Bonjour Viet Nam

Un jour, j’irai là bas, un jour dire bonjour à ton âme.
Un jour, j’irai là bas [pour] te dire bonjour, Vietnam. 

 Bonjour Viet Nam by Marc Lavoine, a famous French composer and singer, has been making waves in Vietnamese communities all over the world since it was posted on the Internet in January. The song likely owes a lot of its success to Pham Quynh Anh, the singer, a young Belgian woman who knows Viet Nam only through her parents’ stories

 

Raconte moi ce nom étrange et difficile à prononcer
Que je porte depuis que je suis née.
 

by remora                                                     

Hiroyuki Takashima – 75 Years of Music

Hiroyuki Takashima was the most influential man in the Japanese music industry during the 20th and 21st century. At 75 years of age his musical career spans over 50 of those years and he was responsible for The Beatles success in Japan

But a song landed on Takashima’s desk at the end of 1962 that would change music forever. The song was “Love Me Do” by The Beatles….

via Purple Sky  http://purpleskymagazine.com/?p=1340

by Arthur and Pip

All-Japan Astronomy Character Symposium

More than ten cartoon-characters from planetariums and science museums in Japan, like the superhero – Shigosenger Red and Blue – and the villain – Dr. Black Star – from Akashi Municipal Planetarium gathered. Kiku Hachizo delegated JAXA.

The characters jointly issued a statement declaring that they will do their bests toward popularization of astronomy (parody of the famous poem by Kenji Miyazawa).

not losing to the sweat
not losing to the wind
not losing to the snow or to the heat of the summer
with a strong body

unfettered by desire
never losing temper
cultivating a quiet joy

one bottle of water to drink
and some shade to rest
are all that we want

read on here:    http://cosmicdiary.org/blogs/jaxa/seiichi_sakamoto/?p=494

by Arthur and remora

Star Spangled Banner played on the dan-bau

The bomb from Vietnam, Wobbly World’s Nhut Bui plays the Star Spangled Banner on the dan-bau, a one-stringed Vietnamese instrument.

by Arthur and Arf

Teriyaki Girls

Teriyaki Girls, a web comic written by Seiryoin Ryusui and illustrated by Kai Chamberlain. Teriyaki Girls is updated with a new comic every Monday and Friday.

http://www.bbbcircle.com/Default.aspx?id=1   via Gunmajet  http://gunmajet.net/

by Punjapit

 

Spank-tastic ambiguous nymphs butter the muffin

Pilcher keeps an eye on censorship and how it effects artistic expression. A great example: because Japanese sex laws prohibited the display of adult genitals, artists began drawing their characters as seemingly younger and Lolita porn (or LoliCon) was born. But as Moore says in the foreword, pornography can work as a “safety-valve” to relieve the taboo tension of a society without anyone getting hurt. A slippery wicket to be sure, old boy.

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/sexsf/2009/09/spanktastic_ambiguous_nymphs_b.html

The genetic mutation that ruins orange-coloured fish sex lives

Researchers from University of Konstanz, Germany and the University of Tokyo have found a genetic mutation that gives medaka fish its grey colour, rendering them less attractive to the colourful members of the opposite sex.

The Japanese Killifish is commonly found in Southeast Asia in wide range of colours like brown, orange and grey.

The research team led by Shoji Fukamachi studied the effects of alterations in a colour-determining gene on mating preferences of the fish.

http://trak.in/news/the-genetic-mutation-that-ruins-orange-coloured-fish-sex-lives/8636/

“Yem Lua” – Vietnamese Ancient Beauty

Pink silk halter-necks have been worn and treasured by Vietnamese women over the last century and are still considered an integral part of their traditional costume today.

More than 100 years ago, the yem tham became a fashion item that symbolised the Vietnamese women’s desire to make themselves more beautiful. The halter-neck and silk ties at the back of the garment are pulled tight to accentuate the delicate figure of Vietnamese women, and most importantly to create the concave effect of the “wasp waist”.

Mussolini in Kowloon

Most of the benefactors are famous Macanese but look at the last one, added at a later date – Benito Mussolini !

The legend was that when the area became populated, there wasn’t enough money for the ambitious project, but one of the priests in the diocese had a personal link to Mussolini, and the money appeared. It was not Italian government money but a personal donation. The Mussolini connection helped when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in 1941. The convent school became a field hospital, later where Japanese casualties from China and South East Asia were sent to recover. The houses around the church, villa style in the westernized South China style, were occupied by Japanese officers, which protected the buildings from being looted. The church was not affected, because Italy and Japan were allies.

http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/08/mussolini-in-hong-kong-st-teresas.html

via Classical Iconoclast

by Pip and remora

The East, the West, and Sex

A Dutch-Japanese phrase book, compiled in 1770 for a trade legation from Holland — the only Westerners permitted to reside on Japanese soil by the xenophobic shoguns — had a mere 80 phrases. Its brevity suggests a paring down to the absolute essentials of speech needed to get by with the locals. Yet eight of the phrases — an eye-catching 10% of the total — pertained to hiring the services of female companions.

Inevitably, “The East, the West, and Sex” contains plenty of what schoolboys of my generation would call “good bits” — such as the irrepressible Gustave Flaubert’s descriptions of the company he kept on what was essentially a sex tour to Egypt in 1850. His amorous companions included a prostitute “fat and lubricious . . . who smelled of rancid butter” and a catamite who was “excellent — short, ugly, stocky.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124416693109987685.html      via WSJ

by Arthur