Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
David Henry Hwang, like him or not is a busy Asian American theater guy. His play Chinglish is on Broadway and will gain a lot of notoriety. We posted a video preview, but more importantly, his words in this blog post make the play more interesting than many Asian American tales. (blogswsj – David Henry Hwang) [youtube]FRpptXJdNNY[/youtube]
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Mining is some provinces are ruining The Great Wall of China. Yes, the wall is super long. Longer than what’s really ever looked at. It could be a tourist trap someday nearly everywhere, when trips to China become easy and inexpensive. It is a huge place. However for now, their number one tourist trap is being ruined by miners who want that quick dollar. If it’s going to get that messed up, why not just sell pieces. The Wall police will surely not catch anyone. Here’s some ideas who who to sell to. 1) 6 Flags. Make a theme park around it. Great Wall Rides, Burgers, rickshaw rides, and costumed peasants will round this out into a great experience. 2) Rich Baller. Yes, in a living room, imagine a ten foot span of The Great Wall of China in a living room. That would be a conversation piece . 3) Tourists. Break off tiny pieces and package it as piece of The Great Wall. Price at $20 each so it can be haggled down to $10. 4) Museums. American Museum of Natural History. The big one of them all. They should do what’s happened in the history of plundering and buy this chunk from the locals. If not, just steal it, ala The British Museum has. They might need to return it one day after more haggling. 5) Chinese Medicine Companies. Surely The Great Wall itself has to have some medicinal qualities of long life or keeping evil spirits away. Drink bits of it and live longer. “Increase the Chi with The Great Wall”. (Reuters – The Destruction of The Great Wall of China) That’s an untouristy portion of The Great Wall I shot in 2008.
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I was an East Asian Studies Major at UCLA. I studied a little more than the average Joe on China. Of course not as much as a professor, but I’m also a human who’s not steeped in crappy educational circle jerks, ass kissing, and fake intelligentsia, which in the end does nothing to the world outside of the educational system. Many professors don’t influence much, truly teach little, and are jaded. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China is a book written by Ezra Vogel, it’s 800 pages about Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China from the 80s to the 90s. As a student, he was the man in charge of a pre-superpower, post Mao land that was Communist, poor, and struggling to make a mark while sticking to it’s beliefs. I’m rusty on my knowledge of Deng, who of course has criticisms of his life, but a 800+ page biography, isn’t really built to be critical about a person. If so, why write a bio? So the review article in the NY Times has this passage: The political scientist Richard Baum, a professor emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles, said the book offered an enormous amount of new material about Deng’s leadership and internal power struggles in China during the ’70s. But he also said that those achievements were mildly diminished by sections that read like “an uncritical paean to Deng’s character.” Lame Richard Baum. Yes, I took a class by this man. He graded overly difficult, didn’t seem to care, and was jaded. He gets a chance to say something about a book and ends up being a jerk. You won’t see me doing this too much here, but this is one of those times. (NY Times – Deng Xiaoping)
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Congrats to the small Uglydoll shop in Korea, David and Sun-min and the rest of the Uglydoll crew!
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Here’s a story you don’t hear much about. A Japanese WWII submarine sank a ship, Montebellow, off the Central California coast. The ship was full of oil. Everyone lived, the ship sank, and the oil went down with it. But now, using technology to measure the density of the contents of the fuel tank, it’s said to be filled only with sea water. Where did the oil go? Was it stolen by the submarine? No. Did it just leak out? Maybe. The sad thing is 3 million gallons of oil dripped into the Pacific and no one knew. (LA Times – Montebello)
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