Ah, live TV. Did magician Lu Chen give the CCTV Spring Festival Gala -- the most-watched show on Chinese television every year -- its Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" moment?
First, a little background. Top Chinese pianist Li Yundi and Chinese American singer Leehom Wang are best buds who spend so much time together that people openly question the nature of their relationship. (The two have repeatedly said they're not gay lovers.) It's kind of a running joke, the sort that feeds gossip mills and keeps tabloids in business.
HELLO. CAN YOU HEAR ME? SORRY FOR SHOUTING, BUT I JUST WANT TO SAY -- CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK -- SAY THAT AGAIN? SORRY IT'S JUST THAT THE -- POW -- AND -- POW -- MAKING IT HAR -- POW POW POW -- ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS HAP -- KABLOOOOOM -- GODDAMNIT! -- EEEERRRRRRRRNNNNNNN -- YOU KNOW WHAT? -- POPpopPOPpopPOPpopPOPpopPOP -- JUST WATCH THIS VIDEO.
As advertised, South Korean rapper PSY made his first televised appearance in mainland China at the Shanghai Spring Festival TV Gala, which aired on Dragon TV on Sunday. There were indeed dancing robots, as you can see. But much more bizarre was the exchange at the beginning, in which PSY tried to teach Gangnam basics to the hosts, who appeared contractually obligated to play dumb as if there were still people in the world seeing this for the first time.
We’ve all been pulled over before, and unless you’re a black man in Florida or CM Punk driving through Missouri, it probably went without incident. You accepted your ticket, or got let off with a warning after conspicuously flashing your boy scout card, and that was that. On Monday, however, a woman in Dunhuang, Gansu... Read more »
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang made an unexpected visit to a farmer’s family in Baotou, Inner Mongolia earlier this week. How unexpected? According to Sina Weibo, the farmer’s son was still sleeping (half-)naked in the room, so the father told him to go hide in the cupboard. With CCTV cameras rolling, the kid ran out of oxygen,... Read more »
We’re all suckers for a good story. In recent years, we’ve seen the authors of too-good-to-be-true memoirs exposed (James Frey, Greg Mortensen, etc.), and now we’re seeing this with a notable businesswoman from China. In Bend, Not Break, Ping Fu details her eventful life. During the Cultural Revolution, she was separated from her parents at age 8,... Read more »
Pregame. Sunday for some, Monday for others. Really, really early on Monday for others. I haven’t been training as hard as I used to, but you don’t pass up a chance to get your fan on, especially when those chances are so few and far between. The Super Bowl is big in America, the one event... Read more »
Look at this: “Rebuilt the Life of Beauty.” What does that even mean? Hello! Everyone knows it should be “rebuild,” verb. Even then, “life of beauty” hardly is the message we want to send to our children, now is it? Shame on you, Capital Fitness Club, for reinforcing the myth that beauty should be a goal, held higher... Read more »
Anne Ishii, writer/translator in New York, writing in Slate: Martin Luther King Jr. said… Please stop. …we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin, but no one said anything about what’s in our pants. Oh fuck. There is an unspeakable fallacy that all Asian-American men must decide... Read more »
