a shameful waste of madhouse time

ponderings of a pococurante

a shameful waste of madhouse time header image 4

Illegal Chinese net bars and net addicts: a match made in heaven

August 11th, 2008 · No Comments

OK, so internet addiction is old hat but I am continually amazed by the stuff that people will do just to get their fix. There are other, perhaps extenuating circumstances: broken homes, parental neglect, problems at school—but some young people in China are really falling through the cracks. Read an article about how an [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Movies I’m Watching: Edward Yang’s Terrorizers (恐怖分子)

July 30th, 2008 · No Comments

《恐怖分子》影评:杨德昌的手术刀-搜狐娱乐 via kwout

Edward Yang is, by any measure, a master of the cinema. Like his other films from this era (late 1980s and early 1990s), Terrorizers is a merciless dissection of the lives of the Taiwanese urban middle-class. I’ve been reading a Chinese review/essay on the film, and I think it brings out some interesting [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · movies

Controversial Chinese housing ad: “those worth less than 500,000 need not apply”

July 19th, 2008 · No Comments

售房广告称"50万以下身价者恕不接待"引争议(图)_网易新闻中心 via kwout

This ad for some posh Chinese apts featuring pictures of some poncey-ass Chinamen like you’ve never seen raised some hackles because of its main slogan: those that are worth less than 500,000 RMB need not apply. This got some people pissed off because they might not be worth that much at the moment, [...]

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Tags: China

Woman with 6 paralyzed/disabled relatives kills her own daughter

July 16th, 2008 · No Comments

In Shaanxi province: a woman named Li Chenghui was living with six disabled people. The article title in Chinese might be misleading because it implies that they are all mentally disabled. However, it seems that Li’s parents are both mutes (her father was severely injured in an accident, but not necessarily mentally disabled), and her [...]

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Tags: China

Hu Yang comes out with new photo series on young people in Shanghai

July 15th, 2008 · No Comments

Hu Yang (胡杨) is the Shanghai based documentary photographer that takes shots of people living in Shanghai, in their native environments–their homes. He did a series that got a lot of publicity in the last year or so, it was called 《上海人家》 and showed Shanghainese people (or at least people who live here) from all [...]

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Tags: China · film photography media

Where have all the gringos (of Miami) gone

July 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

Just caught this on iconoculture.com regarding the demographic changes in Miami. As someone that has only been there on vacation, the Cuban and Latino culture was less obvious, mostly because we were in South Beach with tourists from around the world. The rest of what I know is just what I read about anti-Castro folks [...]

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Chinese people’s attitude towards the Olympics has changed (subtly)

June 19th, 2008 · No Comments

…according to an article from Xinhua, as we reach the 50 day until the start of the Olympics mark. The article cites purely anecdotal evidence to say that while everyone is still looking forward to the Olympics, the enthusiasm has been tempered by the natural disasters that have befallen China–the snows, the floods, the earthquakes. [...]

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Tags: China

a nice picture of a cave school

November 15th, 2007 · No Comments

a nice picture I saw at firstpost.co.uk

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Tags: China