Ms. Cleo

Steph aka Aunt Jamaima aka Ms. Cleo aka Tanya Stevens. Just show her your tea leaves.



Photo courtesy of Mr. Sean Tucker.

Chinglish

Vivian spotted this sign somewhere. High-larious.



Says she:
"Besides being hilarious, this is a good example to me of how the process of learning Chinese loves to smack you around. These are five very simple characters that even a beginning student knows, but how does one translate them into "When you are getting off with your lover"? Fortunately my trusty Pleco dictionary comes to the rescue and explains that "花前月下" is a 4-character phrase (I would say 成语 but not sure if it is one) meaning "an ideal setting for amorous dalliance". Ahhh. Actually now it makes perfect sense."

Today's Chinese Lesson

Work provides erratic but useful Chinese lessons. Here's what I learned:

非常:
feichang often

抑扬顿挫:
yiyangduncuo proverb signifying lyrical

商务:
shangwu business

合资企业:
heziqiye joint venture

成语:
chengyu proverb

创意:
cuongyi creative

发展:
fazhan develop

市场营销部:
shichangyingxiaobu marketing department

跨国公司:
kuaguogongsi multinational company

非同一班:
feitongyiban proverb signifying unique

知名度:
zhimingdu visibility

表现:
biaoxian performance

The Coolest Cup Ever

Maxim Velkovsky designed this cup I drank out of last year at Pierre Gagnier's restaurant in Tokyo. It is modeled after a plastic cup but made out of glass- ghetto fab indeed!

Lungjuice Preservation

Clearly you can appreciate the carbon neutrality of this LED screen that is built as a part of Bejing's insane modernity leap. Designed by architects Simone Giostra & Partners, it stores solar energy by day and uses by night. However, note the crisp blue sky in the background- an obvious Photoshop endeavor as we all know that BJ has skies a beautiful shade of gray during daylight hours.

Badass Speakers

They're from last year but these Maharishi x B&W Speakers are still effing hot:




And these are no longer available, but just putting them up for visual pleasure:

Tricks on Wheels

Asia X Games

Pretty Decent Chinese-English Translators

For those moments like now where you just can't figure out "run" in pinyin to save your !?!@?#!@$% life.

Adsotran
Chinesepod
Google Translate