guy Mason apparently has this product confused for a pace-maker. “Works so great you won’t even know it’s there ! It works just like it is supposed to!”
 
With reviews like those, who wouldn’t want one! It’s not too expensive, either. If you’re paying in American dollars, it’ll cost you just over one hundred bucks. A humanly design, any product you want inside, self-help properties, and invisibility, all for $110?! I’ll take two!
 
Link to product page.
 

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Your life isn’t as bad as this guy’s, so quit your whining.

孙智谦 on 12 Jul 2007

Peng Shulin
The epitome of a strong will to live, Mr. Peng Shulin
 
From the I’m a loser for complaining that I have to walk across the room to turn the lights on when some people don’t even have legs desk comes this story from China. Mr. Peng Shulin was cut in half by a “lorry” (that’s vehicle exceeding 7.5 metric tons maximum laden weight, but the Brits can’t call it a “big truck”…no, they have to make a new word for everything - Yes, Amelia, I’m making fun of you Brits) back in 1995 and has been bed-ridden ever since. Well, until last year when the China Rehabilitation Research Center in Beijing heard about his situation and came up with a plan to get him up and walking around again. The doctors invented an egg-like cup device with bionic legs for him to sit in so that he would be able to move around. He’s said to be delighted with the new device which the article says is designed to mimic the way his real legs would have worked.
 
It’s pretty amazing, but even more amazing is the fact that he survived the accident at all. The article says it took more than twenty doctors and a lot of skin grafts taken from his head and transferred to his torso to save his life. He only has half of a body left. And the amazing thing is that he manages not only to have the will to live, but the ability to smile. Mr. Peng, my hat’s off to you…
 
Link to article
 

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Nashville is becoming culturally diverse, but it needs to show it better

孙智谦 on 12 Jul 2007

Chinatown
Culturally themed areas are great tourist attractions
 
The southeastern United States has always seemed pretty dull to me because it lacks cultural diversity. Sure, it’s got a culture of sorts with its southern hospitality and cooking, but when people around the United States (and most places internationally) think of this part of the country, it conjures up images of overly-sweet tea and rednecks with thick accents talking about hunting and fishing. Nobody ever uses “diversity” and “the Southeast” in the same sentence. So people tend not to want to visit this area of the country. They want to visit places like New York and Chicago. True, a large part of the draw of these cities is their history and size, but many people like to visit them because of the vastly different kinds of people you can encounter there. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.
 
The good news is that Nashville is actually one of the more diverse places in this area of the country. According to this article, Tennessee and Kentucky share 80% of the United States’ Japanese population between them. And with Nissan’s decision to move its North American headquarters to a suburb of Nashville, the area has gained quite a few more Japanese families. When I go to the mall, I hear a lot more people speaking Japanese than I used to. On top of that, the Japanese Consulate is moving from New Orleans to Nashville this December. That will no doubt increase our Japanese population even more. Nashville also has strong ties to China. I was shown an article in the local newspaper yesterday (Nashville already has at least one Chinese and one Korean newspaper, for the record) that said that China is Tennessee’s third largest trading partner behind Canada and Mexico. And back in April, Taiyuan, China, became Nashville’s newest sister city. So I’m expecting Nashville’s Chinese population to grow steadily, as well. And it’s not just far-Eastern cultures that are well-represented here; Nashville also has the largest population of Kurds in the United States, as well as many people from Africa.
 
So, Nashville has the diversity, but it just doesn’t show it. It doesn’t do anything to advertise it in any kind of way that would make people want to visit. Nobody wants to come see consulates and business parks or play random “spot the person of X ethnicity” games when they’re on vacation. That’s boring. And since the Opryland theme park was torn down and replaced with yet another shopping mall, which is something that people can visit pretty much anywhere in America, Nashville’s only major tourist attractions are seasonal attractions such as sports teams, or attractions related to Country Music.
 
What can Nashville’s do to showcase its growing cultural diversity to the world in a way that will make people take note and also help the city get tourism dollars? I think it would really help if Nashville could establish an international shopping/cultural education district. Several cities in America have Chinatowns, Little Korea areas, Little Italy areas, and other immigrant-related shopping and cultural areas, but the Southeast doesn’t really have any well-planned areas like that. The closest thing to what I’m thinking is Epcot Center in Disney World with its country-specific pavilions, but seeing those attractions carries a hefty admission fee with it. So I think it would really be beneficial to Nashville to open something similar, if not as grand in scale. I’m thinking something along the lines of different cultural offices surrounded by businesses related to each featured culture. For example, a Chinese cultural office surrounded by truly authentic Chinese restaurants, a traditional Chinese medical clinic, and shops selling authentic Chinese goods, all in buildings designed in the traditional Chinese style of architecture. And each featured culture would have its own cultural center and shops done in the same fashion. See how interesting this could be both to locals and possible tourists from around the world?
 
Of course, I’m not a business-minded person, so I don’t know what all would be involved in doing something like this, but I don’t see how this idea could be anything but good for the city. Maybe then when people think of Nashville, more of them will think of it as an interesting place to visit for more reasons than just the fact that it’s the home of Country Music. What could that possibly hurt?

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Jay Chou’s 聼媽媽的話

孙智谦 on 11 Jul 2007
 
This is a great song by a Taiwanese artist named Jay Chou (周杰倫). The song is called “Ting Mama de Hua” (聼媽媽的話), or “Listen to What Mama Says”. It’s a great little song, not at all typical of rap music (in the West, at least). I’m not a huge fan of rap as a genre of music, but sometimes you find yourself listening to things in a foreign language more than you do in your native language because if you don’t know the words, you can’t be offended or irritated, right? So I looked up the words to this one and found an English translation, and the lyrics are actually pretty touching and wise. Click here for the lyrics in Chinese characters, pinyin, and English. Enjoy!
 
Link to the song’s lyrics for those who are too lazy to read the paragraph above

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Another win for traditional Chinese medicine

孙智谦 on 11 Jul 2007

Chinese herbs
Look at all that natural goodness!
 
The West is a pill-popping, man-made-medicine-obsessed culture. We’ve got pills to treat everything from headaches to upset stomach to erectile dysfunction, and it seems like most of the Western world likes it that way. Often when I hear traditional Chinese medicine mentioned, it gets kind of brushed aside and scoffed at by Westerners. And I can’t with any honesty claim that I’m not susceptible to my native culture; I’m guilty, too, sometimes.
 
But when you think about it, natural cures for common health problems and disease make sense. We’re made up of the elements found on earth, so why wouldn’t natural things help us balance out our bodies and minds? That’s why I find traditional Chinese Medicine so fascinating; it just makes sense.
 
I came across this article on Chinese Medicine News a little while ago, and I thought it was interesting. The short of it is that a traditional Chinese medicine (加味逍遙散 , Jia Wei Xiao Yao San, or “wandering free” ) used as far back as the Song Dynasty to treat muscular pain, dizziness, uneasiness, hot flashes, extreme sweating, insomnia, decreasing appetite and abnormal menstrual symptoms has been found to be effective in treating depression and various types of anxiety as well. There’s a lot more to the article (mostly medical research mumbo-jumbo), so I’ll just let it go and post the link below. The point is that it’s cool to see another example of how natural cures can be just as effective as man-made ones, and probably without all the side effects, too.
 
Link to original article
 

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Xiaoxiang Morning Post editor lets his six-year-old choose what to report…

孙智谦 on 11 Jul 2007

Shaved dog
A face not even a mother could love…
 
Okay, so that’s not really what’s going on, but the story that prompted this post is lame. I found it on China Daily’s website in the “Odd News” section, and it was taken from the newspaper mentioned in the post title. Here’s the story in its entirety:
 
A pet dog is so distressed at losing all his fur that he has become rebellious.Its owner Liu Lin in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, thought it was a good idea to have the dog shaved of all his fur to make him comfortable in the hot summer days, but Si Si is not pleased.He has been making this known to Liu by hiding under the sofas, beds and tables and by eating very little. He is now under a vet’s care.
 
How exactly is this news-worthy?! And how is it odd? This is exactly the kind of story your six-year-old neighbor would come up to you and tell you while you’re in your garage working hard on something that takes a lot of concentration not to mess up, expecting you to be totally enthralled. Of course, with a child you pretend to be absolutely taken by the story and even ask her questions about it so as not to break her little spirit, which causes you to totally mess up whatever you’re doing so that you have to start over again. But we’re adults here (or at least, I’m assuming China Daily editors are adults, but I’m starting to wonder after this article was posted), so I can be honest. This is neither news-worthy nor interesting. It also kind of reminds me of the guy you know who comes up and says, “Hey, guess what?!” and then proceeds to tell you the most irrelevant story of your entire life with a gleeful expression typically reserved for a lion who’s about to pounce on two mating wildebeests. You keep waiting for him to throw in an explosion or bank robbery or something else that would make the story cool, but it never comes. You just make up some excuse to go back in your house and close the garage door.
 
Nice “journalism”, China Daily. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that China Daily considers this news, or the fact that they’re the second news outlet to consider this news.
 
Link to original article
 

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A rare moment when reality TV is worth a darn (darn = 0.01 cent)

孙智谦 on 10 Jul 2007

My friend who’s also learning Chinese sent me these two videos a few minutes ago, and I thought I’d post links to them here mainly because it’s amazing how much difference it can make when a singer is passionate about a song versus when the person is not. Now, I’m a big fan of Stefanie Sun (孙燕姿) over all (not particularly this song), but this amateur from a Taiwanese version of American Idol blows her out of the water with his version of this song.
 
Here’s the original version of the song with music video, which appears to be about an obsessive, wannabe-Riverdancer fan of hers getting dumped by her boyfriend for being a weirdo:

 
And here’s Yang Zong Wei’s (杨宗纬) version. He puts a lot more into it, I think, as is evident by all the crying girls. Whether you like the song or style of music or not, you have to admire how well he sings the song. Just try to ignore the fact that he looks like he’s trying to pass a kidney stone while he sings.
 

 
P.S. - Will somebody please kill off “reality television” once and for all?!

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Chinese products are really starting to freak me out

孙智谦 on 10 Jul 2007

Zheng XiaoYu
Good night, Mr. Zheng.
 
People joke a lot about how pretty much everything is made in China, and that used to be an ok thing. But recently the “Made in China” label is starting to carry a pretty scary stigma along with it. The largest pet food recall in United States history was recently caused by Chinese ingredients being tainted with deadly chemicals. As recently as two weeks ago, Wal-Mart had to recall certain baby bibs in China because it was found that they contained large amounts of lead. That’s always good, lead in stuff that will be close to a child’s mouth…In Panama in recent years, over 100 people have died because of taking drugs made with bogus ingredients made in Chinese factories. There’s also some worry that Chinese ingredients contained in some medicines sold in the U.S. aren’t safe. And I’ve heard several people in the last several months talk about Chinese goods in general being of poor quality. So it looks like Chinese products have a lot to answer for in the world in general.
 
And even within China, the Made in China label may come under fire if Beijing doesn’t do something to stop the problems. According to this Reuters article, more than half of the bottled water in Beijing has recently been found to be counterfeit, either being tap water with fake safety seals or some other inferior water product. China is also probing what’s called the “Chelsea Clinton Weight loss Patch”, a ridiculous product that is claimed to have helped Chelsea Clinton lose 26.5 pounds in a month. The patch is supposedly imported from America but is in fact made in China. Its instructions tell consumers to “stick the patch to the area of the body where they want to lose weight and then just wait for the fat to flow out of them.” Only it’s not their body fat that starts flowing but some kind of oil that, when it gets hot, starts to melt and flow from the patch itself. And it’s not a unique product; herbal health foods and tonics claiming to help fight everything from baldness to impotence to concentration problems are extremely popular in China, but most of them aren’t very well regulated and could be really dangerous. Who knows how many people have had serious health problems because of using these fake products, whose manufacturers are driven by greed?
 
As I said earlier, all of this is really starting to harm China’s already not-so-stellar reputation in the world. So what’s Beijing doing about all of this? What are they doing to help stop the spread of these bogus products and keep people safe? Well, they seem to be straying a bit from their typical policy of childlike cover up and denial (“Billy, did you eat my powdered-sugar donuts?” Billy wipes his white face a bit and responds, “No.”) and taking somewhat harsh action. Just yesterday Mr. Zheng XiaoYu, the former head of China’s drug and food safety watchdog, took a fatal ride in one of China’s traveling death vans. He was found guilty of corruption and dereliction of duty in connection with taking bribes from at least eight companies to approve an antibiotic that has killed at least ten people and also to let other unsafe products pass inspection. And given Beijing’s reputation for being quick to hand out the death sentence, I’m sure that as more people are investigated, more death sentences will be handed down. All I know is, until I hear that China has completely overhauled whatever agencies they need to overhaul to ensure their products are safe, I’ll be a lot more conscientious about what I buy (but I’ll still buy Chinese stuff left and right, I’m sure).
 

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What is “Toilet Culture”?!

孙智谦 on 09 Jul 2007

Asian Toilet
 
I know it’s weird to have two toilet-related posts so close together. I promise this isn’t going to turn into a toilet-humor site. This story just brought up questions for me.
 
So according to the article, Chongqing (a city in China) has erected a four-story, 30,000 square-foot, 1,000-toilet bathroom that features Egyptian styling and soothing music. Now, that in itself is a bit strange, but the quote by one of the area’s officials is what weirded me out:
 
“We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV.”
 
I’m sorry….what? I’ve never heard of ‘toilet culture’. Is it something new? Am I that un-cool now that I don’t know about this whole sub-culture in society? Or is it just a misunderstanding of foreigners’ habits? The place is in an area called “Foreigners Street’ after all. Do they think foreigners make a habit of watching TV when they go to the bathroom? Do you do that? Nevermind, don’t answer…
 
Link to article

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