Infomercial running wild

A friend of mine pointed me to this article reporting an "extreme" deodorant if you will. One must wonder if this is an American obession with (or the absence of) body odor? A "must-see-TV" on youtube featuring "Aspray".



Can you BELIEVE where those people are spraying their body parts?!?!? Beastly butt odor? Gee, this has become the nastiest blog entry on here to-date! hahaha. As commented by someone from his blog, this looked more like an SNL skit then a real commercial. On a second note, how about eating less meat or showering? Ain't those alternatives to the omnipresent Aspray? And what would people in the Victorian era think of this? hahaha

巴閉 bapre

香港真是個華洋雑相處的地方。昨晚深夜看亞洲電視的舊節目“冷知識”有一項關於香港廣東話的趣聞。香港人喜歡說的口頭禪“巴閉”其實是印度人說的bapre，有一點“驚訝”、“很厲害”的意思。所以呢，我們對其他在港的少數民族要禮讓多點，因為他們跟我們生活已經很長時間，對我們的語言已發生影響。有一些更加是香港人呢！

李小龍

李小龍 + 007 + 外星人...

這是香港街頭一景！

最近聽說特區政府會把李小龍的舊居改成博物館。等著吧，大概三、五個年頭就可以參觀啦！

Corazon Aquino

The passing a pioneer in Asia, the first female president in the Philippines and in the same league as first female Asian prime ministers such as Indira Gandhi or Benazir Bhutto or Tansu Çiller.

Corazon did not bring about stable and better social, economic and political changes as remarked by Marites Vitug. She did however, influence her countrymen and countrywomen with her humanity. Almost all the subsequent presidents of Philippines wanted her stamp of approval since she represented someone free of corruption and scandal. Her country seems to have a longer way to go since ALL of her successors had at one point or another be suspected or tainted by political wrongdoings.

It seems Philippines is still stuck in the post-Marcos era. Only when the number of haves and have-nots redistribute significantly in this country, will there be real progress made.

She might also be a barometer test for all the overseas Chinese with political ambition. She was more at ease than the former Canadian figurehead "head-of-state" Adrienne Clarkson who did not even dare to land on Chinese soil during or after her tenure. Mrs Aquino visited China when she was president of the Philippines. Although one could always stipulate, as a head of state of a developing nation, her meeting with China's Deng Xiao Ping, the leader of a emerging power in Asia back then, was a nothing-to-lost but everything-to-gain situation for her country. Nevertheless, apart from the Singaporean prime ministers who visited China, she was the only head of state with Chinese roots who was not ashamed of her origins.
Steven Chu or Gary Locke wouldn't even come close in 2009, let alone they are not regional, provincial or national heads when they visited China. I bet you, without looking at the various Chinese language press in the United States that gave big fuzz about it. Oh, com'on (Chinese) Americans, make up your mind. You can't be both, just look at Obama.

dog ate the sun

With the solar eclipse fever in East Asia came and gone, here is my version of it, as seen through a very primitive pinhole made on cardboard in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. I went to the Planetarium but the queue was too long so I did not make it to the rooftop to use the telescopes provided to public. The last time I saw and paid attention to a solar eclipse was either 1992 or 1993 when I was on my college campus. Time flies !

Hong Kong bookfair 2009

So I was at the Hong Kong Book Fair for the first time, at least in its current format, even though it has been running for twenty years. I wasn't there to buy books for I knew that cheaper versions of many books are available across the border in Shenzhen. On occasion I attended three seminars which were quite interesting. The first one dealt with comics and popular culture, with special reference to Japanese culture. The second focused on a few photographers and their work, with converging themes on changing city landscape in Hong Kong, gentrification, urban renewal and redevelopment, and the loss of landmarks or structures of sentimental values to local HongKongers. The third one was on social entrepreneurship, it wasn't so ,uch on the books, but I am quite sure something published was promoted at the bookfair. Half of the discussion focused on BiCiLine, an intervention project at Tin Shui Wan supported by Tung Wah Group of Hospitals.


Apart from the talks, I was quite astonished that my friend and I had to wait 20 minutes to get into the venue, given it was an ordinary Monday, even though schools are on summer vacation.
Some books in simplified chinese were marked up and then discounted, Ibet many unsuspecting customer fell victims to that, if they never if ever venture out to Shenzhen for procuring them. Political boundaries still make the books available and read by people of three different administrative regions of Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland of People's Republic of China, very different, at times with little overlapping. Books I found red hot and talk of the town everywhere in mainland China were available at a few of the booths selling simplified books, but still they mostly collected dust instead of finding a new owner. There are books tackling the very local Hong Kong (popular) culture including slangs, Cantonese as well as the dissatisfaction with the Cheif Executive. There were some interesting Taiwanese books, but given the fact I have been spoiled by dirt cheap books in the mainland, I did not really look into the Formosa offerings.

第三巴士No.3 bus

No, i am not talking about the bus route, but the bus company in Guangzhou (or Canton). It was refreshing, though in a mischievous kinda way that I was happy to note that the bus company used 巴士 "ba shi" instead of 公交 "gongjiao" because that was evidently a nod to the anglicism infiltrated into the local Cantonese dialect. One might wonder why I want to see "bad" Chinese usage of ba shi, buit I can tell you if that's the public concensus which shaped this expression, why not? It also enriches the Chinese vocabulary.

很高興在廣州看見第三“巴士”而不是第三“公交”...這證明廣州人也接納這受英語影響的詞。崇洋？不是，只不過這從外文翻過來的詞豐富了粵語而已。希望詞匯表達的多元化不會令人覺得“山高皇帝遠”，沒人管。

14 juillet 2009

Après les allemands ce sont les indiens cette fois-ci. Alors pour 2009 l'Inde est invitée d'honneur pour la fête nationale française. Bien que je ne sois pas un fanatique des affaires militaires, le défilé est intéressant comme un téléspectacle sur TV5monde diffusé en direct par France2.

French culture carries NOT a very masculin image, given people think about French cuisine, fashion or perfume when they fantasize France. However, their Fête nationale is always a parade of various regiments of the military. This year, India is their guest of honnour so you would have seen the Indian military marching on the Champs-Élysées, carried live on TV5monde and France2.

聯想到法國文化，一般是美食、香水、時裝等，不是太男性化的形象。可是每年七月十四日的法國國慶，她的閱兵儀式比美國國慶、英女皇壽辰的更多、更顯眼。今年的嘉賓國是印度，在藍天白雲下TV5monde和France2轉播的步操、馬術表演等還是蠻不錯的。