Out Of The Blue.

 
So it's Saturday, hello everyone! In a blink of an eye, half of the month had already gone. So how's everyone doing? The weather has always been bad, everyone should really take good care of yourselves. Do drink more water and sleep well! As what I noticed, lots of people are getting ill lately. And being ill isn't nice, it's really torturing. My schooling days are good. Yesterday we had sports day. Overall, it was great. Too bad, I couldn't get to watch the whole thing. I felt proud of the prefects, they marched really well. The red team is the champion for this year. I've no pictures with me as I didn't bring my camera to school. I  don't bring my camera to school. The month of June was good, it's July already tomorrow.

I've been reading through my old posts. It was amazing to find out that I've changed tremendously within these few years. My hairstyle, face and the ways I used to write my blog posts and etc. One more thing, looking at those photos that I've taken and remembering the trips I went brings me back lots of old and happy memories. I've noticed, the photos that I'd taken the last few years are so different than the ones I've taken this year. I really want to get this photography passion back to me. I'll be back to chase my photography passion after October.

Oh yeah, I did this a month ago, just to see how great those editing tools are. This was the result of the photo below.

Before.

Found this in one of my albums. This picture was taken in DPC one evening.


I'll be back, with more pictures I guess.

Yours Truly.

Doris C.

    

Americans in China

I don't think This American Life is going to have to have to issue a retraction for their most recent expedition in to China.

The radio program, produced by WBEZ in Chicago and distributed by Public Radio International, caused a huge stir this spring when it had to retract its program - Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory - by performer, Mike Daisey. It turned out that Daisey had made up many of the key points of his hugely popular monologue about witnessing abuses at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Watching the truth come to the surface was a wild thing to witness. I get a sick sense of enjoyment watching people get called out on lying and experienced a great deal of schadenfreude hearing Daisey taken to task as hard as he was by Rob Schmitz and Ira Glass.

Following up their piece from a pathological liar who admitted he knew "fuck-all about Chinese culture," This American Life redeemed itself this week by featuring a line-up of some of the most influential and knowledgeable foreigners living in China. This week's episode, Americans in China, is one of the better This American Life episodes I've heard (although I have to say that my favorite episode is still Somewhere Out There... do yourself a favor and listen to this one that's also China-related).

Kaiser Kuo is the main character in the most recent "Americans in China" episode. He's the host of the Sinica Podcast, a program I've touted numerous times on my blog. His story of being a Chinese American who completely fell for the land his parents came from, moving to China and literally becoming a rock star, having his Chinese band mates turn their backs on him after the Chinese embassy was bombed in Belgrade in 1999 because he's American, and ultimately raising his family in Beijing and working for Baidu is fascinating. I was quite moved by his passion for both China and the US.

The second act of the "Americans in China" episode is from Michael Meyer. His piece is about living in his wife's village in rural northeast China.

I read Meyer's book The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed last year, actually, but never got around to writing anything about it on my blog. I didn't really have anything to say about it. There was nothing overtly wrong or bad about Meyer's book, but I was just, for lack of a better word, bored by it.

My reaction to Meyer's book reminds me of my brother's reaction to Peter Hessler. After a huge amount of hype from me, I convinced my brother to read Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones a couple years ago. Oracle Bones is one of my all-time favorite books. I was so surprised when, a few weeks after he had started it, he told me that he couldn't finish the book. He said that Hessler's seriousness and humorlessness just got to him and that he couldn't continue reading.

I feel that way about Meyer's book and his piece on This American Life. I can't put my finger on it, but I haven't enjoyed his work as much as I have a lot of other prolific China hands'.

Despite not being enthralled with Meyer's piece, it was good to hear such quality programming on Americans in China. Kuo's story, framed by the excellent Evan Osnos, alone is worth listening to. This American Life has gone a long way in making up for whatever it egg it still had on its face from when it featured Mike Daisey.

Wild China

I LOL'd a few weeks ago when I saw this video - China, China:



I didn't really think twice about the clip until I started the TV series Wild China on Netflix. After a few minutes of Wild China, I realized that it was the British-accented source of the viral China, China compilation.



Wild China is a six-part 2008 BBC documentary on the rugged geography and exotic peoples and animals of China. The series is broken in to six episodes:

1. Heart of the Dragon
2. Shangri-La
3. Tibet
4. Beyond the Great Wall
5. Land of the Panda
6. Tides of Change

Heart of the Dragon is mostly about the wondrous karst areas of Guangxi Province and southern China. Shangri-La is all about the intense diversity of Yunnan Province. Tibet takes place in Tibet. Beyond the Great Wall is all about the Inner Mongolian and Xinjiang Autonomous Regions. Land of the Panda focuses mostly on central China from the Qinling Mounatins to the east. And Tides of Change looks at the humongous coast line from North Korea to Vietnam through the prism of China's rapid development.

I liked this entire series. It is top-notch videography of the incredibly diverse wildlife and terrain of China. I repeatedly thought to myself, "I can't believe that still exists. I thought China had killed off every animal like that!" Wild China proves that there's still a whole lot of beauty to be found in China.

The best episodes are the first two - on the Guangxi Autonomous Region and Yunnan Provice. These two episodes will make you want to get on a plane, put on a backpack, and go explore remote parts of China. My personal favorites from this part are the features on monkeys, ethnic minorities crossing raging rivers using rope zip lines, and fly-over videography of karst mountains.

Here is a clip of the Nu Jiang rope crossing from the Shangri-La episode:



(There are several more clips from Wild China on YouTube if you search for "wild china")

The last four episodes were interesting to me, but a let down compared to the beginning of the series.

The episode on Tibet didn't feature as many towering, snow-covered Himalayan peaks as it did barren plateau. Vast lifeless expanses of land are certainly a big part of Tibet and its topography, but it didn't make for the most interesting viewing. The same is true of the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and the deserts of Xinjiang in episode four (and I say that as a huge Xinjiang nerd). Nothing really stands out from episodes five and six in my mind a few weeks after having watched it either.

I enjoyed Wild China a lot. I'd recommend it to someone wanting to learn a thing or two while killing time on Netflix.

Roses Are Beautiful.

   
Hello people! I've nothing much to say for this whole week so I'll just post some of my photos in here. I've only one word to describe this whole week. That is, lazy or you could say, unproductive. Our school celebrated teacher's day today. I've bought three roses at school today. The one that catches my eyes is the red coloured rose.

I think I'll stop right here. I need to take my nap now. :)

Yours Truly.

Doris C.

 

It Is Already June!

   
Hello readers! After being away for so long, I'm back with something proper to blog with this time. Oh yeah! I'm feeling great now, hehehe. I promised myself to enjoy as much as I can right after the exams but apparently, I didn't enjoy that much during the holidays. I don't know what's wrong with me recently. I felt so weird. Nevermind, I'll just skip that part. Enjoyed myself during the weekend, although it wasn't really that fun but still, it was one of the nicest Sundays I've ever had.

I know that I'm a bit late for the picture above. 1st of June wasn't nice to me. It wasn't my day afterall. I injured myself on that day. Dang.

Went to Midvalley and The Gardens with my family today. I finally got to spend my time with them after all these exams and stuffs. Staying at home makes me sick. I need some time to spend with my family members. It's good that I got to spend my time with them again. Family bonding time is always good. So, I'll start off this post with pictures and it's descriptions.

Had dinner with the family at Gardens cafe. For me, the food there tasted not bad. It was nice.

Loving the environment of the cafe.

Take two.

Take three.

Random shot while waiting for our food and drinks.

My iced honey lemon.

Sister's.

My olio-aglio spaghetti. I simply love it.

Satay.

Went to Isetan.

As you guys know, Midvalley was having a Mickey Mouse fair or something. Mickey mouse lovers will definitely love this.

The huge mickey mouse!

The exhibition!

Lots of people were taking photos of those little mickey statues.

Huge paintbrush, and of course it was a fake one. :P

Huge colour pencils!

Sun wu kong! :P

Paris? 

This is cute.

Chocolatey mickey. :P

Colourful.

Classical. 

Punk style yo.

Donald duck mixed with mickey? 

This mickey is awesome!

Yup, we went to Starbucks for a drink. Those were coffee beans. 

Hot mocha.

Latte.

Hehehe. Hello. 

Oh my, it's already 1.36 AM now, I better off to sleep or else I'll turn into a real panda.

 Goodnight people!

Yours Truly.

Doris C.