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 [...]

The 2009 Miss Universe Pageant is held at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas. Following our annual routine, we take a quick look at this year’s global perceptions of Asian beauty through the national contestants. Last year’s (2008) Miss Universe was Miss Venezuela Danyana Mendoza, and it was Miss Japan that made Asian beauty proud in [...]

Miss Universe 2007 is coming up, and since I promised I’d follow up with a bit of “hot” and “sexy”… Miss Universe 2007, the 56th Miss Universe pageant, will take place on 28 May 2007 at the National Auditorium in Mexico City, Mexico. 77 delegates will compete for the title, currently held by Puerto Rico’s [...]

In almost all of my class discussions there is a general assumption that Democracy is what’s good for China. Especially when it comes to discussing urban China and the modern changes in society the question of whether this is good for bringing democracy to China always comes up, usually accompanied with the hope that China [...]

Asian Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hongkong share the five fastest climbing national economies rankings with Israel, The Economist reports. I find it amazing that both Taiwan and Israel (and maybe Singapore), facing complicated economical and political difficulties in their region with some of their neighbors, are able to keep demonstrating incredible growth and are high on [...]

This weekend's Haaretz has a long deadly article, spanned over 3 full pages, about a western perspective of Shanghai and Singapore, titled : "A little nuisance at West end – how does Israel look from the East? Traveling to Shanghai and Singapore and coming back depressed". This piece was written by one of Haaretz's finest, [...]

Yeah, I know, I know. I’m disappointed too. “We” were all hoping for either an Asian or an Israeli Miss World winner… – I could never make out the differences between Miss Universe and Miss World, but it doesn’t matter much does it? In the Miss Universe 2006 post some guy pinged back to my [...]

I’m really bad at politics, I never understand much about what’s going on but it seems as though I do make up my mind pretty fast as to what I don’t like based on lacking intuition. It sometimes irritates people that I question more than I supply answers and therefore might come through as not [...]