The True Agenda of the Teletubbies

Jerry Falwell famously declared that the purple Teletubby, Tinky Winky, was gay because he has a triangle on his head and carries a purse. Now the Polish government is on the lookout for gay Teletubbies. I don't know if Tinky Winky or any of the others are gay, but did you know that the red one, Po, is Chinese? S/he is played by Pui Fan Lee, and can be heard speaking Cantonese in many episodes. Sometimes she does some kung-fu looking moves, too. Maybe it's really the Chinese agenda the Teletubbies are secretly advancing...? Here she is, without the red Teletubby suit.

Intellectual Property Piracy in China

I shall accuse those who copy my designs in the courts wherever they are and plead that justice be done. Those who reprint my books in the belief that their wealth and power will protect them are living off my labor, and that is a situation I cannot tolerate. I swear to fight them to the death, and hereby give notice to the authorities that this book marks a new policy on my part.
In brief, Heaven and Earth endowed every human being with a mind and it is up to each one of us to develop his own intelligence. I have done nothing to stultify their minds or prevent them from developing their intelligence. What right do they have to take away my livelihood and prevent me from living off my own labor?

This was written by Li Yu 李漁, author of the famous erotic Chinese novel The Carnal Prayer Mat, in the mid 17th century. Some things never change.

(Adapted from Patrick Hanan's translation in The Invention of Li Yu.)

"Chinese is too hard and I'm quitting"

To the poor soul who came across this blog after typing "Chinese is too hard and I'm quitting" into Google--hang in there, it gets better!

John Cage 4'33"

"The material of music is sound and silence; integrating these is composing. I have nothing to say and I am saying it." --John Cage



I always liked that last rather "Zen" line by John Cage. Funny they translated it into Japanese rather prosaically as 私は何も言わない。それが私の主張だから。(roughly, "I say nothing at all because that's what I advocate.") I guess if they translated it too directly people might just think it was a mistake.

I didn't turn the volume down as it suggests. I thought it was kind of cool to hear the stopwatch ticking, the shuffling of the paper, etc., and let that ambient noise blend with the noise around me.

Indie China

Tragically misguided British indie band The Crimea tour China hoping to make it big. The drummer says,

"Our logic was simple: if we could be big in China, then it would be big on a scope even The Beatles couldn't have imagined, if only because China is potentially the biggest market in the world. In theory, we could reach a billion people here..."

The crowd's reaction?

I ask one of the crowd, Xi Yan, a 22-year-old who has travelled from his small village in the north of the country to be here, how he rates the performance. "Yes," he says, confidently, nodding. "I think they are good and that they make me feel relax and calm, but I am preferring your Iron Maiden, no?"

The band are also making their album available for free on their website--a better plan than trying to conquer China before the UK, I say. It seems to have paid off, at least getting them media attention.
(From Independent Online)

Sushi View

Ever wonder what it feels like to be a piece of sushi at a kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) place? Watch this video shot from a camera somebody put on the conveyor belt of a sushi place in Tokyo. It was around midnight, and there were some interesting people in there. Be sure to watch long enough to see the back kitchen.

(Via Japundit)

A Chinese Unicorn

The very last entry in the Chunqiu, or the "Spring and Autumn Annals," is this:

In spring of the fourteenth year, in the West a hunting expedition captured a unicorn.
十有四年，春，西狩獲麟

What is the significance? Supposedly, Confucius heard the news and began to weep, saying "Why has it come? Why has it come?" His disciples asked what was wrong, and he said, "The unicorn only comes when there is a brilliant king. Now it has appeared when it is not its time and was injured. I'm pained by this." According to some commentators, this is what moved Confucius to write the Chunqiu--a history that instructs the reader.

(By the way, it's not really a "unicorn." Actually it's what we might call "kirin" after the Japanese pronunciation. The ki 麒 is the male of the species and the rin 麟 is the female. The Erya 爾雅 says that it has the body of an antelope, the tail of an ox, and one horn. I think there is a name for such an amalgamation in English but it's been a while since I looked at the Fiend Folio.)

Coffee in China

There's a Reuters article about coffee in China:

Du Yansheng, a farmer on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, hasn't gone without his morning cup of coffee in five decades, not even during the Cultural Revolution -- when such "mock-Western" practices could have landed him in prison.

There's a picture with the article of the Starbucks in the Forbidden City in Beijing. But notice how the Starbucks logo in the picture is from some hanging decoration inside the store--when I was there a few years ago there was no prominent logo outside, just a sign that said there was coffee being sold. It was apparently considered too crassly capitalist to have blatant Starbucks advertising in such a "cultural" place. Sure enough, recently there has been a movement to get rid of it altogether.

I just had to get a latte there, personally.