Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

I just bought Koda Kumi’s latest single “Butterfly.” It’s got the strangest cover I’ve seen in a while:

Taken with an anonymous half-naked man, it seems she’s trying to up the sex-appeal as much as possible. Of course, since I do not speak japanese, I can’t tell you what the lyrics mean:

Koda Kumi- Butterfly

* shinjitai mirai wo ima kono te
tsukamitoru kara
akirameru koto wa mada hayai no
kirei ni naru Burning Heart
motto motto kagayakeru wa butterfly

NEIRU ni atarashii GUROSU de taikutsu na hibi
kaetai no kimi no tame jibun no tame ni

todoku ka wa jibun shidai nara yatte miseru wa
uitari shizundari kurikaeshitemo

kimi wa watashi no “subete” dewa nai
dakedo inai to “subete” ga dame ni naru dakara
nanika ga kawatta to hayaku kidzukasetai

* repeat

BASUTAIMU awa fuusen ni kimi no egao utsushi
toikakeru ima kimi wa doushiteru no?

kiseki wa nando demo okiru no sou yo
kisetsu ga nando mo koushite megutte kuru you ni
suteki na koto desho? shinjite mitai kara

chiisana omoide wo taguri yose
dakishime nemuru
mezameta toki kidzuku kono omoi
kimi igai mienai
motto motto kagayakasete butterfly

* repeat

forums.boajjang.com/lofiversion/index.php/t25536.html

However, the single’s tight, well produced, and very clean sounding. It opens with a subtle hook, and uses very very good overdubs on the voices to push in more energy. Give it a listen.

Thanks to Danwei, I came across this map, titled “A dozen ways to die in Shanghai,” featuring the city’s most prominent suicide spots:

They provide the following english translation:

Huichunji pharmacy sells sleeping pills.
Suzhou rivier is uncovered.
The #57 bus goes directly to the zoo. You can jump into a tiger’s mouth and die.
The Kerry Center is 32 stories tall. Jumping off is 100% successful.
A manhole cover has been stolen - jump into the sewer and drown.
Cars under the Yan’an Road viaduct drive very fast. Accidents happen often.
Changshou Road subway station - lie on the tracks.
Fuxing Park - hanging yourself is simple among the tall, close trees.
Barber stand at 1324 alley - steal a razor and cut your throat.
High-voltage power lines - with 20,000 volts, electrocution is convenient.
Wang’s Tofu Stand - crush yourself with a piece of tofu.
Dafa Gardens construction site - there’s always something falling.
Filling station - death by self-immolation.
Free and Easy Sauna - death by suffocation.

Previously valued at 8.28:1, open trading recently on the yuan currently values it at 8.11:1, a gain of roughly two percent. Over time, the increasing cost of travel to China will probably hurt tourism, do who-knows-what for the economy:

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange published detailed rules on the trading limits for the yuan, saying that it would be allowed to rise or fall by 1.5 percent per day against foreign currencies other than the dollar.

Led by the United States, government leaders and central bankers from a raft of China’s trading partners welcomed the move, which came after two years of pressure from foreign governments and global markets.

“They’ve put in place a mechanism that provides room for significant movement over time in the currency, and they’ve expressed a commitment to using market forces to let the currency move,” U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said.

Read more at MSNBC…

This post is really quite silly, and not related to things “asian” at all, but I was reading the Tokyo Times’ ludicrous loaf and immediately thought of:

Ludacris Loaf. Yes, it could get worse…