Surfs Up - Morning RSS feeds are fun.
I tend to add an RSS feed when I find an interesting site - it’s an easy way to keep up & is being particularly prolific & interesting on China recently.
China is so full of contradictions. A hugely repressive government (the standard ‘Western’ view) is contraindicated by the vast amount of social criticism & it seems to have relevance to us in the West is my point.
Ai Weiwei: “Gangsters in the Government”:
Ai Weiwei looks lovely - he looks like my deceased friend Lupo.
Chinas Middle Class: Gilded Age, Gilded Cage
“China’s sudden prosperity brings undreamed-of freedoms and new anxieties.” - Part of the National Geographic May 2009 China Issue.
Froogville: China and me (memories of a first encounter).
Continuing on a broader East/West China/Japan Axis:
Sadly: Cult author JG Ballard dies at 78:
The Kindness of Women, Empire of the Sun - what a lovely man.
A lighter note from Japan:
13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Winners Announced:
“Hikaru Nakamura won the Short Work Prize for Saint Young Men, her comedy manga about Buddha and Jesus sharing a Tokyo low-rent apartment.”
Scanlation site:
“What if Jesus and Buddha were living on Earth in modern times? What if they shared an apartment in Japan? Saint Young Men is a humorous manga about the daily lives of Jesus and Buddha, with each chapter focusing on some element of modern life, such as Disneyland, rush hour on the train, Christmas, the public pool, carnivals, and more.” (And high-school girls - never far away in the Japanese psyche heh heh).