From a YouTube channel called "I Am Xiao Li".
Aaaaaand...I'm frankly not quite sure what to say.
It seems to me that it'd work as a language teaching method in the same way that drinking a pint of bitters, vodka, Red Bull and cough syrup would work as an inspiration for vers libre poetry.
But your mileage may vary.
(h/t to Fallows)
Showing posts with label wierd Chinese pop culture stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wierd Chinese pop culture stuff. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Cutting yer Nuts
OK, is this not the freakiest thing you have ever seen?
It's a gourd. Or some sort of dried nut thing. And it's carved. Like, by a Chinese person. It's a carved Chinese nut-dried-gourd thing. Did I mention it's carved by a Chinese person?
Damn. You can find ANYTHING at Rejuvenation Hardware.
Anything.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Shagadelic, baby!
I'm continuing to gape in a droolingly embarrassing fashion at the incredible images coming out of China's anniversary party. The military parade is intriguing, as much for the costumery as anything. Here are the 1201st Women's Militia Battalion and Health Care Cooperative strutting their stuff down Tianenmen Square.
I'm not sure what makes this so delightfully awful. Is it the pink little flirty, skirty "uniform"? The fact that the "girls" have a little teeny, weenie machine pistol instead of a big ol' AK-knockoff like the "boys"? Is it the Carnaby Street oh-so-very-Swinging-London white vinyl go-go boots?
Hard to say, but the commander of the parade troops is on record as saying that the parade was designed to drive home the transformation of the People's Liberation Army from a lumpish gang of armed peasants to a "high-tech, 21st-century" armed force. And I don't know about you, but NOTHING says "high-tech, 21st-century" to me like a pair of white vinyl go-go boots.
I'm not sure what makes this so delightfully awful. Is it the pink little flirty, skirty "uniform"? The fact that the "girls" have a little teeny, weenie machine pistol instead of a big ol' AK-knockoff like the "boys"? Is it the Carnaby Street oh-so-very-Swinging-London white vinyl go-go boots?Hard to say, but the commander of the parade troops is on record as saying that the parade was designed to drive home the transformation of the People's Liberation Army from a lumpish gang of armed peasants to a "high-tech, 21st-century" armed force. And I don't know about you, but NOTHING says "high-tech, 21st-century" to me like a pair of white vinyl go-go boots.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Barbie Girl
Last post I mentioned Barbie.
Odd reference, and I had to think about why I was thinking about Barbie, something I have little or no association with (other than my infamous "Barbie Girl Dance", formerly the hit of battalion dining-ins) typically. Turns out that it combines our adoption trip to Guangzhou, and Missy's new bedroom.
In the process of setting up Missy with her new digs we culled through her toys, pitching many of them into the Goodwill bag, but also finding a few new ones for baby girl. Among them was "Going Home Barbie".
Now you can't go to Toys R Us and pick up a "Going Home Barbie". You can't get one from the dolls-and-teddies store, or at a collectors show unless you're very industrious.
Because the only way to get one of these things is to go to China and adopt a little orphan.
I'm not sure if everyone gets one. But I know that if you go to China and stay at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island you will. It shows up in your room one day, like a pillow mint or fresh towels. You come in and there it is on the TV cabinet or on the desk; perky-faced, slender, blonde Barbie holding her adorable dusky Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby.
I don't know whether Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby comes with eczema, giardia and scabies or whether you have to buy them with the "Social Welfare Institute Disease Playset" sold separately.
I was frankly too stressed and overwhelmed by the mess of Baoxin's disrupted adoption and our subsequent whirlwind week with Shaomei to really think much about Going Home Barbie. I know she got thrown in the luggage because she turned up on Mojo's dresser sometime in the autumn of 2007 and hung around up there for a while. Eventually she disappeared and I can't say I regretted her much.
But this past weekend suddenly, there was Little Miss, clutching Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby. I went to look and there was Mommy Barbie, facedown on the bedroom floor, abandoned for the moment. Mojo explained that she had come across Going Home Barbie and had finally accepted that it was Just A Toy and, as such, belonged with a child. Barbie and Baby were played with for less than a day before they went back into the loose-toy bin on the bottom shelf of the armoire.
I'm not sure where I stand on Barbies in general and "fashion dolls" for my little girl in particular. We have not emphasized these dolls, or the other apparently inescapable preteen-girl accessory, the "Disney Princess", but we have not actively discouraged them, either. Little Miss seems to treat them like any other toy, no more treasured than her stuffed animals, her bike, or her puzzles, and much less than her favorite books, which she adores and will drag around to be read and re-read to her whenever possible.
If that changes, we may have to decide what to do about dolls with the physiques of stick-insects with breasts and permanently deformed feet. But not today.
But what really occurred to me as I stood contemplating prone Barbie abandoned on the woodwork was to wonder what a Chinese toy factory worker thought assembling this doll that would would seem almost a comic-book representation of the history of Western colonialism and cultural imperialism that's often linked with international adoption. Does this silly bit of commercial crap say anything about international adoption? Nothing? Nothing good? Or just nothing at all, just another damn cynical marketing ploy, a politically incorrect misfit toy, the lawn dart of dolls?
What does she know of disculturation, of assimilation? Of the loss of her child's native language and surroundings, what does she care? Does she try to get Ken to go to Mandarin class? To play Hong Kong hip-hop and wear Shanghai fashions? Does she worry that her daughter will be castigated if she wants to date nice Chinese boys as an "ABC" - "American Born Chinese"...and stereotyped by Caucasian boys as a "China Doll"?
Barbie herself says nothing. She just teeters there in her hot pink CFM pumps
and her vacant grin, unaware that her Chinese baby is mingling with the my little ponies and the Little People and Noah's animals down in the toy basket on the floor. Unconcerned about all the things waiting out there for a little Chinese girl growing up in America. She doesn't worry about race, and gender, and hope, and fear.
And Little Miss doesn't either.
Yet.
Odd reference, and I had to think about why I was thinking about Barbie, something I have little or no association with (other than my infamous "Barbie Girl Dance", formerly the hit of battalion dining-ins) typically. Turns out that it combines our adoption trip to Guangzhou, and Missy's new bedroom.
In the process of setting up Missy with her new digs we culled through her toys, pitching many of them into the Goodwill bag, but also finding a few new ones for baby girl. Among them was "Going Home Barbie".
Now you can't go to Toys R Us and pick up a "Going Home Barbie". You can't get one from the dolls-and-teddies store, or at a collectors show unless you're very industrious.
Because the only way to get one of these things is to go to China and adopt a little orphan.
I'm not sure if everyone gets one. But I know that if you go to China and stay at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island you will. It shows up in your room one day, like a pillow mint or fresh towels. You come in and there it is on the TV cabinet or on the desk; perky-faced, slender, blonde Barbie holding her adorable dusky Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby.
I don't know whether Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby comes with eczema, giardia and scabies or whether you have to buy them with the "Social Welfare Institute Disease Playset" sold separately.
I was frankly too stressed and overwhelmed by the mess of Baoxin's disrupted adoption and our subsequent whirlwind week with Shaomei to really think much about Going Home Barbie. I know she got thrown in the luggage because she turned up on Mojo's dresser sometime in the autumn of 2007 and hung around up there for a while. Eventually she disappeared and I can't say I regretted her much.
But this past weekend suddenly, there was Little Miss, clutching Chinese Orphan Barbie Baby. I went to look and there was Mommy Barbie, facedown on the bedroom floor, abandoned for the moment. Mojo explained that she had come across Going Home Barbie and had finally accepted that it was Just A Toy and, as such, belonged with a child. Barbie and Baby were played with for less than a day before they went back into the loose-toy bin on the bottom shelf of the armoire.
I'm not sure where I stand on Barbies in general and "fashion dolls" for my little girl in particular. We have not emphasized these dolls, or the other apparently inescapable preteen-girl accessory, the "Disney Princess", but we have not actively discouraged them, either. Little Miss seems to treat them like any other toy, no more treasured than her stuffed animals, her bike, or her puzzles, and much less than her favorite books, which she adores and will drag around to be read and re-read to her whenever possible.
If that changes, we may have to decide what to do about dolls with the physiques of stick-insects with breasts and permanently deformed feet. But not today.
But what really occurred to me as I stood contemplating prone Barbie abandoned on the woodwork was to wonder what a Chinese toy factory worker thought assembling this doll that would would seem almost a comic-book representation of the history of Western colonialism and cultural imperialism that's often linked with international adoption. Does this silly bit of commercial crap say anything about international adoption? Nothing? Nothing good? Or just nothing at all, just another damn cynical marketing ploy, a politically incorrect misfit toy, the lawn dart of dolls?
What does she know of disculturation, of assimilation? Of the loss of her child's native language and surroundings, what does she care? Does she try to get Ken to go to Mandarin class? To play Hong Kong hip-hop and wear Shanghai fashions? Does she worry that her daughter will be castigated if she wants to date nice Chinese boys as an "ABC" - "American Born Chinese"...and stereotyped by Caucasian boys as a "China Doll"?
Barbie herself says nothing. She just teeters there in her hot pink CFM pumps
and her vacant grin, unaware that her Chinese baby is mingling with the my little ponies and the Little People and Noah's animals down in the toy basket on the floor. Unconcerned about all the things waiting out there for a little Chinese girl growing up in America. She doesn't worry about race, and gender, and hope, and fear.And Little Miss doesn't either.
Yet.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Hey! This isn't a quesadilla...!
I can only imagine the scene at Shanghai's swinging-est Mexican cantina. But apparently I wasn't imgining quite far enough:
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, here, but...shouldn't you know whether you're a prostitute or not?
And if YOU don't...how does the bouncer know?
Ths must be one of those cross-cultural things they don't explain at the Families with Children from China get-togethers. Lion dances? Yes. Kung fu? Yep. Moon Festival? Gotcha covered.
Figuring out whether or not you're a prostitute?
Not so much.
Well...damn.
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, here, but...shouldn't you know whether you're a prostitute or not?
And if YOU don't...how does the bouncer know?
Ths must be one of those cross-cultural things they don't explain at the Families with Children from China get-togethers. Lion dances? Yes. Kung fu? Yep. Moon Festival? Gotcha covered.
Figuring out whether or not you're a prostitute?
Not so much.
Well...damn.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Yesterday upon the stair...
The world turns and folds back upon itself in ways too strange and wonderful and frightening to anticipate.
Five days ago I wrote a post about Hello Kitty bling and what an oddity the whole mouthless-cat-Japanese-manga-iconography business is to me. It was a silly little post, distinguished only by the subsequent visit and linky luuurve I got from the Blue Gal.
Until yesterday. When I got a comment on that post from someone called "Andrew", who was flogging something he called the "chinese life" store on Shamian Dao in Guangzhou. He included a link to the online marketplace for this shop. The minute I clicked on the link I was back in time over a year.
Another adoption mom we know described her time on Shamian Dao as "hazy", but to me it's as hard-bright as yesterday. Lucy's Store; "A House of Love" (in the picture above, center left rear). Heat. Strollers, cheap toys, wierd pointillist stonecarvings of kids, kids and parents, the fraying delicacy of closening exhaustion. Boredom. An irritated but faintly removed curiousity, like the subject of a racking examining the torsion mechanism pulling him apart. A simple comment, and I'm reliving one of the most boring yet strained weeks of my life.
How inexpressibly odd.
You only think you've escaped the past. Then when you least expect it you meet yourself upon the stair.
"...I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
Five days ago I wrote a post about Hello Kitty bling and what an oddity the whole mouthless-cat-Japanese-manga-iconography business is to me. It was a silly little post, distinguished only by the subsequent visit and linky luuurve I got from the Blue Gal.
Until yesterday. When I got a comment on that post from someone called "Andrew", who was flogging something he called the "chinese life" store on Shamian Dao in Guangzhou. He included a link to the online marketplace for this shop. The minute I clicked on the link I was back in time over a year.
Another adoption mom we know described her time on Shamian Dao as "hazy", but to me it's as hard-bright as yesterday. Lucy's Store; "A House of Love" (in the picture above, center left rear). Heat. Strollers, cheap toys, wierd pointillist stonecarvings of kids, kids and parents, the fraying delicacy of closening exhaustion. Boredom. An irritated but faintly removed curiousity, like the subject of a racking examining the torsion mechanism pulling him apart. A simple comment, and I'm reliving one of the most boring yet strained weeks of my life.How inexpressibly odd.
You only think you've escaped the past. Then when you least expect it you meet yourself upon the stair.
"...I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tune in, turn on...
...to "SexyBeijing".
In the sleepless pursuit of all things Chinese pop-cultural - see the preceding post for details - we here at the Fire Direction Center present Su Fei and her Chinese New Year special asking: Beijing man or Hong Kong man - who should I marry?
Yes, I know it's silly.
But isn't it funny? Yep.
I have absolutely no idea how true to either the fact or the spirit of mainland Chinese culture Anna Sophie's creation is. But...she is fun, and she has the goofy knack of getting people to say offhand, stream-of-conciousness things. Smacker? Boo-ya..!
Right now my little girl is a bit too little for Su Fei. But I hope both she and SexyBeijing are still chattering away in a couple of years. I think my little laughing Missy will enjoy this odd sideways look at her Auld Sod.
In the sleepless pursuit of all things Chinese pop-cultural - see the preceding post for details - we here at the Fire Direction Center present Su Fei and her Chinese New Year special asking: Beijing man or Hong Kong man - who should I marry?
Yes, I know it's silly.
But isn't it funny? Yep.
I have absolutely no idea how true to either the fact or the spirit of mainland Chinese culture Anna Sophie's creation is. But...she is fun, and she has the goofy knack of getting people to say offhand, stream-of-conciousness things. Smacker? Boo-ya..!
Right now my little girl is a bit too little for Su Fei. But I hope both she and SexyBeijing are still chattering away in a couple of years. I think my little laughing Missy will enjoy this odd sideways look at her Auld Sod.
Islamist Nutjob(TM) Sweetie Treats!
And what goes better with your Chinese New Year High School Bratzwurst than...
...a delicious Osama bin Laden coconut flavor kulfa ball!
I couldn't make this shit up. I swear.
And don't get me started on the Dick Cheney sourballs...
While I've got you here - let me do a little blogrolling: check out The Shanghaiist for some pretty cool China (specifically, Shanghai) pop culture, news and pictures. And bin Laden kulfa balls, natch. Luuuuuurve the snowy CNY pics here! Joe Bob says - check him out!
...a delicious Osama bin Laden coconut flavor kulfa ball!
I couldn't make this shit up. I swear.
And don't get me started on the Dick Cheney sourballs...
While I've got you here - let me do a little blogrolling: check out The Shanghaiist for some pretty cool China (specifically, Shanghai) pop culture, news and pictures. And bin Laden kulfa balls, natch. Luuuuuurve the snowy CNY pics here! Joe Bob says - check him out!
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