One of my neighbors here in Jimei 集美 District of Xiamen 厦门 recently had a baby so I stopped to take a few photos of the newborn at the side of the road on my bike ride to work.
 |
| A new addition to my neighbor's family |
 |
| Proud papa enjoying the roadside grass (and my apartment complex in the background) |
 |
| Iron Manchu Coming to Theaters Near You? |
I found an animated video about Chinese philosopher Mencius on YouTube. Mencius or Mengzi (孟子) was one of the most important interpreters of Confucianism which was the basis for Chinese society for over 2000 years and still plays an important role in contemporary Chinese behavior.
The videos are in Chinese, but with English subtitles so for anyone interested, this is an easy and entertaining way to learn a bit about one of China's great philosophers. The first part of the video series is below and you can watch the rest using this Youtube link.
I recently spotted Jeremy Lin, the NBA's new star, on the campus basketball courts at Xiamen University of Technology (XMUT) this afternoon. Lin is not playing the rest of the NBA season for the New York Knicks due to a knee injury so I wondered whether he's moonlighting here in China. However, when I saw Kobe Bryant nearby as well, I started to get a bit suspicious.
 |
| Lin and Kobe at XMUT |
The 3D version of Titanic opened in China last week on about 2400 movie theater screens in China. On its opening day (April 10), the 3D sinking ship saga brought in U.S. 11.6 million (RMB 73 million) making it the second highest opening day grossing film in China.
For anyone interested in the recent controversy over the production of iPads and other electronic devices by Apple and other major companies, there's an interesting podcast called The People Behind Your iPad.
The political scene in China has been full of drama recently that I'm sure the leaders in Beijing would much rather avoid, especially before the leadership transition later this year. Most Americans probably don't try to follow Chinese politics at all and are likely completely ignorant of the political scandal going on in China. While its difficult to find detailed and reliable information about what's really going on and I certainly don't claim to have any greater knowledge than anyone else reading the current Internet news, but for anyone interested here's some minimal background:
Bo Xilai (薄熙来) was until recently, the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Secretary of Chongqing Municipality. Prior to his recent problems and fall from grace, he had become one of the most powerful politicians in China and seemed likely to become one of the 9 members of China's Standing Committee later this year.
One major reason for Bo Xilai's popularity among many Chinese was his promise to reduce the gap between China's relatively small (but extremely powerful) newly rich segment of the population and the rest of China's still largely poor population. Bo became known for cracking down on organized crime and corruption in Chongqing and urged a return to more egalitarian communist-style leadership. However, he was also criticized for heavy handed tactics such as torture a bit reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution era. This may have led to Bo's ostracism by China's top leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in addition to his overtly public image which markedly contrasts with most of China's current top leaders. Ironically, Bo is also alleged to have been involved in large-scale corruption (which he became famous for cracking down on in Chongqing).
 |
| Bo Xilai and wife implicated in murder of British businessman? |
Sometimes its interesting to see that people tend to view things as their own, regardless of whether something really is or not. This may be especially true here in China where virtually everything is copied without much regard to its origin. For instance, I had a Chinese friend whose phone had an instrumental ringtone of the rock/pop ballad Right Here Waiting which is apparently quite popular in China. Of course, anyone who was in America and listened to the radio at all in the late 1980s would remember the song since it was played incessantly at the time. In fact, it was a # 1 hit single for singer/songwriter Richard Marx in 1989. Here's a video of Marx performing the song to guitar (rather than the original piano) accompaniment.
Curious about how my friend chose this song for her ringtone, I asked her about it and was slightly surprised to find that she'd never heard of Richard Marx, but more surprised when she insisted that the song was actually Chinese rather than American. I didn't recollect Richard Marx looking very Chinese and tried to tell her that it was actually an old song by an American singer that must have been copied by a Chinese singer, but she refused to believe this, saying that maybe the American copied the Chinese song. While its not uncommon for Chinese singers to record cover versions of popular American songs, it would be exceptionally rare for an American singer to cover a translated Chinese song (I can't think of any examples offhand).
Considering that most Chinese people don't know Richard Marx from Karl Marx and probably haven't heard the English version of Right Here Waiting, I wondered how it became so popular here. I'm still not sure, but from a little online research I found out that Marx (Richard, not Karl) was one of the early Western singers whose music had some degree of exposure in China (until the 1980s, communist China was almost completely isolated from the outside world and almost no Western music was heard). Right Here Waiting also fits well within Chinese pop music sensibility which tends to favor simple ballads that can be performed at karaoke clubs.
I also found out that in the 1990s, a Cantonese cover version of the song was recorded by Kenny Bee (锺镇涛; Zhong Zhentao). Instead of Right here Waiting, its was more poetically titled 紅葉斜落我心寂寞時 ("The falling maple leaves reflect the loneliness of my heart"). Here's a video:
Posts
All Comments
