As a result of a rather whimsical decision made by my wife, I found myself at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre for the first time last Saturday, attending a Chinese language version of the classic play Twelve Angry Men. I enjoyed it way more than I expected to.
To begin with, I was surprised by how “Chinese” the story seemed. The part about there being no air conditioning and the fan not working, and one of the guys wanting …
In a recent post, Deconstructing the Chinese Character Creativity of Japan, I highlighted some creative work with Chinese characters by Japanese artists. What I didn’t say at the time was, “I wish the Chinese themselves would do more stuff like this.” Well, they are, and just recently I saw some great examples of it, first sent in by reader, and then later on Kaixin Wang (China’s Facebook).
I’m not going to deconstruct them like last time, because these …
I’ve recently made two trips to Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek Art District (more info). It’s in the Moganshan Road area (Google map), and it’s probably easiest reached by taking the subway (Line 1) to the Shanghai Train Station, then Changshou Road west over Suzhou Creek, then making a right, following the creek north. The road there deadends into a complex of buildings which make up the art district. You’ll see a bunch of graffiti as you head …
The 囧 (jiǒng) phenomenon has been around for a while now, and I’m starting to see more and more permutations of it. Here are a few examples.
From an online Chinese ad:
From TofuBrain‘s Flickr page:
From a local shop:
What have you seen?
Flickr updates:
This photo by 强悍的兔子.Rabbit has many permutations:
Also, these two examples of 囧 showing up in the character 明…
…are explained by this comic [large size]:
The comic says that …
My friend Illy passed on to me a link to the blackout poems of Austin Kleon. Here’s the one that most caught my eye:
The craziest thing is that I actually had this idea before. I tried to do it with stories about China, and I failed miserably. I’m not sure whether it was the material I had to work with or my own lack of creativity at fault. Cool to see that Austin has more than pulled it …
Mouse Umbrella is a “free beautifully illustrated Chinese/English children’s book.” I probably would have written about it sooner if it were e-mailed to me rather than submitted as a new blog on the CBL.
The author’s explanation:
As an educator I was hoping you would take a look at my book and give me some feed back. This beautifully illustrated 6 page haiku is intend for Pre-K children who speak Chinese as a first language or English speaking children
…
I love stylized Chinese characters.
It says 西湖一號 (West Lake No. 1). This is a good example of mainland Chinese designers using traditional Chinese characters for artistic effect (號 rather than 号).
Taken next to West Lake in Hangzhou.…
Jonathan Yuen . com
Jonathan Yuen has a really cool Flash design site. Check it out; it is totally unannoying, and pleasantly imaginative. It also uses Chinese. Unfortunately, the Chinese characters are small and hard to read, and Flash’s normal zoom option is turned off. So here’s my transcription of the Chinese from the site:
思源
寻找的终点最终依然是起点创意
能感动人心的才是至高境界童心
用中庸的心态来审观一切邂逅
尽管是僵然也应顺其自然
Sorry, no time for a translation now. Try copying and pasting into AdsoTrans. Maybe I’ll get …
Ode to Summer is a 3D animation by Ron Hui. The concept was inspired and the execution is amazing. The animation clip starts out with an ordinary Chinese painting… those familiar faded colors on yellowed parchment. Then the camera zooms in and takes you on a 3D tour of “Chinese painting land.” At first it teases you, making you think that it’s just some 3D objects interacting with a rather flat “3D” Chinese environment. But then things get all 3D-rotational …
Fei has some really cool pictures of an old Shanghai slaughterhouse in his Flickr photostream:
He tells me the slaughterhouse is in a pink building located in Shanghai at the corner of Liyang Road (溧阳路) and Haining Road (海宁路).…
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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