One of the advantages of living in an Asian metropolis is having easy access to great food. For the most part — at least relative to North America — this also applies to regional airlines. Mari Diary notes a top-10 list for the best airline food which features a sizable Asian component.:

No.1 Singapore Airlines. 66.9 points
No.2 Virgin Atlantic. 58.8 points
No.3 KLM. 50.9 points
No.4 Air France. 49.1 points
No.5 Air New Zealand. 46.9 points
No.6 Air China. 40.9 points
No.7 Alitalia. 40.6 points
No.8 Malaysia Airlines. 39.7 points
No.9 Asiana Air. 38.5 points
No.10 Cathay Pacific Airways. 38.2 points

(Image of a Singapore Airlines meal portion (first class LAX-NRT-SIN) stolen from AirlineMeals.net… the world’s first and leading website about nothing but airline food.)

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

Matt at Digital World Tokyo interviews the proprietor of a ‘male clothing cafe’, where ‘hidden otaku‘ women are served by androgynous waitresses dressed to look like male anime characters.:

Word of Japan’s medo kissa or “Maid cafes,” where the staff call you goshujinsama (”master”) and serve omelets with love-hearts drawn on them in ketchup, has reached envious male geeks around the world, but what about the anime-loving women?

I spoke to one woman working to redress this injustice: Kira Ayumu, owner and proprietress of 80+1, a dansou kissa (”male clothing cafe”) in Ikebukuro, where the female waitresses dress as men for a spot of role-playing.

Can you give us a short description of 80+1?

A hideaway for girls. Our all-female staff uses dansou to embody the slim lines of anime characters in a way that men just can’t. Women can get much closer to the two-dimensional feel of a male anime character. It’s a hip cafe that appeals to both the otaku and fashion-loving side of modern Japanese women.

What’s your clientele like?

Mostly sharp-dressing kakure-otaku (”hidden otaku”) — they have some otaku leanings, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.

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

Corruption in the Olympics? A corrupt Chinese municipal official? AsiaPundit is shocked.:

The vice-mayor of Beijing overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games has built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.

Details of Liu Zhihua’s colourful private life emerged today after he was sacked from his post when a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.

Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.

In the resort town of Kuangou, an hour’s drive north of the Olympic Village, police have sealed off Mr Liu’s multi-story development.

An unknown number of young woman, as well as waiting staff, are said to be confined to rooms there, waiting to be interviewed by investigators from the central discipline inspection commission, a shadowy anti-corruption agency inside the Communist Party.

“Liu has more than one mistress,” wrote the Wen Hui Bao newspaper in Hong Kong. “He has a secret pleasure palace for himself to have fun.”

While AsiaPundit is a strong opponent of corruption, he can’t help but be a bit impressed by Liu’s dissoluteness.

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

Japanese scientists are blaming China’s Three Gorges Dam for a plague of giant jellyfish.:

MAINICHI, China - June 10, 2006 (UPI) — Researchers in Japan have concluded that a surge in the number of giant jellyfish off the Japanese coast is a result of a hydropower dam in China.

The Mainichi Daily News reported that researchers from Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies have suggested that construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the world’s largest hydropower dam, is responsible for the explosion of the jellyfish population. The jellyfish have a negative effect on the Japanese fishing industry.

Nomura jellyfish, typically found in Japan, measure up to one meter in diameter and can weigh as much as 200 kilograms.

One of the breeding areas for the jellyfish is near the mouth of the Yangtze River, near Shanghai. Construction of the dam is thought to have reduced the production of silicon, which is necessary for the breeding of phytoplankton, the newspaper said.

Still, if the report is to be believed, hydro-power related giant jellyfish are less destructive than the result of China’s coal dependence.:

In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before wafting across the Pacific. An American satellite spotted the cloud as it crossed the West Coast.

Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors. These microscopic particles can work their way deep into the lungs, contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer.

Filters near Lake Tahoe in the mountains of eastern California “are the darkest that we’ve seen” outside smoggy urban areas, said Steven S. Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.

(photo stolen from National Geographic, full size and high-res image here.)

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

Meet the esteemed judges of the 2006-2007 Asia Blog Awards:

• Anna of HERstory, the 2004 ABA winner of Best Indian Blog.

• Connie Veneracion, Sassy Lawyer and queen of Philippine blog royalty.

• Fred of Extra Extra, former winner of best Sri Lanka blog and now a resident of Kinshasa, Democratic Rep of Congo.

• Graham Holliday of top Vietnam food blog Noodlepie.

• Previous Indonesia ABA winner and inteernational man of mystery Jakartass.

• Japundit founder of the eponymous Japundit.

• Malaysian alpha-blogger and Freedom Blog Award winner Jeff Ooi.

• Jeff Laitila, founder of of ABA-winning Japanese group photo blog Sushicam.

• Lee Chapman of the Tokyo Times.

• Malaysia’s multi-talented Kenny Sia.

• Patrix, founder of Desipundit.

• Phil of Flagrant Harbour, founder of the first Asia Blog Awards.

• Rezwan, author of the 3rd World View, Global Voices contributor and founder of Bangladesh blog list.

• Richard of The Peking Duck.

• Robert Koehler, the man behind essential South Korean site the Marmot’s Hole.

• Roland Soong of the essential Greater China site East South West North.

• Ron Morris of ABA winning 2Bangkok.com.

• Simon of Simon World, previous host of 2004 Awards and nominee for several international accolades.

• Scott Sommers, 2004 ABA winner for Scott Sommers’ Taiwan Weblog.

• Spike of Hongkie Town.

• Tengku Mohd Ali Bustaman, better known as Pok Ku, of Malaysian ABA winner Di Bawah Rang Ikang Kering

Finally, AsiaPundit will also be participating as a judge.

This is a preliminary listing and admittedly heavy on East and Northeast Asia. Other regional judges have been invited and more additions are expected.

Technorati Tags: asia, asia blog awards, east asia, south asia, southeast asia

South Korean boy band ShinHua made a rare appearance in North Korean capital Pyongyang. A You Tube video is available at GW North Korea. More interesting than the band is the audience, Preetam comments:

I couldn’t believe that North Korea allowed such seemingly western influenced band to play in front of North Koreans. The caption does say that the show was held in Pyongyang.

Occasionally the video zooms into the well dressed and sober audience. The audience reaction is priceless.

The women are all dressed in traditional hanbok and most of the faces look as if they don’t approve of such music.

The woman in the left seems interested while the women on the right is probably glad that she didn’t bring her kids along.

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

Now is the time at AsiaPundit when we dance.:

In this youtube, a band identified as the “Indian Beatles” performs a totally rockin’ version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” in Hindi. I’m pretty sure I have this song as an MP3 somewhere, but with the video added in, it’s a hundred times more awesome.
Commenters on the YouTube page add more details. The song is “Tumse Hai Dil Ko” from the film “Jaanwar” — and this: “The camera work is exceptional, the singing great, and the fact that this was just 1 year after the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan show makes this work of adaptive plagiarism all the more impressive.”

Technorati Tags: asia, india, south asia

The Chief ponders plastic surgery in China, favoring the natural look and, moreover, preferring that Asian women look Asian.:

Every two minutes somewhere in China, a woman has cosmetic surgery to give her Western double eyelids. It is now a $3 billion business, divided among 1 million plastic surgery clinics employing 6 million people. Hilariously, Beijing hosted the first “Miss Artificial Beauty” for “manmade beauties” in 2004 - contestants included a transsexual.
The plastic fantastic here is more for investment than personal vanity - what’s going to make you stand out from 1.3 billion other Chinese, to get that job or that husband? Rounder eyes, or a straighter nose, or longer legs (the bones are broken and forced apart by pins. More bone grows to fill the gap, but is hardly strong enough to carry the body’s weight. Ouch!). Then again, every 25 minutes somewhere in China, someone complains that plastic surgery had disfigured them.

In Indonesla, Indcoup argues that Baywatch has been a negative influence.:

They should never have allowed Baywatch to be shown in Asia.
Cos week after week of seeing ultrasexy American beach babes has really affected the Asian psyche, and even resulted in feelings of gross inadequacy given that most Asian women – the Chinese in particular – are not exactly noted for their measurements in the mammary department.
So what happened?
The obvious of course – Asian women started to go in for breast implants in a big way.
Done professionally, this ain’t a problem of course.
But it is when a lot of women who can’t afford high priced breast implants decide to opt for a much cheaper solution.
So what do you have?
Thousands and thousands of young Chinese women maimed by an “amazing gel”:
LI MEI is slim, with hair that falls almost to her waist, and pretty enough to draw looks in the street. But her husband refuses to come near her, and, in any case, her breasts are too painful to be touched.
She is one of hundreds of thousands of Chinese women who wanted bigger breasts and spent several hundred pounds at beauty salons for injections of Ao Mei Ding — or Amazing Gel. But in Mrs Li’s case, such as countless others, the operation went wrong.
The gel has formed hard lumps in her breasts, caused infections and migrated around her body.

We can be thankful that Korea’s top celebrities are setting a positive example with their natural beauty.:

I don’t see how anyone can look at these pictures and say that the woman in the photos have not been under the knife.
To my untouched eyes, the only ones that might be as “pure” as the writer would like to believe are Kim Tae-hee and Song Hae-gyo. You make the call…

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

Reporters Without Borders has condemned China for allegedly blocking Google.com.:

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the current unprecedented level of Internet filtering in China, which means the Google.com search engine can no longer be accessed in most provinces - although the censored Chinese version, Google.cn, is still accessible - and software designed in the United States to get round censorship now only works with great difficulty.

The organisation also deplored the fact that the 17th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4 June has been used to tighten the vice on Chinese Internet users.
“It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Google has just definitively joined the club of western companies that comply with online censorship in China. It is deplorable that Chinese Internet users are forced to wage a technological war against censorship in order to access banned content.”
Internet users in many major Chinese cities have had difficulty in connecting to the uncensored international version of Google for the past week. The search engine was totally unaccessible throughout the country on 31 May. The blocking then gradually extended to Google News and Google Mail. So the Chinese public is now reduced to using the censored Chinese versions of these services.

There are problems with Google’s service but these are being massively overstated by RSF.

Google and G-Mail services are still working fine here at AsiaPundit Global Headquarters in Shanghai. There were intermittent outages last week, but there was nothing of the sort that indicated a firewall-level block. Beijing residents had a more prolonged outage, although AP understands that this has largely been resolved. The comments at the Peking Duck indicate no blockage in South China.

AP has also heard, indirectly, confirmation that Beijing was raising the level of its filtering ahead of the June 4th anniversary. Other services such as an overseas hosted POP e-mail account were also inaccessible last week, and general internet service was sluggish.

Still, there was a particular problem with Google. Andrew Lih has done very solid tracking of the problem and . China Web 2.0 Review, meanwhile, notes that Chinese users were frustrated with Google over the inaccessibility of the uncensored site.:

Difficulty in accessing Google: From a week ago, Chinese internet users in north China started to encounter difficulty in accessing Google and other service as Gmail. Will Google.com finally become inaccessible, and all the traffic has to change to Google.cn? On the other hand, Chinese bloggers are discontented with Google China’s official blog, since it did not have any explanation on the issues.

Google won’t say this on its official blog, but for those looking for a simple explanation, this works well:

“Google was inaccessible because the Chinese government is run by a bunch of absolute berks who annually screw up the country’s communications infrastructure to prevent its citizens from being reminded that they are ruled by thugs. Normal service will hopefully resume shortly after June 4.”

In other Google news, co-founder Sergey Brin has said that the company may have made a mistake with its China service, and has realized that no one in the country uses the censored service.:

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course. (…)
“We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said. (…)
“Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” Brin said. (…)
Brin said Google is trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course. He said virtually all the company’s customers in China use the non-censored service.

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

Agagooga has developed a way to make Singapore’s media tolerable.:

Every time the Party, the State and the Government are conflated, drink once.

Every time you see a stupid ST Forum letter about how democracy and Freedom of Speech are bad for Singapore, drink once. If the letter ends with “Majulah Singapura”, drink twice.

Every time you see the archived shot of MM Lee crying, drink once. If it is accompanied with moving music in the background, drink thrice.

Every time a new buzzword is thrown up, drink once. Every time we have a new silly acronym (”SPRING Singapore”), drink twice. Every time a new false dichotomy is introduced (”Stayers” vs “Quitters”; “Heartlanders” vs “Cosmopolitans”), drink thrice.

Every time a Minister says things like “save on one hairdo and use the money for breast screening”, drink once. Every time someone else doesn’t say whether they want tur kwa or not and we get a week long scandal in the media, drink twice.

Every time ministers get a pay rise following xxx years of no pay rise, drink once. Every time the CPF contribution rate is cut, drink twice. Every time the GST rate is raised and income tax for the top brackets cut, drink thrice.

Every time citizens get lectured for being choosy or grumbling, drink once.

Every time someone talks about Asian Values, drink once. Every time someone talks about the decadent West, drink twice. Every time we want to emulate the decadent West, drink thrice.

AsiaPundit’s additions:

• Drink once every time there is mention of making Singapore a (financial, entertainment, artistic, electronics, aviation, good toilet, etc…) ‘hub’
• Reiterating point six, drink thrice every time the top news item pertains to a price increase or decrease related to an acronym (i.e., COE prices have decreased, ERP charges are rising, employers’ CPF contributions have been cut).

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

In other news, a Chinese railway cop has prevented a boy from winning a Darwin Award.:

Kung fu fan tries to stop train
(China Daily)

A 17-year-old boy surnamed Liang almost died when he tried to use a kung fu movement to stop a running train in Laibin Railway Station in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday, Nanguo Jinbao reported.

Liang was pushed to safety by a railway policeman just as he was about to be knocked down. Liang jumped down to the tracks and wanted to use Xianglongshibazhang, a famous kung fu posturing described in many swordsman fictions, to stop the running train.

He was taken into custody for breaking railway rules and said he wanted to test whether or not he could use kung fu to stop the train. Liang is a great fan of swordsman fiction and has also learnt martial arts.

(Via Daryl)

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

Americans can be so rude sometimes…

BEIJING (Reuters) - China opposes the “rude interference” of the United States in calling for a full accounting of the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.

“The U.S. statement is a groundless criticism and attack on China,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was quoted as saying in a statement.

The State Department issued a statement on Sunday, the 17th anniversary of the pro-democracy protests bloodily put down by Chinese troops, calling for a re-evaluation by China which has branded the protests subversive.

“The U.S. urges China to provide a full accounting of the thousands who were killed, detained, or went missing and of the government role in the massacre,” spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

China considers the incident history and closed to further questions.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, 8964

After being driven by Islamists to relocate its offices from Jakarta to Denpasar in Bali , Playboy Indonesia has relaunched. And it’s not about objectifying scantily clad women… its about promoting democracy.:

Unlike the first edition, the 160-page second edition contains no paid advertisements. Instead, there are almost entirely blank pages featuring only the Playboy bunny logo in different colors and a short message headlined “Playbill”. The message states: “This blank page is dedicated to our loyal clients who were threatened for placing advertisements in this magazine.” Each message then mentions a product that should have appeared, for example: “This page is owned by a cigarette product” and “This page is owned by a cellular telephone product”.

Arnada writes in the latest editorial that Playboy Indonesia was forced to relocate to the Bali capital of Denpasar because of concerns that staff would be unsafe if the magazine had remained based in Jakarta. “The safety and convenience of our employees comes first. People in Bali are more open to ideas, they are more adaptive,” he wrote.

“What we experienced over the past month… shows the name is an important thing. Our launch in April was marked by enthusiasm, prejudice, fear and various assumptions,” he said.

The editor said that although some legislators have called for the magazine to change its name, publishing Playboy is necessary for Indonesia’s democratic development. “The absence of a growing monopoly of a set of values and views in our beloved country in the end is our final purpose. We believe that is also the target of all of us who live with reason and want to understand the meaning of democracy and a pluralistic society.”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, media, playboy, southeast asia

10 things you didn’t know about the Three Gorges Project:

6. China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, also envisaged building the Three Gorges Dam more than 2,000 years ago in order to threaten rebellious downstream communities with torrents of Yangtze water.

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

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola relax with Suntory. .:

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

Via Singabloodypore, an item from the unlinkable Straits Times on the heroic member of Singapore’s Finest who will be awarded a commendation for staying awake for two days in order to nab a potty-mouthed 17-year old.:

Station Inspector Mohamed Zulnizan Mohamed Arsis stayed awake for the better part of two days tracking down the blogger who posted racist remarks in October last year.

For his devotion to duty, he will be among the 335 police officers to receive commendation certificates today from Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui.

The 32-year-old inspector started tracking the blogger when a police report was made about his comments against Malays.

Inspector Zulnizan said: “I knew I had to check that particular blog every two hours so as not to miss any posting by the blogger’s friends. If not, some of the postings would be replaced with new ones.

“Within a day, I found out what school he was in. Then I found out his address and he was arrested.”

The 17-year-old blogger pleaded guilty and was placed on probation for two years and ordered to do 180 hours of community work for Malay welfare organisations to clear his misconceptions about Malays.

Why the officer had to check the site every two hours for two days escapes up.

AsiaPundit had assumed that Singapore authorities would have grasped either (a) RSS feeds or (b) working in shifts.

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

Regulators in the Philippines are threatening to ban a documentary program after it ran a cultural item involving old women and wooden objects.:

THE PHALLUSES are carved out of wood. Some are painted with lipstick, others decorated with flowers and ribbons. A few are huge, like rocket launchers, while others are more human in scale.

They are the handiwork of the lukayo, women way past their sexual prime who dance at weddings where they wave the phalluses like trophies, brandish them like swords, twirl them like batons, or thrust them like, well, phalluses.

According to Ramon Obusan, who will be named the National Artist for Dance on Friday, the dance of the lukayo is a nearly 200-year old ritual that celebrates marriage and binds communities. For the women who take part, he says. “it is also a chance to assert their independence” and to mock male power, which the phallus represents.

On May 22, GMA 7’s multi-awarded documentary program “i-witness” featured the lukayo of Kalayaan, Laguna and showed old women decked in brightly colored ribbons, faux jewelry and gaudy flowers, some in boots and oversized sunglasses, all of them displaying phalluses of various sizes and shapes. They were dancing, singing bawdy songs and looked like they were having the time of their lives.

It was the first time anything like this was seen on Philippine television and it provided viewers a peek of what dance and culture scholar Obusan calls “the depth of the phallus in our culture” and that remains as a residue from our pre-Hispanic, Hindu-Malay past.

But the program, hosted by veteran television journalist Howie Severino (who is also a member of the PCIJ board), now risks being suspended by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for violating Section 2, Chapter 4 of the implementing rules of the board, which prevents the airing of sexual content in a “patently lewd, offensive and demeaning manner.”

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

Indcoup brings us a transcript of an Australian television interview with Michelle Leslie - the Australian lingerie model who was busted in Bali for ecstasy while with the son of an Indonesian government minister, faked a conversion to Islam while in prison (abandoning the lingerie for a burqa) and now states that she was threatened with rape and worse.:

…it was with great anticipation that I awaited for Michelle Leslie to come clean on the Aussie TV show 60 minutes (You can either see the video or download the show’s transcript here).
While she admits she ain’t really a Muslim but took to wearing a burka (to avoid getting raped by those nasty horny Indonesian prison guards, obviously), and that she paid up to US$300,000 in bribes to the Indonesian officials, she doesn’t, unfortunately, really say much about the involvement of Bakrie’s kid:

LIZ HAYES: This 25-year-old, who’d made her career in front of the camera, now shrank from the overwhelming attention. But then it was revealed that the son of the Indonesian Finance Minister had been in the car the night of Michelle’s arrest. Once again, she was front-page news, and days later, a late-night visitor came to her cell.
MICHELLE LESLIE: He was like, you know, ‘Make sure you don’t tell anybody about the people that’s in the car or you’re in danger here. We can get in here, there’s no problems. Be careful for your life.’
LIZ HAYES: Did you believe him?
MICHELLE LESLIE: Yeah.
LIZ HAYES: So you took that as a threat?
MICHELLE LESLIE: Yes.
LIZ HAYES: And do you still believe that that was a threat?
MICHELLE LESLIE: Yes.
LIZ HAYES: Who would do that?
MICHELLE LESLIE: I don’t know. He was obviously well-connected enough to be able to get in there, because nobody was allowed in there.
LIZ HAYES: But the strategy of ‘whatever it takes’ succeeded. She was released after just three months.

But that’s it. Too many questions are left unanswered. How did she come to know Bakrie’s kid in the first place? Whose car was she in? And most obviously of all, why didn’t he stop the police from searching her? And couldn’t he have arranged to pay off the police BEFORE it went to court?

AsiaPundit agrees that there is much more to this, and it expects it will be answered following a book deal and ‘movie of the week.’

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, southeast asia, michelle leslie

Bow ties add extra depth to empty suits:

The papers today are filled with stories that are seen as proof that Donald Tsang did indeed attend a pro-democracy event in 1989, and to me they seem pretty convincing. I choose to believe these stories. And if they are true, it shows that Tsang once did believe in democracy. That is, until he got into a position of power himself. Now that he has power, it would appear that freedom of choice is only allowed if it is his choice. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But he does not have absolute power as he is just a craven toady to the bosses in Beijing. Which to me says he is so inept he cannot even be successful at moral corruption.

What has he been focusing his energies on? Coming up with a solution to the ever increasing air pollution that is driving people away and will lead to an enormous health care problem that will weigh down future generations of the entire community? Nope. Innovative ways to attract tourists and businesses here? Nope. Increase wages, create jobs, increase the social welfare in any conceivable way, shape or form? Nope? Stop the nonsense that keeps real estate prices artifically high? Nope. Break up the cartels that prevent true competition from existing in our so called “free economy?” Nope. Build a $150 billion dollar monument to himself in Tamar? Yep.

Hmmm. What might the dedication plaque read? “This building was the vision of Donald Tsang, a man who did nothing else while in office except collect a fat pay check, kiss Beijing butt and waste our tax money on this blighted behemoth.”

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

Via CSR Asia, the British journalists union has called upon its members to boycott Yahoo!.:

LONDON — The union representing journalists in the UK and Ireland called on its 40,000 members to boycott all Yahoo Inc. products and services to protest the Internet company’s reported actions in China.

The National Union of Journalists said it sent a letter on Friday to Dominique Vidal, Yahoo Europe’s vice president, denouncing the company for allegedly providing information to Chinese authorities about journalists.

The union also said it would stop using all Yahoo-operated services.

Yahoo has been cited in court decisions as supplying China’s government with information to help them identify, prosecute, and jail writers advocating democracy.

“The NUJ regards Yahoo’s actions as a completely unacceptable endorsement of the Chinese authorities,” wrote Jemima Kiss, chairman of the NUJ new media council in the letter to Vidal.

Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako said the Sunnyvale, California-based company believes it must conduct business in each country in ways that business in each country in ways that comply with local laws.

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

While China didn’t make it into this year’s World Cup, there is interest in the tournament and will be ample opportunity to catch the games.

Andrea has an English-language lineup of the scheduled matches to be aired on CCTV 1, 2, and 5 (all with Chinese-language commentary). Virtual China offers a link to sites that will webcast the event.:

There will clearly be a demand during that 24 delay, and it will clearly be met.

Sohu.com and SMGBB.cn, a subsidiary of Shanghai Media Group, have partnered to provide the online 2006 FIFA World Cup for tens of millions of Chinese viewers, if not more. Sohu is also the exclusive online media provider of the Beijing 2008 Olympics (talk about a good place to be), and the 2006 World Cup can be seen as an early dry-run.

And for those in Shanghai, the Shanghaiist notes where you can catch events on a really big screen.:

The Shanghai Film Art Center will be showing some World Cup matches on a 40-square-meter screen, the Shanghai Daily reports. Matches shown will be:

• England vs. Paraguay, June 10, 9 pm
• All quarterfinal matches, June 30, July 1 and July 2, 11 pm and 3 am
• Both semifinal matches, July 5 and July 6, 3 am
• The championship match, July 10, 2 am
• They will be using a digital projector to show CCTV-5’s feed. The theater holds 288 people and 125 tickets (50 yuan each) have already been sold for the England/Paraguay match.

Schedules are subject to revision or hijacking by ‘evil cults.’:

Television signals illegally broadcast by the Falun Gong cult cut into transmissions using the Sino Satellite (SINOSAT) from June 23 to 30, blocking the World Cup finals for viewers in some rural and remote areas in China.

The Radio Administration of the Ministry of Information Industry said on July 8 that the hijacking of nine China Central Television Station (CCTV) channels and 10 provincial TV channels was committed by the overseas cult organization of Falun Gong, manipulated by its ringleader Li Hongzhi.

The hijack severely interfered with the normal broadcast of China’s TV programs and operations of China’s satellite, which violated the basic rules of civil telecommunications and international conventions, jeopardized China’s national security and violated the rights and interests of the public.

The hijack mainly affected television users in rural and remote areas covered by the government scheme of “TV signals to every village.” They were viewing celebrations for the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, the World Cup finals and other major domestic and international news when the illegal signals occurred.

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

Those who thought that the red wine ice cream mentioned in the previous post wasn’t appetizing probably would not enjoy a yogurt soju cocktail.:

I had mentioned before that I had discovered some great soju cocktails at Indio. Since then, I have successfully attempted to recreate them at home, particularly the yogurt soju cocktail.

It is built like a highball, meaning that the ingredients are poured directly into the glass in a certain order with no stirring or shaking.

1 shot of Soju
Fill glass 2/3 full with Drinkable Plain Yogurt
Top with Lemon Lime Soda (Sprite, Chilsung Cider, 7-Up)

I have always had it without ice, but I’m sure ice is a welcome option on a hot day. It’s a very refreshing drink and not as high in alcohol as other highballs. This means you can drink a lot of these and not get dehydrated while having your summer BBQs.

(Via Buhkan Mountain Breakdown)

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

A Singapore study has discovered that soy sauce is a better antioxidant than red wine.:

BEIJING, June 5 — Dark soya sauce, widely used in East Asia, may prove to be more effective than red wine and vitamin C in combating human cell damage, researchers in Singapore said.

Scientists found that the sauce — derived from fermented soya beans — contains antioxidant properties about 10 times more effective than red wine and 150 times more potent than vitamin C, Singapore’s Straits Times reported Saturday.

Antioxidants — found in red wine, fruits and vegetables — counter the effects of free radicals, unstable atoms which attack human cells and tissues. Free radicals have been linked to the aging process as well as a range of ailments including Parkinson’s disease, cancer and heart disease. The National University of Singapore study also found that the sauce improved blood flow by as much as 50 percent in the hours after consumption.

The original Straits Times article is only available by subscription, so it isn’t immediately clear what volume of soy sauce needs to be equivalent to a glass of red wine. AsiaPundit is a regular consumer of soy sauce, but consuming a full glass of it would be vomit inducing.

That noted, Japanese gourmands should have little trouble selecting a healthy dessert, having access to wine- and soy-flavored ice creams.:

Soy Sauce flavor — Putting the ’scream’ into ‘we all scream for ice cream’
Used in a wide variety of culinary dishes soy sauce is said to be “the flavor of Japan.”

But the dubious choice to add soy sauce to milk and sugar and pack it in a punnet has made the condiment a standout pick to headline the Wackiest World of Japanese Ice Cream and possibly soy, er, soiled ice cream as we know it forever.

Soy sauce ice cream was not a simple choice to lead, though, considering it was competing against such flavors as pit viper, Indian curry, miso ramen and salad.

And it was hard to choose soy sauce over the Pearl of the Orient — Pearl-flavored ice cream.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, singapore

AsiaPundit is pleased to announce the commencement of the new round of Asia Blog Awards. The awards are based on the Japanese financial year, which ends on March 31, and nominations are now open for the April 1-June 30 period, full-year awards are to be based on the quarterly contests.

Details are below, nominations for the below categories can be made on the individual pages linked below until the end of June 16 (Samoan time).

Awards are at present limited to English-language or dual-language sites.

Region/Country Specific Blogs:

• Best China Blog
• Best Hong Kong Blog
• Best India Blog
• Best Indonesia Blog
• Best Japan Blog
• Best Korea Blog
• Best Malaysia Blog
• Best Mekong Blog (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar/Burma)
• Best Mongolian or ‘Stan’ Blog (Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan)
• Best Philippine Blog
• Best Singapore Blog
• Best South Asia Blog (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet)
• Best Taiwan Blog
• Best Thai Blog
• Best of the Rest (Bhutan, Timor Leste, Brunei etc…)

Non-region specific awards:

• Best Activist Blog
• Best BGLT Blog
• Best Bridge Blog
• Best Business/Economics Blog
• Best Design
• Best Diarist
• Best Essayist
• Best Food Blog
• Best Group Blog
• Best Humor Blog
• Best Original Reporting
• Best Photo Blog
• Best Podcast
• Best Satirist
• Best Sex Blog
• Best Travel Blog
• Best Video Blog

Podcasts, photo and video blogs must be based on original content — which means a site such as Danwei.tv is acceptable but TV in Japan is not (although it is an excellent site).

Some categories may be deleted or combined if they lack a full slate nominations - and some may be added should it be warranted.

Winners will be judged in equal parts on: (a) votes, (b) technorati ranking and (c) judges’ selection.

While judges will naturally have biases, they will hopefully offset imbalances in other areas (such as inevitable cheating in the voting and inflationary blogroll alliances in the Technorati ranks).

The names or sites of the judges will be public.

Judges will be ineligible for nomination. As the awards largely intend on providing exposure to lesser-known sites of merit, we are hopeful that authors of ‘A-list’ sites that tend to dominate such contests will disqualify themselves by being judges.

The contest has been endorsed by previous ABA host Simon who is also serving as a judge (thereby disqualifying Simon World).

Traffic — the most telling and accurate measure of a site’s populatity — may be a consideration in future awards. However, at present, there is no clear or universal way to accurately measure and contrast traffic (sites such as Sitemeter, Statcounter offer results that cannot be compared, while services such as Alexa.com do not work for sites that are not hosted on independent domains).

This is all imperfect and will be tweaked in future events (with transparency, of course).

Most importantly, this is intended to be fun.

Technorati Tags: asia, asia blog awards, east asia, northeast asia, puppy, southeast asia