February 2012
8 posts
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Curious About...Our Inner Dragons.
An experiment…
The blog seems to have caught on in China, and I’ve been commissioned to write a special version for China Business News, addressing some of the themes that I see here. So here is the latest story, presented in both its original Mandarin and English, that is running right now. Huge thanks to my colleague Elyssa He for translating.
So finally, it’s the famed...
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Curious About...Designing Absence.
I’m interested in what I am calling ‘designed absence’ - the removal of excess and a suggestion of the presence of something. Of course in Japan they don’t only have a word for this, but an entire philosophy. Wikipedia describes Ma thus: “Ma (間) is a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as “gap”, “space”, “pause” or...
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Curious About...Godzillatecture
I posted this picture of the Tokyo skyline on Instagram a few days ago, complete with the Tokyo Tower in the forefront and the hodgepodge of buildings around it. In response and my colleague Axel wrote: “The only thing missing is Godzilla.” Walking around Tokyo, you can’t help but be struck by its post-war modernist architecture, the funky concrete, tiled and curvy shapes...
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Curious About...Japanese Hygge.
The Danes don’t own the market on warm coziness, but they do have a great word for it - hygge. However, winter in Japan comes with its own glow - usually from the beautiful warm lights that Japanese inns, restaurants and homes fill themselves with. It may not have the same twinkling candlelit quality that you find in Scandinavia, but Japanese hygge has its own charm. Time to...
Curious About...Politeness.
Every time I come to Japan I notice a change in my own behavior. To state up front, I am English and was brought up by my Scottish mother to have very good manners, but over the years, I have become a bit sloppy, perhaps occasionally dashing out of the elevator before those before me or not holding the door for someone, but when I am here, I immediately tidy up after myself, fold my clothes,...
January 2012
8 posts
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Curious About...Dogs x Star Wars.
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy’s final film, the first in a new prequel trilogy of films was...
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Curious About...Communes.
I’m fascinated with communes - a couple of my colleagues here at IDEO grew up on them and one in particular always regales me with stories of his childhood - he grew up in a traveling theatre troupe (complete with the requisite bus) that communally moved across California and New Mexico and listening to him, it sounds like they were modern-day gypsies, their bodies painted bright colors,...
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Curious About...Hygge.
I was in Chicago yesterday watching the first snow of the winter fall, and was reminded of the sense of quiet contemplation that the muffling effect of a snowfall often brings, the comfort and warmth that comes with making our homes cosy, staying in and settling down, giving into the dark nights and stopping our fight against the elements for a second. The Danes have a word that beautifully...
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Curious About...Dignity
(This is the second of a series of Curiosities first featured in Metropolis Magazine.)
It first hit me in Fuxing Park last spring.
I was being interviewed by a journalist from Beijing. She was keen for us to get out of the office to walk and talk, to have ‘culturally immersive’ experiences together, to both react to these experiences and discuss the implications.
Fuxing Park (复兴公园)...
December 2011
7 posts
2 tags
And On New Year's Day We Rest.
Curious Inspiration. Snore and Guzzle is one of my favorite websites. Its creator, Michael Neault, describes it thus: “Snore & Guzzle is a private press started around 1999 by Michael Neault (who happens to be writing this brief history). Normally, we are stationed in a small town in Central/Western New York State, but at the moment, we are currently on the move. Portland, Oregon is...
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Curious About...Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh.
The Magi are popularly referred to as Three Wise Men. The word magi comes from the plural of the Latin word magus, in turn borrowed from Greek μάγος magus, which was used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew. Traditions identify a variety of different names for the Magi; in the Christian church they have been commonly known as Melchior, a Babylonian scholar, Caspar, a Persian...
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Curious About...Dictator Chic.
Kim Jong-il’s death this week may have dramatically altered the future of the political landscape, but there is an equally significant fashion loss as well. Who else can we rely on now for that signature look that combined teased curly perm with safari suits in various weights and textures and cuban-heeled ankle boots? His Dearest Leader did what many dictators do which is to create a...
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Curious About...Shanzhai Pets.
The Chinese have an um, complicated relationship with their canine friends. While in some provinces dog is still an acceptable food group, at the other end of the spectrum we have high-end dogs treated as the ultimate fashion accessory with thousands of dollars lavished on dyeing, grooming and transforming them into fantasy hybrid animals. For the record, all of the dogs in these pictures are...
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Curious About...Synchronized Swimming.
We lived in Singapore in the sixties and seventies - my father was in the Royal Air Force and we lived in RAF Changi, enjoying an idyllic life in the tropical sun. To occupy her days my mother was part of a local troupe called “The Aquastunt Girls,” an all-girl expat group who spent their days in the camp pool, sporting violently colored rubber caps and matching swimsuits,...
November 2011
9 posts
Curious About...Learning.
The following piece is the first of a special series of Curiosities for Metropolis Magazine.
I just finished reading Lucy Kellaway’s acerbic-but-true piece (free registration required) in the FT about management consultants and all their related jargon landing in China. And it immediately brought to mind an evening I spent in Shanghai a few months ago, where we invited a group of young...
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Curious About...Firecrackers.
We hear them going off all the time in the neighborhood where we live, at seemingly random times of the day or night - the distinctive sound of firecrackers, the rippling, crackling, insanely loud firework that is uniquely Chinese.
A firecracker is a small explosive device primarily designed to produce a large amount of noise, especially in the form of a loud bang; any visual effect is...
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Curious About...Chinese Cricket Matches.
(Huge thank you to my colleague Greg Perez for suggesting this topic.)
I haven’t been to Shanghai’s legendary Insect Market yet, but am planning on plucking up the courage to do so. I am a huge entemophobe so the challenge is vast, but I am curious to see the fighting cricket matches that everyone here talks about. (Worth pointing out upfront that unlike many blood sports such...
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Curious About...Ping Pong.
Most of our offices have some form of lightly competitive communal sport going on - in many cases there is a central foosball table where folks break in the mid-afternoon; fueled by cookies and Red Bull, they gather round and raucously egg one another on. In our Shanghai office, naturally, it’s ping pong.
Ping Pong (乒乓) is the official name for the sport of table tennis in China. The...
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Curious About...Chopstick Etiquette.
Last week in Japan was about studying the subtle details of everything, from handing over a business card (text pointed towards the user, ponder theirs for a second, do not carelessly place it in a pile on the table) to the depth of a bow (not too shallow which is dismissive, not too deep which is too formal and reverent) and to struggling to not make a fool of myself with chopsticks, which...
October 2011
11 posts
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Curious about...Tatami.
A tatami (畳) is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core (though nowadays sometimes the core is composed of compressed wood chipboards or polystyrene foam), with a covering of woven soft rush (igusa) straw, tatami are made in standard sizes, with the length exactly twice the width. Usually, on the long sides,...
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Curious about...Butoh.
I’m in Japan giving a talk in Sendai, the region tragically devastated by this years 3.11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear reactor meltdown, and in doing research for it have started to look at both traditional and untraditional ways that the Japanese express anger, complex social and emotional issues and generally how they externalise and politicize their feelings. One form of...
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Curious about..."Rock N' Roll" Hospitality.
As many of my friends and colleagues can now attest (having had to put up with my ranting) I am staying at a Hard Rock Hotel on Sentosa Island, just off Singapore, for a conference that I am speaking at. For the record, I am in the Sting And The Police Room on Floor 5, a floor signified by a slightly bedraggled and duty bustier once worn apparently by Mariah Carey. I despair, but frankly seem...
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Curious about...Korean Soap Operas.
I’m sitting alone in the Korean Airlines lounge in Incheon airport in Seoul - it’s the middle of the night and I feel like I ought to be dancing on the walls and ceiling like Christoper Walken in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” video. However, there is some appropriate drama going on - a lone TV is playing Korean soap operas. My good friend and college Dana Cho and...
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Curious about...Personal Uniforms.
A friend posted the photo above on her Facebook wall a couple of days ago in response to Steve Jobs’ death: I thought it was a lovely way to commemorate someone, illustrating the iconic clothes they wore. Jobs was of course famous for his uniform - the Miyake turtlenecks, the mid-fade Levis and the New Balance sneakers, and wore it every day, religiously. Got me thinking about the power of...
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Curious about...The Business Card.
Getting ready this weekend for an extended time I’m about to spend in Asia, I’ve had to get multiple business cards printed in multiple languages. I hate business cards to be completely frank: yet another thing to clutter up my wallet, most of them end up getting accidentally washed in my pants when I forget to empty the pockets. It seems in an age when we are so searchable,...
September 2011
15 posts
3 tags
Curious about...Retro Acid-Trip Kids TV.
Don’t ask me how I got to this idea. OK, if you insist - I got a bit drunk last night and had trippy, manic dreams, the technicolor kind. I woke up this morning with both a real but also a nostalgia hangover, for the after-school programs I used to watch as a kid, the slightly strange animations, fantasy shows and, typical for that era, charmingly lo-fi explorations into futuristic...
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Curious about...Mass Game Aesthetics.
Mass games or mass gymnastics are a form of performing arts or gymnastics in which large numbers of performers take part in a highly regimented performance that emphasize group dynamics rather than individual prowess. The effect of displaying huge images is achieved by having a large number of performers, each dressed in a particular color or holding a sheet of colored cardboard above their...
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Curious about...SkyMall.
There it sits, usually fairly dog-eared, in the seat pocket of every domestic American plane - the ubiquitous SkyMall catalog. Trapped in your seat for that first fifteen minutes, realizing that the seatbelt sign is still on and you can’t play with your computer yet, it’s pretty much the only thing you can do; graze though and marvel at the wonders that lie inside - the hotdog...
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Curious about...The 幸福饼干 Controversy.
Fortune Cookies, from the Chinese 幸福饼干 meaning “happiness biscuit”, are actually not a Chinese but an American invention. Chef Makoto Hagiwara of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden is reported to have been the first person in the USA to have served the modern version of the cookie when he did so in the 1890s or early 1900s.
Today’s Fortune...
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Curious about...Crocs.
Following on from a post I made a few months ago about traditional Dutch Klompen (Clogs) I thought it might be time to revisit them in the modern context. Arriving yesterday in San Francisco, at best a city known for its practicality when it comes to fashion, I was taken by the number of people wearing the modern interpretation of the clog, the Croc, and was interested to see how these...
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