If Jesus walked on water, we must ask whether he was divine or whether he had cool Ninja shoes.:

Testing a driver’s-side air bag, with Ninjas, on TV, in Japan.:
Via Caleb, the adventures of Dr McNinja.:

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, ninjas, northeast asia

Follow the bouncing ball and pledge to defend the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.:

(Via Boing Boing)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, north korea, northeast asia

Time has issued its best of Asia issue and the Nomad notes that it suggests Seoul offers the best location to be nude.:

When you do it for the first time, you stand there for mere seconds, thinking “I can’t believe this,” before scurrying for the cover of your fashionably minimalist bedroom. The second time, you force yourself to linger a little longer and at least take in the view. But well before your stay at the Park Hyatt is over, you have accustomed yourself to standing naked in a bathroom that comprises nothing but glass on three sides, situated above one of the busiest intersections of one of the busiest cities of the busiest continent on earth. Sustaining it all is the questionably held faith that the thin panes in front of you really are reflective.

Also curious, the list suggests Lahore in Islamic Pakistan as the locale for the best experience in a red-light district and megacity Tokyo as having the best fishing hole.
As such, it’s not so much of an objective attempt at naming the ‘best’ as it is a fluffy — albeit enjoyable — filler issue. In that vein, AP would welcome other suggestions for the ‘best’ in Asia. Surely readers are no less informed than the writers for time (although you will be unpaid).

The People’s Liberation Army is continuing its recent tradition of posing for silly looking photographs.

Policemen inflate lifebelt before the arrival of the Chanchu typhoon in the Chinese province of Zhejiang.
(Via We Make Money Not Art)

:

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

Michael Turton notes that Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian - in a survey of civic groups - has an approval rating in the single digits:

President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) approval rating has dropped to a new low of just 5.8 percent, with 88 percent of respondents dissatisfied with the performance of Chen’s administration over the past six years, according to the results of a survey released yesterday.

The survey was conducted by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) — the Democratic Progressive Party’s ally in the pan-green camp — on 69 civic groups from May 5 through May 12.

The respondents gave the administration’s overall performance a failing grade of 57.5 percent.

Meanwhile Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has also :

Just 37 percent of the public approves of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) job performance, the lowest rating he has registered in his 18 months in office, a poll has revealed…

The economy is the public’s greatest concern, with 73.9 percent saying they believed the Yudhoyono administration had failed to tackle the chronic problem of unemployment.

The poll also found 70.4 percent of respondents felt there had been no improvement in their household incomes.

Over 60 percent of respondents said they had experienced a drop in their purchasing power…

72.2 percent of the respondents said they were not impressed by the work of the economic team.

There is no need to fear for democracy in Asia. SBY’s ratings are still higher than those enjoyed by George Bush. Plus, Singapore’s People’s Action Party is still polling well.:

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, northeast asia, singapore, southeast asia, taiwan

In case you needed to know, Cathartidae brings us a listing of the abbreviations used by Korean pop groups.:

H.O.T. = High Five of Teenagers
JTL = Jang (Woo Hyuk) Tony Lee (Jae Won)
Fin.K.L. = Fine Killing Liberty
G.O.D. = Groove Over Dose
Baby V.O.X. = Baby Voice of Expression
N.R.G = New Radiancy Group
Swi.T = Song Will Tell
C&G = Chick & Guy
a.i.d.a = Angels in Distress and Anger
S.Z = Street Zine
P.L.T = Platinum
B.O.K = Boy of Korea
CLEO = Come Listen Every One
1Tym = 1 Time For Your Mind
S.E.S. = Sea Eugene Shoo
M.I.L.K. = Made in Lovely Kin
DJ DOC = DJ Dream of Children
HAND = Have a Nice Day
HOPE = Hoping on Passion Exist
D.bace = Divine Born Ace
KISS = Korean International Super Star
A-TOM = A Team Of Major
C.O.C = Cheerleaders of Charm
U.N = United N Generation
5tion = 5 True Image Of New
Q.O.Q = Quality of Quantity
T.T.Ma = Taste The Maximum
Roo’RA = Roots of Reggae
TRAX = Typhoon of the Rose Attack on X-mas
YG Family = Yang Goon Family
BoA = Beat of Angel
LPG = Long Pretty Girls
N.EX.T = New EXperimental Team

The picture used, , is of Lee Hyo-ri. She is currently a solo artist but was formerly a member of Fin.K.L
(Fine Killing Liberty? WTF?).

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, northeast asia, south korea

South Korean engineers have designed a human-looking robot to compete with one earlier designed in Japan. Taro Comments.:

In Japanese order right to left, hee, hee, via National Geographic Photo in the News: Female Android Debuts in S. Korea
You can play this game with real humans at All Look Same.com (www.alllooksame.com), where you can see if you can tell the differences between Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, korea, northeast asia, south korea

Via The Marmot, a look at Korean currency under Japanese and since independence:

Related, but not Asian, a look at when when US currency was art.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, money, north korea, northeast asia, money

In this 1942 cartoon Superman takes on and defeats ‘Japoteurs’ seeking to steal the giant bomber.:

In our more enlightened age, superheros are generally no longer used for propaganda. Batman will soon be going after al Qaida, but Superman generally avoids conflicts with other nations.

Generally, but not always. In the 2003 Superman Giant Super Special, a series of short stories that were reprinted by Singapore’s Gotham Comics, the Man of Steel takes on the People’s Liberation Army, twice saving the fictional mountain nation of Bhutran from an invasion.

Bhutran seems very much like T!bet - although there are some noticeable differences. For instance, the he Da..lai Lama’s equivalent, the Rhana Bhutra, has a daughter (with whom Superman enjoys such activities as sharing a hot tub).

And, also unlike T!bet, Bhutran is never invaded. The PLA do attempt an invasion but Superman, in his own words, “gave the communists something they haven’t had in a long time … the fear of God!.”

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, northeast asia, superman

Lonnie notes a China News report indicating that looking at girlie pics can be good for your health.:

… Huang Chunyi, is 94 years young and does not credit vegetables, meditation, Tai Chi or Metamucil with his health. He says it is because he cuts out photos of beautiful women and stores them in scrapbooks. China News reported this is a daily event. The Taiwan resident (the China News said Taiwan Province) says looking at photos of beautiful women every day is the secret to his longevity. He has been doing this for twenty years since he retired as a chef while in Japan.
I wonder if it was Japanese manga that did this to him.
His collection, which includes favorites Cameron Diaz, Penolope Cruz and Taiwan model Chiling Lin.

With that, we are happy to note the recent medical discovery of Tiara Lestari’s ‘lost’ German FHM photoshoot.:

(via Indcoup and the Not Worksafe Asian Sirens.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan

Singapore foodie Chubby Hubby is seeking nominations from Asian bloggers for the best Asia-Pacific restaurants.:

I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about Restaurant magazine’s survey of the world’s fifty best restaurants and how few restaurants from Asia, Australia and the Pacific islands were represented in it. So, in a bold (and perhaps hubristic) move, I’ve decided to try and build a comprehensive listing of Asia-Pacific’s best restaurants.

This list, however, depends entirely on you, fellow bloggers, readers and friends. And in such, anyone and everyone is welcome to take part in this. I’ll make this caveat right away: any survey is only as good as the people who take part in it. And it’s only really credible if a lot of people take part. Also, no survey is perfect. Nor can it be truly definitive or objective. Zagat isn’t. Nor is Michelin. Both simply represent a statistical summation of what a percentage of the population feels (for the former, a wide range of people, for the latter a small group of anonymous “experts”). So too will this survey be a summation of what you guys tell me. That said, let’s try and put together one damn fine list!

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, northeast asia, south asia, southeast asia

Given the evil mouthless one from Sanrio’s tendency to inspire violence and disaster, AsiaPundit expects the below evil vehicle to be soon involved in a drive-by shooting.:

(via Mad Minerva)

Technorati Tags: asia, hello kitty, east asia, japan, northeast asia

AsiaPundit is happy to note that the word ‘free’ in the above headline is an adjective and not — as in the previous item — an imperative-form verb. Singapore authorities have decided not to charge opposition candidate James Gomez with ‘criminal intimidation.’
It’s a pleasant surprise, given their record of jailing and bankrupting opposition leaders. The Feynman Boson ponders the reasoning behind the decision.:

Firstly, the Public Prosecutor claimed Gomez used threatening words to a civil servant. Unless I’ve read wrongly (from other sources), I believe he used the word “consequences” against the civil servant. So everyone, next time, please be very careful of using the word “consequences” on a civil servant.
Next, this move of not charging Gomez strengthens The Negative Man’s argument that the PAP (and the Elections Department) cannot do nothing after kicking up the storm. This move is probably employed to gradually lower the momentum of the storm, to cushion the ground for landing.
Then, the next question is, why does the PAP, traditionally intolerant of political opponents, willing to let go of this chance of eliminating a member whose team snatched a harrowing 44% in a GRC? There could be several reasons to this, and they’re not mutually exclusive. One, times are changing, and the new PM has greater tolerance that his daddy. Two, instead of scaring people away from the opposition, it has achieved an opposite effect. Three, there is insufficient ground to justify that Gomez has committed the act of criminal intimidation; even many experts agree that it is pushing the boundaries of the law. Four, the Enernorth case in Canada has sparked worries that the Singapore judicial system is deemed as unfair. Five, pursuing this matter will cause PAP to lose votes, judging from online public opinion.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, singapore, southeast asia

AsiaPundit could have used this information a year ago. Via China Rant, advice on how to detect fake Chinese bills.:

Thanks to for the below picture. Supposedly, “Checking the black vertical line is really black is a good idea, and a quick scratch of Mao’s jacket (which should be slightly ribbed) is usually enough.” The top one is fake.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, economy, money, northeast asia

As well as the Cultural Revolution, May marks another more positive anniversary for Asia - the fall of Indonesian dictator Suharto. It was eight years ago that he was driven from power. And while that is an odd number to commemorate an anniversary, Indonesia’s blogosphere has been remembering the riots that prompted his resignation.

Jakartass rounds things up and recounts his own experiences of the riots that brought down the dictator.:

Reports of hundreds dead, most trapped in the malls and supermarkets they were looting.
Americans, as usual the first, have initiated evacuation procedures. Our Kid’s in a good mood.
Just as the storm hit, we could see black smoke rising, not quite camouflaged by the clouds.
We made it to Bank Universal’s HQ ATM, one of only two in service in town. A long but patient queue as the machine was refilled. The bank itself was shut. So we’ve got enough cash for the duration (?).
A fleet of buses was parked outside the packed Malaysian Embassy but I only noted three cars in the Russian Embassy compound down the road.
Some shops are open, a few, belying the TV news of the city returning to ‘normal’.
We hear tell of officials at the airport charging Rp.5 million instead of the official Rp.1 million for the exit tax (fiskal). There are also reports of cars being sold to pay the extortionists. I’ve got cash so it’s a pity I don’t drive.
I’ve put a couple of beers in the fridge for tonight’s FA Cup Final.
A ring round. Two colleagues are heading off to Bali ~ and later for ‘home’?
Another is heading off, with his Indonesian wife, for the happy hour at Hard Rock Café
Most of us are settling in for a week’s siege.

Indcoup, also a 1998 veteran writes:

I’m in one of Jakarta’s huge office buildings, not far from the Semanggi cloverleaf intersection. With the office up on one of the upper floors, we have great panoramic views of this frantic city. This is usually a good excuse not to do any work and to just put your feet up and enjoy the view. But not today.
It’s about 11.00 in the morning. Someone shouts out something in Indonesian that I don’t understand, but I join everyone else by the huge window with views to the north of the city anyway.
Huge plumes of smoke are drifting upward. But these are not just normal fires that can often be seen in Jakarta. These fires are taking place in Mangga Dua, Glodok, Gadjah Madah. Chinatown.
So the rioting has finally started.
But it doesn’t come as a surprise. It was inevitable really. The economy’s going the drain; the rupiah’s crumbling; inflation’s soaring. And a dictator at the helm for Christ knows how many years. This is it. This is when the pressure cooker is finally gonna blow its fu#king top off.

And A.M. Mora y Leon recounts his story at Publius Pundit.:

I was at a mysterious Javanese graveyard of tombs outside Yogyakarta, where old and young many of them in traditional Javanese dress of batiks in ancient cinnamon and indigo dyes, alongside boulevards of tombs and walls, a lot of dark palms shading it all, mysteriously gloomy, even as amid the equatorial sun its shade made it all refreshingly cool. The old women, like the men, wore no shirts, in the ancient Javanese style of royalty. I was walking down a thousand tiny and ancient mildewed steps of some ancient palace, talking to an abangan military man who spoke English and who was there to pay his respects his ancestors. News had just broken of students shot dead by troops in Jakarta at Trisakti University. I asked him about it. Should I worry about returning to Jakarta tomorrow? He told me he did not have much information and I pressed him as to why. Then he said, “Have mercy on me, I am afraid to talk about it.”
That evening, I understood why. I went to the threadbare house of my warm, friendly Acehnese student friend who went to Gajah Madah University. He had a big picture of the Ayatollah Khoemeini on his wall of the rented house amid the leafy residences, where bikes and motorcycles were parked out front by the tropical greens and stone fixtures, and we talked about Indonesia’s currency crisis which interested me.
But what really interested him more was ‘demokrasi’ and the great political struggle for that that was rumbling and erupting in Indonesia. We watched dictator Soeharto on the television from a summit in Egypt and mocked the bastard on the television, sitting on the floor by the kitchen because there was no furniture, just him, the TV, two Achenese friends smoking kretek clove cigarettes with an ashtray, me, and the ayatollah.
I can’t tell you how pregnant that moment seemed as those were the days of thousands of young student moving to defy the thuggish Soeharto regime all by themselves. I had been going to the first demonstrations in March, taking photographs, to see for myself. Something big was going to happen, but I did not know what or when. Would we get shot? Would we get caught? Would the students throw the tinpot out? My friend wanted to forge forward.

While Suharto has escaped prosecution for corruption he will be judged by history in a generally unfavorable light. While he did deliver some benefits, in comparison to fellow most of his Asian authoritarian contemporaries, he was a failure.
Suharto did not build the sustained growth that still supports the legacies of Lee Kwan Yew, Mahathir Mohamad, Park Chung Hee, Chang Kai-shek and Deng Xiaoping, Although he remains a notches above Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Mihn and Kim Il-sung.
AP, who has a bad habit of ranking dictators, would place Suharto just below Fidel Marcos.
Comments are open for readers who wish to contribute Top-10 lists of Asian dictators.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia

It’s the 40th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, and Howard republishes an item from the Times interviewing the woman who sparked years of death and terror.:

On May 16, 1966, the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, published a coded attack on Chairman Mao’s political rivals.

Ms Nie, then Communist Party secretary of Peking University’s philosophy department, said the attack inspired her to put up a poster charging that the elite school was under the control of the bourgeoisie. Mao then had the poster read out over national radio, effectively giving his blessing to attacks on those in authority and triggering a decade of chaos.

Students rose up to oppose “revisionists” bureaucrats, academics, officials, leaders. Radical students calling themselves Red Guards paraded their teachers and professors though the streets in dunce caps. Government ministers were forced to kneel as they were beaten

The party papers are, naturally, being quiet on the matter. Me Old China .:

News about the anniversary in the state press is, naturally, conspicuous by its absence. The essayist Ling Feng explains that there are several reasons why the current government is hoping to keep a lid on any commemorations. Simply put, the persecution of as many as 100 million Chinese people is the worst thing that the Chinese Communist Party has ever done, and to publicize these events would damage the fragile image of a ruling party already racked by dissent and discontent. Furthermore, the Party has already achieved “closure” of a kind, saying in its daintily titled 1981 Resolution on Certain Historical Problems since the Establishment of the Nation that the chaos was, erm, Mao’s fault, of course, but that his mistakes were “used” by a counter-revolutionary clique led by his appalling wife, Jiang Qing, and his second-in-command, the phobia-ridden megalomaniac Lin Biao. All correct discussions are restricted to the old formula that Mao was “70% right and 30% wrong” and had, in his dotage, been led astray by the Gang of Four, and anything that might draw attention to the fact that, well, if there was indeed a counter-revolutionary clique, then Mao was its undisputed leader, has to be forbidden, as it would undermine the very foundations of the Party’s right to rule, Ling writes.

,

Images stolen from Stefan Landsberger’s collection.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, cultural revolution, northeast asia

While AsiaPundit has been a bear on China he will admit that there have been some encouraging signs that domestic consumption is picking up. As earlier reported, Chinese consumers are now buying the cheap sex toys that the country produces. Now it seems that China is moving upscale in illicit drug consumption.:

Chinese and U.S. agents seized more than 300 pounds of cocaine smuggled from Colombia — the country’s largest ever cocaine bust — and arrested nine people involved in a drug ring in southern China, authorities said today.

The case illustrates how South American drug gangs are aggressively moving into Asia to exploit new markets and expand their global distribution chains, said William Fiebig, a Beijing-based agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“It’s a market, a huge market,” he said.

The seizure and arrests were made in March following a two-month investigation that was aided by key intelligence from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Liu Guangping, spokesman for the Customs General Administration of China. It was the first time Chinese and U.S. authorities had worked together on a drug investigation.

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

The Shanghaiist asks:

“Does anyone else find it odd that Shanghai’s most famous/notorious bootleg DVD shop is advertising in Shanghai’s most famous/notorious state-run English-language newspaper? What does it say about Shanghai’s “war on piracy” when Ka De Club, routinely raided by police, has the balls to take out an ad — and that Shanghai Daily, which reports on those raids, runs the ad?”

The Ka Dae Club was last raided ahead of an intellectual property conference. A pure coincidence we assure you. The Shanghai government is very serious about cracking down on piracy.

Still, as for the Shanghaiist’s question, AsiaPundit is hardly shocked that state-owned Shanghai Daily is accepting ads for the illegal DVD shop coffee shop that doesn’t sell coffee. The paper regularly runs ads for prostitutes escort and massage services. It has even been skirting rules prohibiting foreign investment through a deal with Australia’s Seven Network. The latter deal has remarkably improved the readability of the paper over the past year.
Rule-breaking is a good thing for the paper. And given that its expatriate target audience are the biggest patrons of Ka De, AP would have recommended running the ad as a public service.

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

Although Shanghai has been attracting scores of Western filmmakers, the city is unlikely to become the Hollywood of the East, due in part to overly sensitive authorities.
Danwei notes that Tom Cruise’s latest may not hit the screens in China after it offended Shanghai’s sensibilities by showing commonplace things such as drying laundry.:

The much-anticipated film “Mission: Impossible III” may be kept out of China for “tarnishing the image of Shanghai,” Shanghai-based newspaper Xinmin Evening News reported over the weekend.
With 20 percent of its scenes shot in China, the action-thriller starring Tom Cruise has been expected to achieve box office success here.
Cruise shot part of the film in Shanghai last year, and his Shanghai press conference attracted nearly 100 reporters from different media.
The film could well have offended the Shanghai authorities. In the film, when Cruise stepped into the metropolis, he saw rags and underwear drying outdoors in side streets, rather than views of Shanghai’s shining skyscrapers. Shanghai’s image was further tarnished by the film’s awkward and slow-moving “Shanghai police,” according to the Xinmin Evening News.
Industry insiders told the Xinmin Evening News the authorities were yet to make a decision on allowing the film into the mainland. The film’s import has been delayed indefinitely, industry insiders said, adding that the ban was probably caused by the “negative Shanghai image.”

In other Shanghai movie news, AsiaPundit picked up the new DVD of a film shot largely in the city: UltraViolet, starring Milla Jovovich. If you can stop staring at Ms Jovovich’s midriff, you will note the Pearl Tower and Jinmao Building in the background.:

In spite of the generally hot Jovovich, the film was thoroughly unwatchable. This review at IMBD sums up the film quite well.:

I had hopes for this movie based on the trailer, but it turned out to be one of the worst I’ve ever seen.
The special effects range from mediocre to kinda cool, but the plot is too sketchy and absurd to justify their existence. Milla Jovovich’s hair and jacket change colors for no discernible reason throughout the film. I think the pretty colors are supposed to distract us from the incoherent script, but it doesn’t work…
If you appreciate Milla Jovovich’s body, it might be possible to enjoy this film by renting the DVD and watching it with the sound off and your techno MP3 collection blaring in the background while you do something productive, like picking the gunk out from beneath your toenails. Or you could spare yourself the pain and just get The Fifth Element instead.

Shanghai’s architecture, in spite of the city being “Ground Zero in the Blood War being waged between humans and her kind in what’s left of Shanghai,” looked good. That would please authorities.

Still, we can be thankful that the film will likely offend local sensibilities enough that Mainland residents will never have to endure it on the silver screen. The film is set in the future where apparently Shanghai is ruled by Laowai, something that would surely upset the CCP. As well, the only Chinese in the film are a group of hybrid vampire gangsters called the Blood Chinois - all of whom are killed by the protagonist.

AsiaPundit recommends avoiding UltraViolet at any cost. Although the ‘Shanghai-curbside Special Edition DVD‘ does offer some interesting subtitles that actually improve the dialogue.

UPDATE: A reader has informed us that the leader of the Blood Chinois was played by Vietnamese American actor Duc Luu — which means that there were no major roles by Chinese actors or nationals. Given the wretchedness of the film, that shouldn’t upset them.

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

While redirecting criticism toward a competitor is usually a poor way to deal with probing questions, AsiaPundit thinks Google co-founder Sergey Brin did properly address a protest from Amnesty International at the company’s annual general meeting.:

A wide range of investors, including retirees and Wall Street professionals, attended the meeting at Google’s Mountain View campus. They peppered the two founders and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt with questions about everything from new products to sluggish e-mail to competition with Microsoft and Yahoo.

A member of Amnesty International who was representing the shares of a New York pension fund took a turn at the microphone to criticize Google’s decision to launch a separate search engine in China and comply with that government’s censorship policies.

But the protest got derailed when Brin asked the man, Anthony Cruz, what search engine he was recommending as an alternative to Google.

“I use Yahoo,'’ Cruz responded.

“You mean the one that has been censoring since the ’90s and recently caused a number of journalists to go to prison?'’ Brin asked in amazement.

Via Searchnewz, where David comments “Maybe Amnesty International USA should take down its front page attack on Google and replace it with Yahoo instead, perhaps?”

AsiaPundit still uses all Google, Microsoft and Yahoo services - though he may search for a new photo service when his Flickr pro account expires. However, for those who want to avoid all three companies, Amazon’s A9 search engine is pretty good.

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

While the space programs of India and China have received some international attention, other Asian nations are also reaching for the stars — and overcoming unique challenges.

Ahead of the first space flight for one of the nation’s astronauts — hitching a ride with the Russians — Malaysia is seeking to establish how Muslim astronauts will pray facing Mecca.:

Muslims wash before they pray but not only is water a precious commodity in space, but it is also impractical in weightlessness.
Likewise, the faithful face Mecca. However, that will mean pin-pointing a moving location while in zero gravity.
And Muslim prayer times are linked to those of the sunrise and sunset, but in orbit the sun appears to rise and set more than a dozen times a day.

As well, the South Korean space program is seeking to develop space kimchi..:

In a move that’s sure to excite current and future astronauts, South Korea is developing space kimchi:

April 2008 will see the first kimchi in space when Korea’s first astronaut journeys to the final frontier. With the help of cutting-edge technology, the national delicacy acclaimed for its taste as much as its healthful properties will become “space food.”

Generally, Korean’s eat kimchi as regularly as Malaysian Muslims pray facing Mecca (perhaps even moreso, but the Malaysians I knew weren’t exceptionally devout). And you wouldn’t want an open bowl of kimchi in a zero-gravity environment.

(Astronaut food picture stolen from NASA.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, malaysia, northeast asia, south korea, southeast asia

AsiaPundit is welcoming comments on the recent redesign. There will be further tweaking of the site and reader suggestions are welcome. For instance, Mrs AsiaPundit doesn’t care for the headline font — so that will have to change.
Links to the earlier site from are no longer active, although all earlier posts are archived under different URLs.
As well, the earlier RSS and Atom feeds for the site are dead. New feeds are available here and .

And the group-blog concept will soon resume.

Via the Marmot, a — the land where tourists are rare and the draft starts early.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, north korea, northeast asia

On top of being cheap, there may be a good reason that the independent jeepney is a popular form of transit in the Philippines. Most public transit still leaves something to be desired. For example, as illustrates, you can still get open-air seating on a jeepney. Meanwhile, Manila’s bus drivers are being .:

MANILA (Reuters) - Bus drivers negotiating the sweltering streets of Manila have a new thing to stress about — their armpits.

Faced with complaints from commuters fed up with the stench at the front of the bus, taxi and train, Manila authorities have reminded drivers to wash and deodorize daily during the heat of the summer.
“We understand that drivers must earn money to support themselves and their respective families,” said Bayani Fernando, chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. “It is only right that in return, these drivers must observe proper hygiene.
“If they have body odor or armpit odor, ask the advice of doctors for treatment. But I think if they only take a bath every day, and maybe they can use “tawas” or deodorant, then there would be no problem.”
Temperatures in the sprawling Philippine capital regularly hit the high 30s Celsius from mid-March to mid-May.
Some of the estimated 30,000 public drivers often strip off to beat the heat but Fernando reminded them to maintain decorum.
“They must also refrain from wearing slippers and shorts,” Fernando said.

(Via Carl)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, philippines, southeast asia