A smart person once told me that the feeling she gets when certain people enter the room is the same feeling she gets when she encounters the dank scent of mildew on damp, bath towels. It’s a livable smell, that palpable acrid taste in the air, but for her it also brings with it a constant grating and discomfort. Even worse, people who project this feeling on others with condescending smiles and cheerful helping hands are often “true believers” with the very best of intentions. They move and talk as though under an ideological spell. Their hope is that when they enter the atmosphere of a situation the positive vibes, the affect, or “wisdom of the body,” they emit will radiate like an emotional contagion. Read more »
In an interesting linguistic study published in June, Tyler Schnoebelen of the language data company Idibon looked at hundreds of languages and evaluated them against one another according to 165 features shared by at least 100 languages. What he came up with was a "Weirdness Index" -- downloadable here -- that ranks 239 languages according to how odd they are, i.e. how different one is from the others. (Perhaps a better word would be "distinct.") Read more »
Ever since we found out that Florentijn Hofman's famous Rubber Duck was coming to Beijing, the question has been: where will it be placed? Houhai? The National Center for the Performing Arts ("The Egg")? Zhang Xin's personal swimming pool? Read more »
On Tuesday night around 10 pm, a young woman was attacked by two men near the subway station at Communication University of China, according to eyewitnesses. Police rushed to the scene. Thirty minutes later, an ambulance transported the victim to the nearest hospital, where her condition is currently unknown. Read more »
Kobe Bryant is currently in China with Nike, for the eighth time, to "inspire young athletes." "As a key part of his tour, Bryant will surprise fans by dropping in at various basketball courts in each city to watch players who have heeded the call to come out and play basketball at night," Nike reports, so if you want a chance to meet Kobe, get out there and play basketball on your city's most popular court at night. Read more »
Think you're the fastest beer-chugger in Beijing? Prove it. Sign up for the inaugural Beijing Cream Chug-off for Charity on Saturday, August 24 at 2 pm at the new Great Leap Brewing (between Sun City and Chunxiu Lu). All proceeds will go to Magic Hospital, a local charity that "strives to help in the healing of sick, abused, neglected and orphaned children by restoring an element of fun in their day." It's absolutely a good cause, which we'll tell you more about in the coming days. Great Leap is very generously donating all the beer that will be used at the event. Read more »
It's been a while since our friends at Xinhua have done something truly absurd, but today, China's official state-run news agency has really outdone itself. The culprit this time is not Xinhua's English-language slideshow, but a Chinese edition, which recently published 40 pictures that appear to be screenshots from a fetish porno. Read more »
