Del tha Funky Homosapien aka Zartan Dreadnought Cobra drops new ish “Iller than Most” Check it out:
culture
Book Review: Hawkins, Sagan, Zinn and Thompson
I have been tearing through books recently, due to my snazzy iPad Mini. I did a review a couple weeks ago, and I like that type of post, so here goes another one, this time 4 (5?) books and not three. I will review the first three here, and then do the last two – […]
Anren Jianchuan Museum Cluster
I made a visit to the Jianchuan Museum Cluster a few months ago and then wrote a post for Chengduliving on the museum and Fan Jianchuan, the man behind the cluster. If you ever make it out here to Chengdu, visit the Anren Museum Cluster, for my money it’s the best collection of museums in […]
Before I die
Factories will have no workers, just a few people making sure the machines are well-oiled Doctors will never touch a knife, only input the data into a computer Disease will be the scourge of the underclass, everyone else will have their genes regularly realigned Drivers will look up at floating highways, and the tolls will […]
Sovereignty
Recently we’ve been treated to a few events that have brought out the reactions of Chinese netizens across the spectrum of opinion, from the reform-minded to the nationalistic, and what we have read in the state-owned media and in the comments on Sina Weibo helps to shed a bit of light on Chinese society. Chinese […]
Calcified Culture, or Unique Characters?
This essay might sound a bit familiar, if you read this blog, as I seem to be circling the idea of change as a possibility. Last essay I wrote on this topic was Silk Roads and Great Walls, and that dealt briefly with the high-level impediments, this one here is a look at the grassroots […]
A different take on the Wang-Bo Scandal
I didn’t have the confidence to step into the Wang-Bo scandal that has raged across the mainstream Western media (and parts of the Weibosphere) because I just couldn’t confirm anything. And neither can anyone else, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. For the West, the sacking of Wang – or whatever you call having […]
A True Belief
Tom from Seeing Red in China pointed out some China Quarterly essays and one of them is the inspiration for this essay … Few of China’s problems seem so intractable as the issue of the Chinese soul and what morals are available to guide it in the 21st century. The whole concept of a soul […]
China-US Cold War and what we can do about it
Can it be denied that the US is actively engaging China’s border nations in an attempt to contain and control China? It seems pretty clear to most observers that such was the case years ago – Kissinger commented on the idea of containment back in 2005 – but with the recent moves in Myanmar and […]
Dying Cultures
I often wondered if generations before us have felt this same sense of impending doom that our epoch currently feels. I don’t wonder about it anymore because I have come to the sad conclusion that, yes, of course past peoples felt the dark hand of Death coming for them … because it was coming for […]
Buddhism in China
Several years back I was in a taxi cab headed somewhere and the guy sitting in the front seat was a Fullbright Scholar here in China to study Buddhism. I jokingly asked him “What Buddhism?” and he huffed and puffed and got out of the cab. He probably thought and still thinks I am an […]
Excerpts from an Interview with Luo Fahui
This is a companion piece to ChengduLiving’s Portrait of a Chengdu Artist: Luo Fa Hui. Here I put together some excerpts from an interview back in October. Stay tuned next week for more Chengdu artist love, both here and at ChengduLiving.com On China’s Future: -有希望。中国朝着良性方向发展，不是以前那样封闭。现在我们很多人，都有机会和权贵坐在一起。这是大趋势，不是一个政党可以控制的，所以这个是个很大的希望。现在慢慢的改变，慢慢开始尊重人权，尊重人的思想，自由度，精神上的，越来越宽。首先是看着这30年的变化，亲身体会，当年是怎么样，现在是怎么样，随便怎么比。 There’s hope. China’s is moving forward in a good direction, […]
Agents of Conformity
Today I read Murong Xuecun’s speech given in Oslo. The things he described in his speech are clearly happening all around us and I have rarely, if ever, met a Chinese who will dispute much of what he said. In fact, most of the conversations that end up dealing with the woes of China are […]
Ai Wei Wei, prepare for martyrdom
It’s hard to watch a good man go down, but that is exactly what I find myself doing everyday now since Ai Wei Wei’s battle with the Chinese government took over the front pages of a lot of the mainstream media and China related blogs. He is a heroic figure and, for Westerners, his return […]
Why I came to China …
I walked into the Minneapolis Institute of Arts one day way back in 1998 and saw this massive hunk of jade. It had been commissioned by Emperor Qianlong himself to be carved according to the ancient 4th century poem, “Prelude to the Orchid Pavilion,” by Wang Xi Zhi, one of China’s greatest calligraphers. As soon […]
Being a Rock Star in China
I have tried to write about this a few times from a few different angles … here is a story on the Rock Music scene in China for ChinaTravel.net, a long meandering story that follows my friends Proximity Butterfly as they make their way to a show in Nanjing. The rock scene is something all […]
They’re catching on …
In this NYT story, the benfit of mushrooms is being researched by scientists and medical practitioners, one of which called it, “existential medicine.”
Dream within a dream
Last night for the first time that I can remember, someone asked me what I was dreaming about in my dream. I was so taken aback that I answered Battlestar Galactica at first … for some reason i felt it was more appropriate to lie to the two men and two women at the baordroom […]
The death of traditions
It is so hot and humid in Chengdu right now that my brain is bathing in its own liquid, humming strange tunes to itself and sending me images of massive artillery guns firing into the distance. Spengler is a columnist for Asia Times who has derided the Europeans for lacking the courage to face the […]
Three God’s Village and The Hakka – lil Update
I have gotten a glimpse of the historical record of the Hakka that settled in Three Gods Village where I live. They arrived in Sichuan during the reign of Kangxi — first in Longquan (not far from where I am) then eventually in this village. The trip took 4 months from Guangdong where they are […]
i am that i am
reading foucalt’s pendulum has been a three month odyssey through umberto eco’s dream library. i finally fell into the pace of the book, now, near the end. and everywhere i see lorenza, belbo — i am belbo, no i am aglie … the man with the scar was on my flight to chengdu. he chatted […]