“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!” – Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being ~
"It's not just children who like it. The core value of the rubber duck is to bring back childlike innocence to all of us, especially weary adults." – Zeng Hui, head of the Beijing Design Week Organizing Committee
The above picture, according to a tweet from the official Twitter account of Justin Bieber's Believe Tour, shows the boy prince himself being hoisted on an invisible palanquin up the Great Wall. (PS, Justin Bieber is in Beijing. It appears he was at Spark last night.)
The above is by photojournalist Sean Gallagher, who found himself stuck in traffic earlier today just outside of Beijing. As he writes on his Instagram:
Every year, millions of Chinese and foreign tourists swarm the country's national symbol, the Gate of Heavenly Peace -- Tiananmen. But few know that the current gate is actually an imitation that was only built 43 years ago.
Sunday was World Car Free Day, striving to remind people of the earth that cars pollute and are actually less necessary than you think (unless you live in Suburbia, USA). More than 150 Chinese cities observed World Car Free Day, according to Xinhua, though it was apparent that some cities observed it much better than others.
At a recent Beijing Improv show, Tomas was called up on stage as a volunteer and asked if he knew anyone in the crowd that could join him in a little game. He picked his girlfriend, Jenia. The two stood on opposite sides of the stage, acting as the ends of a telephone line, with their words transmitted from one to the other via two Improv performers.
This week's podcast was recorded at the Bookworm on Wednesday for the Literary Death Match, hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga, featuring the four readers/competitors Leslie Ann Murray, Tom Carter, Stanley Chan, and Anthony Tao, and the judges Alice Xin Liu, Vicky Mohieddeen, and Sherwin Jiang.
