Global SuburbUtopia...Sort of(Untitled)- January 31, 2006 One Yo-Yo Ma cello solo too many We finally got around to seeing Geisha this weekend -- had already read the reviews, was hoping it would turn out to be better than rumoured. (One can always hope). What I saw was a potentially great movie undermined by lazy, cop-out choices, weird pacing, and lapses in taste. Either Rob Marshall didn't have the skill to bring it off, or the studio forced him into expedient but fatal (artistically speaking) decisions. Ocean-eyed Sayuri achieves her quest to...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/31.html#a436 (Untitled)- January 29, 2006 Amateur astrology Without a professional to consult, it's hard to sort through the maze of predictions being offered for the Year of the Dog, which kicks off at midnight Saturday. They include rising real estate prices, an easing of world tensions and (my favorite) a year of "debate and anxiety" for George W. and Laura Bush. However, even to a non-expert, at least two forecasts seem certain to come true. 1. Good times for the wedding business in Asia, as the couples who put..http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/28.html#a435 (Untitled)- January 27, 2006 Brave Sir Google! When China wanted keywords banned,He smiled and said he would understand.Yes, to get his share of the market pie,He boldly decided to complyBrave, brave, brave Sir Google!Standing up for freedom and privacy,Unless you live in the PRC,Brave, brave, brave...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/27.html#a434 (Untitled)- January 25, 2006 The most beautiful language you've never heard Shanghainese! I came across this the other night and was entranced. To my (untrained) ear, it sounds very different from Putonghua (Mandarin) and at times like a cross between Chinese and Japanese. There's an ongoing debate as to whether Shanghainese and other forms of Chinese are "dialects" or "languages". Some are mutually unintelligible and differ from each other to a greater extent than, say, French and Italian. As...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/25.html#a433 (Untitled)- January 24, 2006 Movie night We've embarked on a babysitting scheme with another couple, opening up the possibility of going to the movies on alternate Friday nights. Our first foray was to see Pride and Prejudice. It wasn't our top choice, but it turned out to be well worth the trip and ticket price. One thing I especially appreciated was the effort made to suggest the somewhat different living standards of two centuries ago. The Bennets' home was not in pristine shape. It looked...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/23.html#a432 (Untitled)- January 17, 2006 Books with images of water on the cover almost never sell and other secrets of the remainder wholesale industry... I live about two miles south of Daedalus Books, which has built a flourishing global business by joining the desire of publishers to get rid of excess inventory with the desire of bookish types to grab as much high quality reading material as they can at bake sale prices. We can't help it -- most of us were weaned on used bookstores (which,...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/16.html#a431 (Untitled)- January 14, 2006 Supergirls Although I can't claim much expertise about Chinese pop culture, even I know that the major phenonemon of 2005 was "Super Girls" (more literally "Super Female Voice"): an American Idol-type contest that ran for several weeks in the summer, generating a craze which may have been significant for reasons beyond mere entertainment. The winners were chosen partly by a panel of expert judges, partly by a panel of non-expert judges...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/13.html#a430 (Untitled)- January 12, 2006 My progress of sorts Last year around this time, I decided to study Chinese. I started out memorizing characters, and soon after began listening to the Pimsleur tapes (they are great) during my commute to and from work. These days I'm now concentrating on vocabulary building, and after that's progressed a little further I'll probably try to boost my listening comprehension. Besides absorbing about 750 high-frequency characters and 45 hours' worth of spoken Mandarin.http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/11.html#a429 (Untitled)- January 11, 2006 Words in a space It seems like a good enough time to write in this space again -- the license expires in 24 days. It wouldn't make sense to renew if I don't write here, and for some reason I'm reluctant just to forget about it. Plus, I keep coming across arcane things that I'd like to share. For example, this comprehensive database of the numbers from 1-10 in over 5,000 different languages. You can scan them all, in one mombo file, or study them as grouped by language...http://blogs.salon.com/0001879/2006/01/10.html#a428 |