It would take about 10 hours by air, but as the crow flies from King's Cross to Beijing is an ambitious plan pushed by China along with India. A train that travels nearly 400km/h was unveiled recently in China, linking Wuhan and Guangzhou. The hi-speed rail network will have trains travelling up to 322km/h. It all sounds super-scary fast thought. The Eurostar and the Shinkansen can go to 300'ish km/h. Hmm, those are pretty fast as well, and I've been on the former and you don't normally feel the speed, although would going an extra 100km/h be comfortable on a train?

Got this from Billy Water's tweet about two gweilos speaking perfect Cantonese, for all you folks who grew up watching TVB, you might recognise the first person. Check out the vid that's in the article:

Well... about €110,000, the asking price of the vase was €150 at a Co. Loais auction! There was a bidding war between a Chinese woman who flew all the way from Beijing to bid on the vase via her husband on the phone. She lost out to a London antique dealer. Read more here and here.

(Source: Irish Times)

Anyone else tried Hakka Noodles in Belfast, this reviewer loves it. I wonder is it to do with Hakka food or is it just a name, as I noticed that it's down as Japanese restaurant in some of the search results.

Also found The Irish Times with a review on ML Szechuan Chinese Restaurant in Dublin.

Chinese FT journalists who produces Chinese language site are to be made redundant, as it is

they already have terms and conditions inferior to other journalists at the Financial Times.

Any journalists out there who have something to say about this? You can chat about it in the IBC forum.

(Source: http://www.nuj.org.uk)

Received this this morning...

Thought I'd let you know that at 13:15 today I am interviewing Dr Shane McCausland the curator of the Telling Images of China exhibition at the Chester Beatty Library - log on to

http://www.radiokerry.ie/training/radio.html

Check it out here. (Would love it if they allow code to embed their nice piccies.)

CNY dinner, originally uploaded by whykay.

Part of our CNY dinner mom cooked.... there's a goose as well, but it's not in the picture.

CNY Eve at my Aunt's - "Da Bino", originally uploaded by whykay.

Mmm... fresh wontons. :)

In the papers today...

Plenty of positive feedback in the Irish Times, and quick overview of the festival by Irish Independent ending the article to let people know that An Post just released the Year of the Tiger stamps.

Check it out on Flickr - "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Valentine".

Plus some pics from CNY in HK.

If anyone on Flickr has pics from Chinese New Year this year, espec in Ireland, add it to group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/irishbornchinese/, thanks! :)

Back at home now, helping mom prepare CNY dinner... goose, king prawns, Chinese veg (san choi), and more! Hopefully will get photo of end result before we eat it all up! :)

Got a mail from Yellow Academy about FREE Actor Training for British East Asians aged 16-30. I presume that IBCs are also welcome. ;)

Could you be the British East Asian acting star of the future? Discover if you have what it takes to make it on our screens and stages!

Yellow Earth (UK's leading East Asian theatre company) and ALRA (The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts) are working in partnership to offer Yellow Academy 2010, an exciting new scheme to introduce British East Asians aged 16-30 to professional acting and performing. FREE actor training activities are held in Belfast, Birmingham, London, and Manchester from February - August 2010.

Activities in Belfast
Taster Talk: Wed 3 March 2010, at 6pm
Audition Workshop: Sat 1 May 2010, 2-6pm
See attached flyer for more details

For details of a full programme: http://www.yellowearth.org/initiatives/yellow-academy/

This project is funded by The Skills and Learning Council.
Yellow Academy 2010 in Beflast is supported by Chinese Welfare Association (Northern Ireland)

Some exhibits from Shanghai Museum on show at The Chest Betty Library. Didn't realise the Terracota soliders that were on loan back in 1987 were damaged by some scaffolding.. whoops.

(Via Billy Water's tweet)
So it's not just Dub that gets to witness this phenomenon... it's a common occurance in Shangai as well, so much so, that there's a clampdown on them. Seriously! As Billy said in his tweet, come on, DCC, clamp down on those jammie-wearing locals in the city.

bq [...] it's still winter time but the countdown to Summer 2010 has begun and The Fresh Air Fund is again in need of host families.

Yikes, I don't feel so bad getting the train down to Limerick, people in China travel much longer on less than comfy seats, and millions are on the move as well. Read more...

(Source: http://www.irishtimes.com

It's on the same day as Valentine's day, and for those who are curious on what's on, check out Dublin events listings.

Hopefully I can find more information and post it up. Post to IBC forum if you know something is on.

Dublin airport is changing its boarding gate numbers.

Pier D will convert to a 100 number range

Pier A will be renamed in a 200 number range

Pier B will be in a 300 number range

The new Pier E, which is part of T2 and is due to open in November, will have boarding gates in the 400 range.

And the other thing to be aware, mainly if you are travelling through UK, body scans at Heathrow yesterday. If you are picked for scans and you refuse, then you are not entitled to fly. It was voluntary. Manchester has the scanner as well.

Other EU airports are bringing it in as well, i.e. France and Italy. The article mentions that Schiphol airport has 15 scanners.

Oh whoop-dee-doo, joys of travelling. Holidaying to relax, not if you fly.

We've released these Chinese lanterns while we were in Hong Kong, but never heard about these problems, which are quite serious. Okay, fair enough, there's no livestock in HK, but I was told that they were biodegradable. In UK, either cows are dying from ingesting the Chinese lanterns, getting into the feeds and coastguards mistakenly thinking the red light was a red distress signals. I've seen these lanterns being sold at an online Irish site, so not sure how many of these were let loose into the wild.

According to The Irish Times

[...] number of children who were reported missing from State care between the latter months of 2008 and summer 2009, all of whom were of Chinese origin.

...was worn by Ann Ling, now Lady Oxmantown, when she got married in 2004 to Patrick Lord Oxmantown

Made of flaming red silk with a huge flying phoenix embroidered in coloured threads, it is one of the highlights of a fashion exhibition celebrating the links between Ireland and China, part of Dublin City Council’s Chinese New Year festival.

(Source: Irish Times)

If you want to see an image of the red dress, you can find it here. It is very beautiful and vibrant.

It's great to see kungfu being taught to kids to keep them off the streets, keep them fit and enjoying themselves. Good vid article by the Beeb, check it out....

A 'National Karaoke Content Management System, or “black box” as it is more popularly known' is installed in karaoke bars in Chongqing, one of the many cities and towns targeted to track down illegal music, pornography videos and any rallying songs against the State being played. So much for people having a good time.

Read more...

(Source: Irish Times)

Well, not personally, but this guy's an Irish Chinese guy, he's name is John Foo.

He's in Tekken:-

You can find out more about him in wikipedia.

Just saw this from the Beeb, a video on an interview with Mary Jess Leaverland and at the end, she sings a sample song, the best Chinese song sang since goodness knows when, those so-called singers in HK really can't hold one note at all!

British student Mary Jess wins Chinese X-factor

Here's a vid (sorry, it's in Cantonese, but you can hear her sing the Mandarin songs and I still can't quite believe how good she was, and only 2 months to learn the songs!)

Civil servants in South Korea were told to go home today (Wed), to urge them to go home, the building lights will be switched off (prob already off by now). They are planning to do this every month. Thing is, childcare cost it pretty pricey. They are even giving away gift vouchers to those officials who have more than one child.

Read more...

(Source: BBC News)

Fair play to an 18 year old student from Blarney who designed a bio-mass stove with easy to access materials such as tin cans and a sharp implement. His goal is not to profit from it, but to help 3rd world countries. Check out how it works from the man himself:

More mentions in the news:-

• http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14890/randd/bt-science-and-tech-winner
• http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfausnsnsnmh/rss2/
• http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/blarney-student-is-young-scientist-of-year-109872.html

More info resulting from google searches.

The initial suspect who was arrested has been released, but they arrested a second suspect. There were no details on why they suspected this second person, I just hope they really caught the person doing these terrible things and that there will be no copy-cats after these incidents.

(Source: BBC News)

UPDATE: Should have checked up The HK Standard, and they have some more details about the recent attack and arrests.

Google is not happy when it found out that human rights activists e-mails were being targeted in China, of course, they are not blaming the Chinese government directly. So they are not going to censor the searches on google.cn anymore (an agreement they made in 2006 to acquire the licence for google.cn). China has a big population, how will these latest actions affect Google in the future?

Read more from BBC article.

(Source: BBC News)

I posted this incident before, but the BBC News has a video of the kid with chopstick up his nose, it's not that graphic, but shows how lucky the couple were. Although I'm a bit wary that they let the kid play with an adaptor, you'll see it at the end of the video.

A rare Chinese map created by an Italian missionary is on show in the Library of Congress in Washington. This map depicts China as the centre of the world showing its importance by the missionary. It's one of the most expensive rare maps which was bought for £1 million.

Read more about it...

(Source: BBC News)

A quick mention on behalf of Sara Wilson from Fresh Air Fund:-

The NYC lottery closed Wednesday and winners have been announced. The FAF team still has spots available and think interested runners will start researching teams to join if they didn't win a coveted lottery spot. Readers can sign up/research further at the Registration Page.

...just because he wanted to be with his girlfriend a little bit longer by going through the security barrier while the security guard stepped away. Given that Newark is the hub of connection flights, it had a big knock-on effect when the airport's terminal was shutdown. The man will face a fine of up to US$500.

Read more about it.

(Source: Yahoo news)

What is the reason for these attacks? Who knows? The authorities think they arrest the culprit but they are not sure, only evidence are two bottle caps in the possession of the man on top of the rooftop near the incident.

• Video from BBC
• Article from The Gaurdian

You can read more articles on it from Google News search.

A fellow IBC member made a cool vid on lights of Mongkok, check it out:-

Hong Kong Night Lights (Harinezumi) from Edwin Lee on Vimeo.

A little tribute to my neighbourhood of Mong Kok, the place of perpetual light. (And yes, the occasional acid-from-above).


Mong Kok literally translates into 'busy corner' and is one of the most crowded areas of the city. I mean, Hong Kong is already crowded enough...



Shot with the Harinezumi and extreme macro resulting in some serious bokeh-lovin'. No effects added!



Track 'Your Hand in Mine' by Explosions in the Sky.