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20 Nov 08
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Farewell… This picture is a not related to the post. (Photo credit: n0r)
When Lyn and I started the Virtual China blog back in February 2006, it served as an online notebook and promotion vehicle for an Institute for the Future program of the same name. And indeed,... |
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01 Oct 08
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find english manuals for your chinese phone Last October I posted on the ongoing scroll of commentary on ChinaTechNews and pointed out the need for a blog to help non-Chinese speaking users figure out their Chinese-made phones. Today, almost a year later, Jeff posted a link to a site calle... |
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26 Sep 08
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A Hollywood moment for the China space programme A Nature article about China’s latest space launch yesterday, the first to cease reliance on Russian spacesuits:
The craft also carries a companion satellite, which will be released once the astronaut capsule is in orbit. Flying in close formation,... |
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25 Sep 08
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Platform for Chinese design ijoi’s Chinese name is 视觉我享, which roughly translates to “I Enjoy Sight.” ijoi is a web platform to promote design(ers) from and in China. They showcase work, conduct interviews and have plans to roll out podcasts (vid... |
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19 Sep 08
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A brilliant approach to P2P lending Qifang and PPDai are both online peer-to-peer lending systems, where you can donate small amounts to people who are often poorer and from rural areas (it is a form of microfinancing).
But where PPDai focuses on the fast and high returns, Qifang takes it a... |
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15 Sep 08
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American dude’s video diary of China Aricsqueen. He’s from America, but living in China. He video blogs a “Shanghai Diary.” His mission is to give an alternative and honest view on China. The news and views typically take a critical position on China; stories include how an... |
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10 Sep 08
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Mokomoko! From my friends over at Khaki Creative (based in Beijing):
An interesting detail: “All MOKOMOKO apparel sizes are Asian standard, which is slightly smaller than European standard. Please reconfirm your order to account for this... |
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28 Aug 08
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Pokemon spotted in Guilin A friend went on vacation and snapped these photos in a kid’s park in Guilin.
Photo credits: Aurelie Glorieux.
They’re made of foam, for kids, and the fathers apparently kept putting theirs kids next to them to take pictures. |
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24 Aug 08
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A sample of Hong Kong’s “private kitchens” “Private kitchen” = 私房菜 = home-cooked or super-traditional meals that are fixed course depending on the day and the restaurant is usually set in a small apartment upstairs; was all the rage in Hong Kong some years ago.
If you’re i... |
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20 Aug 08
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HK Wellcome ad An ad for Wellcome (one of the big supermarket chains in Hong Kong) based on the premise that if the little daughter saves enough, one dollar at a time, that she can buy back some of her father’s time spent at work.
See the ad on Youtube. |
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13 Aug 08
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Pandas pray for your dead computer Aw Guo on IfGoGo:
This is a “panda shaoxiang” version. Shaoxiang, aka “烧香” in Chinese, means go to the temple for burning incense and offering up a sacrifice. The Shaoxiang Panda is a very famous computer virus (worm like) in China during 20... |
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05 Aug 08
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asia pacific photos, 1840-1940 A city wall tower and very clearly, the moat, Beijing, 1840-1860: just one of the many photos from around the Pacific, circa 1840-1940, now to be found online at the National Gallery of Australia’s Picture Paradise exhibition. Well worth browsin... |
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04 Aug 08
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A hip, British take on 西游记 (Western Journey) “With music by Damon Albarn, and imagery by Jamie Hewlett — the duo that brought us the Gorillaz — I am loving BBC Sport’s marketing campaign for the Chinese Olympics.”
Via Drawn. |
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02 Aug 08
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birds nest, night scene Kind of gorgeous, isn’t it?
(Regin@s photostream on Flickr, via beijingolympics FriendFeed stream) |
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31 Jul 08
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Farmer’s Olympic “bird nest”? You’ve all seen the Beijing National Stadium by now…
But have you seen this farmer creation?
(Actually, Aw Guo guesses that a farmer made it. We don’t know for sure.)
Via IfGoGo (originally from Xiaonei). |
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29 Jul 08
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Global Lives China: documentary help wanted Global Lives wants to film 24 hours in the life of a rural person somewhere in China. Want to join them?
Sorry, only in traditional:
全球生活計劃 英文名字Global LivesProject (http://www.globallive... |
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27 Jul 08
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FriendFeed superheroes: global iconography If you join new social networking/web 2.0 things as research for work, you tend to find the same friends and acquaintances there. For me that group includes Howard Rheingold, my IFTF colleague Sean Ness, Jerry Michalski, and a group o... |
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24 Jul 08
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A false alarm over the death of traditional Chinese Two calls to sign this petition have been floating around my inbox recently:
Being from Hong Kong, I quickly submitted my name to support this cause. Thoughts stirred in my head: What was the UN doing? Is this a signal for Taiwan? Does this mean Hong... |
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22 Jul 08
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virtual worlds in china, association I’m interested in virtuality, experience, and culture; Zafka Zhang is a metaverse researcher, blogger, and evangelist, directs research at China’s virtual world HiPiHi, and according to his Twitterstream, recently started his own youth... |
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22 Jul 08
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global lifecasting: Justin.TV gets Chinese characters I’m doing some interviews with people who are playing with different reality media, and Justin.TV is a great example. The site recently got its one millionth user. Most are like me, I’m guessing, and just sign up so they can navigate the sit... |
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15 Jul 08
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Indigenous Chinese, the Fuloong mini computer We reported over a year ago on the release of the first mini-PC based on a China-developed processor. But according to Fool’s Mountain, it seems like that it either didn’t really ship or perhaps it didn’t register on his radar. So, there... |
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09 Jul 08
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New official site of the Chinese Photographers Association A few years ago I posted on the official site of the Chinese Photographers Association 中国摄影家协会, but that site is now gone and the CPA has a new one here.
You can browse through the Gallery to find the works of professional and nonprofession... |
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04 Jul 08
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online culture and design: Lost Ring blogs For your viewing pleasure: the homepage of some of the players in The Lost Ring (see previous post).
Mei Hui, China
Diego, Spain
Markus, Germany
Lucie, UK
Monica, Spain
Ariadne, US
Larissa, Brazil
Noriko, Japan |
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03 Jul 08
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The Lost Ring（丢失的指环): cross-cultural gaming experience plays out in China The Lost Ring is an early and important multi-language, multi-cultural collaboration in China, and a gorgeous lab for experimenting with culture and virtual expression. My colleague at the Institute for the Future, Jane McGonigal, is the puppetmaster fo... |
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01 Jul 08
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HOMA Libre, Guilin, China Spotted on the web, a luxury concept hotel in Guilin: the Hotel of Modern Art (HOMA) Libre.
They are the only Chinese hotel that is part of the global Relais & Chateaux (luxury hotel and gourmet restaurants) alliance.
Book one of the 46... |
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30 Jun 08
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Featured ad from Leo Burnett Hong Kong Click for full-sized image with translations.
There’s more here. Via Longyin Review. |
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18 Jun 08
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Chinese cigarette art: start collecting now As someone who struggles with a nicotine habit, I have a love-hate relationship with cigarettes. But you could, and probably someone already has, write a book or two on the social role of cigarettes in post-’49 China. Cigarettes were everywhere... |
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16 Jun 08
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Chinese web “participation gap”: response to Jenkins This is an older post from a conversation that happened back in February. But since it’s so interesting, and I did the work of translating it, I thought I’d post it now, months later. Enjoy.
MIT professor Henry Jenkins post on China’s... |
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13 Jun 08
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Entrepreneurship made easy for Chinese people! This plopped into my inbox like a piece of anonymous spam, but who could resist such a beautifully crafted piece of spam:
Title:
创业要简单！创业要面试！创业更要学习！
(Entrepreneurship made simple! Entrepreneurship needs in... |
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10 Jun 08
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Chinese Internet Research Conference, in HK The 6th Chinese Internet Research Conference is themed, “China and the Internet: Myths and Realities.”
It takes place on June 13-14 in Hong Kong. Topics are interesting, and registration only costs 300 HKD.
Go here for full details. |
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06 Jun 08
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A game travels overseas, becomes re-interpreted Mafia is a decently well-known game within role-playing communities. To put it succinctly (see wikipedia for a more elaborate explanation of the game), it’s a game played by a group of people in a living room, where people are secretly assigned... |
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31 May 08
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Post-quake behavior From IfGoGo, by awflasher:
People used to greet with “Did you have the dinner?”, now they say “Did you feel it(the shaking) last night?” instead.
People used to care where their friends live, now they care on which floor do their friends live.
Pe... |
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29 May 08
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Expressions of grief, sympathy, support Rough translations given below image.
Source: 青青春春的秘密花园
Source: Daisy*蓓蓓〓部落格〓
Source: 雪茉莉
Source: PChome forum
Source: Ligaohau’s blog
Link sources: China Vortex, China IWOM Blog, ju690 news. |
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28 May 08
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Art show: Slice @ Arrow Factory About the show:
Slice is a collaborative project that seeks to uncover relationships between perception and movement, ephemeral experiences and the concrete materiality of everyday life.
In “Stop-Action” artist Rania Ho has handcrafted a scale... |
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13 May 08
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Gamers flock to 24-hour McDonalds A friend mentioned this to me when I was back in Hong Kong: Young professionals, after overworking themselves far past midnight, gather in McDonalds armed with… PSPs and Nintendo DSs.
Even though they are strangers to one another, they will get... |
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11 May 08
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Corporate cross-cultural pollination in action Was passing by Heathrow and picked up a pamphlet about…
And I checked the website, which said they were co-hosting “over 800 events nationwide spanning art, design, cuisine, culture, science, business, technology, education and sport [that]... |
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08 May 08
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Re-usable chopsticks are in? This happened several months ago, but I think it’s still worth capturing.
From PFSK:
“While single-use chopsticks may be a convenient option for restaurant owners and patrons alike, there is a small group of Chinese DIY designers and young... |
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02 May 08
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Featured artist: My Little Dead Dick According to a quote from nerve.com on the artists’ website:
“The ecstatically romantic story of Madi Ju and Patrick Tsai (Pat Pat)
tells you everything you need to know about the inspiration behind
their gleeful photography.... |
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29 Apr 08
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A modern phone booth? Spotted on the streets of Hong Kong:
“Wifi available here,” it says
Unfortunately, it’s just a convenient place for the telecom company to advertise that they are offering wifi… for a fee. |
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25 Apr 08
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economists blogging China 2008: you might want to know It’s one of the wonderful things about blogs. You can find really smart people who are blogging their thoughts rather than writing super long, boring reports. And if those people are economists, how great is that? If you are NOT someone who li... |
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20 Apr 08
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Maybe-HK crooks plagarize illustrators & bloggers Plagiarized book alert! The offending item is:
Inside: Tons of illustrations used without permission, and texts ripped straight from the Little Chimp Society site.
The offenders are listed as being from Hong Kong (see here for full details), but when the... |
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17 Apr 08
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Bringing some perspective to the Torch The Olympic torch protests have caused quite a stir online and offline, and that on the whole, I’ve found a lack of balanced viewpoints or real voices from real people. So here is my attempt to mitigate that:
1
Famous Chinese Journalists Oppose the... |
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12 Apr 08
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City’s men (城管) egao-ed on Baidu Baike Headline image from 玩聚 on ju690 (with my translation in white):
The story goes that an officer within Chong Qing city administration (城管) looked up 城管 (city administration)”on Baidu Baike (= Baidu’s Wikipedia competitor) a... |
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10 Apr 08
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Olympic ad of the day (TBWA) Cool: TBWA’s Olympic ad for Adidas.
Makes sense? I don’t know — yes, there are many people in China and so I’m guessing the theme is something grandiose along the lines of “standing on the shoulder of billions.” But... |
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08 Apr 08
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Back in Hong Kong… Alibaba ads spotted at the Hong Kong International Airport.
I’m back in Hong Kong for a few weeks, so if anyone here is interested in picking my brain (or chatting) over a cup of tea/coffee, drop me a line. |
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01 Apr 08
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The internet police is cute (and male). Previously blogged, China’s Internet Police, and now back with new animated, region-customized imagery. They float on-screen, on the bottom left, to show they’re watching. They also sometimes get in the way of the text (which I don’t... |
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31 Mar 08
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cross-cultural design: Chinese and Australian collaboration This looks like a very cool undertaking. Collabor8 (C8) is an 8 week project that will run from the 28th of April to the 20th of June, bringing together Chinese and Australian designers in a series of online courses and discussions. It’s being put... |
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29 Mar 08
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Would that it were so: twifan’s microblogging comparison Twifan.com is a Chinese mashup that searches posts and users on two of China’s microblogging sites, Jiwai.de and Fanfou. Someone there also had a great idea — a comparison of the top 100 most-followed users of Twitter, Jiwai.de, and... |
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28 Mar 08
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Hong Kong’s most famous graffiti artist and typographer Presenting Hong Kong’s most famous graffiti artist and typographer…
And it’s true — I do see his work around town, when I am home. Unfortunately, he passed away in July.
See the Chinese Wikipedia entry about him for more... |
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26 Mar 08
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Net nanny’s mysterious ways In the wake of the clamor over Tibet… BBC News has been unblocked.
Image from BBC News:
I wonder if this move has anything with do with the anti-CNN sentiment* floating around the interweb.
Original BBC News story here.
*In case you haven’t... |
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