Monthly Archives: April 2009
Tune in: Carsick Cars
Carsick Cars are one of the coolest indie bands I’ve heard since being in China. Their first album I downloaded via Google Music for free (and legally in China). This video below is the new single called Mogu, Mogu. I somehow don’t think they are singing about the Mogu (mushroom) to be bought at the [...]
Shanzhai Eye: The Hi-Phone
Make no mistake about it, Shanzhai (fake) phones are big business in China. According to some in the local mobile industry, shanzhai phones make up between 20-30% of the market in China. If you take the industry figure of 650 million mobile subscribers in the middle kingdom then you’re looking at a ballpark figure of [...]
Posted in Technology, Video Tagged Android platform, cell phones, China, iphone, mobile phones, ophone, shanzhai 2 Comments
5 tips for renting in Shanghai
After being here almost a year we’ve been going through the process of evaluating our living arrangements. With the current economic climate (ugh, yeah I just wrote that) rental prices have dropped quite a bit. Luckily our landlord agreed and we’re staying put for a bit less cash. Anywho, as a backup we looked around [...]
Posted in How-to Tagged lane house, real estate agent, real estate market, Shanghai, Shanghai China 1 Comment
Kung Fu Cyborg
I hope you’re sitting down, or have a book handy to hide pending excitement, because there’s a new movie hitting cinemas soon – “Metallic Attraction: Kung Foo Cyborg”. Here’s the English trailer: We’re not quite sure what the movie is about but the trailer says its a romantic sci-fi set in a future where the [...]
What dudes do at Shanghai’s Auto Show
The 13th annual Shanghai Auto Show has hit town this week. Even by China standards this event is simply huge – which is no surprise – every south-facing western car company wants a piece of the local market. I’ve written about the show elsewhere but as a person who watches people, I did find the [...]
A Sprinkle of Ginger
One of the special things about the blog world is the ability to aggregate other people’s content and ideas quickly to fill the void of your own originality. This week I’d like to point to Ella Morton’s new blog and videos from A Sprinkle of Ginger. A friend and fellow ginger, Ella is a journalist, [...]
The Everyday Things #1
Here’s another experiment with stop motion animation – this time a little bit more successful than the last. In this video I take a look at an everyday street in Shanghai during peak hour. It’s a quick snapshot of the daily traffic grind of cars, scooters, buses, trucks, carts, bicycles, tricycles, carts, tuk tuks, pedestrians, [...]
Shanzhai Jay Chou
From the makers of Kung Foo Bear is this audition for Jay Chou. This is probably funnier if you know Chou’s singing and acting career, but Kung Foo Bear does make a cameo appearance and throws in a few HadÅken’s for good measure.
Stop Motion Animation: Shanghai at Night
The unusually clear weather last night saw me grabbing my tripod and camera, lugging it on my “lady bike”, and peddling down to the Bund for a few rare shots of a clear Shanghai skyline . As usual, the Bund was full of tourists to gasp at the city lights – and hawkers of varying [...]
China’s top 50 Websites
China: the world’s largest population of Interweb users. But what’s going on inside the great firewall and what are people interested in? This is a complex question to answer for a number of reasons; poor industry data, poor publisher’s data, data manipulation, and lack of industry standard measurements. However, one can find a general primer [...]
Posted in Technology Tagged China, china in characters, chinese websites, Google, internet in china, search queries, Web landscape, websites 1 Comment
The Lupu Bridge Climb
Unlike Australia, it seems the Easter bunny isn’t a big deal in Shanghai. No giant bunny delivering chocolate to kids in the night to remind them of… eggs, wildlife, new life, Jebus. Yes, Jesus. And something he did a long time ago. Anyway, on Easter Sunday we decided to climb Lupu bridge, the world’s longest [...]
Posted in Travel Tagged Easter, Luban Lu, Lupu bridge, Shanghai, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Zhongshan Nan Lu 1 Comment
Shanghai Shots: Accidently Cool