It’s the Year of the Rooster

Happy Seollal and Lunar New Year to Korea!

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Happy New Year to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore!

Gōngxǐ fācái!

To be more precisely, it’s the year of the fire rooster. People born this year are said to be trustworthy, with a strong sense of timekeeping and responsibility at work. In all the rooster-born are said to have great characteristics such as being observant, communicative, frank, quick minded and multi-talented which leaves them with a certain confidence in themselves. On that point, however, they might tend to an eccentric and boastful life-style, being moody and impatient or impassive as the quickly lose interest after being overenthusiastic about something.

I just enjoy Google Asia’s New Years banner every time :3

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Traditional Chinese Wuyi Opera

Giant Panda Cub Has Little Bravery

I admit the following content is not 100% Asia-related as the location is in Washington D.C., but this video of panda cub Bei Bei from the Smithsonian National Zoo is just too adorable to miss out. And anyways, pandas are native to China, right? So they belong in any section about East Asia, haha!

Watch 5-month-old Bei Bei climbing up a tree, realizing it’s quite high and being too afraid to climb back down again. He needs mama’s help to get back safely on the ground. I wished there was a panda cub in a nearby zoo in Germany. By the way, panda means “big bear cat” in Chinese – 大熊貓 (dà xióng māo).

It’s the Year of the Monkey

Happy Seollal and Lunar New Year to Korea!

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Happy New Year to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore!

Gōngxǐ fācái!

If you’re born in this year your character traits are probably somewhere around these: sociable, intelligent, optimistic, quick-witted, confident, romantic, restless, selfish, stubborn and reckless.

I liked this pic from Google 😀

Tribute to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

Last Monday was the first anniversary of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. I guess some have heard about it in Germany – even though it was not a hot issue on the news. However, I remember my friends from Hong Kong being very passionate about it. A year ago the people in Hong Kong protested for free elections in the Chinese autonomous territory, after the government of mainland China decided to select the candidates for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (“president” of Hong Kong) by a 1200-member Chinese committee in advance to elections hold by the Hong Kong people. This decision was not only seen as restrictive but also as an intentional interference and intent by the Chinese government to control Hong Kong’s elections.

Propaganda or not? Image video on China’s President

I’m not an expert on China and I guess my opinion is very Western-mainstream and therefore I mainly want to share this video and the supporting critical article of BBC’s China Blog: Who is Xi Dada? and shortly comment on the production of video itself. I would urge to read the article in combination with watching the video as they put each other in a relative perspective.

The image video on China’s President Xi Jinping has gone viral recently due to his visit in the U.S. and was uploaded by Chinese newspaper “People’s Daily” which is said to be close to the Communist Party’s principles. It is truly a great piece of propaganda – there is just no beating around the bush. I know Chinese foster deep nationalism, but even never-ending love for your country can justify this over-the-top and in-your-face forced idealistic image of China’s President. Putting it on YouTube is really mean as it is accessible almost worldwide – yet not in China – and viewers can easily misunderstand this video as “true opinions” and “realistic image of Xi Jinping”.