Monthly Archives: August 2009
A rundown on where to find weird China news
Aside from terrible traffic, row upon endless row of souless apartment blocks, and a rather brutal family planning system; China’s massive population also assures that it’s never short on bizarre news stories.
And while traditional media outlets are never shy to publish a juicy or scandalous story, a number of blogs have popped up in recent years that do all-weird, all the time. What follows is a list of some of my favourite sources of weird China news.
Twitter documentary by Singaporean filmmaker brings new angle to social media
Dubbed Twittamentary, a new documentary about Twitter by Singapore filmmaker Tan Siok Siok, is setting up to take the term “social media” to a whole new level.
Sexy Space — world’s first SMS worm made in China
There is a silent but ever-present chip carried around on the shoulders of many in this country about the nation’s “what have you done for me lately” innovation sector. Sure, China is responsible for the compass, gunpowder, paper making and printing. However, a little over a thousand years ago, it hit a bit of a dry spell which it has only recently begun to pull itself out of.
And what a way to get back in the saddle–China has created the first-ever SMS worm:
Suzhou info page finally fleshed + Suzhou district map
In any given week I usually get 2-3 e-mails from people just arrived or arriving in Suzhou. As one of the longest running blogs with a focus on living in Suzhou, Google gives me some love and I in turn do my best to pass it along. In an effort to provide information about the …
Olive (Delhi Palace) – Some great Indian food in Suzhou
Yesterday afternoon Maggie came home with the latest edition of MORE magazine, one of Suzhou’s handful of expat-geared mags, and a glowing review of a new Indian food place caught her attention. As a yoga instructor, she tends to be a bit of an India-fangrrl. The review extolled the place as Suzhou’s hidden sub-continental jewel, …
Creating wallpaper
I’ve created a new Flickr set for a little hobby of mine – creating desktop/Web site backgrounds or wallpapers. They are admittedly quite amateurish to the amazing stuff already out there, but I get a kick out of it.
So much of my day is spent designing stuff with a very specific purpose, it’s nice to have an outlet whereby I can let my creativity just go where it may. Alright, how much creativity can there be in a simple textured background? Not much, but the majority of the ones in there now were just quickies. However, I’m looking to dive deeper into digital art, and my first dip is this one:
China, the world’s factory–a photo tour
It’s been a silent couple of weeks around the Tech Dynasty and for that I apologize. I headed off on vacation and spent two weeks desperately trying to pretend computers had never been invented. The vacation was great, but as is always the case, returning to work brings with it a mountain of things to do. While I process that, I wanted to share some photos I came across (via the most excellent All Roads Lead To China) depicting factory working conditions in China. These images certainly put my white collar–or more often than not in this summer heat, no collar–job in perspective.
Trippin on HDR
Well, I’ve been back from travelling for nearly a week now, and am only just getting organized. I plan to post a full summary of my and my friend Cory’s summer travels around China’s tourist triangle, just as soon as I get all my photos organized. To tide things over, here are a few photos …
