Good girls must be a trifle down in the mouth over there...

Heck of a design finding - red letters on a red background...
Should be a subliminal message, not less.

China mooning on the moon

Today in my class the students were discussing China's launch of a satellite which is supposed to orbit the Moon.

I was about to ask the question of whether the satellite would actually land on the Moon, but then I thought that the verb 'to land' has some exclusive 'Earth-like' connotations, so on the spur of the moment I had nothing better to say than: "So is China going to moon on the Moon?"

I do not know how to wittingly connect my slip of the tongue with the possible repercussions of the event, but in the meantime I follow the news with a certain degree of interest.

Advertising fusion

Another remarkable sight of the city of Tula. It's not even a question of who paid whom )

A new line of hygiene products

Do I actually need to bother?

A new generation of shower gels - apply and rub in till the desired effect is achieved.
You gotta be careful though.

How to run a country

Is that only me, or is Youtube really blocked? The word of mouth is that it is blocked only in China, but it also keeps being blocked if I try to use proxies - does it basically mean the keepers of the Great Firewall of China have finally figured out how evil content seeps through into the empire?

This makes it look like some heavy stuff - usually any blocked website was accessible through a proxy, - I can still go to all the other blacklisted sites - which makes their blockage 'light' - thus bringing the game on a whole new level. ...Who knows, maybe it is just a paranoid thought anyhow and youtube is down by itself. (tell me?)

But since the Party Congress is on, the rumor has it that it's the echo of the security getting tougher - and after having shed the liberal veneer of my juvenile understanding of the world, I can actually see the point of the big shots at the steering wheel - if they have to rule a country the way they have it, they just gotta do what they gotta do. No use bitching about the blocked internet content, I ain't in the same weight category with them anyway to change the situation (yet, may I add for the record).

All I wanna say is how the locals are taking it. Here is my dialog with a girl in my creative writing class, who wanted to start her English language blog:

I: Wow, way to go, girl, (I hope you appreciate the alliteration - the writer's note) that's a nifty idea!
Her: Yeah, yeah, but as you know there is the Party Congress going on now ...
I: Huh? (trying to bridge the two subject matters, as many a time you just have to make an extra effort to connect the not so obvious dots to get the picture)
Her (with not a trace of discontent): So whenever I write in English the posts do not appear immediately now.
I: ...
Her: And I like to see the posts appear immediately - and that's what happens with posts in Chinese.
I: ...
Her: So the posts have to be checked to see if there is anything wrong in them. And it is probably easier to check them if they are in Chinese. So I prefer to write in Chinese for the time being. (The actual cuteness to the whole thing was added when I read what she writes about - a description of her day and terror of missing a class sprinkled with 'hello-kitty' smilies.)

Now, what I want to observe, - without being judgmental or anything, - is that (1) the people are aware of the Big Brother's presence, with certain understanding of the reasons, they take it for granted and don't sweat it. 'Coz they are not planning to write anything objectionable anyhow, and are ready to amend if needs be,
(2) that - obviously - the quantity of English-reading ranks is by far outweighed by pure-lingual officials, though laowai teachers are gradually improving the situation,
(3) that - doh! - I am being read by at least somebody,
(4) it sure is a nice thing to have oneself a country of understanding citizens,
(5) the revelation I thought I received at the time of our dialog was by far more rapturous than my lame ranting right now,
(6) you gotta keep your fingers on the pulse of everything that's going on in the country you own if you wanna keep it, a hard thought to get adjusted to, but for some strange reason the world today suggests more and more that it ain't too crazy a thought after all (and as it turns out has never been - congratulate me, I am maturing : ))
(7) the thought 'Hey, that's a stupid way to run things! All the people I respect are mocking the way they do things! We know how to deal in politics and what not. I could have done it better." does not seem like a terribly clever one any more, but rather makes me be thankful that I am not given a chance to screw things up even worse on that level with all my knowledge of how to.

was in Tula

2 months ago we were in Russia - about time to show that sparkling wall art - Russian inside

ул. Гоголевская "Все блондинки тупые!!!! За Единую Россию!"


ул. Каминского "Люблю тебя не смотря не на что"


ЦПКиО "С праздником тул"


ул. Демонстрации (?) "мусорОВ только в контейнер"

Forskin kneading

Usually the personnel at public baths / massage parlors are not that happy about customers taking pictures of the interiors, but in this case I just had to take this picture. Snapped with a phone camera and all blurry - the sign at the 2nd floor of the Shanghai massage place introduces the services offered, and reads among other useful pieces of information: "... bath salt and essential of milk forskin kneading" (A mixture of bath salt and milk for that very kneading). A masseur in a wife-beater and underpants is waiting for his next victim. I marko polo'ed into that massage dealie and yes, it was quite a nice experience - the skin (all over but the advertised location) is indeed kneaded with salt and milk - quite refreshing. To be totally objective it needs to be said that such slip of the space bar is quite suggestive of the actual services rendered several storeys above the decent second floor, but I of course shy away from those sultry locations giving preference to the healthy hot rooms, swimming pools and a clean rub-down of the second floors.

A garment store in Macao - Wanko, your primary choice of felicitously-named apparel.

Intercultural communicator's delight

Russians are overtaking the Chinese market. Subliminally as they do it. (Knowledge of Russian required)

I know a couple of Dimons who will gladly don a T-shirt made by this company:

Fu Kang utensils managed to find a funky latinzed name for their goods. If a couple of guys I know back in Russia with the same name decide to import those, that's the best advertisement they may dream of:
The guys at Bei E Jin IT appliances have done their homework in classics, Pushkin's novels are now glorified through millions of routers and modems:

And for the dessert today:
In Zhuhai. An actual store. I could hardly believe my eyes as I noticed it in passing:This begins the introduction of quite a few Chinese companies who are ready to enter the Russian market right now.