Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

The following really cute pictures were found on an iPhone shipped to the UK;they’re absolutely adorable! It’s interesting to see the inside of a Chinese iPhone factory, and also to see what kind of people are employed there.

It’s too bad she didn’t leave an address in the phone, then the guy could send her a cute “Thanks for making my iPhone” note! On a more somber note, the girl in question probably makes around 700 RMB a month, and works 15 hour days.

I found the following fortunate cookie my dinner last night, it’s a little strange, but I get a positive impression from it. It’s wishing me well:

“Age can never hope to with you while your heart is young.” If you can figure out what the missing verb is, let me know.

This is cute, it made me wonder if joining the Japanese Air Force was in my future. Then, I found out its from the flying sim Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (エースコンバット6 解放への戦火, Ēsu Konbatto Shikkusu Kaihō e no Senka). Still, putting cute anime on fighter jets is adorable…

The game looks half decent, it’s rated 80% on metacritic!

Margaret Cho is a Korean/American comedian most people describe as funny but unattractive. She’s hugely involved in gay and lesbian rights issues, and an anti-Bush protester. I’m not sure precisely why she’s so famous or popular (see a random youtube skit to evaluate yourself), but she does have awesome tattoos!

Apparently she fell in love with tattoos and got 30% of her body covered in them. It’s a very nice tattoo! For more photos of Margaret Cho, including many Creative Commons (CC) licensed work, you should check out her flickr search results for over 1,500 more!

Would you name your child the literal “@” symbol? In the US there’s probably no law against it. In Chinese, the name “at” even sounds a little bit like 爱他, or “love him.”

However, a Chinese couple who wanted to do so ran afoul of 国家语委, the national language commission. Chinese last names, recently expanded to four characters, have the unique problem of having 129 of 23,000 surnames accounting for 87% of the population.