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

I just came across this photographer Paul Hu and apparently he took photos of Chow Yun Fat, Shu Qi for Time Asia Magazine cover and Maggie Cheung too.  Click on this link and then click on portrait to see it.

This artist, Kazu Shimura, posted many clips of herself doing sumi-e painting. Some of them are quite pretty. You could visit her official site here.

This is really no big news. Japan is teetering between importing or not importing US beef from cows that are older than 30 months. On and off, Japan has banned US beef imports because of one mad cow disease scare and they inspect every single box that enters the country. At the moment, Japan imports only beef from cows of less than 20 months old. But when I see the photographers in the artilce below trying to get a photo of Costco meat in Japan, I thought it shows the interest the Japanese themselves must have of consuming beef.

Taste for easy-to-cook meat soon could surpass pricier fish: report

Li Zhen Sheng's  photographic book of the unknown photos of the Cultural Revolution is a must see. This was a very sad period of history that when I studied at college, I was often depressed. Ten years of so called continued class struggle and over 20 million people dead. His photographs show how the accuseds were bounded, gagged, jaws dislocated so they couldn't defend themselves, pushed out of the third floor, executed and more.  As the official photographer of Heilongjiang Daily, Heilongjiang being the centre for Mao Ze Dong in Harbin, he had access to all events but he documented many that couldn't be shown and had to hide the negative under the floor board to keep from himself from being accused. In the end, he got sent to re-education camp too. After 35 years, Li, now a teacher of photography, showed us that part of history in graphic details that even my kids wondered about this thing about communism. Here are a few sites that show some of his  photos and write ups: 1, 2, 3

Official site

I remember watching on TV many years ago how villagers scrambled on to bun towers to get to the top (1978) and the tower fell and some 100 people were injured. Yesterday, I went to the library to find an old HK book to show them that photo, not realizing the web actually has many more on the Cheung Chau Bun Festival to mark the eight day of the fourth moon. This bun tower was discontinued since 1978 and was revived finally in 2005 after the organizing commitee designed the bun tower in steel, with added scaffolding on the outside to show authenticity of the old type. And believe it or not, the climbers have to be trained in rock climbing and they go up with harnesses...hahaha...Poor villagers. They are totally unimpressed with the revival.  Only 23 climbers are allowed for each tower. The festival was designed to appease the spirits of victims killed by pirates. And more, the buns are fake since real buns could get wet and slippery in the rain.   You could read more about it here or here. This site has the complete details of set up in photos.

  

I have never thought that I would see interesting outdoor shots in one concentrated location but this site Hong Kong Outdoors got to be it. It makes me want to visit Hong Kong all over again!!! Beautiful beautiful gallery!

I have seen some pix of Harisu and watched an MV before but this is the first time I see a nice photo of here. Recently this transvestite got married to her boyfriend. Here is her 2005 album, and here is the 2006 album. Not bad for a guy's voice.

Hahaha...I love this bit of news. Male motorists looking at the billboard of a sexy Korean actress, jumped out of the car on the highway to look at her causing traffic jam. I thought only girls would do that...but I suppose men would willingly show it too...

Sexy Photo Shoot Causes Overseas Traffic Chaos
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I often find woodblock prints of Japan very fine in colors and details considering they have to carve wood to make such pix. Tonight I happen to have watched on Discovery how coins are made and they not only carve the one feet plus diameter metal, they then subsequently reduce it smaller and smaller with touch up work. I can imagine how much more difficult it was many years ago when they didn't have a robotic arm to deepen the image.
http://www.tanakaya.fr/nouvelle7.htm
http://www.tanakaya.fr/23___l.htm

I'm not sure how old the readers of this blog is but if you are under 18, perhaps you shouldn't click on these links. Spencer Tunick, an American photographer, takes photos of the people in the nude and it started out with one or two persons but his photo shoot gets bigger each time. He would arrange nudes in public places as in France, Japan, US. The latest has it in Mexico with 18,000 nude persons.  I'm not sure what is the statement. Perhaps once we peel off our layers, we are all the same - naked and bare.  It is nice to see all the skin tones of different shades standing, crouching and lying next to one another. He wanted to build flesh architecture and in future shoots, he would cover 50 men in dark chocolate. He has already done one on 80 women in white chocolate. Here is a brief interview on him and here is his official site where you could sign up to be in his naked shoot. But for photos, you could go here, or here, and you could even see them on youtube here.

A few nice shots here.
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Sometimes, I really don't understand why people spend so much money on art. And now, I am even more baffled why people would spend US$2 or US$3 million for a photo.  But I'll let you see for yourself if you have that much money if you would spend it on a photo as these in the top 10 most expensive photos in the world here. Click on the number at the end of each line to look through the gallery.  Here is another list but this one has the less than US$1 million sales. I don't think it's really spectacular.  Here is one of the so called foremost photographer that set the trend: Edward Steichen. Here's another four from him. His work was a bit better.

In the meantime, check out these two Japanese artists. These are what I call beautiful and unconventional! Not 19th and 20th century photos.
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You have to click on this link. This is one of my favorite internet art site about Japan and they have created 10 photos of tiny Tokyo that looks almost like toy towns. They are really cute!!!

I'm glad I don't live in the East Bay  across from San Francisco at the moment. A section to the approach of the Bay Bridge was damaged and I could imagine the horrendous standstill of traffic along that stretch. Photos here. I wonder how long it would take them to repair it. In 1989, it took 3 months to repair the Bay Bridge and life was miserable for commuters.

In Europe we often see large sized chess pieces along a strip and people do play the game that way for fun. But these Samurai live pieces got to be even more fun. I'm surprised though that they get to sit.

 

A satellite photo here that shows the sand enveloping Korea. 

The Sandstorm That Came Like a Thief in the Night

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