Stories about East Asia from January, 2007
Philippines: Taho Seller
Senor Enrique in Manila introduces us to Jun, a Taho seller. Taho is a popular sweet snack in Philippines and it is made with bean curd, liquefied raw sugar and tapioca balls.
Myanmar: Inle Lake
Bangkok Dazed takes us to Inle Lake, one of Myanmar's popular tourist destination. Inle Lake is a large fresh water lake in Shan state.
Africa: women's rights, Africa and China
Sociolingo's Africa blog has a post about a new book by Fahamu on Women's rights, Africa and China, “The traditional perception of African women is that they face grinding poverty and harsh cultural, traditional and social prejudices. Yet while it is true that African women are not equal to men,...
China: Out of Libya
It‘s [zh] since been disabled, but there was one especially eye-catching post on Tianya, one of China's most widely-read bbs forum sites last month. ‘Save us!’ it read. ‘We've been stuck in Libya for over a year and we're about to go crazy here!’ Racist attitude, seen further down, might...
Japan: winter purification rituals
David Weber in Japundit blogs about the winter purification-through-freezing-water rituals in Japan.
China: economic confidence
China Diligence has an article about certain landmarks / issues to look out for as China makes the transition from “from self-loathing acolyte to over-confident preacher.”
China: population policy
Xueyong suggested that by improving rural women's education, China can achieve a better population policy (zh).
China: Xinjiang watch
A blog that tells you the most updated news about Xinjiang, with daily translation of local news.
China: internet addiction clinic
IFTF from virtual China found a video clip about the Internet addiction clinic in Beijing.
South Korea: alternative fashion show
Jamie from interlocals.net reports on an interesting alternative fashion show in Seoul: The clothes were made and modeled by the women who made them as well as by a number of prominent figures from Korean civil society. The participants from civil society included labour union activists from the largest and...
Malaysia: We Are Not Liars
Lucia Lai takes offence at her prime minister using the term “lairs” to describe bloggers who write negative posts about his leadership. “anyway, what is a lie? how do you define a lie? how can you tell that we lied? what made you think we lied? when we write something...
Malaysia: Upgrading to Vista
Life in a Cube wonders if he should upgrade his computer to the latest operating system from Microsoft. The blogger offers tips to others who might be thinking of upgrading.
Malaysia: Airline Fuel Surcharge
The blogger at Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin is asking the Malaysian Airlines to emulate other airlnes from the region and do away with the fuel surcharge as oil prices have come down. “Now the fuel price is down to about US$50 from the highs of US$70. The jet fuel price...
Philippines: Blogparteeh07 Images
Drivebyshooter has posted pictures from the recent Blogparteeh07 event in Manila.
South Korea: latest development in Daechuri
Days in Daechuri has the latest updates on the anti military base movement in Daechuri: The villagers, exhausted by several years of resistance to government threats and attacks, have in principle agreed to move out of their village. However, other Koreans continue to organize against the US base expansion.
Japan: marriage stats
Adamu highlights some figures in the recent marriage statistics in Japan: In 1995, most internationally marrying Japanese men (35%) took Filipina brides, while a quarter of them married Chinese women. In 2005, the tables were turned, with only 30% marrying Filipinas and 35% marrying Chinese.
Japan and South Korea: waves from both sides
Ampontan blogs about the recent Japan wave from South Korea in term of tourism to Kyushu. Korean tourists, by taking the high speed jetfoils across the sea of Japan, can comfortably depart from Busan after breakfast and reach the Port of Hakata by lunchtime. The blogger believes that the emergence...
Taiwan: textbook debate
Micheal Turton from the View from Taiwan gives us more background concerning the change of textbook content in Taiwan: This is part of a continuing wave of pro-Taiwan educational changes that began back in the 1990s with the introduction of Taiwan-focused junior high history texts. In 1997 the Ministry of...
China: civilized web
The China media project has a report on the Chinese government's recent move to develop a “civilized web”.
China: four letter words in blog
Wang Xiao feng explains why he uses four-letter words in his blog. The most frequent word is stupid-ass, because there are plenty of them… (zh)
China: university hospital
Kaie blogs about his experience in Beijing University's hospital, in particular the distribution use of medicine, to discuss about the possible impact of “government leading” medical reform. He concludes: government leading = unequal distribution + quantity rather than quality in medical treatment (zh). In the comment section, some disagreed with...