24 Aug, 2010 in
Rankings by Fili An

The Miss Universe 2010 just ended, with Mexico taking the title. A few years ago when I started doing those Asian Miss Universe comparisons (see end of the post), I was going through the Miss Universe Asian models to try and sense some of the differences in appearance between the Asian nations – as the [...]
24 Aug, 2010 in
Shanghai by Fili An

When you picture old China, what comes to mind? If you want to feel more of old Chinese-style Shanghai you need to move away from the colonial areas and the modern skyscrapers and venture onto the water towns surrounding Shanghai City. While there are quite a few water town options, the closest one to central [...]
20 Aug, 2010 in
Chinese culture by Fili An

Taking the net by a storm are videos of the Chinese Red Army lipsynced to popular modern, and many of them western, songs. Scenes taken from the Long March Song Cycle movie (长征组歌) from back in 1976 are edited to create terrific parodies that give new meanings to the songs. Of all [...]
18 Aug, 2010 in
Shenzhen by Fili An

Fairly Lake is a beautiful scenic nature spot in Shenzhen, well worth a day out of exploration. Aside from the Hongfa Temple, there are endless attractions for the family, museums, botanical gardens, a lake, pagodas and much more. You can easily wonder around for hours. Here’s from their official website : The Fairy Lake Botanical [...]
16 Aug, 2010 in
Shenzhen by Fili An

Every now and again, I’m surprised with what I find in Shenzhen. In one of my recent visits to Shenzhen, I went to visit the Fairy Lake area and found it be an absolutely gorgeous place and a real nature jewel. One of the many attractions in that area is the Hong Fa Temple [弘法寺], [...]
14 Aug, 2010 in
East coast by Fili An

Fulong, aside from having a wonderful beach, also hosts an annual Fulong Sand Sculpture Festival (福隆沙雕藝術季). Artists come from all over Taiwan to carve their art into the sand, spending hours in the sun to get things right to their smallest details. The result, as you can see below, is spectacular. I don’t think I’ve [...]
12 Aug, 2010 in
Asia-Israel connections,
China by Fili An

CCTV, China’s national TV channel(s), produced a documentary TV series about Israel called “Walk into Israel – The Land of Milk and Honey” (走近以色列, zou jin yiselie). There was a recent launch event , and the episodes are already screening in China and available on the web. Israeli TV station Channel 2 had an [...]
10 Aug, 2010 in
East coast by Fili An

Turns out you don’t have to travel to the east coast and Kending to find beautiful white-sand beaches in Taiwan. As far as I can tell – Fulong beach, in the north-eastern part of Taiwan, does a fair job at competing with the Kending beaches. Wikipedia introduces : Fulong Beach, also known as [...]