Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

In the style of icanhascheezburger, plz? here’s a lolcat I found naturally while browsing through a Koda Kumi photobook. It might be the first asian-themed lolcat; I don’t know!

We get to use two memes in one photo, which is always lovely. Since I could not decide if the kittuh looked happy to be abused by Koda or not, I thought I’d include “DO NOT WANT.” But I were tha lolkittah I’d definitely be happy, so you get the “… O RLY???” on the other side of things!

This is old, but I love this Fuck Bush t-shirt that Peking Duck points out:

It literally says “去你马的,Bush” which literally means “Go to your mother’s [implied], Bush.” It’s equivalent to the english “motherfucker” literally, which in this context I find quite charming! How better to voice your opposition of the Western influence in China!

Li Ning, principal of Beijing Institute of Protocol, is heading the selection process for hostesses at next year’s Beijing Olympics, and has a few choice things to say:

We don’t want anyone who looks in any way sleazy because that could really put athletes off. Bone structure and height should be uniform. For example, we don’t want any wide bottoms.

Tattoos are also forbidden, which puts Missy Elliott out of the running under all counts, as she got an authentic tribal tattoo in New Zealand, is incredibly short, and definitely bootylicious.

That’s too bad, as she’d make a great opening event. However, since the ceremonies will probably try to have as Chinese a flavour as possible, someone like Faye Wong, Jay Chou, S.H.E, or any of the myriad and awesome Chinese singers would do!

(On an unrelated note, wouldn’t a 周杰伦 / Missy Elliott collaborating be TOTALLY AWESOME?)

Unfortunate is online fortune cookies. Social cookies!! It’s really cute, especially since you get to vote on the best and worst fortunate in their hall of fame, which currently are:

The best fortunates

• Help! I’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory!
• If you can do the robot, you can sneak into robot dance clubs.

The most unfortunate fortunes

• Your food was poisoned.
• George Bush is still president.

The Chinese is always a bit wrong, but they assure me they’re working on it. They get data from CEDict, which is potentially flawed as it is user-editable. One funny Chinese bug right now is that the pinyin “chuzu qiche” comes up way more frequently than it should, sometimes in hilarious contexts.

The new style in Japan called “bon-kyu-bon” means “big-small-big” and trails the Western obsession with buxom girls, small waists, and big hips. You just have to hear the Commodores sing “36-24-36, what a winning hand!” in their hit disco song Brick House to realize this isn’t anything new. It’s not often that you see Japanese fashion on Digg, but with the mostly male geek crowd there are plenty of Japanophiles.

This wouldn’t fly in the US, but in Japan everything is game

Apparently the new trend is driven by better, calorie-rich Western nutrition:

Today, the average Japanese woman’s hips, at 35 inches, are around an inch wider than those of women a generation older. Women in their 20s wear a bra at least two sizes larger than that of their mothers, according to Wacoal. Waist size, meanwhile, has gotten slightly smaller, accentuating many young women’s curves. The average 20-year-old is also nearly three inches taller than she was in 1950, according to government statistics, and the average foot has grown by nearly a quarter of an inch.

The Star wants to indicate that Koda Kumi is to blame for the “show it all off” trend:

The cleavage craze took off in 2003, when a young pop star named Kumi Koda appeared in ads around Tokyo wearing a barely-there metallic bra and not much else. In one image, she wore coconut shells over her chest. Then, two years later, she performed at the televised Japan Record Awards wearing thin tape-like gold satin straps over her breasts that revealed nearly everything when she danced. The 24-year-old star has become the champion of a new “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” attitude among young Japanese women.

You can check out these photos of singer Koda Kumi yourself if you get bored. I really like her. As for the style, if I were a girl I’d probably try it; since I’m not and have to wear a suit most of the time, I will never have the opportunity… and it’s getting so hot here!