Forget century eggs, forget the CPP’s claims to have invented soccer and the flush toilet… Again via Boing Boing, the New Scientist endorses a far more believable claim, that an Asian nation invented noodles.:

Who invented the noodle is a hotly contested topic - with the Chinese, Italians and Arabs all staking a claim.

But the discovery of a pot of thin yellow noodles preserved for 4000 years in Yellow river silt may have tipped the bowl in China’s favour. It suggests that people were eating noodles at least 1000 years earlier than previously thought, and many centuries before such dishes were documented in Europe.

“These are undoubtedly the oldest noodles ever found,” says Houyuan Lu at China’s Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. His team found the noodles buried 3 metres deep in flood-plain sediment at Lajia in north-eastern China after lifting out an upturned bowl. The “spaghetti-like” noodles, up to 50 centimetres long, sat atop a mound of silt which had sealed them in the bowl following a major earthquake and flood.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, food, northeast asia

Shanghai-based Michael Ohlsson has started a great but - pardon my cultural relativism - totally gross new food blog: WeirdMeat.com. Since its conception, Michael reviews regional delicacies North Korean ox knee plus Philippine cuisine such as chicken embryo in shell and fish crap noodles

Yesterday I did lunch at a food court in midtown Cebu City, Philippines. There’s about 8 Filipino food counters with a wide selection of fast foods. Next to the Pizza Hut counter was Sugbahan Food Counter and that’s where I got to try two bizarre seaweeds. In between these seaweeds was another green thing that looked like Japanese "green tea" cold soba noodles. You’ve probably seen those thin green noodles. But these turned out to be something other than soba. I asked the ladies behind the counter what each of these items were, but they were lazy and annoyed with my obviously silly and tedious questions. They just nodded and yawned when I asked if the green noodle things were noodles or not. So I just ate some as a side dish to the other weird stuff I had here. They tasted and acted like any other noodle.

But later that night … I stumbled upon a remarkable and life-changing moment of truth about these innocuous green noodle wanna-be’s. A truth that will go down as one of the most memorable weird meat moments….

After several confirmations with the staff, we concluded these were definitely fish feces. These "green noodles" are actually fish poop! …

… It’s called "Lokot" in the local language, so now you know how to ask for it. I never dreamed of eating fish sh!t, but in the name of weird meat research, we soon had a plate of this crap and another bucket of beer. Besides, I’d already eaten it for lunch and thought it was fine.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, north  korea, northeast asia, philipines, food, blogs

Shanghai is a great place to shop! If you buy your DVD player at Shanghai Carrefour - even a cheap one - you may get a free DVD.:

…so, on our usual weekly/fortnightly/we have no food trip to the Wuning Lu Carrefour, we purchased a new DVD player. All RMB400 worth (about AUD$60). We bought an Oritron-branded DVD player, it looked sweet. It was a lemon. We took it home, hooked it up, and our problems started.
My major gripes were as follows. It wouldn’t turn on. Well, you would
plug it in, and the player power button wouldn’t work - most of the
time. Unplug, wait for 5-10 minutes, and then it would work. Strange.
The converse was also true, you couldn’t turn the thing off. Unplugging
it was the main way we got around this. No worries right? Nah. The
discs we put into the machine would stall, cause the player to crash,
and other such petulant behaviour. Annoying.
But the crux of our decision was the fact that a lovely
surprise was included inside the player. To our delight, we were given
the added bonus of the ‘Adult Tempt‘ DVD. Lovely. It had several, suspicious, greasy fingerprints on the bottom side of the disc. I think ‘the playa’, as it will now be known, had seen some action.

 

How does Jiang Zemin want to be seen by the world and more importantly China. His state-sanctioned bio may give some indication (NYT via Imagethief)

To write his biography, Mao Zedong chose Edgar Snow, a member of the
U.S. Communist Party; Jiang chose Kuhn, a member of the U.S. business
elite. An investment banker with a zeal for science, high culture, and
business, Kuhn personifies the new ideology that has swept through
China since 1989. China’s state propaganda team even chose to leave the
name of Kuhn’s Chinese collaborator out of the book to emphasize the
American financier’s authorship. Nothing better symbolizes Jiang and
his cohort’s transition to a right-wing developmental dictatorship;
every year, they carefully chip away at their socialist heritage

AsiaPundit features a lot of Western expat bloggers in Japan and elsewhere, Global Voices looks at Japanese expat bloggers abroad.

The new CIA director in Seoul is likely a hottie. Or at least I expect she is. Every female Korean spy I’ve seen in a film has been hot.

It was learned Wednesday that a Korean-American woman, identified by her
family name of Han, has taken over as the new station chief of the US
Central Intelligence Agency in Seoul. This is the first time a Korean,
and a Korean women in particular has assumed duties as head of the CIA
station in Korea. Officially, there is no organization going by the
“CIA Korea station.” Instead, the Office of Regional Study inside the
US Embassy plays the role of CIA station here in Korea.

Xinhua, China’s state news agency, may be changing it’s tone on the issue of revisionist Japanese textbooks.:

According to the major Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun, of all
11,035 state and private junior high schools across Japan, only 48
adopted the Fusosha textbook, merely 0.4 percent of the total and far
less than the publisher’s target of 10 percent…

… I don’t remember the Chinese press so clearly mentioning the fact
that less than one percent of Japanese schools use the textbook, or the
fact that some Japanese people don’t like it either. Progress? I wonder
if they are saying these things more clearly for internal consumption
as well, or Xinhua is tired of receiving the same counterarguments.

Google Earth is a spy satellite for the masses. Not only can you get the South Korean presidential compound Cheong Wa Dae, David at Jujuflop noted in the comments that you can get the Chinese Communist Party’s well-guarded compound of Zhongnanhai. Now Curzon of Coming Anarchy turns .:

Pyongyang, North Korea. Note the Ryugong in the upper-left corner.

And the Wannabe Lawyer likes Google Earth too, and says it will cause trouble for one particularly litigious patent holder.:

Virtual-Map, a business entity that specialises in converting public domain data into private ‘intellectual’ property,
had been successful so far in demanding extortionate amounts from
people who make use of their maps. What they have yet to face though,
is competition. No longer.
Now that I have , I don’t see how I would ever need Streetdirectory.com anymore. In fact, I can’t wait for the day when everyone in Singapore starts using . Then its bye bye Virtual-Map, find a new business model please.

There were a number of items in Malaysian blogs about this event, but the NSFW Asian Sex Gazette gives a good summary.:

Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian men’s magazine may be censured for a cover featuring
a seminude female model draped in the national flag that has sparked an uproar
among Muslims, a senior official said Monday.

The pictures in the August edition of Sensasi Lelaki, or Men’s Sensation, is an
insult to the national flag and disrespectful to the country as it prepares to
mark National Day on Wednesday, said Deputy Internal Minister Noh Omar.

Brand New Malaysian has a picture:

Before anyone gets too upset at the Malaysians for being too uptight, please remember that the West also has its share of fundamentalists and flag worshipers. Why in the US, the issue of making flag burning a capital offense emerges every six months or so. No one in the US would tolerate anyone wrapping themselves in the flag like that. (link nswf near the bottom):

Err, both Japundit and Barbarian Envoy alerted me to this piece of incredible weirdness, OPERATION NUKE KOREA, you don’t even need to scroll to read… just sit back and enjoy the piano.

Travel writer Carl Parks notes another reason why it’s dangerous to use drugs in Bali.:

Few Western tourists actually arrive in
Bali with drugs, since Kuta and other beach towns are overrun with
local Balinese drug dealers who quietly whisper their sales offers near
many discos and nightclubs in Kuta, Legian, and Seminyak. So you buy a
couple of tablets, walk up to the nightclub for an evening of partying,
and find yourself searched and arrested at the front door. An
Australian model (Michelle Leslie) was recently arrested with two tabs
of E in her purse as she approached a nightclub, and now faces 10 years
in prison.
How in the world does the police know to search your
bag or purse? The answer is obvious. The police are the drug dealers in
Bali. Or at least the drug dealers cooperate with the police to turn in
their victims, collect the reward, and most likely enjoy the return of
their drugs. This scam has been going on in Thailand for several
decades, but now it enjoys official endorsement by the Indonesian
government.

One of the first questions asked by the foreign ministry, who needed to authorize my journalists’ visa, was: Do you like Chinese food?" My boss told me to be very diplomatic in the interview, so instead of saying "I prefer Thai," I said: "Yes, especially Sichuan."

I still like Chinese food, though I’m a bit nervous about eating anything here.:

More on the food scandals gripping China - news just in that the
majority of food production, handled by mom-and-pop producers, do not
meet even rudimentary safety standards. An article on Asia News Network
carries the story on why you can’t trust anything you eat in the country…

In 2003, the output value of China’s food industry reached 1.29
trillion yuan (US$161.62 billion), nearly 20 per cent up on 2002. In
the first six months of last year, the industry achieved an output
value of nearly 710 billion yuan ($421.95 billion), a 20 per cent
increase over the same period in 2003.
But reports in the local press say more than 70 per cent of China’s
106,000 registered food makers are family-run outfits of fewer than 10
people. And at least 60 per cent of these cannot meet basic sanitary
standards.Professor Luo Yunbo, dean of China Agricultural University’s college
of food science and nutritional engineering said: "China does not lack
regulations, but there’s a lack of unified supervision and control.

At least food across the Strait is safe… Oh my god is that the chef?!?

I have Taiwan blogger Brian David Phillips on my blogroll and in my Bloglines reader but, truth be told, I never really take the time to read his stuff long enough to figure out what he’s talking about.:

Folks will notice that I have added a new links category in the rightside bar here at Life of Brian . . . hypnocasts which is directly above hypnoblogs.
If you discover other podcasts related to hypnosis, neurolinguistic
programming, influence, focused trance, meditation, changework, and the
like . . . then let me know the address of the webpages that support
the feed and I’ll check ‘em out and add it to the hypnocasts
list (of course, I appreciate linkbacks as well). No, I do NOT mean
commercial sites with payfor mp3 downloads or even free mp3 downloads,
this list is for podcasts or sites that distribute information
interactively or on a semi-regular basis.

Atanu Dey has a must-read opus on the differences between Singapore and India, I’ve had a number of arguments in which I’ve either defended Lee Kwan-yew or lambasted him, but Atanu’s item actually leaves me speechless.:

To root out corruption you can use all sorts of means. You can lecture school children to take an oath to eschew corruption (as in here), you can prosecute a poor milkman for diluting milk (as in here)
— that is, basically you can start at the bottom and implement an
idiotic policy of targeting marginal players while shielding the really
corrupt. Or you can do it by catching the big fish and handing out
exemplary punishments and — this is the important point — publicizing
it so that anyone who is even minimally aware understands that
corruption is not tolerated by the society no matter how powerful the
person is.
This is what I heard. A certain minister, very close to Lee Kuan
Yew, in charge of housing (or some such) was involved in some
kick-backs. The word went around that the guy will surely get off easy
since he was in the inside circle. Lee asked the minister to see him.
The meeting was brief. Two days later the minister blew his brains out.
The message was clear: zero tolerance.

Michael Turton also has some thoughts on Lee’s recent comments on China’s anti-secession law.

This looks promising, Indi Blog Review a profile of Desi or not so Desi Blog(ger)s. First subject, Patrix and Nerve Endings Firing Away.

As a Good Beer Blogger, I consider this Fantastic News (via India Uncut);

Tipplers can now get some kick as well as some vitamins out of a new beer, which is supposed to protect the liver from harmful effects of alcohol.
Lady Bird Bio Beer, which was launched in the Kerala markets on Wednesday, increases bio-availability of vitamins, according to its inventor B Srinivas Amarnath of Advaith Biotech Pvt Ltd.
He said the beer contained aloe vera extracts, in addition to the regular barley malt and carbondioxide hops.
"The results of human clinical trials have shown aloe vera increases the bioavailability of vitamins like B1, B6, B12, C and E," said C B Jagannatha Rao, senior vice president, Khoday Group of Industries, which has tied up with Advaith Biotech in the venture.
Years of research have also proved that with the long-term use of the beverage, there was no ulceration, gastric trouble or other harmful effects from drinking it, Amarnath claimed.

Do not sell the sexual services of your co-workers without their consent… it’s illegal.:

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Wednesday arrested a 36 year-old man identified as Kim for hawking the sexual services of colleagues online without their knowledge.
Police say Kim is charged with secretly taking digital photos up the skirts of three of his female colleagues at the Gangnam office of a cosmetics firm in Seoul and uploading the pictures some 30 times from an Internet cafe to an Internet auction site, where he offered to sell his coworkers as sexual partners for W150,000 (US$150).

There is some speculation that South Korea’s recent blockage of TypePad and Blogspot blogs was to prevent bloggers from offending a visiting North Korean delegation. It’s amazing how far Roh Moo-hyun’s administration will go to prevent offending Kim Jong-il’s regime:

Park Chan-sung, who chairs the Citizens Coalition to Stop the Nuclear Development of North Korea, said two-man police teams kept a tight watch on six or seven of the group’s leaders, conducted body searches and confiscated pamphlets and picket signs. He said police confined some to their homes, and on Monday police cars blocked both alley entrances to the group’s office.

The Flea ponders whether Asians are more brand conscious than Westerners, noting an item from Korea’s Chosun Ilbo.:

Japanese writer Usagi Nakamura details her devotion to labels in her book, "I Like Name Brands." She once went into a Chanel shop to buy an umbrella, but the store clerk told her not to use it when it rained a lot. He said it was OK to use the umbrella when it sort of drizzled, but he worried that it would leak in a downpour since it wasn’t waterproof. After giving it a little thought, she bought the umbrella, saying, "I’m not buying an umbrella, I’m buying Chanel."

U2 must visit Tianjin, Where the Streets have no Drains.:

During a “normal” rainfall in Tianjin the streets will fill with large puddles and only a small amount of water will actually make its way into drains. This is because road engineers don’t install gutters or otherwise apply sloping on the roads to make the water run off like it should. Instead, following each rain, work cadre groups made up of middle-aged men or middle-aged women deploy en masse with brooms to sweep the water away.

China’s floating casino is closer to becoming operational. In other military news, Andy at Siberian Light takes a good look at Russian-Chinese war games. First the charitable view:

Several humanitarian assistance operations have required robust military action in recent years, including on occasion actually landing marines on a beach (remember the fanfare as US marines stormed ashore in Somalia in the 1990s?) or potentially invading a country (a huge amount of planning was put in place for a potential invasion of Yugoslavia to protect Kosovo, for example).
And Russia and China both have on their doorsteps a number of basket-case countries that could potentially require a robust intervention.  The most obvious candidate is North Korea which, if it collapses dramatically, may require a speedy response to secure a number of key military and nuclear sites - not to mention the rapid response that would be required to prevent a humanitarian disaster if refugees attempt to flee across the Chinese and Russian borders.  It’s fair to say that, if Russia and/or China needed to launch a military mission into North Korea, it would likely involve operations by both marines and paratroopers.

Read the rest for a fuller analysis.

In India, justice can be slow. From Amit Varma 54 years and one rupee:

The first figure: how long Machang Lalung of Assam spent in prison without a trial.
The second figure: the amount of money he paid to get released.

In Indonesia justice can be non-existent:

Al Qaeda (ed: Jemaah Islamiah ) leader Abu Bakar Bashir has been given a sentence reduction. Well done.
Note
that they don’t say that his status as guilty has changed one whit.
They are just saying he deserves less punishment for what he has been
found guilty of.

Rebecca McKinnion, one of AsiaPundit’s favourite bloggers, is back. She also notes that co-Global Voices blogger, the excellent Paul Frankenstein has finished his internship with GV. Egad! Global Voices can afford an intern? No wonder it’s always better than this blog.

Fellow Canadian and Red Ensign blogger Andrew is looking for the real China.

 

The Taipei Kid reports that love motels are moving upmarket.

I’m back from vacation and now happily married. Thanks to all co-pundits for keeping the site active for the past three weeks.

While I was away…

China continued to strengthen its regime of open markets but closed culture. The NY Times has an item here and China Confidential notes:

China’s media regulators, including the Propaganda Department and Ministry of Culture, revealed an array of new regulations designed to stop additional foreign satellite channels from entering the Chinese market, while strictly controlling and seriously limiting the influx of foreign television programs, films, books, newspapers, magazines, Internet sites, video games, cartoons, and performing acts, including theatrical performances.

Meanwhile across the Strait, Taiwan regulators effectively shut down seven TV broadcasters. A situation JuJuflop doesn’t think is too terrible.

But Taipei isn’t just shutting down media organizations, Wandering to Tamshui notes that the Taiwan Daily is being kept afloat with the assistance of state-owned enterprises.

In lovely Singapore, it’s not enough to execute marijuana traffickers, police insist on banning  photographic displays noting that the trafficker ever existed.

Kenny Sia rips into the Sister Furong phenomena while Fons discovers a Brother Furong.

China’s wooing of despots justly gets unfavorable coverage at Traveler’s Tales and The Horse’s Mouth. But Glenzo notes that Mugabe didn’t get everything he wanted.

Jove Francisco has a roundup of the action at the Philippine mini bloggers summit.

Laowiseass is bugged about something.

There’s a nice description of one of my most remembered South Korean street stall dishes at Pharyngula, live octopus tentacle, Including a link to a (currently inaccessible) . On a related note, Preetam has an audiofile of the Bundgie Experience.

The Economist’s View offers an argument on why you should support your third-world sweatshop.

From Japan - the country that gave us the vibrating video game controller vibrator - now comes vibrating cinema seats.

Deeshaa points to a great article on India’s impending rise.

China and the US agree on something, though India and Japan won’t be happy about it.

As the Six-Party talks continue, barbarian envoy brings us a long and informative item from the Atlantic Monthly noting some terrifying scenarios on a conflict on the peninsula.

Japundit has a great two-part series on Koizumi’s post office reform here and here.

Cambodians are rapidly adapting to the mobile phone, although to spread pornography. Some are calling for a crackdown.

The Polish tourism board has developed an ad campaign in which a sexy nurse attempts to woo Japanese tourists. Personally I think this will be effective at wooing other nationals as well.

Jeff explains why you should never go to Busan Beach to relax.

Over at the Big Yuan concerns that China’s failure to secure Unocal will force it to increase its dealings with odious regimes to gain resources. As well, while Big Yuan is somewhat relieved by the deal’s collapse, the jingoism displayed in the US is a greater worry.

Meanwhile, the avidly anti-CPP D.J. McGuire of China-e lobby smells blood and is encouraged to make China an election issue.:

Rather than risk a political tangle that could last long enough for the anti-Communist right and the anti-Communist left to form a lasting alliance - and that is the one thing in the American political arena that scares Zhongnanhai more than anything else - they will pull back and let everything die down.

The Radioactive Chef thinks the ditching of the bid is to prevent the US from getting too riled up ahead of a Chinese move against Taiwan.

Thomas Barnett meanwhile brings us some sober reflection from Ben Stein.

Arsonists have attempted to burn down Ayah Pin’s giant teapot, the architectural centerpiece of his interfaith ‘Sky Kingdom’ sect.   Based in Malaysia’s strongly Islamic state of Terangganu, devotees of the teapot’s purifying infusion have previously been arrested (as noted earlier on Asiapundit). 

Meanwhile, striking tea-plantation labourers in Bangladesh and India are starting to settle their bitterly-protacted pay negotiations, but Nepalese tea-labourers associated with the Maoist insurrection have forced the closures of 21 tea estates. 

And Texans newly introduced to green tea smoothies seem to think that green tea has no caffeine, and that once fat-filled artery-clogging smoothies have green tea added to them, that they are healthy. 

I’m no fan of factory farming, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for shareholders of Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group. The conglogerate - which introduced economies of scale to Thailand’s chicken farming industry - has been hammered by the outbreak of bird flu.:

It is Asia number one poultry’s exporter and, in many cases, controls the whole production chain, from feed to retail sales of processed chicken. Feed, and more specifically hybrid seed corn production, is the most lucrative part of this vertically integrated business. (4) According to Viroj Na Ranong, a researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute "It is the poultry business that made CP well known in Thailand. In the seventies, the company entered the market with new breeds and the contract farming system inspired by its US partner Arbor Acres. As a result, chicken became the cheapest meat in the market. It changed people’s eating habits and backyard poultry disappeared." (5)
Even though its chicken operations account for only10% of the CP Group’s revenue, the avian flu hit the whole economic empire. The day after the Thai government officially recognised the outbreak of the virus, CP’s stock plummeted by 12.5% and the Stock Exchange of Thailand index fell sharply. In Thailand, when CP sneezes, the whole business community catches cold or, in this case, flu.

Via the Avian Flu Blog.

Moving beyond Malaysia’s Star and Singapore’s New Paper, Singapore’s Sarong Party Girl makes it on to the BBC.

Mei Zhong Tai and Michael Turton continue to debate the logistics of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Arms Control Wonk wonders what was on the menu during the mid-level US-North Korea meeting in Beijing. The answer: steak and cheesecake.

More Phillip K Dick moments, but this time it’s educational:

It was the first time the DPP had hosted a conference like this, and
although they did a really good job organizing and coordinating all the
events, their inexperience in manipulating the delicate mock-crises
eventually took a toll; in the span of forty minutes Saturday night, (
it was a pretty long day, from 8:00am til midnight) we learned that
China was threatening Taiwan unless they immediately accepted the
one-China policy, a Taiwanese dissident had assassinated the Chinese
premier, Muslim extremists had captured and blocked the Singapore
strait, and Pakistan had inexplicably seized the opportunity to invade
India. Perhaps more restraint on the part of the control staff would
have been more appropriate.

Late-linkage after a blogging-free Friday.:

A new group blog for the Indian blogosphere DesiPundit

US conservatives attack Hollywood, but they should love Bollywood:

1. No sex. If you’re lucky, you might see some wet sari.

2. The films often revolve around finding a wonderful spouse and getting married.

3. The bigger the wedding, the better.

4. Lots of piety. Religion is *never* mocked or portrayed in a negative light.

From IslaFormosa, a look at Taipei’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Taiwan’s former president goes manga.

Even former ROC President Lee DengHui got on the bandwagon by posing as as the fictional character Edajima Heihachi of the anime series Sakigake!! Otokojuku. It’s no secret that Lee is a pocket ‘Japanophile’. He was educated in Japan and can speak Japanese quite fluently (he was given a scholarship to Kyoto Imperial University). His cosplay was widely seen as a way to shore up support from young people for his Taiwan Solidarity Union party’s Taiwan independence platform.

The first issue of the Cambodia Economic Review is online.

I mentioned that Bill Gertz’s Washington Times item on China’s rising military threat would be a good template for a Phillip K Dick-style novel, a libertarian site in the US has developed an initial treatment:

China has emerged as the world’s largest and fastest-growing economy.
After retaking Taiwan in 2007, and annexing North Korea a year later,
China then successfully "Finlandized" Japan, and now oversees a vast
Pacific empire that would have made the 1942 Japanese government green
with envy. China’s thirst for the Middle East’s oil leads it to support
radical Islamic clerics, but this support goes unpunished, as no major
country stands a chance if it goes against China’s wishes.
The
xhiang, introduced in 2009, is now the world’s premier currency,
followed by the euro, the Canadian dollar, and the U.S. dollar.

The top news story from Thursday? According to Xinhua and CCTV it was that Hu Jintao met world leaders. Tom Vanvanij, meanwhile, looks at Thailand’s Nation Channel.

Kevin in Pudong translates offensive reaction on Chinese bulletin boards about the London bombings:

Terrorism is the only way for the weak to fight back against the strong. No matter what reaons they may have, the US-British attack on the people of  Iraq was wrong and constitutes blatant terrorism. All the weak can do in response is to bring you down with them.

"Terrorism is the only way for the weak to fight the powerful"… it’s not surprising that so many Chinese netizens think this way. Perhaps its because they can’t access messages from birthday boy Dali Lama.

On the bombings, there was the typical reaction from the left to blame Blair and blame Bush. Reaction to the bombings from some in the anti-CCP camp was equally distressing.:

America, the United Kingdom, and the rest of the free world will never be secure until China itself is free. The road to victory in the War on Terror does not end in Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran, or Damascus, and it certainly doesn’t end in Jerusalem. The road ends, and lasting victory can be found, only in Beijing. Until China is on the list for liberation, preferably peaceful, the War on Terror will never end.

Rebecca McKinnion has a roundup of Arab reaction and displays a banner Muslim bloggers can use to show their disgust at the bombings.

Has Howard found his cajones? Australia has granted Chinese defector Chen Yonglin a visa.

Sure, sushi and sashimi can give you worms, but you should be safe if you use (sake wouldn’t hurt either).

More musings on Sinofascism.

Free condom distribution is helping the people of Uttar Pradesh, though not necessarily with birth control or AIDS prevention.:

Some workmen mix them with tar and concrete to give a smooth finish to roads, or to make waterproof ceilings, and some villagers use them to carry water when working in the fields. And, of course, youths turn them into water bombs. But the main use here is in the sari industry, where they’ve become an essential part of the production process

In Japan, it’s time to scare the neighbors - though anti-Japan sentiments from Chinese and Korean political leaders no doubt helped gain support for the constitutional amendment. An East Asian war is still unlikely. But Japan faces other security threats.

In our continuing series of links useful for tourists in Pyongyang, here’s a useful site on the city’s subway system.

The author of a slanderous tome on former Malaysian deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim has gotten one year in jail. The book’s financiers have not been established or punished.

Kenny Sia treats himself to a two ringgit luxury public toilet experience.

Imee Marcos, the glamor-shot savvy daughter (see left) of Ferdinand and Imelda, says Filipinos should not tolerate liars and thieves (chortle). More on the  situation in the Philippines at  MLQIII, PCIL, By Jove and Sassy. Also Gateway Pundit has a selection of links.

Inflation in North Korea, yes the NK won has continued to become more worthless.

GI Korea and explore the even-handedness of Seoul’s press.

 

Via McSweeny

TRANSLATED
THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS THAT ARE RUNNING THROUGH
A NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE’S MIND
WHEN HE IS AWARDED POLITICAL ASYLUM
IN THE UNITED STATES, SETTLES DOWN, TURNS ON THE TELEVISION,
AND THE FIRST
THING HE SEES IS A FANCY FEAST CAT-FOOD
COMMERCIAL…

I suppose it is better to have a reclusive cat than a reclusive dictator.

Curzon offers a roundup of Japanese news, centered on the taste of whale.:

“I guess I do feel sorry for the whales,” said Shun Ishimura, 7, shyly fiddling with his L.A. Dodgers T-shirt. Like many of the children, he was tasting whale flesh for the first time. He said that despite his feelings, he “ate it anyway because it looked so good. And when I ate it, I liked it. Whale is really delicious.“

Thank you, Washington Post! Could you make Japan sound any more cruel? Why not tell the world they eat the beating hearts of their enemies while you’re at it!
This whole whale thing: Japan’s whalers kill several hundred animals a year. When the film Chicken Run came out, the animated chickens were used in a Burger King advertisement where they held signs that said “Save the Chickens – eat a Whopper!” A PETA spokesman said this was actually a good thing—less per capita pain and suffering was caused by killing cows (one cow equals many burgers, but a basket of chicken wings comes from… lots of chickens). Should not the same logic apply to whales? You are getting one helluva lot of meat from one animal.

Drunkenness in Northeast Asia is not frowned upon to the degree that it is in the West, SE Asia or (obviously) the Middle East. Heavy drinking not only accepted, it is also often ‘expected.’ Business entertainment in South Korea, Japan and China usually will involve drinking sessions. The most unusual thing about this report from The White Peril is not that members of Japan’s Diet had drinks during the parliamentary recess… no, the unusual thing is that it was mentioned in the house:

That Tokyo stress gets to everyone, though, including LDP members of the Diet:
The session [of the House of Representatives on Friday] began its recess at 5 p.m. and reopened just before 9 p.m. Tomoko Abe (Social Democratic Party), who had stood up to argue against voting [to extend the Diet session], looked out over the red faces of several members and spoke. "We should all get out of here right now," she said, raising her voice. "If this is going to be the ‘Pickled Diet,’ there’s no need to extend the session."…
DPJ leader Katsuya Okada censured the Prime Minister:
"Prime Minister Koizumi and former Prime Minister Yoshio Mori were both casting votes red-faced. You’d think they’d understand how to comport themselves during these sorts of proceedings."

Via Dean’s World, who also explains ‘red faced’ and starts a debate about political correctness and social taboos.

Note to prospective restaurateurs, KFC aside, resurrecting dead people to sell food is generally a Bad Marketing Idea. (via Moderate Voice)

The family of vegetarian Indian pacifist icon Mahatma Gandhi is fighting mad over an Australian company using their beloved ancestor to sell their products and has asked the Indian government to intervene.
The firm is Handi Ghandi — "Great Curries…No Worries" and its curries reportedly include meat curries…including beef…which is a no-no for Hindus. Reuters reports:
"It’s offensive," Tushar Gandhi, the activist’s Bombay-based great-grandson and head of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, told Reuters. "It goes absolutely against all his beliefs. Using his image to sell beef curries and such doesn’t gel.
"He was not a foodie."

Indeed: Gandhi was best known for his hunger strikes.

Truth be told, I was a touch offended when the Colonel was resurrected as a cartoon, and he was already a KFC trademark.

As well as AsiaPundit, I maintain a personal blog and contribute to the Good Beer Blog. I haven’t been contributing to the GBB as much recently - nor have fellow China-based beer bloggers Unabrewer and YellowFrog. There is a reason for that. SABMiller CFO Malcolm Wyman explains  (via The China Stock Blog):

….the beer industry in China is way behind in levels of sophistication….you’re talking about what perhaps the U.S. or other industries might have looked like 50 to 80 years ago when you have total fragmentation across the country. When we entered you had over 800 breweries we are now down to I think just under 400 breweries.
…. there are so many cheap beers that those are definitely not brandable. We try and move our beers up into the upper mainstream and the local premium levels where you can get slightly better margin
….but if you take the vast amount of beer and if you take your normal pyramid — probably from two thirds and down is all very much low quality, low-priced beer and that beer is certainly lacking in any sort of brand capacity.

The Economist has revised its popular, although not to be taken too seriously, Big Mac index. As well as pointing to a 59% undervalued renminbi, it notes the euro has some room to fall.:

Our annual Big Mac index (see table) suggests they have a case: the euro is overvalued by 17% against the dollar. How come? The euro is worth about $1.22 on the foreign-exchange markets. A Big Mac costs €2.92, on average, in the euro zone and $3.06 in the United States. The rate needed to equalise the burger’s price in the two regions is just $1.05. To patrons of McDonald’s, at least, the single currency is overpriced.

Meanwhile, Simon and CSR Asia are developing an alternative index that also considers wages.:

The Economist reckons you can tell a lot about exchange rates by buying a Big Mac. Simon World and CSR Asia think buying one can tell you more and are combining to update my old Alternative Big Mac Index based on the number of hours a McDonald’s employee must work to be able to buy a Big Mac. The Economist has just released its latest Big Mac Index,
so we’re calling on bloggers of the world to unite and provide us with
three bits of information to keep up with msm’s attempts at economic
analysis

Meanwhile, another competing index emerges (via the Flea).:

The Flea will engage in some journalism with a visit to the big Korean grocery store down the way. South Korean food producer, Orion has released a Choco Pie index meant to emulate the Economist’s Big Mac index meant to evaluate currencies through relative purchasing power. A Canadian price comparison seems in order. Choco Pie is reportedly wildly popular in mainland China "where a box of Choco Pies is presented as a gift to well-wishers at weddings" and adding up to an impressive 60% of the Chinese cookie market.

Sushi and sashimi should be served fresh - but perhaps not this fresh.

In my many years in Japan, I have twice eaten fish that was still moving. In one instance I ate sashimi of a small fish that was still trying to breath, i.e. the gills were still moving (despite the fact that the head was severed from the rest of the fish—it was only a nerve reaction). In another instance, I swallowed miniscule fish (1 cm long and translucent) that were swimming around in a vinegary liquid. They are swallowed whole with the vinegar, and you can feel them riggle down the back of the throat.

But never had I see what I saw this morning. (video)

I launch this blog with a word from our sponsors:

"IF THE gym seems like too much effort and
plastic surgery does not appeal, help is at hand: a Japanese company is
marketing a breast-enhancing chewing gum.

Despite the price — about £10 for a pot of 200 pink tablets —
Bust-Up gum has been an instant hit with Tokyo women.The company that
makes it has received thousands of orders and plans to start selling
the gum from convenience stores."

Given the number of breast-enhancement ads that run in the Straits Times, this product should be a big seller in S’pore. That’s assuming that its therapeutic value allows it to skirt the ban on chewing gum imports.

(via Bound by Gravity)