Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

Xinhua has a gallery from a body painting exhibition. Here’s a sample photo that should tell you exactly what’s wrong with the whole gallery:

As you can see, the area in blue highlights an artistic defect. When you do body painting on models wearing any kind of clothes, you defeat the purpose of using the body as a canvas. The extra lines and bumps from the clothing totally detract from the artistic expression. But then again, nudity in China is a big no no…

When you’re talking to chinese online, it’s easy to say goodbye with “81.” Why? Well, in Chinese, 8 is ba, and 1 is yi. Put them together, and you have “bayi”, which sounds a lot like our “bye,” just cuter. You can also say, “881″ which translates to “BuhBye!”

(18:48:37) ?Random Friend: 81
(18:48:41) ?Random Friend: oh no
(18:48:45) ?Random Friend: bye
(18:48:48) ?Random Friend: I cant use 81
(18:48:52) Elliott Brook: what is 81?
(18:49:33) ?Random Friend: try to pronounce 81
(18:49:35) ?Random Friend: in chinese
(18:49:44) ?Random Friend: you’ve learned numbers right?
(18:49:45) Elliott Brook: AHHHH
(18:49:47) Elliott Brook: HAHAHAHA
(18:49:48) Elliott Brook: ba yi
(18:49:54) Elliott Brook: That’s hilarious
(18:50:06) Elliott Brook: It’s really ba shi yi, tho
(18:49:52) ?Random Friend: 81 sounds like ba yi
(18:50:08) ?Random Friend: so we usually say 81
(18:50:12) ?Random Friend: instead of bye
(18:50:20) ?Random Friend: you can use it to chinese
(18:50:34) ?Random Friend: they’ll be amazed
(18:50:45) ?Random Friend: and
(18:50:48) ?Random Friend: you can say
(18:50:48) ?Random Friend: 881
(18:50:51) ?Random Friend: byebye
(18:50:53) Elliott Brook: ba ba yi
(18:50:56) ?Random Friend: yes!
(18:50:58) ?Random Friend: ha

I have to memorize this silly thing. Need to write it out once or twice:

Mintian shi women jia laoer de shengri, women xiang mai get dongxi gei ta. Laoer jinnian shiwu sui, mai dongxi gei ta hen bu rongyi! Ta xihuan de, women bu xiang gei; women xiang gei de, ta bu yiding xihuan.

Jinnian wo shuo song ta yi ge shouyinji, keyi tingting xinwen, ye keyi tingting yinyue. Wo taitai shuo shouinji tai gui, xianzai zhenme leng, yinggai song ta yi jian maoyi!

Shouyinji shi hen gui, dei sanshi kuai qian, keshi maoyi ye bu pianyi, hao de yao ershi dou.

Women jia de shiqing, da de ting wo de, xiao de ting wo taitai de; mai haizai de dongxi dangran shi xiao shi, taitai shuo mai maoyi, jiu mai maoyi ba!

For a great list of almost 300 Chinese themed blogs written in English, check out China Blog List:

I’m not sure how it ranks popularity, but the top four blogs are:

www.shanghaistreets.net/photos/
sinosplice.com/weblog/
msittig.wubi.org/
beijingobserver.blogspot.com/

Xiaxue’s done a beautiful redesign of her header! Now it looks like so:

The one on the site is even better, tastefully layering some pretty white snowflakes. The button underneath still need major-work, but I really love the header…