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 American got jailed in China for, a watchdog piece on pre-Olympic changes, and a preview of five Chinese rock bands.
The citizen journalist format is interesting , but in this case, sometimes the white American dude point of view has its limits.
I’m late to the show, and Aric’s currently on a break from Shanghai/China.
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.
But why does it stir my emotions? Because Hong Kong people are famously overworked and their children are increasingly raised by housekeepers. A story that touches on both of those at the same time — excellent.
I can’t say much about other countries, but young people in China’s and India’s cities loooove the Fox TV show Prison Break. On the advice of a friendly DVD shop salesman in Beijing (who, incidentally, hated 24 and loved the Sopranos), we bought the first two seasons this summer in China and began watching. We were hooked. Who knew that Fox was enlisting the young urban elites of India and China in a giant conspiracy theory about the U.S. government that lots of them now half-believe…
The site of course has a discussion forum with a special section on original works 原创剧场. There you can find a short story imagining Michael Scofield’s first experience of Sona in the first episode of Season 3 (which begins in the fall), as well as an MV, or music video, done by a Chinese fan, which puts scenes from Prison Break against music. There are tons of these on Youtube made by viewers from all over the world, but if you’ve watched the show you’ll appreciate the utter bizarreness of the words to this sugary sweet English-language ballad (original version by SuperGirl 3rd place winner Zhang Liangying), set to pictures of mortal enemies, scenes of sadism and torture, murder, and the occasional romantic moment of conjugal visits in prison and kisses between long lost lovers. Link.
Chinese man. Builds robots. In his backyard. Some walk. Some pour tea. The latest pulls a rickshaw.
His wife of course, prefers that her husband spend her time more productively and make money rather than fidgeting with robots in the middle of the night, and sometimes burning down the house (happened once — didn’t stop him).
Spotted by the BBC, surprisingly enough. If you don’t want to sit through the entire clip, watch the last 30 seconds.
Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have a DIY/geek community backing him (as he might in the US), especially since he lives in a semi-rural area. This phenomenon is similar to Lyn’s post about the homemade planes, which in the US is backed a small but intense community of "ultralight" enthusiasts. When will the proliferation of the internet in China link up like-minded DIY hobbyists? And what will be the nature of the Chinese DIY community?
We should really start a list of what new services and infrastructure are being promised for Beijing in 2008 Olympics. Here’s an interesting one: live TV coverage on the new subway line. The line:
will have a transmitter every 200 meters that can receive
above-ground TV signals, said Ding Shukui, assistant general manager of
Beijing Railway Construction and Management Co. Ltd….The locomotive and the last carriage on the train will be equipped
with receivers that can transmit signals to the eight liquid crystal TV
sets in each carriage,
Found this on Youtube: a clip from Sky TV from the Internet addiction clinic in Beijing. It’s based in a military hospital and is run military-style–the kids even wear camouflage. I’ve tried to get an interview and a visit at the place but haven’t been able to yet. The part where they set them up with real-life shooting games instead of virtual ones is brilliant!
ChinaTechNews reports that Tencent has partnered with Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL to develop an Internet-enabled,
interactive TV with QQ-branded applications such as IM and games. It’s
called iTQQ. IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is moving ahead relatively quickly in Japan, South Korea, and especially in Hong Kong. It is already available to some Chinese urban residents via pilots such as the one that brought IPTV into the tiny one room apartment of a migrant worker family I interviewed in Shenzhen in 2006. No-one in the family had ever been online, nor did they have much of a sense of what that even meant (aside from a vague idea that their son would have to learn about it to get a job in the future). Nevertheless, they were learning to navigate an interactive screen via the familiar remote control and a new set-top box that had been installed in their apartment by their landlord, for which they were paying a monthly fee. It may be that for many ordinary urban Chinese, virtual China will be experienced in the coming decade not through the PC at home, work, or Internet cafe, not even through the phone–but through the ubiquitous television, so beloved by most Chinese families.
IPTVWorld.net has photos of the recent iTQQ demo at TCL’s Industrial Research Institute in Shenzhen: Intel’s Mobile in China blog posts details: this
new iTQQ TV not only can play TV programs, but also can provide
interactive services for end users such as online game, photo album,
e-cards and instant messagers…aged people can now inquire the working status
of their children through the device even with no former internet
experiences. Furthermore, remote controller can be used to communicate
with the children to know whether and when they will come home for
dinner. Besides, with such an innovative TV set at hand with QQ IM
functions, the end users may share their favorite TV program with
friends instantly…Unlike traditional TV users need TV controller and
set-top-box controller at the same time to switch between two screen,
iTQQ TV users have seamless entertaining experiences with both TV
program and internet value-add service . very impressed !
If you think watching advertisements on purpose is fun, you’ll want to check out the selections at iAdChoice where they rate and recommend Chinese video clip ads, interactive websites, animated ads, rich media ads, and more. You can also search by industry rather than format, as in transportation or health ads. iAdChoice seems to be an arm of iResearch, which has an extensive English language presence, but it’s not the same as the Chinese. If you want to browse and you don’t read Chinese, do this:
go to any of the links above. Currently on the recommended video clip ads is one for the hip Toto Neorest toilet. Under the picture of the display screen for the ad is a hyper link that looks like this:
Click on it and it will bring you to a window that runs the ad itself. There’s also an ad for the iPod Nano available, and a perfume ad for Guerlain. Browse the hyperlinked ads at the very bottom to fine Chinese domestic brands like the sports apparel provides Anta. Enjoy!
China Rises is a website that supports a television documentary series about the current life situation of different citizens in China.The website is hosted by New York Times as part of their ’specials’ and the television broadcast - to watch it, you will need the Discovery Times Channel - starts on the 23rd of October. They also offer a DVD with the complete series.
The series and website is devided up into four themes: Politics - Party Games (which is about the Communist Party’s role in the Olympics), Economy - Getting Rich, Environment - Food is Heaven, Society - City of Dreams.
What I like about the concept and the website is that it provides glimpses of different ordinary people’s everyday life in China. On the website you can read short introductions and see small documentary videos portraying persons and the possibilities and difficulties they face daily.
If you enter the Economy - Getting Richsection, you can for instance meet Liu Yong who is a young woman who works at a textile factory. As most of the other 4000 workers there, she is a migrant worker. Liu Yong is 20 years old and has worked at the factory since she was 17. She tells us that she has gotten use to the 12 hours of standing every day and that she manages to send half of her salary home to her parents in Anhui Province every month. Liu Yong earns what is equivalent to 60 cents an hour.
Entering the section Society - City of Dreamsyou are offered to meet Ma Liang, a successful art director who has his own company producing advertisements for big international brands. He lives in downtown Shanghai in an expensive apartment and he expresses a strong belief in his own future, a lot of dreams will come true he says.
Another cool feature I find at this website is that it has an Interactive Atlas - enter one of the four themes and the atlas option will appear in the menu. You can for instance click at China’s Economy and you will get a list of different options - one is to see a map of the density of Internet users in the different provinces respectively.
If you move the cursor over Beijing, it will tell you that there are 4 million users of the Internet in Beijing.
老动画 offers cartoons from the Chinese person’s childhood (streaming video). There are separate sections for foreign (most Japanese, a few American) works and local works. Incredible resource for anyone who wants a peek at the influences of the new generation.
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