Stories about East Asia from August, 2005
Vietnam: Enduring culture
Vietnamese God is a Hanoi-based Vietnamese who blogs in excellent English and superb photos. Working in the tourism industry, he has grown used to people who choose Wild Rice for the last meal before leaving Hanoi. Recently, he sent off some guests and welcomed new ones. He tells nice pictorial...
Singapore: The right to vote
After the Presidential Elections that never were, here comes the awakening: Straits Times political editor Zuraidah Ibrahim argues that the institution of Elected President is not very important, and blames the citizenry's mixed feelings as being “misguided and misdirected”. Her news analysis has aroused discomfort among Singaporean bloggers such as...
China: Wife-swapping
China is changing. The increasingly popular phenomenon happening in Guangdong is wife-swapping among white collars made up of lawyers, businessmen and administrators, who are generally highly educated. The mantra: “Neo-polygamy” in order to “fill a void”.
Malaysia: Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman, founder of free software movement, will conduct two seminars on “Software Freedom and Danger of Software Patents” in two Malaysian universities later this week.
Khmer Dance
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Video of a Cambodian dance troupe performing a blessing dance at the opening of the Lowell Water Festival, one of the largest Southeast Asian festivals in the US, organized jointly by the local Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese and Thai communities. |
News from Chinese Blogosphere(Aug 14th-20th)
1. 60 Anniversary Sino-Japanese War: August 20 was the 60 anniversary marking the end of Sino-Japanese War in World War Ⅱ, lasting from 1937 to 1945. Postshow, the “Boing Boing in China”, summed up the special reports on Chinese internet. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for the misdeed done...
Myanmar: Science & Space
A blog from Myanmar by Kyaw oo. Not on Aung Sang Suu Kyi, but it's about science, space and astronomy.
Vietnam: Cottontimer
Cottontimer is a Chinese-American who keeps two blogs to occupy her hours as full-time mum in Vietnam – one on her daily life call Cotton Picking Days (read: MSG poisoning), and the other on genetics and public health. She's a former PhD epidemiologist.
Thailand: English tests
“On an average score of English tests out of nine ASEAN countries, our Thai counterparts came in eighth – just one above the Cambodians”. TV shows don't help much…
The e-community for Thai translators has a website at www.wanakam.com (wanakam means literature). It has an excellent link to the collection of Thai literature that had been translated to English, and world literature that had been translated to Thai. Blogger Jeep points us to interpretative translation of Thai poets.
China: Mine Flood Coverup
EastSouthWestNorth preserves a surprisingly frank account by a Chinese paper about how mine owners in Ruzhou smothered news about a mine disaster — by paying off both real and pretend reporters.
Japan: Tokyo Noon
Japan's parliamentary election campaign is underway. Japundit says ex-PM Junichiro Koizumi is coming out swinging.
Philippines: An Angry Letter
Frustrated by the descent into yet another political scandal, a.k.a. Gloriagate, Manila tour guide Carlos Celdran points accusingly at the older generation.
Inside the Japanese Blogosphere
Japanese bloggers were able to offer almost realtime accounts of the recent earthquake in northern Japan. Says one Japanese blogger: The fridge door swung open, the goldfish bowl fell off the shelf, and it was just a terrible situation inside the house…There have been a lot of earthquakes here in...
Video Blogs & Cambodia
Eath Chhnon (otherwise known as “Village Girl“) is a Cambodian “video blogger” or vlogger. She grew up in a small village in Cambodia near Angkor Wat, one of country’s cultural treasures. Two years ago, at age 20, she came to New York City. Eath is video blogging her life story....
Korea: Made in China
How do North and South Korea commemorate their liberation from Japanese rule 60 years ago, and the 5-year-old joint North-South declaration? Joint-produce a line of wristwatches – manufactured in North Korea under the direction of a South Korean watchmaker. Symbols of Korean unity? Perhaps. Exhilaration? Wait a minute. According to...
Singapore: Artsy blog
What will become when a young Singaporean lawyer turns blogger? An artsy Reader's Eye… and poems by Gilbert Koh that got published from Singapore to Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Singapore: Mother of all freedoms
To some, politics is the pursuit of happiness: “… political freedoms are important only because without them, we can’t secure the other freedoms–because we would have to count upon the benevolence of our liberal and enlightened overlords, which is basically madness.” That's from a Singapore Angle.
Philippines: ‘GloriaGate'?
The impeachment of the chief tenant at Malacanang Palace still hogs the blog headlines. There are two observations from Sassy Lawyer, one went to her column in Manila Standard Today, the other to three lawyers who jumped into the headlines behind the warrantless raid.
China: Anti-blog blocked
Anti-blog and all blogs on blog-city.com has been blocked by the Great Firewall. Readers from China may access it via mirror site available at MSN: http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/. Meanwhile, anti2 is coming soon.
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