My Famous Homeless Man

Not sure if I should file this under funny, sad or both. There's currently a Chinese internet celebrity roaming the streets on Ningbo, China. He looks the part of a Williamsburg burnout, but the thing is- he's homeless. A pedestrian snapped a picture of 5'8 man and post it on the internet, gushing about his good looks and great sense of style and before you know it, he's the newest internet sensation. He's even started a new fashion trend.

Getting the nickname "Brother Sharp", he has since been followed by more residents, as if they were the paparazzi and he's the celebrity. Catching his every move, what he eats (trash off the street), where he hangs out (back alleys) and who he hangs out with (no one, he's a lone drifter). When the Chinese authorities tried to track him down, "Brother Sharp" is so psychologically disturbed that he refuses and continues on his merry way. You tell me, does he look like he just walked off the runway? (Independent)

My Chinese Tennis Players

Now, for a little heritage pride. For the first time ever, two Chinese women are in the quarterfinals at a tennis Grandslam. Sure, there are two Americans, three Russians as well.. but this is unprecedented. While Li Na, the 16th ranked player in the world, has a tough order in front of her having to face Venus Williams in the next round, unranked Jie Zheng has more than a shot to advance into the semifinals with a fellow unranked Maria Kirilenko as her foe. Best of luck to both women. (AO)

My 'Frog Cooker'

It's astonishing to me that Hong Kong's chief executive, Donald Tsang, would denounced Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 as "something that happened a long time ago", it's best forget about it and this view "represents most of the Hong Kong people." Not only does the ever-growing negative communist influence my birth city is taking from China make me sick to my stomach, the idea of banning something that happened just 20 years(!) ago in media and education systems while everyone knows it undoubtedly occurred is so mind-boggling I wonder if what Tsang said about the Hong Kong people is true. I mean, I still remembering holding my parents' hands during demonstration marches that followed the incidents. 

Perhaps Martin Lee, the founder of the Hong Kong Democratic Party said it best- "If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out right away. But if you put the frog in warm water and cook it slowly, it doesn't jump. We are being slowly cooked in Hong Kong, but hardly anyone is noticing it." (NYT)

My Additional Hong Kong/China Pictures

Life without internet is more difficult than I first imagined. Anyway, I present to you my week in Hong Kong and Guongzhou.

Buddhist Monastery in Shatin (above) 

The Buddhists in the Buddhists Monastery. (above)

Don't read to much of my disgust in this picture taken at the site of Hong Kong's return to China.

Busy street with the cable car in Downtown.

It still baffles me that it's deemed 'safe' to use bamboo sticks as scaffling. 

I snuck a picture at the customs check between point Hong Kong and Mainland China. I give them five days before I'm asked to take this down.

The legend is true. I present to you- Neik Flip flops. 

Also, Aragon apparently has his own brand of overrated sandals.

Nightlife in Guongzhou. (above)

The inevitable picture I was going to get of a 'Slumdog' poster in Chinese.

All for now, this week- Hong Kong Disney AND Ocean Park... amusement parks galore!

My Chinese Electric Cars

Taking advantage of the current downfall in the US automobile industry, China leaders adapted a new plan to go ahead with their studies and development of electric cars. While electric cars had a short lifespan earlier this decade, they dwindled and faded away- loosely documented here. But with the current economic crisis and the no-end-in-sight outlook of it for the automobile industry in Detroit, China seems poised to succeed with their new plan and rival Japan as the leading electric car engineers in the world. (NYT)

My Chinese Bronze Heads

In another act of unconventional patriotism, a Chinese man refuses to pay his $18 million bid for a pair bronze animal heads discovered outside of Beijing in the 19th century. His reason being the French stole these artifacts without permission from the Chinese government and are auctioning them off at the famed Christie's Auction House in Paris. Though legally those bronzers belong to France, the moral implications are setting the archeological world in a storm. I wonder how, if at all, the Chinese government will retaliate? Whatever they come up with, I won't feel too bad for the French- the next highest bidder came in at $17 million. (NYT)