China Golf Blog (0)
There is a new blog in town. China Golf and has courses from around China featured on its pages. Soon, about 300 courses from around China will be featured on the site with prices, play dates and more.
China Golf : Hainan, Mission Hills, Sanya, Great Wall Golf Tours
Posted 24 July, 2008 in Golf Tours, China Golf, China Sports, China Expats, China Blogs
Boomtown Beijing (0)
My friend Siok Siok Tan is the multi-lingual marvel who, during her tenure with Discovery Channel, racked up a dozen Asian TV Awards as a documentary film director, and producer.
Her latest work, done in concert with students from classes she taught at the Beijing film Academy, is a fascinating pastiche of people obliquely impacted by the economic, political and athletic rush for gold in the 2008 Games.
Siok Siok renders her perspective on the games by examining the lives of Beijingers, so far from the torch run, that neither the western or Chinese media would even bother to distort or propagandize them. But, the stories, some that will move you to tears and others to great amusement, are emblematic of how deeply the allegiance to the success of the Chinese Olympic movement has permeated the collective conscience of a country.
Boomtown Beijing has everything and nothing to tell you about why 200,000 netizens on Baidu and the CEO of Sohu.com, Zhang Chaoyang, are calling for a boycott of Carrefour (France’s Great Wallmart) in response to western reactions to the torch run: It is a less about nationalism than it is about a new-found sense of international belonging, national pride and individual dreams of being able to even a small difference in a fast changing China. It is not a political statement. It is an authentic, objective and heartfelt look at a Beijing ad its citizens that few foreigners will ever see. Tan is one of the few film makers with the cultural savvy to ine and polish these rare human gems.
Boomtown Beijing is showing in cities world-wide and the proceeds are being donated to the Library Project. The next screening is in Beijing. The details from the FacebookFacebook group here:
The Film:
TThe 2008 Olympics Games is China’s debutante ball on the world stage. “ Faster. Higher. Stronger” — the preparation for the Games has turned Beijing into a hot spot of frenzied growth. A 11 year old boy wants to beat the odds to become an Olympics torch-bearer. A road sweeper dreams of staging his own mass Olympics countdown performance. An aging blind athlete makes one last stab at a Paralympics medal before he retires from sports. Together, their stories and scenes of everyday life in the city give a snapshot of Beijing the summer before the big games come to town. Running Time: 70 minutes
Language: Chinese with English subtitles
The Director:
Tan Siok Siok has built a career as an executive producer of international documentaries focusing on the China region. Her executive producer credits include award-winning shows for Discovery Channel and Discovery Travel and Living. Boomtown Beijing is her first independent film. She directed the film with the assistance of her studets while she was a visiting lecturer at the Beijing Film Academy
Tickets:
Pre-Sale: RMB 85 (before Saturday April 19th) Contact: mark at dembitz.com
At the Door: RMB 100
Included in Pre-Sale (1) Beverage with Ticket
Posted 18 April, 2008 in Beijing Olympics, Heartsongs, Beijing, Faceboook, China films, Chinese Media, 中国, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China Sports, China Olympics, In the news, Videos
The Dream Bash (0)
CultureFish Media will host a one-day trio of charity events
Here are five ways to help the event out:
Come to the tournament and shot for one million dollars (HKD)!!
Come to the digital workshop.
Come to the night event bash with Che’nelle.
designed to raise awareness and generate funds for the China Dreamblogue and its associated charities. The three events (YOU CAN COME TO ONE OR ALL!)include:
1. A One in a Million Charity Golf Tournament,
2. The China Digital Media Workshop,
3. The China Dreambash featuring international hit singer and Capitol records artist Che’nelle.
TICKETS HERE!
Golf, Digitize, and Bash for Charity and shoot for $1,000,000(HKD) in our One in a Million Charity Daytime Golf Tournament:
The China Dreamblogue is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of CultureFish Media which seeks to create positive information about China and support educational opportunities for Chinese students.
At the fundraising tournament, which includes a one million dollar (HKD!) hole-in-one competition, the China Dreamblogue tournament will include:
- Tournament moderator: PGA pro golfer and 6-time long drive champion Paul Surniak
- A hole-in-one competition in which everyone can participate for one million dollars (HKD!)
- A cool morning tee off time
- Best ball tournament with a four-man team
- Straggler pairing—if you come alone, we’ll place you with a team
- A long drive competition
- The tournament includes caddy, cart, balls, 18 holes, and a shot at one million dollars (HKD!)
PRIZES:
- Grand Prize: 2-person trip to Hainan Island for a weekend golf tour package at famed Yaolong Bay and training from, and golfing with, PGA pro golfer Paul Surniak.
- There wil be an awards Ceremony and Dinner banquet following tournament including sponsor give-aways .
- There is also a 50% discount rate on all luxury rooms if attendees stay overnight or thru the weekend and daytime Discounted Events for non-golfers include spa treatment, saunas, kite flying, pool facilities and massage.
BUS SERVICE FROM GUANGZHOU WILL BE AVAILABLE!!
China Digital Media Workshop:
This half-day workshop will include information on digitization of press releases for professionals who work in SEO, SEM, online and traditional advertising, PR, new media, social networking, blogging, and other Internet-related businesses in China.
Topics and special features include: Myths, realities and benefits of online press releases and PR, trends in digital online ads, current trends in IWOM, reputation management: emerging trends and existing patterns
All speakers lined-up are experts in their respective fields. The awards ceremony and post-tournament banquet open to all conference participants
China Dreambash:
Capitol Records recording artist and international star Che’nelle will perform live.mYou can dance and party until you drop! 2 free drinks and discounts throughout the night with paid admission.
Discount room rates (1/2 PRICE!) will be available for workshop and tourney attendees and those who party hard.
The day of educationa and enjoyment is designed to raise awareness and generate funds for the China Dreamblogue and its associated charities. The three events (YOU CAN COME TO ONE OR ALL!)include:
1. A One in a Million Charity Golf Tournament,
2. The China Digital Media Workshop,
3. The China Dreambash featuring international hit singer and Capitol records artist Che’nelle.
Golf, Digitize, and Bash for Charity and shoot for $1,000,000(HKD) in our One in a Million Charity Daytime Golf Tournament:
The China Dreamblogue is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of CultureFish Media which seeks to create positive information about China and support educational opportunities for Chinese students.
At the fundraising tournament, which includes a one million dollar (HKD!) hole-in-one competition, the China Dreamblogue tournament will include:
- Tournament moderator: PGA pro golfer and 6-time long drive champion Paul Surniak
- A hole-in-one competition in which everyone can participate for one million dollars (HKD!)
- A cool morning tee off time
- Best ball tournament with a four-man team
- Straggler pairing—if you come alone, we’ll place you with a team
- A long drive competition
- The tournament includes caddy, cart, balls, 18 holes, and a shot at one million dollars (HKD!)
PRIZES:
- Grand Prize: 2-person trip to Hainan Island for a weekend golf tour package at famed Yaolong Bay and training from, and golfing with, PGA pro golfer Paul Surniak.
- There wil be an awards Ceremony and Dinner banquet following tournament including sponsor give-aways .
- There is also a 50% discount rate on all luxury rooms if attendees stay overnight or thru the weekend and daytime Discounted Events for non-golfers include spa treatment, saunas, kite flying, pool facilities and massage.
BUS SERVICE FROM GUANGZHOU WILL BE AVAILABLE!!
China Digital Media Workshop:
This half-day workshop will include information on digitization of press releases for professionals who work in SEO, SEM, online and traditional advertising, PR, new media, social networking, blogging, and other Internet-related businesses in China.
Topics and special features include: Myths, realities and benefits of online press releases and PR, trends in digital online ads, current trends in IWOM, reputation management: emerging trends and existing patterns
All speakers lined-up are experts in their respective fields. The awards ceremony and post-tournament banquet open to all conference participants
China Dreambash:
Capitol Records recording artist and international star Che’nelle will perform live.mYou can dance and party until you drop! 2 free drinks and discounts throughout the night with paid admission.
Discount room rates (1/2 PRICE!) will be available for workshop and tourney attendees and those who party hard.
Offer support as a sponsor.
Can’t come? Still want to be involved? Donate 100 Yuan and someone will shoot for you for the million!!
Just sign up at CFM and we will send details on how to participate from afar…
PRICE LIST:
Tourney (Caddy, Cart, Party, Lunch, Dinner and Million Dollar Shot) 2,500 RMB
Digital Workshop: 1000 RMB (includes lunch) for those in tourney or with sponsor agency (2000 for non-sponsored)
PARTY: 300 RMB Includes two drinks
Million Dollar Hole In One Shot Only: 100 RMB
Dinner–All You Can Eat Gourmet Buffet: 330 RMB
Posted 16 April, 2008 in Chinese Media, Guangzhou, Chinese Internet, American Professor in China, China Expat, Golf Tours, China Golf, Entertainment, 中国, China Sports, China Expats, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, China Photos, Top Blogs, Photos, Top China Blogs List
One of the things wrong with history… (11)
The American iconoclastic lawyer Clarence Darrow resigned himself to history’s repetitive nature, but never stopped challenging the powers to which most of us abandon control.
The British Olympic Team at The 1936 Berlin Olympics
Athletes have long been surrogates for our personal, school, community, and national wishes lies and dreams. We foist on them the responsibility of atoning for our own failures as sportsmen, parents and citizens. And visited on some are the the sins of governments who draft them as unwitting soldiers in wars of propaganda and ideology.
Section 51 of the International Olympic Committee charter, “provides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other area.” That does not stop dozens of groups from calling on he most physically gifted and dedicated among us to end the bloodshed in Africa, restore the Dali Lama to sovereignty, or enforce Chinese intervention in Burma amid a long list of religious, humanitarian and political causes.
Many organizations are calling for a boycott of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing to further their agendas. Many decry China’s denial of human rights while remaining silent as, paradoxically, some governments, namely New Zealand, Belgium and Great Britain are forbidding their team members to speak their minds before, or during the contest, or face immediate expulsion from the games. It is the western pot calling the tea kettle black.
As a former athlete and coach I might bow to tradtion and refuse to dip the flag for the Olympic reviewing stand, but I could never in good conscience sign any document that demanded surrender of a basic human right.
The web’s most articulate journalist-blogger, Rebecca McKinnon, writes with moving precision about the house arrest of Chinese human rights blogger Hu Jia , his wife Zeng Jinyang and the world’s “youngest political prisoner” their 2-month old daughter Hu Qianci. In the article, Rebecca clearly articulates Beijing’s poorly staged suppression of dissent during the dress rehearsal phase of its first leading role on the world stage. It is exactly this kind of scrutiny of the aging, fumbling power-elite that we might lose by disengagement.
To boycott the Olympics, an arguable failure of policy in Moscow and Los Angeles, moves the spotlight off China, punishes athletes in lieu of policies and leaves the average Chinese citizen, denied full access to information, angered and dazed by a seemingly xenophobic west. To even call for a boycott of the Olympics is to give spin doctors an award- winning script full of perfect, indignant replies to what we can only imagine to be true. Engagement in lieu of boycott will enlighten and inform us all. As the chinese proverb states, 拔苗助长 , you cannot help sprouts to grow by pulling them up.
I am hoping that history repeats only by way of expose made possible by athletic achievements–think Jesse Owens in Berlin– and not because of “free world” demands for the conscription of players into a silent Nazi salute to the abolition of free speech.
Posted 11 February, 2008 in Chinese Media, Censorship, Human Rights, 中文, Human Rights China, Beijing Olympics, 中国, In the news, Intercultural Issues, War, China Editorials, China Sports, Tibet, China Olympics, Asia
Bamboocycles! (0)
I have been blogroll diving again! There is a new one in town Responsible China (No, it is not an oxymoron!) and it is worth your attention: Erica Schlaikjer, a trained journalist (She has had paltry internships at: The Chicago Reporter, Crain’s Chicago Business and National Geographic. But, she has never written for OMBW, so….) one of the producers for Entrepreneur Magazine’s online radio show, The China Business Show, hosted by WS Radio, is the author.
She has a bunch of great posts up now and I picked one to showcase that I thought was interesting:
The article is on Bamboo Bikes. It caught my attention because I helped a company create a prototype of a Bamboo baseball bat last year, but it proved too durable and they opted for something that Barry Bonds could break–even off the juice. But, I digress….
According to Erica, China is home to 450 million bicycles and 4.21 million hectares of bamboo and it make sense to combine the two into something good for the environment. And it appears that designers Liakos Ariston and Jacob Prinz, who started Daedalus Custom Bamboo Bikes two years ago after drawing up designs on a napkin, feel the same. The problem is the bikes will be for Laowai or well-heeled Chinese as they cost about $1,250 each. For $1250 a Cantonese would want it to float, double as a shelter, act as a fishing rod, stand-in as an eating utensil and play bootleg MP3s and DVDs. If the truth be known, I wouldLOVE to have one of these, but at my salary it would take three months of starvation.
“The raw materials are sustainable, so potentially make less of an impact on the environment, the designers say. But that’s not the only appeal.”
‘We’ve gained a lot more respect for the material we work with because we’ve had a few accidents on them and generally riders and bikes have come out unscathed,’ said Ariston, 25 . . . .” I get the unscathed bike part, but I wonder how the rider gets a break (no pun intended) from injury.
If it gets cheaper to make it could have a future in China as Erica reports that China’s Ministry of Construction wants to restore bike lanes to their old glory.
Here are some links she posted to bamboo related projects and designers:
Bamboo Bike Project
“The project aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa.”
Brano Meres Engineering & Design
“This is my second home-made frame. This time I used bamboo rods connected with carbon composite joints.”
Calfee Design
“Beginning as a publicity stunt in 1996, Craig’s bamboo errand bike evolves into a well-tested new model for the general public.”
Thanks Erica and welcome to the Sphere!
Posted 10 July, 2007 in China Cool Gadgets, Wholesale Products China, Guangzhou China, 中国, The Internet, Chinese Internet, 中文, Chinese Media, Guangzhou, Internet marketing China, Top Blogs, Environment, Intercultural Issues, Asian Humor, China Humor, Humor, China Editorials, China Sports, In the news, Photos, China Photos, China Business, China web 2.0
One World, Many Schemes…. (0)
A report in the China Daily warns: “China may be famed for fake goods, but don’t mess with the Olympics.” Is this a logic puzzle? I think Beijing will do better curbing Chinglish, getting the gum scaped off Tiananmen Square or getting an accredited degree at Macau University of Science and Technology.
Hey, but so far the Olympic IP patrols have logged 1,556 cases of violations involving souvenirs. This sounds good, but, the goods seized over a three year period have only amounted to about $1.9 million USD and the fines handed out totaled $1.1 million USD. OK, do the math: $1.1 million divided by 1,556 equals about $707 dollars a case. What a deterrent!
In all, 428 cases have been “uncovered” since the beginning of 2006. Here in Guangzhou 428 cases wouln’t close even one of the bootleg speakeasy joints near me and $707 dollars would not be more than a couple of days worth of gross.
The Beijing Olympic body has registered the seven main Beijing Olympic trademarks, including the “friendlies” and they are reportedly moving ahead to register 69 other Olympic trademarks, including the torch design. THE GAMES ARE NEXT YEAR! Somebody forgot this part of the early planning?
I was a bit stunned that the Trademarked products will only add $30-45 Million USD to the assets side of their $38 billion Oympic debt: Licensed merchandise in the last two Olympics grossed about $300 Million and the host city pockets 10-15% of the total. The Backstreet Boys make that much on pajama royalties don’t they?
I think some smart entrepreneur will set up an authentic licensed shop online and smart shoppers will inspect goods carefully while avoiding vendors at the Great Wall that sell watches with Mao waving an Olympic torch.
I bought several “Friendlies” (before their name was changed to the expectorant “Fuwa”) collector coin sets for friends, but made sure they had the goverment hologram and unique certificate number inside. You could actually an offical number provided and verify authenticity and no, the call wasn’t answered in Nigeria.
I did pick up a couple, like the one below, that have no company name and no contact number printed on them, so I am guessing they will eventually have less value than a McDonalds’ Happy Meal insert.
VERY similar to the i-Pod won by D.M.P. and sent back to me by customs:
Everything looks, and almost acts, exactly like the real deal, but the wheel does not turn….
Picture taken with my Macbook–a real one–albeit with a broken screen…..
Posted 8 July, 2007 in The Internet, Wholesale Products China, 中国, Chinglish, Travel in China, Chinese Media, Beijing Olympics, 中文, Macau University of Science and Technology, In the news, Photos, Intercultural Issues, Asia, Asian Humor, China Editorials, China Sports, Weird China, China Photos, China Olympics, Humor
Nothing Funny Happened on the Way to Shanghai (7)
Remember the old joke I shared with you a few months ago about the airliner flying over China with transponder and communication difficulties? Somehow the tower figured out they were trying to ask the time, and they responded with, “If you’re Singapore Air, it’s 1300 hours. If you’re United, it’s one o’clock. If you’re China Eastern, the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the one. And if you’re Dragon Air, it’s Tuesday.”
There were a handful of positive things on David and my recent trip to Shanghai, and one of them was being on time for an interior China flight for the first time in two and a half years. I thought this was a harbinger of good things to come, but I was wrong.
David and I used a China travel service (I’m a very slow learner) to book a hotel in a location that would be reasonably convenient for all the places we would travel to in Shanghai. The hotel and the staff looked like the barnacled versions of rthe set from the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel…
Let me continue to digress. I’ve always had this impression of Shanghai as this up and coming, modern, and sleek city that would someday soon supplant Hong Kong as an economic and cultural mecca for China. Some of my favorite bloggers correspond from here. So I’m hoping that this is just a one-off, skewed view of one portion of this city. Of course, I haven’t been psychologically “right” since my trip to Thailand. I’m currently suffering from gender identification disorder (GID): I compared the women in Shanghai to the men in Thailand and damed if the women dis not measure up. Maybe it’s time for that laser surgery. (on my EYES…)
We quickly determined that there were only two English-language stations on the hotel TV, one of them being a mindless version of ESPN China with replays of snooker marathons. The other channel was Chinese HBO. My best guess is that Chinese HBO in Shanghai has a transmission lag built in for the censors. Unfortunately, it’s about a ten-year delay. If you’re into B-grade horror movies rehashed from the Scifi Channel, well-known shows from the late 70s, or formulaic teenage drivel involving monkeys gone wild, you’re in luck! If you’re a six year old, or were a six year old at the time of transmission, you’ll also be quite pleased. The most recent release we caught was Arthur, with Dudley Moore, who I’m sure would be happy to know the broadcast first started its journey to China while we was still alive.
Our next adventure was the search for that hard-to-find creature, the toothbrush. In Guangzhou, we’d pass 16 hospitals and 14 medicine stores (albeit mostly knock-off products) in the course of two blocks, but it appears that no one in Shanghai takes much for colds or considers dental hygiene a high priority. During our travels, we passed herds and packs of common urban China wildlife: beggars, the RolexDVDbagwatch man, and prostitutes, but no one hawking designer Oral Reach on the street. The nearest drug store in the direction we went was six hawkers, twelve prostitutes, and four beggars from the hotel. Since that accounted for about 7 blocks, we decided to stop at Taco Bell for a well-deserved break.
Imagine our excitement to come from Guangzhou to find a Taco Bell. Instead of finding Tacos, Bells, or the greasily satisfying goodness of its American counterpart, we found a staff of very unhappy-looking Shanghainese dressed in novelty-store sombreros and ponchos. It took me a minute to place their expression, but then I remembered: my mother’s Chihuahua looked similar after being dressed in an Afghan knitted by my mother. Some things are just not meant to be.
We never did get that toothbrush, so we decided we use toothpicks and shirtsleeves, and take a meandering route back to the hotel in hopes of discovering some cultural treasure, or at least some amusement. We passed the Shanghai Grand Theater, which visibly lives up to its name from the outside. It’s has a Maxine’s restaurant with no customers and lots of waiters in tuxedos, looking about as comfortable as the sombrero-clan in Taco Bell, and a DVD/CD emporium next to the box office filled with much better packaged, but 20 yuan bootleg versions of their 5 yuan ($0.60 USD) Guangzhou cousins.
Thinking we might take in an off Broadway show, we checked the ticket prices for Mama Mia!, which was both the current show and our reaction to cost. One seat was the price of our round-trip ticket from Guangzhou, but we assumed that these were really famous, important actors as their names were covered with umlauts.
It was roughly thirteen prostitutes, two beggars, and 11 hawkers back to the hotel, where we wondered if we should order in for dinner or venture back out into the streets. To make a long story longer, let’s fast forward to the evening meal. We did a 180 from the toothbrush escapade and headed in the direction of bright McDonald’s signs in the process discovering that at night the predators become much more aggressive: maybe it’s a night vision thing. After David got a cold milk tea literally ripped out of his hand by a very thirsty-looking man I would have strangled but for fear of contagion, we decided to be more aggressive in our stance. From that moment on, calls for massages and Singapore girls were answered with shouts: “I’m GAY!” (I am not), or “I have AIDS and I am not afraid to use it”, which does flummox these guys.
We did catch a talented street band playing in the midst of all this. But, their repertoire was mostly torch songs, which had enough pedestrians and beggars in near tears to allow us faster passage to a Hunan restaurant, where a culinary self-immolation seemed preferable to returning outside. We stayed so long they turned off the AC to turn us, the last customers, out. So it was back through the gauntlet, where one really never had to buy a massage because of all the manhandling they gave us trying to get us to buy one. We finally made it back to the shipwreck hotel, where we fell asleep watching the end of the snooker tournament.
Several good things did happen on this trip, but that is another post . All of this made me think of my last entry: so what would Buddha do if every person he met in the street was a prostitute, a beggar or fake Rolex dealer?
He’d catch the next flight out of Shanghai. And so we will…..
Just in case you were wondering, Chinglish is alive and well in Shanghai:
Would that it were so, aye?
(thanks to Witty World for the photo)
Posted 5 July, 2007 in Guangzhou, Guangzhou China, 中国, Chinese Medicine, Travel in China, Shanghai, American Professor in China, 中文, Chinglish, Just Plain Strange, Asia, Asian Women, Asian Humor, Intercultural Issues, China Cartoons, Confucius Slept Here, Weird China, China Sports, Humor
Beijing’s Olympic Oracle Bones… (1)
Tim Johnson over at China Rises is busy rifling through the 172* page Confucian journalists guide for the Beijing Olympic Games, but found time time to share some insights on the new pictographs selected for the venues:
These are much more imaginative than those from previous games and are meant to look like ancient Chinese characters of old used on oracle bones and modern day seals or “chops” as some call them. They are named “the beauty of seal characters” which should have been reviewed by the counter-chinglish squad, but I agree with Tim that they look great.
It is a marked improvement over the Fuwa that started out embroiled in controversy because of their similarity to the Japanese Kero Kero (ケロケロちゃいむ, Kero Kero Chime) from a manga written by Maguro Fujita. The characters from the 30-episode anime series on Japanese TV were supposed to be mascots at the Moscow Olympic games of 1980 before the boycott and subsequent employment of Misha the bear. I caught a look at an obscure, but useful, Chinese language learning website called Chinese Tools and saw a post comparing the Friendlies (Now Fuwa) to the Kero Kero…. The Fuwa (Chinese: 福娃; pinyin: Fúwá; literally “Good-luck dolls”) are the mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. They were announced by the National Society of Chinese Classic Literature Studies on November 11, 2005, a thousand days before the opening of the games, but 25 years after the Moscow games.
I panned the Fuwa a few months back when government changed the name of the Beijing Mascots from Friendlies to Fuwa (gesundheit!) bringing good news to folks who bought commemorative coins with the old name inscribed. Why the name change was made so late and why the original announcement was kept so low key is still somewhat of a mystery. China Radio International (CRI) originally revealed the switch and listed the reasons why the name should be changed:
“Firstly, Friendly is somewhat an ambiguous name, which could refer both to friendly people and friendly matches,”(and everyone knows that none of that nonsense is consistent with the goals of the Olympic Games!) a Dr. Li from Lanzhou University was quoted as saying on the site. “Secondly, the term Friendlies has a similar pronunciation to ‘friendless’ and thirdly, the spelling of Friendlies could be spelt as ‘friend lies’.” Dr. Li also thinks Grape Nuts is a venereal disease.
Laura Fitch, a Canadian who works in China as news editor, welcomed the change, saying the name Friendlies sounded “a little bit childish” and “doesn’t really have a meaning.” Laura didn’t get out much in Ottawa, but am I still glad that this was an expat approved switch and that the whole world will now get to say the more sensibly adult Fuwa which sounds similar to the sound made by my Chinese roommate expectorating. Laura, who should have talked to fellow Canuck DaShan first, is working on changing the goofy little term for coach back to “agonistarch” which means “a person who trains combatants for games.” and Dr. Li is lobbying for the Chester in Chester Drawers to be changed to a Chinese given name and he also thinks that Car Pool Tunnel Syndrome could be more easily understood by city dwellers if we talked about taxis and underpasses. But, I digress….
* Everyone esle got a post-it-note. Johnson was given the Olympic tome after his trip to Tibet….
Posted 27 May, 2007 in Chinglish, In the news, cartoons, 中国, Blogroll Diving, 中文, Chinese Media, Just Plain Strange, Weird China, Asia, Asian Humor, China Humor, Intercultural Issues, China Editorials, China Olympics, China Sports, Humor
A New Olympic Blood Sport in China…. (3)
You have your Badminton, your Ping Pong and now, the sport that could bring adulation to the uber-geeks and the athletically challenged propelling someone into the world of endorsements like Yao Ming or Xiang Liu: Rock, Paper, Scissors!
Wikipedia actually has a cheater's guide!!
Now I am not sure how one would train for a RPS tourney, but Matti Leshem, the Co-Kohuna (commissioner) of the Mr. of the US Rock Paper Scissors League, would like to see it become an Olympic sport one day. OK, laugh if you like, but some fast-signing hand athlete won $10,000 clams at the Vegas Championship that was covered by ESPN! Leshem, a Hollywood producer, makes don King look like a hot dog hawker at a ballpark. He acted as emcee for the $50,000 competition with 300 contestants and $50,000 in prizes. This has mad implications for Asian countries who use the game to decide everything from who uses the potty first to what auction company is going to sell your art collection. And move over NASCAR! The sponsor of this fast-paced discipline, where carpal tunnel and joint pain are are analogous to hairpin turn crashes, is Anheuser-Busch. With the best two out of three wins deciding the single elimination winners there is plenty of time for refreshments! And wait until the Japanese get in on this. Americans are already dressing up in costumes (one guy wears red cooking mitts 'cause his hands are just too hot) and I cannot wait for the masters of kitch and mindless game shows to get in on this one. This may be the fund raiser we need for the Blog of Dreams trip across China. Anyone want to code a RPS game?? With a hat tip to Everthing But Hockey
IMPORTANT UPDATE ON THE SOLDIER WHO NEEDED ASSISTANCE. HERE IS AN EMAIL RECEIVED FROM LONE STAR PUNDIT TODAY:
Lonnie,
Yes, a PayPal account did get set up for the Cooper family. You can find a PayPal donation button at the bottom of this page: http://ccooperff.blogspot.com/
Also, CavMom (who helped Mrs. Cooper set up the PayPal account) added this update on Tuesday:
Update - As of 05/15/07: The funeral fund is now up to $3,876.00. Thank you to all who have helped the Cooper family.
Posted 17 May, 2007 in In the news, China Olympics, 中国, Entertainment, Charity in China, China Sports, China Cartoons, China Humor, Asian Humor, Japan, Intercultural Issues, Humor
Intolerant of Intolerance…. (3)
I had an online row with a sports writer who used racist language (or a racist who uses sports lingo) and crude anti-China rhetoric to ostensibly protest the NBA moving into China and not Vegas. He did not seem to follow my logic that the 300 million players here in China (that is a 3 with 8 zeros) could well push back some of the trade deficit dough to us with their enthusiastic support. They love NBA-Ball here!
He basically accused me of being a bigot hater and said that made me a bigot. Neener, Neener. So, I wrote back to tell him I did not hate sports writers as a class of people, just him. I think he needs to follow in the footsteps of other sports writer that have stepped outside of their normal areas of expertise and written books. It could be a treatise on his views of the world outside the borders of his blog: he could call it Tuesdays with Moron*.
*With apologies to great sports writer and author Mitch Albom