14 Oct, 2009 in
Macau by Fili An

Macau is a fascinating place. With a surreal mixture of European Portuguese architecture next to monstrous shiny world-class casinos in a Chinese atmosphere, it all gets quite overwhelming. Somehow, those striking contrasts co-exists in Macau in an appealing balance.
Last weekend, I made a quick visit to Macau with a good friend and had a [...]
31 Aug, 2009 in
Movie reviews by Fili An

Gerard Butler wins over Angelina Jolie, or atleast when it comes to speaking Chinese. The other day, I caught the awful movie "Tomb Raider – the Cradle of Life" with arguably the world’s sexiest actors and was surprised to see both actors trying out their Chinese.
Here’s the scene. Angelina opens up and if you jump [...]
23 Aug, 2009 in
Shenzhen by Fili An

Located at the Overseas Chinese Town in Shenzhen is the China Folk Cultural Village, taking you through China’s minorities cultures.
I’ll start off with one of the really impressive shows they run on the park showing a live battle between the Qing and the Ming…
Watch the following videos to "feel the atmosphere"…
The best show doesn’t [...]
5 Jul, 2009 in
Guangzhou by Fili An

A friend I know from my Taiwan days who is now at Hawaii University was invited to teach Finance at Guangzhou. It was very interesting to hear some of the cross cultural observations of the local Chinese students ("but, teacher, our great leaders say…" etc.) and the academic environment, so I was quite excited when [...]
29 Jun, 2009 in
Chinese Blogosphere by Fili An

Outline
Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate and act together as a group, theoretically allowing more power to individuals and groups to access information, share thoughts and promote personal and social agenda. China has also seen tremendous penetration of Internet related technologies and usage.
The following article aims to give a quick overview and [...]
24 Apr, 2009 in
Chinese culture,
HKUST by Fili An

Till HK, my encounters with Chinese opera amounted to a short opera class in China Town Singapore …
To sum up my Chinese experience at Singapore I went on my final night for some classic Chinese dinner and opera with the Chinese Theater Circle (http://ctcopera.com.sg) and was surprised to be part of an exclusive 8 [...]
2 Apr, 2009 in
Movie reviews by Fili An

Not an excellent movie, I admit, but still entertaining if only for the fact that Keano Reeves does 3 sentences in Chinese. Almost at the middle of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (地球停轉日) Keano Reeves, an alien sent to earth to determine whether the human race should be exterminated or not in order to [...]
30 Mar, 2009 in
Asia-Israel connections by Fili An

Quite by accident, I made my way to a forum topic discussing something I wasn’t really aware of before on the net. Turns out that some people claim there are quite a few American Jewish guys that choose Asian girls as their partner for life. Here’s an interesting look at things from an Asian [...]