Stories about East Asia from May, 2010
Japan: My Eyes Tokyo
Isao Tokuhashi at My Eyes Tokyo interviews foreigners living in Tokyo. The latest interview, the 32nd in the series, is Robert Koch, an audio products manufacturer from Pietermaritzburg in South...
China: lost in translation
The machine translation of Chinese character into English can be really hilarious. PH from veggie discourse has a few examples.
China: Responses to FoxConn's suicides
SACOM have several updates on reactions and responses to FoxConn workers’ consecutive suicides, including 1. Appeal by Sociologists on FoxConn suicides, 2. Global Day of Remembrance for Victims of Foxconn,...
Japan: Those Commonplace, Vinyl Umbrellas
How "temporary" vinyl umbrellas fare in the cities of Japan.
Japan: Okinawans vent frustration over Futenma
Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama has backtracked on promises to reduce the presence of American military forces in Okinawa, and inhabitants of the prefecture are furious. In blogs, they express their disappointment and rage against the failed Japan-U.S. negotiations.
Japan: National police to share information on organized crime members
Sarah Noorbakhsh, at Japan Subculture Research Center's blog, reports [en] on the forthcoming cooperation between the National Police Agency (NPA) and the Japan Security Dealers Association (JSDA). The police will...
Japan: Monozukuri for the Modern Age
The Japanese counterpart of Make Magazine, an American quarterly magazine for DIY enthusiasts, organizes a regular event in Tokyo called Make Tokyo Meeting (MTM). The fifth MTM, held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology on May 22-23, was the largest yet, featuring everything from bicycle wheels with LED lights, to complex wooden ball machines, to mechanical robot birds. Check out reports on the event on blogs, Twitter and YouTube.
Angola: Similarities between Cabinda and East Timor
Orlando Castro discloses [pt] the similarities between the Angolan enclave of Cabinda and the recent history of East Timor, criticizing the positions of the Portuguese and Timorese leaders for failing...
Oil spill disaster in Singapore
A ship collision in Singapore Strait caused the spilling of 2,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea. Singapore netizens are using the web to monitor and document the marine disaster and to call for volunteers in the cleanup drive.
Philippines: Destroying another landmark
Torn and Frayed in Manila blogs about the impending destruction of another historical landmark in Manila – Sta Ana Racetrack.
Vietnam: Eating “Op la” in Saigon
Eating Asia blogs about Saigon's op la dish (fried eggs cooked with various sausages).
Vietnam: Report on online censorship
Viet Tan has published a comprehensive report about online censorship and cyberattacks in Vietnam.
China and Hong Kong: Responses to Cheonan sinking incident
The release of the international investigation report on sinking of Cheonan in May 20, 2010, concluding that the South Korean warship had been bombed by a North Korean torpedo has...
China: Hebei’s “Great Leap Forward”
More than 1000 residents of Hebei Province will be subject to forced evictions before June 5, in a government development project online opinion has dubbed a “Great Leap Forward.” Guangping...
South Korea: The sinking of ROKS Cheonan
Ask a Korean! addresses the issue of the sinking of ROKS Cheonan by answering what you need to know and what you need to think about the issue.
South Korea: Critical discourse on North Korea
K. M. Lawson from The Korea History Blog criticized South Korean concerned scholars (the Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea) on the lack of critical discourse on North Korea when...
China: English Language Blogs
Kai Pan from china/divide takes his readers for a tour around different kind of English language blogs about China.
Southeast Asia: Reactions to Thailand protests
The violent confrontations between the heavily armed soldiers and Red Shirt protesters in Thailand in the past week have stunned the world. What are the reactions of bloggers from neighbouring Southeast Asian nations?
China: Baidu vs. Google: in search of accessible, useful results
Joel Martinsen from DANWEI translated a blog post from Oh My Media which compared the search result of “CPU, temperature, software” in Google and Baidu.
Taiwan: Heavy metal and death penalty
One of the top public issues in Taiwan blogosphere recently is whether Taiwan should abolish death penalty or not. Thus, The Ball Music sorts out and introduces several heavy metal...
Japan: 1300 years in the making, celebration in Nara
While both culturally and physically a long ways from the modern capital of Tokyo, tracing back well over a thousand years into Japanese history one comes across Nara, a quiet,...