Remember Tianamen Massacre

Casting the First Stone (Sharon)

Sharon Stone said that the China earthquake was a result of karma. Predictably, China called for boycott of everything Sharonian. Would that include Sharon Cuneta? Which reminds me, she looked like Louie Cruz, nowadays. But that's not what I'm afraid of. Because of karma, the US should now prepare for the Big One. No joke, the pain and suffering they caused us and the ignorance and hedonism of the people there?

Western Verse

*A POEM FOR THE WEST *

by Prof.Duo-Liang Lin
Published by the Washington Post

When we were the Sick Man of Asia, We were called The Yellow peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are called The Threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
When we embrace Free Trade, You blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, You marched in your troops and wanted your fair
share.
When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet you
screamed, It Was an Invasion!
When tried Communism, you hated us for being Communist.
When we embrace Capitalism, you hate us for being Capitalist.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debts.
When we build our industries, you call us Polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.
When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human
rights.
When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.
When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed- xenophobics.
Why do you hate us so much, we asked.
No, you answered, we don't hate you.
We don't hate you either,
But, do you understand us?
Of course we do, you said,
We have AFP, CNN and BBC's...
What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer...
Because you only get so many chances.
Enough is Enough, Enough Hypocrisy for This One World.
We want One World, One Dream, and Peace on Earth.
This Big Blue Earth is Big Enough for all of Us.


The problem, Professor, is that you strive to be like them kasi and you look up to them. Hello? Youre a perfessor of what? Berkeley? Yoohoo! Enough Hypocrisy talaga. "When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human rights." Free Tibet. Free Tibet. Free Tibet.

Code of Ethics of the Martial Law Regime

Borrowed from Shanghai:

Ballet

When I accidentally opened this, I thought I made a mistake but I watched it to last pas de deux. He lost his leg when he was very young and she lost her arm in a car accident. This dance has all the pathos and athleticism of a classic ballet piece.

Ion's China Race

Mel of China sent us this funny birthday invitation. Note the gift advisory:

Mr. Cinema

On my way to Abu Dhabi (before going to Hyderabad), I watched "Ocean's Eleven" with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and "Maltese Falcon" with Bogart and some other Canadian TV shows. On my way back to Manila, I watched "Surf's Up" and "Mr. Cinema." The last has Anthony Wong as a projectionist who was also a leftist who wanted China to rule HK even in the 1970s. He remained a projectionist until the moviehouse closed in 2006, much to the ire of his wife and son played by Ronald. Samson Chiu who directed the Golden Chicken series managed to bring in 40 yeas of HK cinema in the movie as well as the Handover, SARS, Y2K and many collapses of the HK market. Wong reminded me of someone else and it only came to me now who he was: Ricky Lee. Wong and Lee. So apt.

Mel's Mailing a Letter

Ms. Mel Garcia is going postal. She wrote:

So you think having a letter mailed is easy? Not if you’re in China and you don’t speak Chinese. I’ve been on assignment in Shenzhen for almost two years but I still don’t dare go to the post office. Whenever I need to mail something to Hong Kong, my home base, I ask the front desk clerk at Fraser Place (the serviced apartment where I live), to do it for me. I quickly discovered that this is not exactly a worry-free solution. Check this out:
‘Mail order’ # 1: Express mail to Hong Kong Immigration. I left ¥20 for postage (USD1:¥8). When I came back from work, I was told I needed to pay ¥5 more because my letter was sent by courier.
#2: Express mail to HSBC Hong Kong. This time I left ¥25 for postage. When I came back from work, the front desk clerk gave me back ¥16 because they sent my letter by express mail which cost only ¥9.
#3: Express mail again to HSBC Hong Kong. I left ¥20 for postage. When I came back from work, I was told my letter had not been mailed because a decision needed to be made. According to the courier (which was not the same as the one in #1), if I give the phone number of the addressee, I’ll pay only ¥30; if not, I’ll pay ¥50. The letter was addressed to a P.O. Box so I took the letter back to my apartment, searched for the number of the HSBC customer hotline, and wrote it down on the envelope.
#4: The next morning, I gave back the HSBC letter to the clerk and I also gave her another document to mail - my Income Tax Return addressed to the Inland Revenue Dept of HK. I also wrote down the phone number of the revenue officer in charge of my account on the envelope so that the courier will charge me less. Because this letter was quite heavy, I left ¥100 for both letters. When I came back from work, I was told that the courier picked up my letter to HSBC but in order to save me money, they sent my ITR by ordinary mail…hu-hu-hu
#5: Another letter to HSBC HK. I told the front desk clerk to send it via 1-day express mail. She asked me to leave ¥20. When I came back in the afternoon, she gave me back 18.50 and said ordinary postage cost only 1.50. The letter took a week to reach HSBC but since it wasn’t that urgent, I didn’t make an issue of this latest mix-up.
#6: Another letter to HSBC HK. I’ve had it with Fraser so I asked our project Girl Friday, a local, to mail it for me via one-day express. I gave her ¥10 and the next day she gave me back ¥4 change.
#7: Another letter to HSBC. This time I took it with me to HK and mailed it there. No hassle. All I needed to do was get HK$1.20 worth of stamps from a dispensing machine beside the mailbox.

Asu

China, which has a history of dog-eating, recently staged a fashionshow for dogs. Vivienne Westwood designed this "jacket" which is studded with white diamonds and sapphire. She is selling this for $2,500. Dogmeat in Comiles BTW is still P65 per order. Visit Andy Zapata's flickr for the comparison photo.

Florcruz

A famous Filipino broadcast journalist who chose to seek asylum in China in 1971 during his activist days plans to be one of the eight expatriates who would be chosen to carry the Olympic torch. Jaime FlorCruz, the bureau chief of CNN Beijing, and his 17-year-old daughter Stephanie are asking Filipinos to vote for them in the online contest set to choose the torch bearers in the Beijing Olympics set on August 2008.
FlorCruz, then the editor-in-chief of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, was one of 15 Filipino youths invited by the China Friendship Association in August 1971 for a three-week tour. It was at that time that the late President Ferdinand Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus and detained many of the oppositionists. FlorCruz, a staunch anti-Marcos activist, chose to stay until the declaration of martial law a year later, found him stranded in China.
"Through the years, I have experienced China in unusual ways. In 1972, I planted rice, picked tea leaves and fed pigs in a farm in Hunan Province. A year later, I worked in a trawler of a Shandongfishing company, navigating ships and shoveling fish," FlorCruz said in his introduction at the Olympic contest sponsored by China Daily and Lenovo.
He soon became an English teacher in Beijing.
"Beijing has brought me countless blessings. I met my Filipino wife and raised my two children here. It was also here where, 25 years ago, I started my career as an international journalist: first as reporter for Newsweek and later as correspondent and Beijing bureau chief of TIME Magazine," he said.
During his stint in Time, he co-wrote a book about the Tiananmen incident in the summer of 1989 entitled, Massacre at Beijing.
"I covered the 1988 Seoul Olympics for TIME Magazine and Sports Illustrated. Now I am looking forward to covering the Beijing Games as well, this time as CNN's Beijing Bureau Chief. It would be fun not just to report on it but to actually participate as one of the torch bearers during the relay," FlorCruz added.
He is married to Ana Segovia and they have two children: son Johai and daughter Michelle.
His daughter also decided to join the contest.
"I was "Made in China", born in the Philippines, and bred in Beijing. I guess that makes me a top-quality product, a fusion of different cultures," Michelle wrote.
"I'm turning 17 soon and am very much at home here. I am keenly learning Mandarin, Chinese history and culture. I'm now a senior in high school at the International School of Beijing, where over 1,000 students are enrolled from different parts of the world. In school I play rugby and softball," she added.
You can vote for Jaime through this link: http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch/members.shtml?mid=204 and Michelle through this: http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch/members.shtml?mid=205

Myanmar and Dalai Lama

Support for the Myanmar dissidents would lead you instead to the Dalai Lama. But this is not His Holiness but a computer virus instead. You would get this from your email:

“Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Please find enclosed a message from His Holiness the Dalai Lama in support of the recent pro democracy demonstrations taking place in Burma. This is for your information and can be distributed as you see fit.

Best wishes,
Tenzin Taklha
Joint Secretary
Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”

But when you open the attachment, you get a Trojan Horse.

China is Excited About the Olympics

From Amnesty International

Chinese Screen Names

I am cleaning my bag when I saw this list of names at the back of one concert ticket. These are the names of Chinese actors, actress and others in the HK and Taiwanese movies with nice names. Well, you know Run Run Shaw, how about:
Moon Lee
Casanova Wong
Ringo Lam
Noodle Cheng, who reminds you of:

Curry Lau, director of "Ultimate Vampire"
Season Ma, actress famous for "The First Time is The Last Time" and "Boat People" where she co-stars with Cora Miao (catty!!)
Tomato Chan

Well, you know Maggie Cheung but why do they always use the full name "Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk" which is not really good. Or Elvis Tsui who is more completely known as "Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong."
Well, at least Ridley Tsui is just that.

Top 100 Non-English Language Films

From respected movie bloggers in the US and other English-speaking countries (JZ and J Devera not included, otherwise puro Nora na sana iyan):
100 THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov and Written by Viktor Rozov)
99. DAY OF WRATH (Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer)
98. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini)
97. SATANTANGO (Written and directed by Bela Tarr)
96. THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Written and directed by Luis Bunuel)
95. RUN LOLA RUN (Written and directed by Tom Tykwer)
94. ORPHEUS (Written and directed by Jean Cocteau)
93. THE BLUE ANGEL (Directed by Josef von Sternberg and written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller and Robert Liebmann)
92. AMELIE (Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant)
91. FORBIDDEN GAMES (Directed by Rene Clement and written by Clement, Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost and Francois Boyer)
90. THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski and written by Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz)
89. CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (Written and directed by Agnes Varda)
88. SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (Directed by Francois Truffaut and written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy)
87. PIERROT LE FOU (Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
86. AMORES PERROS (Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga)
85. VIRIDIANA (Directed by Luis Bunuel and written by Bunuel and Julio Alejandro)
84. MASCULIN/FEMININ (Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
83. WOMAN IN THE DUNES (Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and written by Kobo Abe)
82. Z (Directed by Costa-Gavras and written by Jorge Semprun)
81. COME AND SEE (Directed by Elem Klimov and written by Klimov and A. Adamovich)
80. SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
79. SUSPIRIA (Directed by Dario Argento and written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi)
78. OPEN CITY (Directed by Roberto Rossellini and written by Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini)
77. SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
76. ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar)
75. MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (Written and directed by Eric Rohmer)
74. EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Directed by Georges Franju and written by Pierre Boileau, Pierre Gascar, Thomas Narcejac, Jean Redon and Claude Sautet)
73. DAY FOR NIGHT (Directed by Francois Truffaut)
72. ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
71. HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Directed by Alain Resnais and written by Marguerite Duras)
70. LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (Directed by Alain Resnais and written by Alain Robbe-Grillet)
69. AMARCORD (Directed by Federico Fellini)
68. ARMY OF SHADOWS (Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville)
67. DAS BOOT (Written and directed by Wolfgang Peterson)
66. CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (Directed by Jacques Rivette)
65. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (Written and directed by Jacques Demy)
64. THRONE OF BLOOD (Directed by Akira Kurosawa)
63. CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai)
62. BLUE (Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski)
61. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (Directed by Ang Lee)
60. BAND OF OUTSIDERS (Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
59. RIFIFI (Directed by Jules Dassin)
58. TALK TO HER (Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar)
57. L'ECLISSE (Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni)
56. YI YI: A ONE AND A TWO... (Written and directed by Edward Yang)
55. CINEMA PARADISO (Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore)
54. ORDET (Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer)
53. Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (Directed by Alfonso Cuaron)
52. UMBERTO D (Directed by Vittorio de Sica)
51. HIGH AND LOW(Directed by Akira Kurosawa)
50. RAISE THE RED LANTERN (Directed by Zhang Yimou)
49. MADAME DE... (Directed by Max Ophuls and written by Ophuls, Marcel Achard and Annette Wademant)
48. LATE SPRING (Directed by Yasujiro Ozu)
47. LA STRADA (Directed by Federico Fellini)
46. SANSHO THE BAILIFF (Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi)
45. PICKPOCKET (Written and directed by Robert Bresson)
44. YOJIMBO (Directed by Akira Kurosawa)
43. THE DECALOGUE (Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski)
42. CRIES AND WHISPERS (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
41. WINGS OF DESIRE (Directed by Wim Wenders)
40. THE WAGES OF FEAR (Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot)
39. RED (Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski)
38. NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Directed by Federico Fellini)
37. L'ATALANTE (Directed by Jean Vigo)
36. THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Directed by Luis Bunuel)
35. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Written and directed by Jean Cocteau)
34. CHILDREN OF PARADISE (Directed by Marcel Carne and written by Jacques Prevert)
33. SPIRITED AWAY (Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki)
32. BELLE DE JOUR (Directed by Luis Bunuel)
31. LE SAMOURAI (Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville)
30. WILD STRAWBERRIES (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
29. L'AVVENTURA (Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni)
28. THE LEOPARD (Directed by Luchino Visconti)
27. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai)
26. CITY OF GOD (Directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund)
25. ANDREI RUBLEV (Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky)
24. AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (Written and directed by Robert Bresson)
23. PLAYTIME (Directed by Jacques Tati)
22. UGETSU MONOGATARI (Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi)
21. BREATHLESS (Directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
20. CONTEMPT (Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
19. LA DOLCE VITA (Directed by Federico Fellini)
18. THE CONFORMIST (Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci)
17. JULES AND JIM (Directed by Francois Truffaut)
16. RAN (Directed by Kurosawa)
15. THE SEVENTH SEAL (Directed by Bergman)
14. IKIRU (Kurosawa)
13. RASHOMON (Directed by Kurosawa)
12. TOKYO STORY (Directed by Yasujiro Ozu)
11. FANNY AND ALEXANDER (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
10. THE 400 BLOWS (Directed by Francois Truffaut)
9. THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo)
8. AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (Written and directed by Werner Herzog)
7. GRAND ILLUSION (Directed by Jean Renoir)
6. PERSONA (Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman)
5. BICYCLE THIEVES (Directed by Vittorio de Sica)
4. 8 1/2 (Directed by Fellini)
3. M (Directed by Fritz Lang)
2. THE SEVEN SAMURAI (Directed by Kurosawa)
1. THE RULES OF THE GAME (Directed by Jean Renoir)

Siopao 2

And now to totally ruin your siopao fetish. I watched two months ago this grisly movie. You think cardboard and pusa are bad? This one takes the cake or siopao. The title is "The Untold Story: Human Meat Roast Pork Buns." Stupid Title. Human na, pork pa. I only now know that the other titles for this classic are: Ba xian fan dian zhi ren rou cha shao bao in Hong Kong (Mandarin title); Bunman: The Untold Story; Human Meat Pies: The Untold Story; Human Pork Chop in the USA; and The Eight Immortals Restaurant: The Untold Story also in USA. But then what do you call human meat anyway? Human pork Chop?? Enough of that. The director is Herman Yau Lai-to. The movie is about a man who killed another man in a mahjjong game in Hong Kong. He moved to Macau and became a slicer (not yet a cook) in the Eight Immortals Restaurant. Then the owner of the restaurant accused the man of being a mahjjong cheat. He killed the owner and his family. He sliced and diced them and froze them and took over the restaurant. The policemen who were working on the strange disappearances were wondering why the man(Chan something) kept on feeding them siopao. Genius! Especially that part when the man confessed it all to the police. I heard Anthony Wong won the Chinese Oscar for his role as the siopao maker. I will lend you the DVD, Padma, as long as I don't hear Yeow somewhere.

Siopao I

Also from the Business Mirror, I learned that they are using cardboard in their siopaos in Beijing. They don't call it siopao there but baozi. A Chinese TV network showed one baozi maker chopping cardboard and using industrial chemical to soften and adding pork flavoring. OK. And yet when I was young, I was having a soliloquy on whether to eat the paper at the bottom or not. Then that persistent rumor about our siopao made of pusa. I would be discussing that in a later blog. Also, I came upon a story of a dinuguang siopao. it was supposed to be a celebrated crime case in China early this year.

The Yin and Yang of Ghost Movies

Seven Signs You’re In a Horror Movie (FROM THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CULT MOVIES)
1) If you’re a teenager and you have sex, you will be dead before the night is over.
2) Any character shouting, “Is anyone there” will discover that, yes, someone is there, and they have a big axe/ gun/ knife and now know where to find you. Similarly, anyone who says, “I’ll be right back” clearly won’t.
3) The “he looks dead so I’ll stop running and stand near him” ruse, where the killer is just waiting before making the audience jump one last time. Surely, no one would be surprised by this “twist” any more?
4) At the end the killer is clearly dead – except there is one really final scene hinting he may nonetheless recover from multiple gunshot wounds and a beheading, just in case the movie is a hit and someone subsequently decided to cash in with a sequel.
5) Young women with big breasts running away from the murderer will always stumble (Is this a gravity thing?)
6) A bad guy is viciously stabbing, maiming and slaughtering people because his mother doesn’t love him
7) If you’ve escaped the maniac, reached the car and found your car keys, rest assured that the engine won’t start first time. Or second time. But just as he reaches you and hacks through the soft-top, that dead battery/ lost connection rights itself and you escape – with your assailant in the backseat.



CLEARLY CHINESE GHOST MOVIES ARE MUCH, MUCH BETTER (This time from SEX & ZEN AND A BULLET IN THE HEAD: The Essential Guide to Hongkong’s Mindbending Films)

Ten Things We’ve Learned from Watching Hong Kong’s Supernatural Films
1) Fierce ghosts and vampires can be subdued by affixing Taoist charms – written in red ink on yellow paper – to their foreheads. But the temptation to play with these immobilized ghoulies (push them, insult them etc) is completely irresistible and completely unadvised…
2) …Because if you taunt or belittle a subdued ghoul, the chances that the charmed paper will come off – restoring the monster’s lethality – are 100 percent.
3) Witches’ heads just won’t stay on. If they’re not accidentally getting chopped off in battle, they’re purposely being shucked with a neck-toss. In either case, witch opponents get preoccupied with the disembodied heads, which fly around howling and trying to bite. But you also can’t ignore the headless body, which always hops up and gets into the fight!
4) Humans have yang energy, the dead are yin-heavy. Since human men have more yang-energy than human women, they are a prime target for the seductive powers of female ghosts. Whether the ghost’s motives are noble or duplicitous, this kind of love never ever works out. As a Taoist priest puts it in The Golden Swallow, “There’s no love between man and ghost, Sonny.”
5) Born under a bad sign? Stars crossed in your horoscope? Sorcerers and Taoist priests shrug their shoulders; they can predict your fate, but can’t change it. Even if you started out as a hero in the film, if the geomancer says trouble ahead, you better stock up on incense and Hell Bank Notes, because you are done for.
6) When the exorcist asks for sticky rice, he damn well means sticky rice. Sticky rice is an active ingredient in poltergeist poultices. Regular rice is a spurious (and dangerous) substitute, often sneaked into the rice bag by dishonest salesmen because they’re cheaper. The consequences can be dire.
7) The Chinese word for number four sounds like the word for “death.” So don’t count on finding four in Hong Kong hospitals or dining at a restaurant called The Four Seasons! On the other hand, the number eight is considered quite lucky, and you can spot it everywhere, from billboards to personalized license plates.
8) If your pet fish die, expect trouble.
9) Ghoul knowledge: a) Ghouls can’t see humans, but they can spot them by smelling their breaths. If you hold your breath, you are invisible to a vampire. But he will put his blue face about an inch from you nose and sniff furiously! b) The undead hop (or glide) only in straight line along the floor. This is why Chinese temples often have a threshold you must step over, and why pawnshops have a screen directly in front of the entrance. Many a terrified human has received a reprieve when the vampire chasing them simply couldn’t hop a log or high curb. c) Chinese zombies are Chinese first, and zombies second. They’ll repel any unwanted foreigners before biting the locals. D) Chinese child-vampires are children first, and vampires second. Human children recognize this, and shield them from meddling adults. In Mr. Vampire Part II, kids try to protect a kid-corpse by claiming that he’s an illegal alien from the mainland.
10) No monster is ever really finally dead until it explodes.