Gaki N Me If you love to talk about the world, love Asian idols, this is the place.

While researching on cloned food, it has occured to me that Americans are really against bio-engineering of all kinds.  While they may accept bio-engineered crops introduced into their food, but if it comes to animals that move and make sound, the majority of them are against it.  Recently a San Francisco company has sold a cloned cat for a rich old lady for US$50,000 to replace the one that died.  Yep, only rich people could afford it and this company would try to produce five more this year. To date, many of the cats survived less than 30 days.  


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A couple of days ago,we embarked on yet another lecture laden seafood dinner of how by the time our kids grow up, there wouldn't be any seafood left, so said the father. And my husband insisted that very soon food producers would culture and grow slabs of fish, seafood, meat in vats without the essentials that define them as animals. So of course, finally, a worthwhile topic to look into for my family. Food supply, cloning and related subjects ... And after a couple days, here are the findings. 


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I was holding off posting this advice from poch on a photo book of Koichi Domoto  called COMPLETE OTAKARA PHOTO BOOK because I wasn't sure what it was about. After some exploration, I am now able to tell you that it is an unofficial photobook.  If you look at this link, you would see that the same company has done books on Jin of Kat-Tun and Yamapi of News.  A fan has posted some pix of Yamapi from that series here and it's day to day pix by reporters and not to the best of quality plus 28 pages of Japanese text.  So if Koichi's one is like this, it is definitely a different breed from Shindoi I LOVE YOU of Tsuyoshi's. I'm going to pass on this unless it is something of equally high quality of his partner's.

     
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I came across a Japanese fan site which makes their own kind of commercials using famous actors like SMAP. Really very cute. This one especially is funny because they make Tsuyoshi Kusanagi out of tune.

cm_young_smap_hotpepper2_60s.avi

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I love today's news. A Chinese scholar has been studying the folk hero Wong Fei Hung / 黃飛鴻 and concluded that over 100 movies have been made of this character as compared to 007 which to date has only 26.  Of the 100, Kwan Tak Hing / 關德興 made 13 of them.  I remember those days watching him doing slow motion kung fu. It was so slow that I thought he was calling out the steps one by one. For those interested, you could watch some old footage of Kwan Tak Hing as Wong Fei Hung.  I didn't realize that Wong Fei Hung in real life had four wives.


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We really like Maggie Cheung in this household. We know that when she stars in a role, she gives her very best. Too bad she makes so few movies now.  I was rewatching Green Snake the other day and had a good laugh at how well she performed as a snake.  Only she could make it so ...haha...slimy and bitchy.  Video 1 (with English transcript) , Video 2 (this one shows Vincent Zhao as the monk trying to stay away for manly desires),  Video 3 (Sarah Chen sang the theme song in this one), Video 4 (this one has the best sound quality for Sarah Chen and also different footage).

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Clint Eastwood directed this movie Letters from Iwo Jima as a companion movie to Flags of our Fathers that was released in the US in October. The Flags of our Fathers tell of the story of how the Marines captured the Japanese island in a 31 day battle of strong defence and finally took over and raised the American flag on it. The significance was that the photo of the flag raising won a Pulitzer prize in the same year and therefore more people know about this battle.  But it is just a small battle.


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Go vote for the Best Artist Program that is to be held on November 29, 2006.  If there is enough vote for Koichi Domoto or Kinki Kids, we get to see them perform live again. Yeah, don't vote for the Natsumoyo song. It's so awfully slow. Try the Harmony of December if you must.  But I voted for Koichi because I want to see him dance live again!!!


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Just happened to browse through this page that tells of the world's biggest flower.  Actually, this flower called Titan Arum is the tallest flower at 10 feet or more. The biggest flower diameter wise is Rafflesia for as much as three feet across.  Both flowers are found in Indonesia.

 

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Readers of this blog have already heard how I disliked House of Flying Daggers and The Banquet because the directors overemphasized the love element in huge productions that is not worthy of portraying.  I cannot identify neither with Takeshi Kaneshiro nor Andy Lau in their deadly fight over Zhang Ziyi.  Nor could I empathize with Zhang Ziyi the empress in her endeavor to regain her step son's love.  When a movie is a big budget, it should be done to portray patriotism and nationalism, not a love story.  


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I wanted to write haiku in Japanese for these pix that I took around my house but just gettting the first line took me half an hour of searching and I'm not good enough yet.  And if I write them in Chinese, it would sound like Englese.  So I'll write casually in French instead.

La vie d'automne (The life of autumn)
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Of the 18 years I've been in this country, the most dreaded piece of mail I would ever get was yesterday's summons to serve as juror.  This is strange considering that I once wanted to become a lawyer but my father thought I would be better in business. In the end I got rejected by the law school of University of Hong Kong and their business department accepted me instead.  Why do I dread it? Because I have young kids at the moment. I fear for their safety every moment of the day.  When I was working part time once leaving them with a babysitter, I have an uneasy feeling that they are totally neglected, unchallenged and accident prone.  How could I leave my kids at home in the morning for two hours and make them walk 15 mins to school by themselves and make them wait at school after my jury duty. The school won't allow it, nor could I impose my kids on friends for such extended periods.  Who will pick up my daughter who is without public school bus service?  The point is not one without friends and family over here. The point is how could you trust your kids with someone other than yourself. What if there is a break in or accident at the sitter's or friends' house. Is the State going to be responsible? Just as I quitted working to watch over my kids, I could not justify leaving them for jury duty. Thank goodness the courts returned the email and exempted me this time. 

Like most countries, avoiding jury duty is a criminal offence punishable by fine of US$121 plus jail time here in the US. I'm glad they have become more family friendly. 
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For those of you who are Korean pop fans or drama fans and want to know what your idols are singing about in English, here is the site.  It even has Jang Dong Gun's All About Eve lyrics plus Kwon Sang Woo's Sad Sonata, Stairway to Heaven, Rain's Full House and Let's go to school, Sangdoo...etc.  The following pix is not related to any dramas. It's just Jang Dong Gun's ads for a clothing company and the one next to him is Rain with short hair.

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I don't know how many readers here out of the regular 300-500 are Kinki Kids fans if at all. But the fact that you are here means you are going to be brainwashed by me with everything Kinki Kids.  So today, if you have time, please click on these youtube links before they disappear and are removed by youtube. These are fan camera clips of Koichi's recent Mirror concert performances. I once commented that Koichi has turned his music cells off when he composed the song SNAKE and I'll take it back.  It is a good song especially when I see him singing it without moving too much except slipping his jacket off. No, the emphasis is not on the slipping off of the jacket, although it adds to it...haha...but that he could actually sing a rather monotonous toned melody as such. Of course you have to understand that I have translated the lyrics to this song and his standing there singing it so plainly is totally out of my expectation because the lyricists gave him totally X-rated lyrics to sing from the moment of contact with a girl down to the snake... Even he wondered if it was not too much in terms of lyrics but he went along with it because that was how the lyricists perceived his music.

 

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