Actually, what I suspect happened is that an editor walked into a meeting at the beginning of September and said, “Alrighty: the dudes of the week, improbably enough, are Jimmy Carter, Sly Stallone, and Kim Jong-il. One of you lucky suckers is going to get to write a cover story that somehow links the three together.”

Zhang Yue (张悦) got the job, and did an admirable job of uniting this terrible trinity in an article entitled: “Kim Jong-il, Carter, Stallone: Old Men Who Haven’t Yet Responded to Their Curtain Call” (金正日，卡特，史泰龙：老男人未到谢幕时). Opening with a commentary on Hollywood (“Be careful, we’re being haunted by old guys”), the intro gives several examples of the staying power, so to speak, of old men in Hollywood, Cantopop, and global politics.

In addition to the aforementioned “old warhorses that cherish further exploits” (老骥伏枥), the author points out that Deng Xiaoping was already way past retirement age (mid-70s) when he launched reform and opening. When Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US in 1979, Prez Jimmy Carter ...read more

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An article in the Jul 15-31 edition of 博客天下 (Blog Weekly) titled “你的糗事 我的快乐” (Your uncomfortable moment, my happiness) offers some good news: laughing at other people’s misfortune is a universal pleasure. The article talks about how the FML phenomenon has spread to China and lists five popular Chinese sites that do the same kind of thing that Fuck My Life (fmylife.com) does for English language netizers (my new term). Since I’m hip to the jive, I know that ‘fuck my life’ has spread, like a spore, from the nexicon (net lexicon) to the oral vernacular — people talking, for those of you that don’t habla netinese. If you actually do useful things with your life you may not be aware of the whole FML phenom. It works like so: people submit short “true”stories and you laugh at them with the giddy relief that wells up when something bad happens to someone else.  You also get to vote whether the person “totally deserved it” or “I agree, your life sucks”. It’s like the embarrassing stories page that teen magazines used to have. Here’s a post from the Best of FML: “Today, the girl I’m secretly ...read more

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exactly like the title says. and while a picture may be worth a 1000 words, i’m not sure that the year end/2010 predictions issue of  Caijing this picture came from is worth the 35 RMB i anted up for it at 7-11 in a weak, under-caffeinated haze.

内容已经在标题说好了。可能按照俗语的说法一张图片值得一千词但是我觉得这张图片来自的财经杂志年底版并不值得35元（在7-11还没喝咖啡特别瞌睡的时候买的）！

** 前句话写的特别差，如果有建议怎么该请告诉我！一直到我的汉语水平进步很多我要用更短更简单的话。

...read more

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现在有一些特别好的”bridge”博客把中文的博客翻译成英文: ChinaGeeks, Veggie Discourse, chinaSMACK, ChinaHush, 等等. 这个对不能读汉语或读汉语特别满的人(之一我)有很大的好处. 通过这个博客和写的博客的人的努力我们可以更好理解中国和一些中国的现象. 这些博客的帖子部分常常有很热闹(而有时候很傻)的谈论. 有点儿遗憾的就是这个交流都是英文的所以交通都是单向的. 我希望我们外国人更努力地试试用中文跟我们中国网友联系.

我写这个文章(post怎么说?)的主要的原因是为了请求你们的推荐. 我一直再找好看的博客和别的中文的媒体. 我天天听英文的播客(podcast?), 我想听中文的但是我还没找好挺合适的. 又没有中文播客有人讨论新闻和热话题?

情把你的博客和podcast的建议写在下面或者发给我 (fred at 10tonfunk.com). ...read more

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下面的照片是我在这个博客上现在写的mo’blog系列的开端. 我在看我前两年照片和图式写出来我的感觉我的对表示我在北京的经历增加了. 写给别人看和让我自己更理解北京. 有很多照片有僧侣他们手中拿着麦当劳袋子. 这种照片很生动地标志中国的改变. 但是中国的变化更多, 比这样的照片更细微的. 假使你只看一两张比较细微的照片, 你不能理解北京的变化, 不能理解变化, 但是这个变化非常多, 一直堆在一起, 联合, 转变.

When I was young I saw Tibetan monks making a sand mandala in one of the dark cavernous wings of the Chicago Field Museum. They were most of the way through, using bags of colored sand like cake frosting to create an ...read more

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I’m always saying people should vote on issues and not gut and I completely voted on gut – Obama seems ridiculously calm and I think we could use that. But his policies – from healthcare, to Afghanistan, to nuclear energy, to FISA, to drilling, to Biden’s votes in 05 on the bankruptcy acts which got us where we are now… just don’t do it for me and I would have rather voted for Nader.

I know people find that ridiculous and worthy of derision but when are people going to stop back to the same abusive parties. I don’t believe in the patient approach either. Sure, after 10 years in office Obama is going become more liberal and implement the plans he wanted to but had to do step by step. BNot likely.

It happens now – when Republican approval ratings are ankle-high, or it doesn’t happen ...read more

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