Monday comedy spot/ Wanna be a Kung fu star?

Much as I hate the word kung Fu (as it means result of ones hard work) and martial arts is more wushu than kung fu.....

In the UK the Shitty TVB Chinese channel wants YOU yes you, even Laowai non Chinese readers in the UK to become the next Kung Fu star for TVB. All you have to do is present a 30 second clip of your signature 'move' and be a UK/HK/Chinese citizen of some sort.

The application form is here

Free Internet!

The city of Chongqing is trying to establish uncensored internet access for foreigners and foreign companies, hoping to a center for the IT industry in China. They might want to be careful about opening up their internet, as this slashdot user sums up perfectly:

Be careful offering a little freedom. In former Eastern Germany, their communist regime provided retail stores only for foreigners (or specially privileged East Germans with western money). This made people there very resentful of their government ... and eventually, they got rid of it.

Although Chinese citizens won't be allowed to use the free internet, it make them feel more jealous about   having their internet censored when westerners are using it in the middle of one of their major cities.

Chinese Innovation

A Chinese man has built his own version of an iPad. Really, its a tablet PC he built from scratch! It can run any OS and is more powerful than the iPad. Best of all, it only cost him $300. He even stylized it with Apple stickers and everything.





Apple Status:

[   ] Not told
[X] Told

[X] Really Told

[X] Toldstone Creamery

[X] Told man river

[X] Told Testament

[X] Cash4told.com

[X] No country for told men

[X] Knights of the told Republic

[X] ToldSpice

[X] Toldman Sachs

[X] Pokemon Told and Silver

[X] The Legend of Eldorado : The Lost City of Told

UFC and MMA

Dear Chinese guy.

Why are there no prminent Chinese MMA or UFC fighters? Why aren't there some Chinese kung fu masters competing? They might even win!

Joe

Dear Joe

This is my theory and I could be wrong, but it boils down to several things:

One Chinese men are by and large smaller than caucasian and black men, sure we get people like Yao Ming who is massive and Mongolians who can be massive. But these are the exceptions and not the rule.

Apparently I'm a fairly tall Chinese person who is overweight..... I weigh 10 stone, I have to wear weight to skydive and a fast fall suit because I fall so slowly. My English native peers are about 4-5 stone heavier than me and much taller than me.

Take for instance Bruce Lee, he is a pretty small bloke compared to western natives. And he was half German. Or Bolo Yeung, Mr HK a massive massive body builder when stood next to Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. But not that big compared to westerners who primarily make up MMA, UFC.

I mean would you fight against a bloke who had 100 pounds on you in pure muscle?

Secondly, a great deal of Chinese martial arts emphasise defence by parrying, blocking and avoidance. I mean look at any wire work Jet Li movie. Yes it is a movie, but it shows him avoiding, blocking and parrying. Compare this to fist fights in Western movies. They pretty much stand there and knock the hell out of each other. Which was lampshaded by Tom Cruise in the film Far and Away. It sort of makes sense, i.e. it is better NOT to be hit than to be hit and to take less damage. I mean would you rather be punched in the face or not? Southern Martial arts based around Wing Chun for instance all emphasise superior blocking and parrying techniques.

But then it sort of like a Samurai sword duel first blow is almost always lethal and is the winner.

Compare to boxers who can pummel each other repeatedly and get used to the pummelling. Ali fighting Foreman took a massive beating for ages and ages. Joe Frazier did the same to Ali. Or Muay Thai Kick boxing, the proper proper art of eight limbs Muay Thai (though even the westernised softened up version seems pretty brutal to me). They pound each other like no tomorrow, they brutalise and train themselves and they get used to it.



Thirdly erm (for laughs)


Granted those people can probably snap my neck in a pinch


Fourthly Martial arts is dying out, the old grandmasters are dying out and people simply don't have the time to practice their skills and hone them. There is little incentive if you are a trainer in China, as very few people get into the training program to be an instructor and when they do become instructors the wages are LESS than working in factories. Thus while there may well be a lot of theory and lots of in action a lot of people simply don't bother. I mean you gonna fight hand to hand against this?

Asian Turf War

I recently saw an episode of South Park in which the Chinese guy who owns City Wok is forced to contend with a new sushi place that moves in next door. The whole thing turns into a giant episode spanning fight between them, while most of South Park thinks that China and Japan are the same. Its quite hilarious.

Embedding is not allowed so heres a link. I think its viewable in the US only.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e06-city-sushi

Angry Canadian

American aren't the only ones.

Chinese vampires

Dear Chinese guy.

How do you kill a Chinese vampire.

Mike.


It depends do you mean a Chinese person bitten by a vampire or a Chinese Jiang shi type vampire.

If it is a Chinese person bitten by a vampire, then the usual things apply, stake in the heart, beheading, garlic, true faith, tainted blood. Holy Water and sunlight..... though Chinese people are naturally adverse to sunlight anyway. Since tanning is bad m'kay (people think you are a low class farmer or something). Fire is also good as are Applied Phlebotinum weapons like UV bullets as seen in underworld.

If it is a Chinese Jiang shi type vampire then you have all sorts of problems. As Jiang shi are nearly indestructible. Jiang shi are less vampires and more akin to zombies from Quake, you can shoot them but they keep getting up, much like the terminator

Depending on which movie you see them in they are invulnerable to many things western vampires get killed by:

• Daylight does not kill them. They do however go and rest once a rooster makes its morning call.
• Holy water is useless.
• Garlic is useless.
• Explosives are useless
• Sharp stabbing and slicing weapons are also useless even to the head eyes, heart neck.
  

However you can stun Jiang shi or 'hurt' them to make them go away for a bit. Note stun and not kill.

Stunning is often via a yellow bit of paper on their forehead. Which contains a spell of some kind written in blood. This only freezes them to the spot though. They are very much alive you remove that yellow bit of paper and it'll tear your head off and spit down your neck. In fact if you should encounter such a Jiang shi and happen to find your head detached from your body and a copious amount of spit which does not belong to you in your neck then the thing I told you did not work. Ok so I made that up since they don't spit at you.

I will be happy to offer a refund on bad advice which gets you killed. Heh.

In various movies various things hurts Jiang shi that makes them retreat recover for a day or two and come back even stronger. Does anybody remember the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3? When you killed it with one weapon it would take double the amount of damage from the same weapon which put you in a whole world of shit.

As said it varies from movie to movie.

Rice will burn Jiang shi lightly.

Blood of various types will stun Jianshi, Chicken blood which has been blessed and the blood of a black dog works. And in Typical teenage horror movism. Peeing on them if you are a virgin will work like Holy Water against said Jianshi. Women probably need not apply.

Duck eggs will stun Jiang shi.

Large caliber guns will push them backwards a bit like house of the dead:



But you didn't ask that you asked how to kill them.

Fire much like this



Or the much more dangerous method is the vampires kiss. In some mythology Jiang shi exist because it draws one last breath in its body it cannot rest. Therefore you have to kiss the damned thing and suck out this last breath. Which will make the Jiang shi instantly deanimate. This is akin to kissing a pissed Grizzly bear which can tear you limb from limb. Except the Grizzly bear is indestructible doesn't feel pain. Kinda like the speech from the Terminator:

"It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

Good luck with that.

As a note if you attempt to try the vampires kiss, or rather the vampires suck Jiang shi are worse in that they too turn you into Jiang shi if they bite you as well.




Alternatively prevention is the best cure...

Therefore:

Choose cremation over burial.

Do not piss off dying relatives and leave things unresolved, i.e. give absolution to the dying.

Unfortunately TCG did leave something seriously unresolved with a buried relative recently which is why I keep a bedside flame thrower when I am in Asia (it is actually a chemical weed whacker which I tried with petrol and set myself alight but still works as a flamer).

Unfortunately I am not kidding either..... as my mum has seen a zombie. Her uncle died suddenly and the body 'moved' when it was left alone during the wake. The body was found to have moved upstairs and had opened up a secret cubby hole with the life savings of the family in a box it was clasping. And these stories seem a bit too common to be all lies.

Qianziwen

I didn't think it was possible, but it turns out theres a nursery rhyme for learning Chinese characters (well sort of). Its called the Qianziwen (literally: Thousand Character Classic) and was created by Zhou Xingsi by order of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty as a way to help his son learn Chinese characters. It consists of 1000 non-repeating characters arranged into 250 four character phrases. Not only does no character occur twice, but the whole thing rhymes! Its not used anymore however because it follows the grammar of Classical Chinese, which may confuse those trying to learn the modern language.

Still, you can read the whole thing transcribed and annotated, here. You can also find it broken down by character here.

Still not satisfied? You can even listen to the damn thing!

	Zhou Xingsi - Qian Zi Wen .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Remember the kidney guy?

Prepare to have your faith in humanity tested yet again. Remember that rather silly kid who sold his kidney for an Ipad? Here

Here we go again...... girl offers to sell her virginity for an Iphone4, Here. I detect however a viral advertising method though seeing as Steve Jobs (in my opinion) is evil.

Something

Sort of. Notice how everybody rushes to help this poor woman. Here

Evolution

Dear Chinese guy

Is evolution taught in Chinese schools?

Hannah.

Dear Hannah.

A variation of evolution and creationist theories exist instead (note how I say theory since although there is compelling evidence different people have different beliefs...... cripes I sound a lot like my environmental science professor over ten years ago).

A commonly theory is most people came out of Africa. The Out of Africa theory. In a nutshell as I understand it, humans can all be traced to a small tribe over time which sort of moved out to colonise the entire African continent and eventually moved out over other land masses.

An opposing theory is that humans developed all over the place rather than originating from one tribe.... (hey look your GF is your long lost sister!). Which is gaining some sort of traction as there was a jawbone found in Southern China in a cave somewhere. It was carbon dated to be 110,000 years old. Which is inconvenient to those who believe in the out of Africa theory. As Chinese folks or rather the people who became Chinese folks were only supposed to have migrated out of Africa 70,000 years ago.

I'm not a biologist per se but there is a strange anomaly in that as a whole we're pretty compatible in terms of baby making.

Here

Whats new?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13923082

Chinese being attacked in Paris...... tbh whats new this has been going on for decades if not centuries......

Asians and Chinese people are seen to be prosperous says the report, what it doesn't go into is the back breaking labour put in to become prosperous. My work week (hence my lack of updates and postings and rantings) has grown somewhat and I average at 80 hours a week now, sometimes going over 100 hours a week.

People see me as 'lucky' to have so much money and they think it just appears in my pocket or something.....meh.... I need a vacation or something

Voting

Dear TCG,

How do elections in Hong Kong work? I know it isn't completely democratic
but can you give more clear explanation than Wikipedia?

凱文



I'm afraid not, namely because I don't actually vote, no I am not a non voting felon either its just that tbh I don't believe in voting and believe it is an activism sponge when really only direct action works.

A Taste of American Politics Part 4

It just keeps getting better.




Heres a bonus video for the lolz

China gets 1-up'd

Story

In October 2010, America was once again beaten by the Chinese. When the National Computing Center of China in Tianjin unveiled the Tianhe-I, the worlds fastest supercomputer. At 2.5 petaFLOPS (Im not even going to bother trying to explain what that means) it beat out America's former top contender, the Cray Jaguar which ran at 1.75 petaFLOPS. But now even China has been out done, by their neighbor. Earlier this month, Fujitsu of Japan unveiled the K Computer, which runs at a whopping 8 petaFLOPS.

America and Japan have been neck and neck for the last decade in the race to see who can build the worlds fastest supercomputer. But now China is entering the race, and its proving to be a powerful contender. The International Supercomputing Conference releases its list of fastest computers twice a year. I'd be interesting to see if China reappears on the list come November.

Views 2

Hey. KaiWen got me hooked on your blog.

I guess my question is, and forgive me if you've answered it before, what do Chinese people actually think of Americans? Do they think we're nice? Ugly and stupid? What's the deal?

You might be interested in my blog. I do a lot of current event stuff so check it out if that interests you. http://wanderingamericantravelblog.blogspot.com/ Stay cool.


Um this was sent to me, but answered here

Extraordinary Fidelity

Movie Time!

The CIA, yes the CIA, has released a documentary called "Extraordinary Fidelity". It tells the story of John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau, who were two CIA agents shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. Their mission was to extract a Chinese agent who was organizing a guerilla rebellion to take down Mao's government. The two were captured and imprisoned for 20 years.

The film wasn't originally intended for the general public, but as a video for new recruits to help them learn about the agency's history. But now its coming to a YouTube link near you! (or embedded here)

Wanna be in the Movies (UK only again)

Wanna be on TV (UK only)

Picked this up from somewhere

The BBC3 Series The World's Strictest Parents is looking for British Chinese teenagers (16-18 years old) to feature on the program.

In the series teens get sent to a family around the world for a week this summer where they live by their rules and their cultural expectations. In past series teens have been sent to India, Kenya, Barbados and the USA. We are looking for teens who would benefit from this the most, may it be that they are partying too much, not focusing on their education or not spending enough time with their family.

We have never featured a teen with Chinese parentage on the series and felt it would be interesting to address this imbalance.

If you are interested or know anyone who may benefit from this please do get in contact with the World's Strictest Parents team on 02074247706 or jamiefranklin@twentytwenty.tv

Thanks and best of luck.

Here is a family from Alabama.



Heh

Lest we forget

Vietnam

Dear Chinese guy

What is the issue with China and Vietnam?

Richard.

Dear Richard

Erm.... I'm thinking you probably mean the Spratly Islands whereby there have been slight skirmishes in the waters around there..... heh a slight skirmish in the Gulf of Tonkin caused a massive war. The Spratlys being 400nm from China while only being 83nm from Vietnam. They've been contested for decades if not centuries. Tbh. With potential oil fields in those there waters who gets them gets the $$.

Stranger things have happened. For instance the UK lays a claim to the Falklands which are over 8000 miles away compared to Argentina which is in spitting distance. 2010 oh look oil has been discovered there...... maybe.

But it's simple, money and power.

We unfortunately live in a world where the right thing is not always done and MIGHT IS RIGHT. To hell with the consequences. Most countries are guilty of this sort of behaviour at one time or another when you are bigger and badder than the other guy. Though remember China got its ass handed to it in 1979.



Or

163 years ago a joint task force imposed its might against Imperial (the shadow of) China and got multiple concessions, various opened ports and then some.

Or

Diego Garcia whereby we exiled the natives to build an airbase on their homelands.

Etc etc.... its just power playing might is right BS. I'm not even going to take sides or say who is right or wrong I'm simply not going to go there at all!