China luxury consumer

Corbett | March 11, 2010 7:38 AM

Working in retail as I do, you regularly hear the term "China luxury consumer". Here's a new twist on that term. Might be more descriptive of the actual situation than luxury brands care to admit. This was taken in the checkout line at Metro.

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Category: Mr. Asia

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Assmann

Corbett | March 11, 2010 7:32 AM

I was walking down Fuxing Rd yesterday and saw this interesting restaurant.

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Category: Mr. Asia

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The Classical Rules...

Corbett | March 7, 2010 11:50 AM

My classical music chops aren't as cultured as they should be. I think I have two albums listed as "Classical" on my iPod. One is Faure's Requiem in D minor, and the other is the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo. I have about 50 other "essential" classical CDs that I never copied over since I just never listened to them. They're in a box somewhere.

So as part of the "opening and reform" of my ears, I wanted to put together a good playlist of 100 top must have classical albums. This turned out to be extremely difficult since I didn't really know where to start. Rolling Stone made it easy with their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I still haven't assembled, but at least I heard most of them so could have an opinion.

Since I'd recorded and produced several British orchestras before, and found the British to be quite expressive and opinionated about classical music - and tea - I started with the Telegraph where to my delight they had done the work for me with their article:

100 Best Classical Recordings: Our critics' survey of the music no classical fan should be without

I read through the list, and was thinking to myself, "Do I really want to do this?" Then I read to the bottom of the long article and saw their "10 Classical Rules".

Rule #10: Names to avoid
Karajan, Ashkenazy, Kissin, Lang Lang, Maazel, Mrs Mills and Richard Clayderman. Forget you ever knew these people.

That sealed it for me. Lang Lang and Richard Clayderman banned in one sentence.

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Category: Music

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Day Day Vaccination Afternoon

Corbett | March 5, 2010 7:07 PM

One of the three gouges (ahem - not gorges) I've found here is getting your dog vaccinated. (The other two are dry cleaning and brown rice). It's RMB1000/per dog. They remind you yearly, and today was the day we needed to go get it done. It was a wet, cold, crappy day, and I'm sure my dogs didn't enjoy being walked in the cold pouring rain to get stuck with a needle.

The set up was in the parking lot of the local police station, and I was surprised by the efficiency of the whole gouge. About 15 people were lined up ready to scan, give shots, and most importantly take your RMB1000. I have 2 dogs so it was 2K for me.

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Mystery Songs

Corbett | March 4, 2010 11:52 PM

This past month I actually started doing something about my overflowing Gigs of random music, and cleaning up iTunes into something more than a place where you just dump stuff other people gave you. My train rides into the city are now a cornucopia of different music. Today I was cruising the "B" section. Everything from Bootsy to Beastie Boys to British Sea Power to Scarlett Johansson - wait where did that come from? She's singing Tom Waits songs? How did she get in the "B" section?

I still miss the tangible aspect of getting music down from somewhere and walking over a machine to play it. The whole analogue vs digital thing was a non issue for me, but not physically accessing music feels weird. It sort of devalues the meaning of playing music somehow, as if it's not an action anymore, but just an afterthought. Kind of like eating those mushy packs of energy food they sell at 7-11 rather than having a real meal. It certainly gets the job done but...

Anyway, I've now only got a handful of songs without titles - an amazing feat in itself, as a lot of songs I had to search the lyrics, dig up the song name, then figure out the artist by cross referencing Amazon or some other site.

This hit or miss system got me through ok with music from Eddie Bo, Bobby Womack, Esther Phillips, The Headhunters, Sir Joe Quarterman, Marlena Shaw, and O'donel Levy, but now I've got these few great songs left that I've heard a million times but don't know the artists.

Does anyone know the title and artists on these songs? These are great tunes and they need a home.

Super iTunes karma back to you if you do!

Mystery song 1
Mystery song 2
Mystery song 3
Mystery song 4
Mystery song 5
Mystery song 6
Mystery song 7

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Category: Music

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Chiang and Mao ride the Tiger

Corbett | March 2, 2010 12:51 PM

I got this postcard the other day and wanted to share it with us cross-straits kind of folks.

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Category: Mr. Asia

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You learn something new everyday

Corbett | February 26, 2010 10:58 PM

"Ayi, what's that smell?"
"What smell?"
"That horrible smell coming from the vacuum cleaner now?"
"I dunno..."
"It smells like condensed wet dog..."

This gets me thinking. She didn't vacuum the dogs did she?
I check on the dogs and they seem unstressed, so I continue with my investigation.
The smell leads me to puddles of mysterious black water.

"Ayi, what's this black stuff all over the place?"
"What black stuff?"
"This black stuff."
"I dunno..."

I decide to change tactics.

"Ayi, can you show me exactly where you used the vacuum this morning?"
"OK."

She takes me to the shower.

"I cleaned the shower. It was dirty."

You learn something new everyday.

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Category: Mr. Asia

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The ubiquitous Nescafe jar

Corbett | February 24, 2010 12:43 AM

You'll be happy to know you can actually buy old Nescafe jars in case you ever get a job in an SOE or guarding an office building.

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Category: Mr. Asia

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After CNY recovery

Corbett | February 23, 2010 8:54 AM

It's been a while since I've been productive - apart from eating a lot, sleeping a lot, and watching DVDs. I have the same excuse that the rest of China has - it was Chinese New Year.

I've been traveling a lot. One of the trips was to the Shaolin Temple to meet with the abbot about some business in the US. While there I had some Shaolin medicine practiced on me, and our group all got a private lesson in baduanjin (八段锦) which I now do to warm up in the mornings.

Here's the 8 stretches edited on Youtube. We're standing in front of the temple where the monks like to work out. If you ever go there, next door has a great little cafe that serves up the best cappuccino and latte in town. I'm not kidding. They have 3 serious espresso machines in there.

Here's me with the head abbot, Shi Yongxin, chatting about chicks and cars.

Bodhidharma's Cave on Mount Song. This is where Zen Buddhism began.

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Category: Ramble

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Would you buy an e-bike?

Corbett | January 17, 2010 6:08 PM

I did something I haven't had a chance to do in a long time - I took a nice long bike ride with friends along the Keelung River in Taipei. I used to practically live on my bike, from my first red Stingray with a banana seat and flats, to my first Nishiki 10 speed, to the Schwinn paper bike, up to the first edition Specialized Stumpjumper which wheeled me up the East Coast for 3-months in college and took me all over Yangmingshan when I got to Taiwan, to my current old school rickity Flying Pidgeon that gets a flat every week in Shanghai - but there's always a guy squatting along the road that will fix it for 2RMB so it doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm on this little folding clown bike today - quite hi-tech actually - riding along a river that used to be black with soot and chemicals, watching swans diving and fish jumping out of clean water. Taipei has changed.

After the nice 30K ride I'm relaxing in front of the computer and run across this article in the NYT called "Gaining a Toehold for the E-Bike" talking about electric bikes - which are just one of those things that seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice...maybe not. I've toyed with the idea of getting one in China, they're everywhere, but they are so goofy and I hate how riders don't seem to know how to stop and whizz past you with no notice while you are crossing the street making you jump out of you skin.

The writer then says something which I think is just plain dumb. It says "In China, riding an electric bike conveys professional achievement, even a certain degree of wealth..." I don't know about that. I think if you ask someone riding one of these - usually a guy in a baggy suit, smoking a cigarette, legs crossed, whizzing in and out of traffic - if they feel a sense of professional achievement, they'll probably crack a loogie on your shoe. These guys are just trying to make a two hour commute in half the time. For Chinese, any professional achievement would be driving a car. The concept of rich Americans riding electric bikes is a misnomer. At least for now. Maybe the concept of rich Americans is the real misnomer. Maybe China should send all those crappy electric bikes to the US. Then Americans will feel better about themselves, and the Chinese will be able to buy more cars. At least I won't be frightened when crossing the street anymore.

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Category: Cool Links

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