Due-East.org

Lu, 妳怎麽樣？

孙智谦 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:38:15 +0000

Lu,

妳好！妳還看我的Blog嗎？我等inLove出新專輯。我給我的幾個朋友聼你們的專輯。他們都很喜歡。你們會什麽時候出新專輯？請留言吧！

謝謝！

孫智謙 (Chris)

Chinglish: The perils of computer translation

孙智谦 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:50:31 +0000

If you’re going to rely on a computer translation to name your restaurant in a foreign tongue, it’s probably best to follow these simple rules:

Know enough of the target language to understand if your translation is at least somewhere in the general vicinity of being halfway near the point of possibly a tad bit close to what even unintelligent people may consider accurate.
If you’re NOT familiar enough with the target language to do that, find someone that speaks the language and pantomime somehow to him that you’re trying to name your restaurant according to this translation. If he laughs or looks disturbed, it’s probably a good idea to try again with the translation.
At least know enough about computers to know the difference between an error message and a valid translation.

Link to source article

Check out Neocha.com for Chinese indie music

孙智谦 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:46:44 +0000

Are you tired of Chinese popular music? I am. Over all, it stinks. I mean, I’m a huge Jay Chou fan, and I like almost everything Sun Yan Zi and Wang Li Hong put out. But for the most part, Chinese pop music - like pop music everywhere - all sounds the same, and it’s all pretty mediocre. No creativity, no individuality. I really appreciate the traditional Chinese value of putting the group over the individual and not rocking the proverbial boat, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. It absolutely fails when it comes to music. Music is supposed to be creative, so just following along with the crowd definitely doesn’t cut it. Thankfully, in every culture there are always those independent people who like to experiment with new sounds and ideas and create something fresh. (Really, if you haven’t checked out InLove, do it. Yes, Lu, I’m always advertising your music!). I recently came across a post at Lost Laowai reviewing a great site called Neocha (aka “new tea”). I won’t go into what the review says since that would be totally redundant. Just check it out for yourself or head on over to neocha.com to get connected with great (and of course some not-so-great) Chinese indie music.

Japan has either huge closets or tiny homeless people

孙智谦 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:59:14 +0000

I wouldn’t mind living in there…

From the ‘only in Japan’ file……If I were a 58-year-old homeless Japanese woman, where would I take up residence? I have no idea, but one lady in Japan moved into someone’s closet. According to the article, she slipped inside a man’s house and took up residence in his closet’s top cubby area one day when he left the house unlocked. Apparently the guy never uses that part of his closet because he didn’t notice anything suspicious until food began mysteriously disappearing. Eventually, he set up cameras in his house and had the images transmitted to his cell phone. The lady showed up on camera, the police were called, and she was nabbed and charged with trespassing, which is a lot lighter a charge than she would probably get in America. The article also says that she “moved a small mattress into the closet space.” How gigantic must the closet be to fit a mattress inside it?! Or how small is the mattress (and thus the lady)?! Either way, that’s crazy. Another cool ‘only in Japan’ note on the article: She took showers at the guy’s house and was described by a police spokesman as “neat and clean.” Hmmm…that sounds familiar.

Link to article

Crazy Korean umbrella hat thingy

孙智谦 — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:35:15 +0000

So your kids won’t scratch their ears?

Well, all the news coming out of China right now is either depressing or politically charged (or both), and I’m tired of posting about Magibon, so I’m back to looking for random stuff about Asia in general. I came across this South Korean product on Alibaba, and it’s so goofy looking that I thought I’d post about it. It reminds me of one of those lampshade cone things that you put on your dog so it won’t scratch its ears or bite its fur off when it’s having skin problems or something. I can’t help but imagine any child wearing this getting blinded by random raindrops splashing into her eyes as she walks through the rain. I also foresee any kid wearing this in America getting made fun of. But I’ve seen some pretty crazy fashion in Asia, so it might just fly there (no pun intended). Regardless, it’s a clever invention, so I have to give the guy or gal credit for coming up with it. Click here to check out its page on Alibaba, with Korenglish goodness.

Chinese video sites: an obnoxiously long list

孙智谦 — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:20:44 +0000




I was looking up Chinese video sharing sites after my buddy teople introduced me to a few, and I came across a great post on Danwei.org with an overly-lengthy-in-a-good-way list of them. Careful not to overdose, Chinese junkies. And if you’re interested in seeing a good comparison of the sites, check out this post on China Web2.0 Review.

Magibon explains why she makes Youtube videos

孙智谦 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:01:23 +0000

I swear I need to start a Magibon category. This is the third or fourth post about her. I really didn’t plan on making any more posts about her, but in the interests of answering the biggest question about Magibon (WHY?!?!), and because I’m way too busy lately to look for anything else interesting to post about, I’m posting these two videos. They’re the entire interview from her debut on Japanese TV, complete with awesome Engrish subtitles.

She she talks more in this short appearance on Japanese TV than she does in all of her Youtube videos combined, I think. And that’s great! And she finally explains why she started Youtubing in the first place: just to see what she looked like on her new web cam. Things just kind of took off from there. Here it straight from her. Two vids below:

YouTube Direktvideo link

My heart goes out to her for being so worried about showing her teeth on camera. She’s a very pretty girl otherwise. Hopefully she’ll get some braces out of this whole thing at the very least so that she’ll feel better about herself. Although I suspect there’s a lot more to her lack of self esteem than just her teeth. Poor girl…Here’s the link to the GyaO news page about Magibon that’s referenced in the second video.

Magibon has made it to Japan

孙智谦 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:02:59 +0000

A couple of months ago, I commented on the Magibon phenomenon and how her videos are both infuriatingly pointless and incredibly mesmerizing. I didn’t expect it, but that post for some reason put the site right near the top of Google’s search results when you search for her name. Apparently a lot of people are finding the site looking for info about her, so when someone in the comments section on that post mentioned the video below, I had to check it out and post it here so that people could find it. I’m not going to turn this into a Magibon news site; I have neither the time nor the desire to cyber-stalk anybody. But the video is pretty great because it shows how far intense interest (some might call it obsession) and the internet can take a person. Here’s the video:

YouTube Direktvideo link

Congratulations, Magibon! You’ve managed to find just the right mix of pointlessness, cuteness, and interestingness (? - needed another ‘ness’) to get the whole world talking, and it’s paid off with what seems like a pretty incredible experience. You’re either one very smart or very fortunate girl; probably a good combination of both. In any case, you rock. No telling where things could go from here…

The world’s smallest girl lives in India

孙智谦 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:49:17 +0000




Wow, I didn’t know people could get this small. The world’s smallest girl hails from India and is only 1 ft. 11 in. tall at 15 years old. Amazing! She seems to have a positive attitude about the whole thing, though, saying, “I am proud of being small. I love the attention I get.” Good for her.

Link to article

Spotlight on Howma.com

孙智谦 — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:44:52 +0000

Learning Chinese is a pretty daunting task. The tones, the ambiguous tenses, the multi-use particles…it can be extremely frustrating at times. And Chinese people recognize that, so when they see someone working hard to learn their language, they’re usually more than happy to help out. They’re also usually really encouraging about students’ efforts. Well that’s all fine and dandy if you have lots of Chinese people around you, but what about people who live in Podunk, South Dakota? How can they get feedback on their Chinese to help them improve their pronunciation and grammar? Thanks to the wonders of the internet, that help isn’t too hard to find.

A new site that I think has a pretty cool idea is Howma.com. It’s designed to help Chinese learners improve their pronunciation using feedback from the site’s community. Basically, here’s how it works: you record yourself saying one of the phrases they have on the site, and it gets posted for the community to listen to. Then, site users can rate your pronunciation on a 5-star scale and leave comments on how to make it better. If you’re too timid to record yourself so that others can listen and critique you, you can always pick someone with a high rating and mimic their pronunciation. Of course, as you practice saying the phrases available on the site, your vocabulary and grammar will improve, too. And Chinese people learning English have the same features available to them on the site as well. So everybody benefits. Pretty cool idea, huh? There’s also an interesting blog with some helpful tips and information for learning Chinese, including a post about different programs for learning Chinese via Youtube videos. Howma.com is in beta right now, so expect some glitches and strangeness, but I think the idea is a good one, and if enough people support it, it could be a big help to a lot of isolated self-learners out there.