Category: Ásia

Ásia, Brain, Curiositys, Health, Living, Media&Culture, PsychologyLeave a comment

Here’s to naps and snoozes

Fernando Kaskais

Ma Zhenguo, a system engineer at Renren Inc in Beijing, sleeping at the office of the Chinese credit-management company on 27 April 2016. Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters American work culture, seeping around the globe, threatens to ruin the pleasures and benefits of public, communal sleep by Todd Pitock is an award-winning writer whose journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, Discoverand Smithsonian, among others. He lives in Philadelphia. Edited by Pam Weintraub A few months ago, two Americans arrived for a meeting at a sprawling, corporate campus in Sichuan Province in China. (They asked not to be named because their work is confidential.) To get to … Continue reading Here’s to naps and snoozes

Ásia, Curiositys, Future, Politics, TechnologyLeave a comment

China Shows Long-Term Signs of Becoming Another Japan

Fernando Kaskais

Workers at the construction site of the Tangshan-Hohhot railway in Ulanqab, in north China’s Inner Mongolia region, on March 19, 2019. Job growth bounced back in the first quarter as a broad-based, credit-driven rally took shape. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) Credit-fuelled rally in Q1 reeks of short-term gain at the risk of long-term pain, says China Beige Book BY RAHUL VAIDYANATH, EPOCH TIMES China has gone back to its old bad habits of propping up the economy after a bruising end to 2018, but it can’t last, says China Beige Book (CBB). Comparing China in the long run to Japan is apt considering the proliferation … Continue reading China Shows Long-Term Signs of Becoming Another Japan

Ásia, Curiositys, Media&Culture, Politics, PsychologyLeave a comment

What Chinese audiences think of when they see Hollywood films

Fernando Kaskais

AN AMERICAN “JOURNEY TO THE WEST”: WHAT CHINESE AUDIENCES THINK OF WHEN THEY SEE HOLLYWOOD FILMS By Cameron L. White References are standard fare in film criticism. Action films can be described as “Tarantino-esque,” while rom-coms might have a “Nora Ephron vibe.” Yet the equation subtly shifts when it comes to American discussions of Chinese film: a Chinese modifier added to a Western film or actor results in a reference that American audiences can understand. The trope has been around for decades. A 1973 Philadelphia Enquirer review (paywall), for example, dubbed Bruce Lee—arguably the world’s most famous martial arts star—“the Adam West of … Continue reading What Chinese audiences think of when they see Hollywood films

Ásia, Big Brother, Brain, Curiositys, Health, Manipulation, Politics, Psychology, RightsLeave a comment

Collective psychiatry

Fernando Kaskais

A mental patient is seen at a hospital for those suffering from mental illnesses in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, 6 October 2010. Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Chinese psychiatry remains committed to the political ideal of mental hygiene, long after its discrediting in the West by Emily Baum is an associate professor in history at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of The Invention of Madness: State, Society, and the Insane in Modern China (2018). Edited by Sam Haselby In English, the term ‘mental hygiene’ likely sounds a bit stale. Having gained a brief but widespread ascendancy in the first half of … Continue reading Collective psychiatry

Ásia, Brain, Curiositys, Esoteric, Matrix, Media&Culture, PsychologyLeave a comment

Masters of reality

Fernando Kaskais

A Mongolian shaman or böö sits with his child before a fire ritual during the summer solstice in June 2018 outside Ulaanbaatar. Banned under communist rule, shamanism has seen a resurgence in Mongolia since 1992, when the ancient practice became protected by the country’s Constitution. Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty The trances and healing powers of shamans are so widespread that they can be counted a human universal. Why did they evolve? by Thomas T Hills is professor of psychology at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK. Edited by Sam Dresser Shamanism is as varied as those who practise it. Its practitioners range from indigenous … Continue reading Masters of reality

Ásia, Big Brother, Curiositys, Globalization, Matrix, TechnologyLeave a comment

Here’s China’s Massive Plan To Retool The Web

Fernando Kaskais

The following is adapted from LikeWar by P. W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, a book by two defense experts – one of which is the founder of the Eastern Arsenal blog at Popular Science – about how the Internet has become a new kind of battleground, following a new set of rules that we all need to learn. “Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world.”
 by Tyler Durden Via PopSci.com, The most ambitious project of mass control is the country’s “social credit” system. All Chinese citizens will receive a numerical score reflecting their “trustworthiness.” So read the first email … Continue reading Here’s China’s Massive Plan To Retool The Web

Animals, Ásia, Curiositys, Eco, Living, Media&CultureLeave a comment

Are Cities Making Animals Smarter?

Fernando Kaskais

Vidhya Nagarajan A mysterious wild cat in Sri Lanka may hold a clue. by PAUL BISCEGLIO The goldfish were the first to vanish. Every so often, a few would go missing overnight from the office’s tiny outdoor pond. But goldfish were cheap, so no one in the building—an environmental nonprofit in the bustling, sweaty center of Colombo, Sri Lanka—bothered investigating. Then the dragon koi began to disappear. Lustrous and ethereal, each of these whiskered Japanese carp cost around 10,000 Sri Lankan rupees, or $65. In a fit of extravagance, the building’s landlord had bought 10. Soon, he had seven. Then three. … Continue reading Are Cities Making Animals Smarter?