According to AFP, more than 20 people in Hanoi have been arrested today for anti-China protests. About 200 protesters waved banners and chanted, “Down with China’s aggression!” A similar demonstration was broken up in Ho Chi Minh City. AFP: Vietnam, which has begun exploring for oil in what it claims as its territorial waters, last week... Read more »
Modern magic is as much about presentation as illusion, because we've all seen elephants disappear, women sawed in half, men levitate.
Please turn your attention to France's Yann Frisch, who nailed the above cups-and-balls trick at the inaugural China Beijing International Magic Convention last week. The video has gotten more than 1 million views since being posted December 1, and one can see why: not for the illusion itself, which is rather simple (quick hands, maybe someone under the table), but the build-up, the storytelling, the execution that must have taken years to perfect, the Godot-esque absurdity and humor of it all.
By Our Correspondent I’m posting this anonymously for obvious reasons, but apparently along with good folks like Charlie Custer, Will Moss and more, my extraordinary drug dealer has suddenly become part of the Diaspora. Probably deported, but he was a true gentleman and gracious businessman while he lasted. Chinese business folk could learn a lot... Read more »
Mo Yan gave his traditional Nobel lecture, "Storytellers," about 10 hours ago at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm. He was introduced by Kjell Espmark, member of the Nobel literature committee.
Mo's 32-minute talk has already been translated by the preeminent Howard Goldblatt, here, which you should take a minute to read before letting the news media inundate the conversation with all their cherry-picked selections that fit their narrative.
As Mo Yan prepares to speak in Stockholm — in less than 10 minutes, at 12:30 am local time, barring delays — the piece you should read if you haven’t already is Kenyon College assistant professor Anna Sun’s essay in the current issue of The Kenyon Review. Here’s an excerpt from “The Diseased Language of... Read more »
In a definitive victory for concrete over abstract — chocolate over Beethoven, shelter over esteem, sex over art — hundreds of couples in Da’ao village in Guiyang, Guizhou province have chosen to end their marriages in favor of cold, hard, seeable, touchable, and, ultimately, valuable property. They’re doing this because of an August 28 regulation on... Read more »
The Norwegian government is only marginally responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize — its parliament appoints the five-person selection committee — but you wouldn’t know it judging by China’s durian-sized grudge, with spikes of everlasting disdain. Quick recap: in 2010, while serving his fourth prison term, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize despite... Read more »
Government-run Gannan Daily reported Monday that China’s supreme court, top prosecution body, and police jointly issued the legal opinion that those who incite or abet self-immolations should be charged with “intentional murder.” In an article that reeks of Chinese media, it states (translation made available yesterday by San Francisco-based Duihua Foundation): So that the recent... Read more »
A Modern Parable
They told the Old Man the mountain, with its head as white as his, would not move, but he feigned deafness. They mocked him, shaking their fans and leaning forward so he could better see their sneers, but the Old Man wagged his head and flashed a toothy grin. The townsfolk gossiped behind his back and marveled at the futility of the endeavor, but the Old Man, rocking away his days on a hand-woven bamboo chair, knew that one day the steadfastness of his pursuit would coalesce with a dream so that in their sameness he'd wake to see the mountain gone, carried off to the shores of the Bohai Sea.
