Well, it’s almost Chinese New Year, and this new one is the year of the dragon. It didn’t escape too many Chinese designers’ notice that it’s pretty easy to turn a “2″ into a dragon, so lately we’re seeing a lot of designs like these:
Here’s one that’s a little different:
Not as fun as last year, though! I’m still not a huge fan of this holiday, and it’s getting harder and harder for this country’s residents to go …
I’ve been living in Shanghai a while now, but it wasn’t until just recently that I ever heard of Shanghai’s “fake collar” shirts (假领子). Technically, the collar is not fake at all; the collar helps to create the illusion that the wearer has on a full shirt under a sweater, when in fact he/she does not. They even have little straps on the sides to keep them in place!
Naturally, this calls for pictures:
According to this website…
After reading this post on Quora, I’m now quite convinced that no one has given the question of “why (western) foreigners hate Dashan so much” as much thought as Mark Rowswell, the man behind Dashan (大山).
I should warn you: the entire answer is quite long, but it’s worth a read. Mark breaks it down into these parts:
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- Overuse – People are sick and tired of hearing the name “Dashan”;
- Resentment (Part A) – Dashan’s not the only
This year I attended the 8pm Christmas Eve mass at the St. Ignatius cathedral in Xujiahui, Shanghai. It reminded me why I normally don’t go to Christmas Eve masses in China. In short, it’s a zoo.
The reason is that Christmas Eve has become a popular holiday in Shanghai, although it’s mainly a date holiday. Traffic was horrible that evening, as couples all went out in search of a romantic winter evening. Many of them went to churches out …
A quick search on Sina’s Weibo today revealed that Santa Claus (圣诞老人) uses the service, and his identity has even been verified (that’s what the “V” stands for: 新浪认证, or “Sina Verified”).
But actually, a little bit more reading reveals that the account is used for Christmas promotions by Sina itself:
新浪微博圣诞节活动
That account is actually a year old, though. There’s another one for 2011, based in Guangzhou rather than Beijing (??).
Hmmm, does this qualify …
Recently a Chinese friend got me into Xiami. In case you’ve never heard of it, TechRice describes it like this:
Xiami is perhaps the closest China has to a Last.fm, though in Last.fm users have to pay monthly subscriptions to listen to songs and Xiami is still completely free up until the point of download.
So think “social music site,” with both free and paid offerings.
I was interested to see how the site offers its iPhone app …
For the longest time, I wondered why 恒鑫茶饮 used the English name “yex.” Here’s the logo:
Doesn’t it seem like “Heng Xin” or something related would make more sense for a company called 恒鑫茶饮? Eventually it dawned on me that “yex” is actually “HX” in “fancy lettering.”
Which one do you see?…
Kaiser Kuo posted an article about Beijing last month, entitled Peking Purgatory, Is Beijing a Black Hole For Smart Slackers?
While the article is about Beijing, this paragraph definitely reminded me of some of the things I’ve also felt about Shanghai:
Beijing, after all, has much going for it in these heady days. Possibilities abound. Opportunity knocks. There’s a buzz here, a palpable energy. It’s a city with edge, full of quirky characters doing interesting things. Change is the one
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Shanghai has changed quite a bit since I last blogged about Thanksgiving dinner in Shanghai in 2005. And the Thanksgiving dinner buffet business is booming. Even the Mexican restaurants are doing Thanksgiving dinner spreads. Here are some of the listings:
In 2005 I called “reasonable prices” around 150 RMB per person. Now it’s difficult to find T-Day dinner deals for less than 300 …
China’s “Bachelor’s Day” (光棍节) is becoming more and more internationally known. It is still, however, not what you might call “well-known” (that Wikipedia article, for example, is the shortest Wikipedia article I’ve seen in years!). Urban Dictionary offers this definition for “bachelor day“:
November 11, a day represented by four digits of 1, dubbed by young single Chinese. The “Bachelor Day” has been initiated by single college students and, although enjoys no
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John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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