The actress who plays Wudi in a Hunan television adaptation of Ugly Betty (Ugly Wudi) recently made her first public appearance, but the public felt the title was a bit misleading.
Though the actress wears black-framed glasses and ill-fitting braces like the other Betty, her image was largely dismissed by the audience because she is not ugly enough, Oriental Morning Post reported.
Audiences hold the view that the “ugly girl” is beautiful, with a normal figure, big eyes and long hair, aside from the deliberate ugly costuming.
Agreed. I have a similar problem when they dress up beautiful people as nerds in movies. The truly unattractive need work too!
Yesterday, Forbes released this list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities. Rather than debate what it means to be a “powerful” celebrity, here is how Forbes determines it:
To generate the annual list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities, Forbes’ China bureau surveyed both the earnings and fame of China’s leaders in film, sports, media and publishing. As is the case with the Forbes Celebrity 100, the list is determined by a combined ranking of income and celebrity, or appearances on Web sites, print publications and other media.
In this case, Forbes looked at 27 magazines, 27 newspapers and 18 television programs over the course of last year. To qualify, contenders needed to be born and raised in mainland China (those from Hong Kong or Taiwan weren’t included).
And to save you the time of going through the slideshow, I have listed them below.
I have been attempting to catch up with some of my sci-fi reading (Harlan Ellison and William Gibson lately) and it got me to thinking about science fiction (科幻) in China. A little searching around the internet confirmed what I thought would be true; that sci-fi died out when the communist took over, and is now beginning to flourish, with some even saying that we are entering a “golden age” for Chinese sci-fi.
Twelve Hours Later bills itself as a site featuring “Chinese SF, fantasy, and mainstream fiction”, and while it doesn’t update very often it is excellent source for information. It provides reviews, and is where I found about Science Fiction World, where the above images are from. Science Fiction World is one of China’s most popular magazines, with a circulation of 500,000 (or 320,000?). At least a few sources mention that Chinese sci-fi tends to lean towards more “hard” sci-fi, perhaps to avoid crack down by censors?
And while there seems to be a lot of Chinese science fiction available to read online, I have seen very little of it that has been translated into English. The most promising thing I’ve been able to find is an anthology that was published in 1989, Science Fiction from China. I have requested this from my local library and will give a short review of it after finishing. Here is the synopsis of the book from Publisher’s Weekly:
This fine anthology of eight stories by six authors shows that, while years behind the west in terms of maturity of the genre, China is catching up as fast as the state will allow. Editor Dingbo Wu’s excellent introduction gives a historical overview of SF in China, while detailing the fluctuations of political acceptability during the past decade. If the plots are generally familiar, the stories convey the freshness with which the authors approached them, making each one more than just another variation on an old theme. Wei Yahua’s “Conjugal Happiness in the Arms of Morpheus” finds a new way to bring a robot to life. “The Mysterious Wave” by Wang Xiaoda and “Death Ray on a Coral Island” by Tong Enzheng are both classic gadget stories. Conversely, Ye Yonglie’s “Corrosion” is mostly concerned with the moral dilemma of desired fame vs. livable self-image. The chronological bibliography of Chinese SF is a valuable resource.
This sounds interesting, but what I am really interested in taking a look at is some more recent material. If anyone knows of any resources for translated sci-fi, let me know in the comments.
My apologies for the lack of new content as of late, as most of my free time has gone into the redesign of www.jennifernoveck.com. Please visit and leave comments.
And for some old link housecleaning, Made in China: Hip-Hop Moves East was an interesting story by NPR about the current state of rap in China.
Today I have been messing around with TVU, a video utility that has a wide variety of television channels from around the world. I mention it here for a couple of reasons.
It has a good selection of Chinese language television, with all the CCTVs and channels from Hong Kong and Taiwan. I have been looking for more sources for listening practice, and it is excellent for that. Plus I miss those Korean soap operas…
For you entertainment staved foreigners living in China, it has Comedy Central, Sci-Fi channel, a channel that just shows episodes of Family Guy and various news channels. I don’t know if it will actually work for you or not, but it is worth a try.
It also seems spyware and free, at least according to Softpedia and some other sites, and that is more than you can say for a lot of these online television players.
As has been mentioned before, it is really hot here in Nanjing in the summer. That means on days like today, 99 degrees, it is really best to stay inside and look at things online. That means eventually I get bored and have to find ways to amuse myself, or else go outside and be instantly drenched in sweat. That is how this little competition was born, pitting four videos from four different countries with a similar theme together to see which country is supreme. It is just like the World Cup. Today’s theme is email/text messaging. The rules are that the songs must have the word email or text messaging in the title.
From the United States: J Shin, T-Pain and Tile Tequila - “Send Me an Email”
From Japan: Email More
From China: Jay Chou - “短信爱情” (Text Message Love)
From France: Alizée - El e-mail tiene alas (uh, I don’t know French)
Enjoy, and leave your feelings in the comments. And if you haven’t seen MC 强强 yet, you should. Best MC Hammer impression done in a living room ever.
Mostly, the pop music that I hear in China is awful. Truly awful. But occasionally I will hear a song that is a little something different, and sort of good. This is one of those songs. I heard it on Channel V while I was in Sanya, and staying in my hotel room trying not to be fried by the sun.
I don’t know much about her, other then that she is from Singapore. Another song of hers, “天黑黑“ is successful although an uninteresting ballad.
And speaking of Sanya, I had severely burned my right foot while staying on the beach. Here is an extremely unappealing picture of my red and swollen foot. I decide to post it Humanaught style as a text link. If anyone wants to see my ugly foot, feel free an click on it.
Why can’t “National IPR Week” be every week? The answer is because then it wouldn’t be so special.
April 20 – April 26 is a time that we put our petty differences aside and think about how Paramount and Disney are losing money.
“IPR Week” held nationwide around the World Intellectual Property Day aims to enhance the public’s IPR awareness and call on the whole society to take part in IPR protection work.
Since the first IPR Week in 2004, it has been a platform for publicizing China’s IPR laws and regulations, popularizing IPR knowledge and enhancing the public’s IPR protection awareness.
I only wish there were guidelines for celebrating this holiday. Should we be jeering at the pirate DVD sellers? Burning my fake Crocodile wallet and Pamu jacket? Writing thank you letters to Microsoft? I just don’t know.
Thanks to Tech China Blog for posting about this and bringing it to my attention.
I was watching the “Learn English By Watching Short Clips From Movies” show on CCTV6 last night. This kind of show is common on many channels, and tends to pick out strange idiomatic phrases from movies and attempts to explain them. I remember one show that was explaining the phrase “Licking my chops” except every sample sentence they used sounded perverted and/or deranged. If foreigners are reading this please take my advice and do not attempt to use this phrase. But back to last nights show, the phrase that they focused on was from Harry Potter and it was “A run for my money”. The sample sentence was something like, “Wow, the 49ers sure gave the Spurs a run for their money last night!” Obviously the 49ers are a football team and the Spurs are a basketball team (although I think the Spurs maybe able to beat the 49ers at this point. Hope everyone in San Francisco enjoys wasting money on aging DBs). And the girl announcing this was an American, so she should know better. And I am sure most Chinese people know this too, or least know the 49ers aren’t a basketball team since the NBA is huge here.
And other non-Chinese NFL news, I saw this article on Fark that Shawn Alexander was a virgin until he was 24. That is news is kind of strange. Frankly who really cares, it being his personal choice afterall. But a review of his book from The Seattle Times had this bit of information.
As their relationship grows, he fights off physical desire, and sees in a series of sexual dreams a warning not to drift from his vow of abstinence. Because of it, he and Valerie decide that they will not even kiss until they wed.
Huh? It might actually be worth reading the book to find out what a sexual abstinence dream is like. However I will never be drafting him in fantasy football again. You may have not had sex with your wife until marriage Shawn Alexander, but you certainly screwed me last year.
RSS
