AsiaPundit has been accused of having too much of a China focus since all co-pundits were sacked last year. This is a scurrilous accusation that we deny. Our analytics show that this site has a strong regular readership among Asian states outside of the Middle Kingdom. That would not be the case if this were solely a China-oriented site.

However, we were alerted to some great news for our Chinese readership this morning – for the Kingdom of Thailand. This will certainly lower airfares just ahead of China’s week-long Autumn Festival/National Day holiday. It may also free up seats as some of those who have already booked seats will certainly cancel.

However, this isn’t all good news. As from shows there is still something incredibly unappealing on the streets of Bangkok.

That’s right, it’s raining.

As well, amid the euphoria about the inevitable seat sales, we should also pause for a moment to consider the shattering of democracy in a Southeast Asian state that has a lively press and civil society. AsiaPundit does not generally advocate boycotts. However — given that AP have volunteered to work in the Shanghai office over the holidays — this site is recommending that potential travelers avoid the country until an elected leader is returned to power and all restrictions on domestic media are lifted.

Instead, try visiting neighboring press-repressing dictatorships in Laos, Vietnam or even Singapore.

Austin was also live blogging the coup at his site. Global Voices has other links. For background on the political situation in Thailand ahead of the coup, the Far Eastern Economic Review’s Colum Murphy has one of the better summaries. Written ahead of the coup, but for this month’s issue, the following line stands out:

To be sure, a military intervention to oust Mr. Thaksin is always a possibility, although some—but not all—analysts agree that this seems unlikely at this point. Those with less sanguine views predict that there will be no compromise between the two (the prime minister and king), and say that this game will produce only one winner and one loser. If this turns out to be the case, then the next weeks and months could see bloody confrontation on the streets of Bangkok and throughout the kingdom.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, southeast asia, thailand

• Pink Box - Japan’s Sex Clubs
  “Pink Box is the world’s first look inside Japan’s second largest industry….
  For most, Joan (Sinclair)’s photographs will be the only glimpse they will ever have of some of Japan’s most elaborate sex clubs: the fake train, the fake classroom,

• Singapore’s paranoia: police statehood taken to new levels
  Elia Diodati summarizes the recent spate of regression by Singapore’s government.
• The Day the Khmer Rouge Ran Away: Part One
  “Even though I was only nine years old, I will never forget the 13th of January 1979 as that was the day I saw the Khmer Rouge run away from the village of K’dau at the base of Phnom K’dau where my family had been put to work in the rice fields since
• CHINA - Sinofile - Times Online: Spot the Fake (with photos)
  “A mortifying lapse of security around the famed terracotta warriors that stand as they have for centuries — although now on display in a huge hangar-like museum. They were joined at the weekend by a young German arts student said to be obsessed with the
• EastSouthWestNorth: Western Reporters Working in China
  “They use their blue eyes to observe this red country. We cannot avoid it.”

• INDIA - “In the wake of 7/11…”
  “…for people such as myself who grew up and around Apu, Big Gulps and the iconography of Indians slinging Slurpees, this phrase is funny. It brings to mind all sorts of images, soundbites and stories about how “In the wake of 7/11, three kids chased me and my cousin with a hammer because they wanted our Big League Chew”
• INDONESIA - Peace Prize For Death Penalty Executioner?
  “Online bookmakers from Australia, the UK and the US are tipping President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Aceh province.
• JAPAN - Cyber slumber
  “Next month, Panasonic (Matsuhita) will start selling a computerized futon. The EU3002 has eight eight programmable airbags, which are programmed to change in thickness and shape as the system senses the different phases of your slumber.”
• CHINA - Driver Wang and Beijing’s woeful taxi services
  “… all the illegal taxi drivers are beaming from ear to ear, because official Beijing taxis get worse by the day, and more people are seeking out drivers who are safe, courteous and who do not treat passengers with rude contempt.”
• “”Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it,” Lee said.
• iTunes Store not heading to Asia. Reason: Piracy.
  “It’s unfortunate but true. Despite the exciting news that come with iTunes 7, it looks like Singapore isn’t going to get their own iTunes store anytime soon. Apple’s reason? Rampant piracy in most of Asia.”
• DPRK Studies » Offer a North Korean Soldier Ice Cream. . . and get Detained
  “Up to 1,000 South Korean tourists were detained briefly in North Korea on Sunday after a lawmaker amongst them offered snacks and ice cream to a soldier, a report said.”

• Singapore breaks protest deal
  “Singapore has been accused by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fun for going-back on an explicit agreement to allow activists into their annual meeting.”

• RED HERRING | Google on the Ropes in China
  “Results of a survey on China Internet search engine market share conducted by Beijing-based China IntelliConsulting were announced Wednesday, painting a grim picture for Google’s prospects in China.”
• EastSouthWestNorth: Influencing Foreign Correspondents
  “Okay, this is the part where I impart the secrets about how to influence the foreign correspondents in China to carry out one’s own personal agenda. This comes from my personal experience of many years of successful manipulating them to do my biding.”
• CHINA - Why lie?
  ” The typhoon that hit Fujian province last month was likely much worse than originally reported by the Chinese government:”
• China: Government’s video-censorship foiled
  “When a young teacher is found dead outside her apartment building in Ruian, the police report concludes suicide, but her family and students suspect a cover-up.”

• Singapore escort agencies love IMF
  “Escort agencies were on a recruitment drive Tuesday to provide companionship for International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) delegates in Singapore for the week-long annual meeting. “
• CHINA: RGE - Will the good cop (Hank Paulson) get results …
  “Paulson wants to remain the good cop – the old friend — that China wants to deal with. But he also wanted to remind the Chinese that there is a bad cop lurking around the corner. “
• DUTY FREE - Booze and Cigs
  “Where is the best place in Asia to stock up on tax-free hooch? To answer that question, we plan to compile comparative list of prices from duty-free shops around the region, and welcome readers’ contributions.”
• EastSouthWestNorth: Why FoxConn and China Business News Settled
  “the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council interceded in the matter, and they got the local governments of Shanghai and Guangdong to mediate. … They were afraid that this incident may turn into a protest against all Taiwan businesses, which would affect cross-strait trade relationships.
• Singapore leader salary tops Bush’s; Hu Jintao a pauper
  ” some human resources consulting firm released a ranking of world leaders by monthly income (not net worth). At the top of the list is Singapore’s Lee Hsien Long, who makes about 380,000 Hong Kong dollars a month. President George W. Bush… is pretty high up on the list as well. President Hu Jintao is near the bottom of the list.
• Singapore, as expected, assaults FEER
  “Primed Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew have filed a defamation suit here against the publisher and the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Feer).
  The suit, filed in the High Court on Aug 22 against Review Publishing and Mr Hugo Restall, stemmed from an article on opposition politician Chee Soon Juan.

• China’s Resurrection Of The Tang — a new Tang Dynasty
  “Tang — the disgusting powdered fake orange juice drink I am proud to say I never liked. The one the astronauts drank. … it seems Tang is making a comeback. In China.”
• Lessons from the Shanghai sex blogger - Little Red Blog
  ” It has been observed by many people that while guilt is the emotion that constrains behavior in Western society, shame is the one that constrains it in Chinese society. The mobs that arise on the Chinese Internet are violent weapons for inflicting public shame.”
• INDONESIA - We can’t take it anymore SBY
  “The prosecution asked the West Jakarta District Court on Monday to sentence a student to six years in prison for insulting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla during a protest in June.”
• MALAYSIA - Mahathir: The irony and the agony
  “The other path, which seems likely, is that he will continue to speak out. But his voice will become more shrill and insignificant by the day. He will likely end up a much more bitter old man if he chooses this path.”
• CHINA - Media restrictions to damage domestic financial industry
  “Most foreign companies will relish the prospect of their Chinese competitors being clueless and uninformed, while cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul can relax and largely forget about Shanghai and Guangzhou becoming realistic alternative business magnets.”
• “Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has refused to censor the content on the Chinese version of Wikipedia, resulting in its being blocked by the Chinese government. “

• CHINA - CCTV director’s casting couch
  “an actress “xiao qiong” blogged in SINA about how a CCTV director named “lao chao” asked her to trade sex for playing a role in a CCTV show, and “lao chao” refuted vehemently in his SINA blog.”
• SINGAPORE - Kinda Naughty.. but Nice! A homegrown drinking game
  “KNN! Singapore’s very own local drinking game! Proudly created and manufactured in Singapore for Singaporeans, KNN is your ideal ice-breaker! It is a wonderfully compact, fast-paced, no-holds barred game that is amazingly easy to play and guaranteed to b
• China Announces New Regulations on Foreign Media
  “China has unveiled a new set of restrictions on the type of news content foreign agencies can distribute in China. Press freedom advocates say the move is the latest attempt by the communist government to clamp down on the free flow of information. “
• Xinhua: Trying to Save a Dying Monopoly
  Inevitably, there will be a lot of deep contemplation about what is driving China’s “media crackdown” coming out in the media. This is to be expected - after all, there is nothing the media hates more than the specter of censorship. Apart from the ideolog

• JAPAN - The worst coffee to start your morning
  But possibly the best use of Engrish ever.
• RFA: Pro-KMT Opposition Group Fights Election in Mainland China
  Chinese national security police are becoming increasingly concerned about the activities of a group of political activists who say they support the policies of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, or KMT, and its chairman Ma Ying-jeou.
• globeandmail.com : Is Ottawa tilting away from China?
  Experts fear fallout from ‘accumulation of slights’ to Beijing
• Taiwan Group Political Blog Up and Running
  “Last month I wondered aloud whether we could start a blog on Taiwan politics with a group of veteran writers, since following the crazed politics of Taiwan is a task too big for any one blogger. I’m happy and proud to announce that the new blog Taiwan Ma

AsiaPundit has been receiving extended essay-length comments in an earlier post from supporters of a certain spiritual movement. These have not been printed because of length, and because this site tries to avoid the inevitable ‘debate’ that tends to break out between FLG supporters and CCP apologists.

The AsiaPundit view on the matter is that FLG is a cult, and it is one that authorities have been unjustly persecuting. Cults should not be persecuted, they should be made fun of. They’re wacky!

However, as a service we bring the following announcement. While we do have doubts about some claims of organ harvesting in China, we would like to warn Westerners of the dangers of accepting any organ implants from Asia. shows why.:

• US citizen among 3 “cyber-dissidents” arrested in Vietnam
  The journalist advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports that it has requested help from US, French and Finnish ambassadors in Hanoi on behalf of three “cyberdissidents” held by Vietnamese authorities for nearly a month.
• INDOONESIA - Tommy Suharto: Making a mockery of justice
  “The latest news is that Tommy Suharto will be released from jail later this month (not that he actually spent much time in jail mind you; mostly he was in Jakarta on compassionate leave). Just four f*** years after ordering the brutal assassination of Sy
• ‘SIT ON MY FACE’ TV commercial for Japanese canned coffee
  “This morning I was watching my TV while making breakfast when I heard Monty Python’s “SIT ON MY FACE” playing. It was one of those zany commercials … that was selling Kirin Beer’s FIRE(tm) brand canned coffee.”
• SINGAPORE - At least we know what their priorities are
  “So, a schizophrenic man goes and writes some uncomplimentary graffiti about Lee Hsien Loong using a MARKER PEN and was put away for three months. A man deliberately tortured and killed a cat, a living being, and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison.”

• Weblog - Sinofile - Times Online: Lost in Translation
  “This morning China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, granted a rare audience to five news publications…. before he sets off on a European tour that will take him to Finland, Britain and Germany.”
• ” we called the bar’s general manager Morry Morgan and he confirmed that Tang Hui is victim to a “crackdown on live rock ‘n roll music by the Culture Bureau.” Morgan said that other live music venues like Yuyintang are also feeling the heat.”
• JAVA JIVE - Quarter Life Crisis: Part One (Life as an Expat)
  “Life as an expat moves through a number of phases. There’s the initial, “Wow, it’s so different and interesting!” first few months of bliss with our newfound relationship with a place.”
• TAIWAN - Taoyuan Police Arrest Movie Pirate
  “In accordance with the dictates of capitalist stupidity, Taoyuan police have busted a guy who was apparently trying to bootleg The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift using his cellphone.”

There is a debate on whether or not the Lonely Planet China and Taiwan editions of the popular travel guide are banned from the mainland. Bingfeng notes that he has several LP editions that were purchased in China.

AsiaPundit will note that the state-owned bookstore that is across from his office does sell the Lonely Planet Shanghai city guide, and several other editions of the guide for other Asian locations. However, there are no editions for Taiwan, China or Greater China.

Marc Van der Chij’s, in an item linked to here earlier, noted a conversation he had with a clerk at Shanghai’s best English-language bookstore.:

I could not find the China guide, so I assumed it was sold out. Then I looked for the Beijing guide, and did not find it either. The Tibet guide maybe, as as preparation for next year’s bike trip? No luck. I asked the shop assistant, and he explained to me that in China it is not allowed to sell the Lonely Planet guides for China, Beijing and Tibet.

Fons describes the ban as an “urban myth.” AsiaPundit does not believe that to be the case. Mainland authorities are very sensitive to maps that depict Taiwan as a separate state, and there is a general ban on maps that do so. This is old news.

If there is an urban myth, it is the myth that that the CPC Censorship Machine is efficient.

There are massive gaps in the Great Firewall of China through which ’sensitive’ information is available on the internet (even without the use of proxy servers). AsiaPundit has picked up locally published expat magazines that have addressed the ‘question of Tibet.’ We expect that more than 90 percent of satellite receivers are illegal. And, of course, none of those pirated DVDs that can be picked up at the neighborhood shops or street-stall vendors are state-approved (though some may be made by state-owned enterprises).

Most of this, it should be said, happens in the margins and in the black-market economy. But even in the heavily regulated world of state-run bookstores things will get through. The state-run SBT Bookstore near AsiaPundit global headquarters, and various other outlets throughout the city, are still selling copies of Jung Chang’s Wild Swans.

China does ban maps that display an independent Taiwan. And if the Lonely Planet does display such maps it would be included under such a ban. However, the CPC Censorship Machine is a rickety and incompetent beast and it misses more material than it catches.

We are incredibly thankful for this.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, jung chang, media, northeast asia, lonely planet

• China - 3 men tried for selling online game weapons
  “Prosecutors allege the trio earned illegal profits of more than 2 million yuan (US$250,000) by using the computer code database of Legend of Mir 2, a popular online game operated by Shanda, to produce and sell large quantities of high-level game weapons.
• The one about living abroad…
  Kevin Lim (and dad) post advice for Singaporeans and others living abroad.
• The Korea Times : Distillery CEOs Drink Often, Heavily
  “Most of chief executive officers of distillers and breweries drink often and heavily.
  The CEOs drink an average two bottles of soju, Korea’s distilled liquor, every night, according to industry sources.”

• 10% of tuna at Chicago sushi bars unfit…
  “a study that found dangerous mercury levels at 10 top Chicago-area sushi restaurants. “
• China Confiscating Lonely Planet Guides because of Taiwan Issue
  “Apparently, some Israeli tourists going to travel in China with the latest Lonely Planet book were asked to hand in their very expensive book at the border-crossing due to its ‘political nature’ showing maps of China which color Taiwan in a different color.
• Lonely Planet China
  “Ever tried to buy a Lonely Planet guide for China in China? Forget it, buy it before you arrive in China, because you cannot get it here.”
• Happy Blogging, Housing Minister!
  “Another Indonesian minister has started blogging. Yusuf Ansy’ari, Minister of Housing, just started blogging about the passing of his mother on August 28. His second post is more serious: about urban development. Both posts are written in Bahasa.”

• Ghandi
  “If you want to see a lot of people go nuts, try moving the silent h in the word Gandhi when you post in your blog. I’ve don it twice now by spelling Gandhi as Ghandi.”
• To Mao or not to Mao
  Why there was no Chinese-language publication of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday text “Mao: The Unknown Story.”
• Japan - To The Man Who Stole My Wife’s Underwear
  “I’m going to take your picture and make a lot of copies and distribute them all over the neighborhood and all over town and if I’m feeling kind I might even give one to the police.”
• Chinese bloggers & journalists force Foxconn climbdown!
  “While certai influential journalists in the U.S. can’t seem to shake their tiresome bloggers vs. journalists arguments Chinese bloggers and journalists are working together to defeat enemies of free speech.”
• No Strip or Lingerie Show at Seoul Sexpo
  “he people who bought tickets to the Seoul Sex Expo who thought they were goi g to see nude or lingerie-clad models parading their stuff on the catwalks will be disappointed because that part of the show was cancelled - and not due to protests, but becaus
• Protecting “our” females
  Michael Turton comments on the “Chinabounder” scandal and the explotation of women in Asia.
• So You Want To Be A China Sex Blogger
  “Sometime this May there appeared a weblog called Sex in Shanghai, detailing the adventures of a British expatriate seducing various ex-students from his English classes.”

If there were an Asia Blog Awards category for best foot-fetish blog feet | man | seoul would probably win.

This was a day to truly be remembered, as I got to meet an interesting girl and very likely model for the site, if she agrees. This post will need to be full of some feedback, if you please.

If only because there aren’t any known competitors.

Photo and text from here.

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

• New Economist: EU to start a shoe war with China and Vietnam?
  “I warned of this back in February… and now it seems increasingly likely: a ’shoe war’ with China and Vietnam. Clearly, the European Commisison has learned nothing from last year’s bra wars debacle.”
• Foxconn shoots itself and Apple in the foot - Little Red Blog - Blogs - CNET Asia
  “If China Youth Daily is complaining that you’re infringing on freedom of speech, you have a problem.”
• Imagethief : Thursday PR blog: What was Foxconn thinking?
  More informed comment on Foxconn — read it all and the comments.

AsiaPundit has been, and will continue to, have a short hiatus while the Asia Blog Awards are being hosted.

However, some entertaining reading can be found at the now-officially-launched Asia Blog Award site

Technorati Tags: asia blog awards

AsiaPundit has been known to criticize the reform of China’s banking sector. For instance, many of the bad assets held by state banks have been shifted to state-held asset management companies (AMCs) and still remain liabilities for the central government. Still, even in our criticism, we have been guilty of paying too much attention to the major state lenders and AMCs.

Occasionally, we are reminded that problems are even worse for the rural banking sector.:

BEIJING: A village cashier in west China lost 12,500 US dollars of public money after it was eaten by goats.
The incident occurred last May, when the village cashier surnamed Zhang and his wife in Linjiawan village in West China’s Shaanxi province were stunned by the scene when they saw their ten goats chewing the money, the state media reported on Wednesday.
The couple immediately slaughtered the goats and put together the cash debris taken out from the animal’s stomach, saving 297 pieces of notes worth 12.5 US dollars each, reported the Xi’an Daily on Tuesday.
“We are considering exchanging more damaged cash for Zhang and will treat it as a special case after reporting the incident to superiors, in view of reducing farmers’ economic burden,” director of the currency issuance section of the apex bank, People’s Bank of China, Hengshan County branch, Li Shengyang said.

Imagethief comments:

Question: What was a “village cashier” doing hiding money by burying it in a goat pen? Does this strike anyone else as suspicious behavior? If I was thiking about secure places to store public money I don’t think “goat pen” would be the location that leaps to mind. I might consider “banks”, or “enormous steel safe” or even “locked trunk guarded by my shotgun-toting henchman, ah qiang and a brace of rottweilers”. But probably not “goat pen”.

Per “banks” as an option, that seems particularly useful to me. If Hengshan county has a branch of the People’s Bank of China, they probably have retail baking too. Could banks in Shaanxi be so hopelessly corrupt that they can’t even be trusted with deposits? If so, China’s banking system has further to go than I thought.

While this an incident of concern, we do note with relief that the PBoC does seem to have some deposit insurance in place. This should help prevent a full-blown systemic crisis should any individual animal pen be declared insolvent.

(Above image of 2003 goat coins stolen from here.)

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

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned mr brown, and the government’s role in his termination from the Today newspaper, in the recent National Day address. A Singapore Angle has the transcript, with the below passage:

So I give you the example of Mr Brown’s column in Today. Some of you may have read it, some of you may not. But it hit out wildly at the government and in a very mocking and dismissive sort of tone. So MICA [Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts] replied. How can you not reply? And some Singaporeans feel we were too harsh, we should have been gentler, or maybe just even accepted it, it is just niceness, he didn’t mean us any harm.

Well, my view is like this: Mr Brown is very talented man (in fact he is Mr Lee Kim Mun). If you listen to his podcasts, they are hilarious. And he is entitled to his views, and entitled to express them. But when he takes on the government and makes serious accusations, as he did in this case because he said the government suppressed information before the elections which was awkward and only let it out afterwards, then the government has to respond, firstly to set the record straight, and secondly to signal that this is really not the way to carry on a public debate on national issues and especially not in the mainstream media.

As noted earlier, and as explained by mr brown this week, the government’s right of response is not a concern. The concern is the silencing of dissent, through the sacking of mr brown from Today and the refusal of the newspaper to print any further replies in defense of mr brown. This is said here by mr brown.:

I believe the Government has every right to respond to my Humour column. I may disagree with what they say but it is their right to respond.
I also believe in responding in turn to what the Government said in their letter, but my Humour column was suspended immediately after their letter was printed. Perhaps Mediacorp/TODAY did not stand by what they published?
…
I understand that many people did respond on the matter by writing in to the mainstream press, but none of their letters were published by mainstream media. Not a single one. Some people who wrote to TODAY about the column’s suspension received a templated response to write to MICA instead, even though TODAY were the ones who suspended the column. Strange.

An equally controversial element of the National Day speech was Lee’s comment that he orders his noodles without cockles. While AsiaPundit has not found the moment in the transcript, mr brown has captured the controversial utterance in his latest podcast.

Xenoboy explains the significance:

When PM Lee in his Rally Speech delivers the ultimate punchline to lay the bak chor mee to rest, to signal Government’s engagement with the Digital Age Singaporean, those dreaming of somewhere else, he utters the phrase “Mee Siam Mai Hum”.

This becomes an instant classic of dis-connect….

Read the whole thing. The disconnect is explained in this passage:

Mee Siam has never had cockles as an ingredient. Two other distinctly Singapore dishes use cockles. Laksa and Fried Kway Teow Noodles. Most Singaporeans know this. Its a fact of life.

To put it simply, most Singaporeans will NOT make this mistake. Its like ordering bak kut teh, another classic Singapore dish, without the soup. Ordering pizza and telling the chef to hold the dough. No, actually its worse. Its like ordering pizza and telling the chef to hold the spaghetti. In short, the phrase “Mee Siam Mai Hum” is an oxymoron. Its like one of those chain e-mail wordplay jokes “military intelligence”.

From what I understand, our esteemed national newspaper, the Straits Times, “heard” and interpreted the crucial phrase as “Mee Siam Mai Hiam”; which means hold the chilli. If this “hearing” is correct, than the phrase is meaningless as a direct riposte against the bak chor mee podcast. I guess the ST is not being honest again. Its “hearing” certainly connects with PM Lee but it means all the rest of Singaporeans “heard” wrongly, very dis-connected.

Image taken from Sei-ji Rakugaki’s Sketchbook, a full size and legible version is here.

While we will not discuss it in detail here, Lee’s comments were in reaction to an earlier satirical podcast by mr brown. See Jeff Ooi for more details on that

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

• Taiwan/China - AsiaMedia :: Lazy reporters fail to tell the truth
  “When Taiwan is mentioned, the stock phrase appears: “Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.” Fair game, for that is what China considers Taiwan. Unfortunately, these journalists never say what Taiwan thinks of China.”
• Animated Jinro Soju ad
  “I posted an animated spot from the 1950s for Jinro Soju several months back. Here’s another one. This one is apparently from the 1970’s…yet it features the same song and an almost indentical style of animation”
• “Tokyo Tonite has already got video of the August 22 Wonderfest cosplay/anime/figure show in Tokyo. The video focuses on the female cosplayers and is a little prurient, but there’s some wild stuff here,”
• China - blocking educational websites=shooting yourself in the foot
  “My sense is that the Chinese filters create a major obstacle for academic research, certainly from the Chinese side but perhaps from outside of China as well.”

• RGE - Why China Will Surprise Investors and Will Soon Have Another Step Revaluation of the RMB…
  “I will argue that China will make a significant move on the RMB in the next six months, at least a 5% RMB appreciation and that - high officials statements to the contrary - a significant part of that appreciation will occur through another surprise step
• The Lady Kyunghyang on dating the Big, ahem, Noser or: Why our Korean brothers might have something of a complex
  “it seems the Lady Kyunghyang and women’s portal site XY in Love did a little research on sex and foreigners, two great tastes that apparently taste great together for a lot of Korean women.”
• Singapore’s mrbrown responds to his termination from Today and comments in the prime minister’s national day speech (in which mr b was mentioned).
• Fox News: Bangkok is “Pedophile Paradise”
  “Any man visiting Bangkok is a pedophile, according to Fox News, and Washington Square echoes to the screams of diseased five-year-old starving slave children being raped and beaten by thousands of salivating Western pedophiles given free passes…