The Beijinger Blog - Chinese Culture

iPhone China Apps

thebeijinger — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0800

Steven over at Lost Laowai has provided a list of cool China iPhone apps for those who have made the leap to smart phones. Unfortunately I’m still using an antique Nokia, so I haven’t been able to check out the Lost Laowai suggestions, but a couple of them sound particularly useful for Beijingers.

Alternative Culture is Going to Take Over! JUE Opens Tonight

thebeijinger — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:20:00 +0800

An Edinburgh Fringe in China? Sounds ambitious for a whole lot of reasons, but that’s what Split Work are hoping to do with the JUE Festival, an extended lineup of artists, performances, screenings and exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai.

Quick Link: Eating Organic in China

thebeijinger — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0800

The German-based site Clean Energy Project recently posted an interview with Yinghui Zhang-Carraro, a “freelance writer and resident of Beijing,” about Beijing’s organic food market.

Starf*cks Comes to Liuzhou?

thebeijinger — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0800

Not sure if this is a classic piece of Chinglish signage or a witty piece of wordplay for an establishment offering more than coffee.

Quick Links: iPhone Pop & the Perils of Lip-synching

thebeijinger — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0800

Here are two cute videos currently doing the rounds in China’s virtual realm. A young women calling herself PixieTea has posted a pop song called “ABCD Said,” supposedly produced using nothing more than an iPhone. According to ChinaSMACK it’s already been viewed more than 1.25 million times. The other video is an amusing clip of a young girl “singing” one of those horribly saccharine songs so beloved by Chinese television - into the wrong end of her microphone.

Taking Chinese Literature to the World: Harvey Thomlinson of Make Do Publishing

thebeijinger — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0800

Selling Chinese literature to the English-speaking world is tough – especially when it’s by contemporary authors little known outside China. But Harvey Thomlinson is doing just that, with his new Hong Kong-based venture Make Do Publishing. On the eve of his appearance at the Bookworm Literary Festival, Dan Edwards talks to Harvey about Make Do and China’s online writing revolution.

Dark Visions of Sex & Corruption: Chinese Novelist Murong

thebeijinger — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0800

“This society is like a dirty river,” Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun says, his words tumbling out in a rapid-fire stream. “The river holds all kinds of people and all kinds of behaviour. Some can melt into the river, others can’t.” Murong’s dark world view has informed a string of Chinese bestsellers and made him the enfant terrible of the country’s often staid literary scene. With the publication of an English edition of Leave Me Alone – A Novel of Chengdu in Hong Kong, and Murong’s appearance at the Bookworm Literary Festival, Beijingers now have the chance to experience Murong’s hard-boiled style.

A Film Master on the Big Screen: Xie Jin Retrospective at MOMA BC

thebeijinger — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0800

Beijing’s one and only arthouse cinema, MOMA Broadway Cinematheque, is proving a godsend for film fans who love the big-screen experience, but want something more challenging than multiplex spectacles. This Friday MOMA BC kick off their first “Great Masters Retrospective” with a season of eight works by Xie Jin, the exemplary representative of China’s “third generation” of filmmakers. Although not well known in the English-speaking film world, here in China Xie Jin is revered as one of the nation’s great directors.

China Daily Scoops All Competition

thebeijinger — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0800

For nearly three decades China Daily has been bringing us all the hard-hitting good news from the People’s Republic. Yesterday was surely the paper’s crowning moment when it scooped all other local publications with stunning revelations about its own redesign, in a penetrating report: “A stunning makeover for China Daily.”

Vancouver 2010 Round-up: Bottles, Bronzes and Bawdiness

thebeijinger — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:20:00 +0800

The Olympics in Winter? How do they do the diving events? Absolute madness if you ask me. It turns out that the Winter Games concentrate on more traditional winter sports like shooting things while out skiing and going headfirst down hills. For those who this is all news to here is what happened in Vancouver.