Did you know?
Toilet paper was invented in China in the late 1300s. It was for emperors only.
Penis Seadog Pill by cowyeow on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
At a medicine shop near Temple Street. In Kowloon, Hong Kong
"
May dahon,
Wala namang tangkay.
May tangkay,
Wala namang ugat.
May ugat,
Wala namang lupa.
Ito’y isang uri ng ligaw na halaman,
Ang pangala’y
Hua Chiao, Tsino sa ibayong dagat
"There are leaves,
There is no stem.
There are stems,
There is no root.
There are roots,
There is no earth.
This is a type of wild plant
The name
Hua Chiao, overseas Chinese
The Wild Plant (Ligaw na Halaman)
by James Teng Choon Na (aka Yun He/Cloud Crane) a poet who writes about the Tsinoy (Chinese Filipino) experience.
(via thisisnotpinoy)(Thank you, dormeats!)
roll each piece into a ball and let rise for another 10 minutes
roll out each ball into a large disk
don’t worry if it looks more like a pacman ghost. nobody will know ;)
put ~ 1-2 teaspoons of filling in the middle. i over-stuffed this one!
pleat and pinch making sure the seal is tight. check out those sick crimping skills!
place each bun on its own foil or parchment square.
into the steamer! ….if the seal isn’t good, they open up in the steamer
i got the hang of it eventually! serve with soy sauce or plum sauce to balance out the doughy taste of the wrapper. here is the recipe i used for reference:
http://www.thekitchn.com/fall-recipe-vegetarian-steamed-156277
2684. Homemade Steamed Buns. Whoa, a fantastic picture recipe to make in the dorms. Thank you for the mouthwatering pictures!
"
The reluctance of the educational system - public and private - to grasp the Chinese nettle is a metaphor for a much wider problem: our ignorance about China and our failure to appreciate just how much it will change the world and transform our lives.
[…]
The great task facing the West over the next century will be to make sense of China - not in our terms but in theirs. We have to understand China as it is and as it has been, not project our own history, culture, institutions and values onto it. It will always fail that test. In truth such a mentality tells us more about our own arrogance and lack of curiosity than anything about China.
Let’s take one example. We assume that the nation-state, that long-standing and remarkably influential European invention, is more or less universal. True, China has called itself a nation-state for about a century. But 100 years is a mere pin-prick for a country that dates back over two millennia. Modern China emerged in 221. By the time of the Han dynasty - still more than 2,000 years ago - China’s borders already closely resembled those of eastern and central China today. China is very old, the longest continuously-existing polity in the world. And for more than 2,000 years, it was not a nation-state but a civilisation-state. In essence it still is.
"Martin Jacques, Making Sense of China (via perfectcoma)
(via asianhistory)
Polytech MAK 90 Sporter
A neutered AK built in China and imported in this configuration to meet the Assault Weapons Ban requirements. It has no flash hider or muzzle brake, no bayonet lug, and a single piece thumbhole stock. This was as best an attempt to demilitarize the rifle. With the AWB gone it’s a simple conversion back to it’s original form. Note the 5-round magazine.
(Source: gunrunnerhell)
A great solution to this would be not using a racist caricature as the villain. >In the Iron Man comic books, The Mandarin is a Chinese exile bent on revenge. In Iron Man 3, he’s Ben Kingsley — decidedly not Chinese. “It’s less about his specific ethnicity than the symbolism of various cultures and iconography that he perverts for his own end,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige says.
Here’s a first look at the character — thoughts?
On the one hand, I like the acknowledgement that this character specifically perverts iconography and that’s part of the reason why he’s a bad dude. But this also kind of smacks of classic Orientalism, which is way less than cool.
my initial reaction is pretty viscerally negative, just based on casting.
the only way this might be anything like alright is if they overtly acknowledge it within the movie:
Mandarin, being an Asian villain from comics’ Golden Age, is a horrendous racist characature. They’re possibly trying to avoid this by casting a non-Asian actor, buuuut this could still be pretty awful.
there’s ways it might not be awful, but you know, probably not.
Funny how that thought never seems to cross the mind
Why is Ben Kingsley all the Asians?
我的不完美却恰恰是完美，在痛苦里感受快乐，在脆弱里变得坚强，我用自己的方式美丽着，因为我就是我。
I’m perfect in my imperfections, happy in my pain, strong in my weaknesses and beautiful in my own way because I’m me.
(Source: allaboutchinese)
Smoke break XI…
A rebel fighter on the Ivory Coast with a Chinese Type-56 II. These were the side-folding bakelite stock models that were also exported and sold to the U.S civilian market. Very coveted and collectable, the stocks alone can cost upwards of $400 to $600 if all the parts are there.
(Source: gunrunnerhell)
It should be noted that I have a well-known love for Nationalist-era Chinese clothing — i.e. after the imposed queue was mandatory but before the Mao suit (mischaracterised, I might say, because the “Mao” suit was actually invented by the founder of the Nationalist Party, Sun Yixian/Zhongshan, aka Sun Yat-sen — hence its actual, Chinese name being the “zhongshanzhuang” or lit. Zhongshan Clothing) became so prevalent as to practically take over the country. That period between 1911 and 1950 that was oft-characterised by war, whether it be civil war or war with the Japanese or war with the Triple Alliance in World War I.
The changshan (pictured above) is the male counterpart to the qipao (which I’ve touched upon in my post about the hanfu). It’s often conflated by arrogant assholes who like to think they know everything about everything with the zhongshanzhuang, but there are several key differences.
- First and foremost, the changshan is of Manchu origin. Though it was at first forcibly imposed upon the non-Manchu Chinese, the government later allowed commoners to wear their own clothing, though many assimilated to this clothing anyway.
- Second, it has a mandarin collar. The zhongshanzhuang has a folded collar. If you don’t know the difference, google it.
- Thirdly, the changshan is generally either one piece or two piece. The two-piece involves a skirt. The zhongshanzhuang is always a two piece with a jacket and pants.
- #PROTIP: if it hasn’t got five buttons, four pockets (two on each side), a folded down colour, and green-ness, and you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s Chinese based on stereotyped movies with yellowfaced white people in horrid-looking queues? It’s probably the changshan and not the Mao suit.
- Though I have to be fair, the zhongshanzhuang does seem to be at least partly based on the changshan.
The changshan fell out of use after the Communist Party takeover in late 1949/early 1950, and it’s used today primarily for ceremonial and formal purposes.
(Source: , via asianhistory)
On why a non-Asian person saying “Asian women are hot” and me saying “I am Asian-American” are two very different things.
1. If a non-Asian person says “All Asian women are hot” they are making a stereotypical generalization based on the historic homogenization of Asian appearance. I.e.: All Asians look alike, meaning short, skinny, pale skinned, and black hair. This is wrong. Not all people from Asia look like this. It’s also rooted in weird Western exoticism of Asian women, because we’re all so “delicate” like “lotus flowers.”
2. If I describe myself as Asian-American, it’s because I find it an accurate representation of my ethnic/cultural background. Quite frankly, I have family that is located in SEVERAL different countries in Asia. I may be ethnically Chinese, but most of my family was born in the Philippines. I also have ties to Malaysia and Singapore. I, however, am an American citizen. If one can identify as Chinese-American because of being ethnically Chinese, but an American citizen (and by the way: American is NOT a synonym for “white”), then I think one should be able to identify as Chinese-Filipin@ etc. Given my pan-Asian background (and, really? the sheer amount of languages I grew up exposed to is ridiculous), I prefer the term “Asian-American.”
3. Which means all the people bitching about how I’m a hypocrite for pointing out the incorrect usage of the word “Asian” for “Asian fetish” can STFU, right now.