Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: On the idea of “economic government” in Europe, at least. While the EU is focused on labour market and fiscal integration – mostly through an open border and a common currency, the idea of full monetary union is next to impossible without closer political integration. The Greek fiasco is a pretty telling test of Europe’s real commitment to the EU project, because it’s not just about having protocol-obsessed summits, but requires someone to open their purse strings rather generously with little political gains – if not massive political losses. Those outside of the immediate currency zone don’t want a Greek bailout (emphasis…
From the category archives:
Lost in Translation
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: Numbers certainly support the theory, and on the ground reality also corroborates the trend, where English is heading in the same direction as languages like Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Latin, where the language will not merely differentiate based on accents, but where dialects will become mutually unintelligible to each other. According to linguists, Panglish will be similar to the versions of English used by non-native speakers. As the new language takes over, “the” will become “ze”, “friend” will be “frien” and the phrase “he talks” will become “he talk”. By 2010 around two billion people – or a third of the world’s…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: The Japanese take the art of bowing just as seriously as they do with the art of honorific speech. Salon investigates the four different kinds of bows through the Toyota recall debacle. Japanese bows can be formally categorized as eshaku, a simple 15-degree bend or nod of the head; keirei, a 30-degree tilt to show respect; saikeirei, a full 45- to 90-degree bow intended to show the deepest veneration or humility; and dogeza, a fetal prostration expressing utter subjection or contrition. But it’s not just the gradient of the bows either. As important are the duration of the gesture, and the exact context…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: A while ago, I wrote about Japan’s export of soft power through its kawaii culture, spear-headed by Hello Kitty, and now complete with culture ambassadors wearing Lolita uniforms. The same thread was picked up by Wilson Center, whom viewed the phenomenon through more cynical lenses. Is Japan’s obsession with cuteness merely a reflection of an increasingly infantilized and emasculated culture? A clue as to what’s really going on may lie in the career of artist Takashi Murakami, an Andy Warhol–like figure who has played a big role in taking cute global. In 2005 he curated an exhibit in New York titled “Little…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: Most of us recognize the existence of cultural relativism, right? Like, one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, someone’s religious devotion can be construed as adherence to superstition and voodooism, etc etc. There are cultural gaps and differences that we simply just cannot imagine buying into. Like, ever. Or, can we? Consider this situation Roger Cohen was recently confronted with. The practice of dog-eating, in China. As it happened, our meal came shortly before the eruption of a furious online debate in China over a proposed “anti-animal maltreatment” law that would outlaw the eating and selling of dog and cat meat, making it…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: The views of Ayn Rand has long inspired Americans, especially during times of economic hardship. Now referencing Anne Heller’s biography of Rand, Anthony Daniels offers a pretty scathing critique of Rand. First, her outlook is almost entirely Russian, and reactionary to the Soviet system that she came from. Although she wrote in English, and her two most famous books are American in subject matter and location, she remained deeply Russian in outlook and intellectual style to the end of her days. America could take Rand out of Russia, but not Russia out of Rand. Her work properly belongs to the history of Russian,…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: Following up on the theme of public finances, when in trouble, Ireland wielded the axe swiftly last year, winning favours in the bond market and already seeing its economy picking up this year. Across the continent, Greek is bankrupt. So the EU has stepped in to impose some harsh rules to reign in its finances. The first thing to go is public sector’s wages and other pension-related liabilities. Greeks are protesting, of course. But for some (initially) unfathomable reason, so are Danish unions. It’s odd not only because it is Greek, not Denmark, that’s been subjected to hiring freezes, wage cap, and in…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: China is but an amateur when it comes to cultural exports, Japan has been at this for decades! What started out as an uniquely Japanese obsession found success first in the Asian market in the early 90s, has now crossed the continent. The industry of cute now receives the same kind of state support and heavy-duty marketing push once reserved for keiretsu. Check out Japan’s new Kawaii Ambassadors, appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And why not? Effectively disarmed after WWII with little room to project its political will, and increasingly marginalized on the economics front by rising stars China and…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: Staring apocalyptic demographic trends and economic stagnation straight in the face, Japan and South Korea have told some of its workers to go home early. In South Korea, the Ministry of Health are telling its workers to go home early as part of its worker-wellness experiment. It really says something about your workforce when a government agency forcefully turn off the lights one day a month and send workers home at 7pm, this makes the news. The Ministry of Health, now sometimes jokingly referred to as the Ministry of Matchmaking, is in charge of spearheading this drive, and it clearly believes its…
The international tourism industry is going to pick up in 2010, good news all around for the airline and hospitality industry!
Other than the breakthrough attractions this year, say, North Korea, here are some cities that you may want to avoid on your world tour.
Lonely Planet’s somewhat unscientific survey has generated buzz, and a certain amount of backlash from those noted cities. None so much as Seoul, “an appallingly repetitive sprawl of freeways and Soviet-style concrete apartment buildings, horribly polluted, with no heart or spirit to it.”
Bonne journée!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=27eb27d9-7c00-4046-ad03-948cc888d7b6)
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: Norman Mailer via last.fm Language is one of those barriers that’s almost impossible to penetrate if you are on the outside of it. Because the ignorance of a language (and an appreciation of its many nuances) also serves as a cultural barrier, and end of the day, you just don’t know what you don’t know. So this piece on the effect of translation gap on foreign publications opened a whole can of worms. The issue posed here is: there’s a massive loss of great literary works that’s not translated into English, because there’s not enough manpower to assess their qualities,…
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt:
Image via Wikipedia
Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt:
Image via Wikipedia
investoralist: Chuck, Thanks for not giving up on it! 
Chuck: Glad to see you posting again. 
ParisGirl111: This is so true. All this time I thought my smarts were my ticket. I realized its... 
jasoncornish: I have been interested in North Korea for many years, it is the... 
Scott: Actually this article is misleading. The Danes are a very closed society of... 
