Weekend Dollop Of Nostalgia: Irish Band In Beijing Circa 1999

Irish Band In Beijing Circa 1999 featured image
Posted on Monday by YouTube user texasdaveodell -- who longtime Beijingers will remember as Dave, a staple in the local punk scene -- the musicians in the video could well be Beijing's first Irish band, active from 1999 to 2001. (Or not -- someone out there correct this bit of info in the video title if you can.) Like a true nostalgic, Dave has asked the members of the outfit to contact him at dave@texasdavid.com. You know what they say about growing old and wistful: the older you get, the more you wish you would've married that curly-haired flutist in that Irish band.

Yet Another Fight Breaks Out Between American And Chinese Basketball Teams [UPDATE]

Basketbrawl
In the wake of the “British rapist” and Russian cellist, this won’t help Chinese-foreigner relations: a basketball team called the New Orleans Hurricanes — possibly this one from Texas – was in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province yesterday for an exhibition against the Zhejiang Guangsha Lions that ended in the worst way possible. In the above video (and below, on Youku,... Read more »

This Chicken-Raping Puppy GIF Wins

Dog on chicken
This video, originally 10 minutes, first appeared about four years (full version on Youku after the jump), and possibly because of its length, it lived down to its viral potential. There was too much pictorial white noise, so that a punchy title such as “Dog Lures Chicken Into Love Den, Proceeds To Hump (Rape?) It” didn’t... Read more »

“China’s Messi”? Watch This 12-Year-Old Soccer Prodigy

56.com video for those in China after the jump. Li Ming, a 12-year-old who plays on Qingdao’s Chengyang Experimental No. 2 Primary School, captured Chinese soccer fans’ attention recently with his ball-handling, passing, set-piece kicks, and lob shots over goalies’ heads. All the above can be seen the in embedded video, a game vs. Qingdao... Read more »

Watch: Hennessy’s Online Ad Featuring Ultimate Frisbee Players In Beijing

Ultimate Frisbee Hennessey ad
We spent 10 hours filming in a chilly underground parking garage off East Fourth Ring Road last month to produce the 30-second clip you see above (and after the jump, on Youku for those in China). We tossed around a regulation Discraft disc rigged with lights along the inside of the rim and in the middle. At one point, we played a mini game, a three on two within the confines of parking garage columns, and it was a damn miracle that none of us collided with the extras going back and forth on the skateboard and mountain bike. Goddamn skateboarders and mountain bicyclists, always ruining a game of Ultimate Frisbee. It's like Central Park pickup all over again.

The Sports-As-War Metaphor Will Never Shine Brighter Than In This Euro 2012 Ad

Sports as war metaphor NOW TV ad
The black spume of incendiary waste. The drifting snowflake relics of plaster and concrete. The mangled spine of a charred Eiffel Tower, and eviscerated high-rises, and a manmade earthquake rocking our cradle of rubble upon which humanity slinks toward a final reckoning. And that's only the first 10 seconds of Hong Kong-based NOW TV's advertisement for this summer's UEFA European Football Championships. Did I mention the only thing that stands tall is the Euro 2012 trophy, glittering with the light of what can only be thermal radiation -- a nuclear flash?

Ultimate Frisbee As Reported On China Central Television

Ultimate Frisbee on CCTV
For those of you who play Ultimate Frisbee (disclosure: I do), you'll be interested to know that Chinese state media's sports channel, CCTV-5, came by and did a piece on the Beijing tournament over the weekend that was organized by BJC contributor Alicia. More than 400 players and 24 teams were part of the sixth annual China Nationals, won by Speed, a team of college students from Tianjin Sports University.

The Mother Of All Traffic Jams (Warning: It’s Horrifying)

The Mother Of All Traffic Jams featured image
A confluence of factors led to what appears to be at least a two-mile traffic jam in northwest Beijing on Saturday night. (Prepare to gape in horror around the 30-second mark as the camera pans out.) It was raining. It was a long block. It was in Zhongguancun, an incredibly busy part of town known for its electronics stores and colleges. And, most crucially, a traffic light had broken. This is my every nightmare about the city, frightening precisely because I -- and any Beijinger, really -- could easily find myself stuck in that paralyzing morass of postmodernity, equipped with no salve for a spiking blood pressure except heinous imaginings of unspeakable acts to perform on sentient, suffering beings. The abyss gazes back indeed.