Art history buffs know that there is no Japanese sculptor more celebrated than Unkei. He’s even called the “Michaelangelo of Japan” due to the sheer virtuosity of his work, and the realistic and emotional power he gave each of his pieces. Active in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, Unkei is perhaps best known […]

planning a trip with the kids? looking for something a little bit more original than disney? or maybe you want the kids to experience something educational while they’re having fun. well if your visiting japan, korea, china, or vietnam; you might consider the following amusement parks.
probably NSFW

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Danwei has an interesting about Björk’s Sunday night gig in Shanghai, apparently only her second ever gig in China, and by the looks of things, very possibly her last.
Adam Schokora writes that Björk “closed the show with a 2nd encore performance of “Declare Independence” – a rousing power-to-the people anthem containing such lyrics as: “Declare […]

Here is a product that seems to indicate that China may be making a move on Japan’s virtual monopoly on strange gadgets.

It is a Breast Massage Robot, which Beijing BUBBY Robot Technologies Co. claims, meets a wide variety of needs that seem to be busting out all over. They say it is great for:

Adolescent […]

I just got hit with some heavy work and don’t have time to post anything of substance, so here is a video of a 7-year-old Chinese kid doing some wild break dancing.

After weeks of sensational news reports about people across Japan claiming to have been sickened by consuming poison gyoza dumplings that were made in China, Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry now announces that only 10 individuals were confirmed to have been suffering from chemical poisoning due to consuming dubious dumplings.
“We took a particularly […]

Almost 76 percent of the respondents to a telephone survey conducted in Japan by Kyodo News last weekend said they will no longer use food items that come from China.
According to Kyodo, the percentage of people in Japan who use Chinese food items dropped from around 58% last year to only 21.6% after the […]

In case you are not aware, there is a big scandal going on in Hong Kong right now due to the public release of sex pics that show movie actor Edison Chen and actress Gillian Chung doing the dirty for the digital.
Though this has been ongoing news for quite a while now, we have […]

Every year, the city of Nagasaki celebrates the Chinese New Year with a spectacular array of bright and colourful lanterns. The Lantern Festival began this year on February 7 and continues until the 21st.
Nagasaki, which for a couple of hundred years of the Tokugawa shogunate was one of the few entry points for trade in […]

Just a note to stress that I am posting the following videos for their interest and entertainment value. This post is not meant to endorse any of the views presented in these videos.
Why asian guys can’t get white girls

Why Asian Girls Go For White Guys

When the groups Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders published an online report titled Journey to the Heart of Internet Censorship about how China is censoring online content, the Chinese government did the only thing it knows how to do. . . It censored the report
Just hours after the report was issued, Yang […]

Check out this amazing time map animation that traces geopolitical changes on the Korean Penninsula over time.

I wanted to find something like this for Japan but I couldn’t.

The British Olympic Association (BOA) reportedly is forcing the nation’s athletes to sign contracts that effectively ban them from speaking out against human rights abuses in China.
The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes’ contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.
The […]

A movement has started in Japan to use green lanterns (midori chochin) to signify restaurants here that use domestic ingredients in their food.
Jidori Hirokawa, a chicken dish restaurant in the basement of a building in the Kanda area of Tokyo began hanging midori-chochin, unlike traditional aka-chochin (red lanterns), at the top of the […]

Ah, how I’ve missed him. But former Foreign Minister Taro Aso was back in the news yesterday.
Mr Aso has been away from the limelight for a while, after getting shunted aside during the Prime Ministerial changeover from Shinzo Abe to Yasuo Fukuda last autumn.
But you knew he couldn’t stay quiet for long. He usually has […]

Ten people in Japan have become seriously ill after eating gyoza (dumplings) imported from China that were later found to contain high levels of an agricultural insecticide.
Five family members in Ichikawa, Chiba, were taken to hospital suffering from vomiting and diarrhea after they ate the dumplings, while another two women from Chiba and three family […]

Xinhua is reporting that the Silk Street Market in Beijing, famous for its cheap knockoffs of international designer goods, has registered the name SILKSTEET as a tradmark and issued a warning to counterfeiters that abusers of the brand will be prosecuted to the full extent of trademark laws.
The first items to bear the SILKSTREET name, […]

Danwei is reporting that an “experienced American journalist” (experienced in what is not specified) is looking for white guys who date only Chinese women for an on-the-record chat about their affliction with yellow fever.
Apparently this information is going to be used for a serious article that will be aimed not at making the guys look […]

China’s largest search portal has started up a Japan branch named “Baidu.jp” in an attempt to further expand its global share. Baidu already handles 70% share of search engine traffic in China, and is number three worlwide after Yahoo and Google, which currently dominate in Japan.
Baidu’s aim for the time being is to target […]

Here is a great idea from China that should be implemented in Japan, the U.S., and just about everywhere else.

In January, more than 8,000 high school teachers sat for the same end-of-term exam that their students did. A teachers scoring less than 80 out of 100 points are disqualified from receiving future rewards and […]