X-Radiation

Yesterday afternoon G. Scott Owen and myself gave presentations to the students and faculty at Shanghai Normal University. The talk was attended by a group of students as well as various Deans and Chairs of the univeristy such as Wan Qinghua and Lu Jianfei. We were inducted into the 2009 International Scholars Forum and presented with chops containing the Chinses characters for our names. Afterwards we went out with the faculty of the univerisy and publishers of Fantasy Art Magazine, Mr. Wang Wei and Ms. Ying Zhang  for a wonderful dinner. Mr. Wang is an amazing artist in his own right and helps run an animation seminar for Chinese youth called the Asian Youth Animation and Comics Contest or AYACC.

I didn’t realize that Chinese kids were just as in to Cosplay at their Japanese counterparts. It’s a little different than the Harajuku scene, maybe a little less punk rock and more anime but still cool to see.

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Rambo Game at Cartoon and Game Expo

Am I the only one who is amused watching Chinese video game players in Shanghai play a Rambo video game where the object is to kill Communists?

Dead Men Tell No Tales

This amusement attraction on display at the Cartoon and Game expo lets the player take out what appears to be an animatronic Somali pirate with a rocket launcher on a moving boat. Extra points for a head shot!

What's up Doc?

My parents always said they wanted me to be a Doctor. It took a while, but I think they finally got their wish. Mr. Wang Wei is in the forground while G. Scott Owen, Dani Weinstein and some of our hosts at Shanghai Normal University receed into the background.

Click on the picture for a hi-rez panorama

This afternoon I spoke at a forum on the future of animation in China with Scott Owen. I met a lot of interesting folks including the bureau chief of the Agence France-Presse Asia Pacific Shangai division D’Arcy Doran, originally from Toronto. After the forum we went to the Bund for a few Tsing Tao draft beers and I took a few moments to shoot this panorama of the waterfront. The file is big, so be prepped for a download.

While at the Ding Cong museum in Fengjing the other day I noticed these trash and recycling containers with weird english translations on them.

I think the one on the left which says “yet recovery” is for recyclables while the one on the right which says “should not recover” is for trash.

I’m not certain if  “old and useless cell” refers to batteries, cell phones or dandruff flakes.

The Chinese Mountain Dew label looks way cooler than the English language version. Something abut the shape just totally works. On a similar topic, I love Japanese “genki drinks” and had sort of hoped there would be a Chinese version of these vitamin fortified turtle blood and caffiene laden bombs but so far I’ve had no luck finding any super powerful Chinese energy drinks. One convenience store did have a couple of warm bottles of Lipovitan-D but I can get that state side.  Anybody got ideas on this? I was hoping to bring some samples back to the lab.

This corn drink I saw in a supermarket near the hotel looks interesting. I really liked the corn flavored kit-cat from Japan so I’m really wondering what this corn drink tastes like. It only came in large 1 litre bottles. If there was a small one I would check it out for sure. I wonder if there’s any of that fake margarine flavor in there?

Ding Cong's portrait of Honoré de Balzac

This is Ding Cong’s portrait of Honoré de Balzac. I never realized how much he looks like American porn icon Ron Jeremy. I tried to download an image of Ron Jeremy to put side by side with this photo I took at the Ding Cong museum but I was thwarted in my search by the Great Firewall of China and I’m feeling too lazy to attempt to tunnel my way under just to  snag a headshot of Ron Jeremy looking surley. I will update this post later with that image.

Update: A concerned reader sent me ta snapshot of Mr. Ron Jeremy for inclusion in this article. Thanks Jeff!