Year of the MONKEY - Chinese New Year 2016

[-N-]

She's 49 now? wow.

Looks like the Lady Gaga of China.

[GeneChing]

Bai Ling is the Jedi dropout.

This is the Lady Gaga of China.

[-N-]

This is the Lady Gaga of China.

No one will be able to ride the 30 Stockton with a straight face ever again.

[GeneChing]

condoms? srsly?

Chinese spend $13.8bn abroad during Spring Festival
February 21, 2016 Korea Bizwire

During the Chinese Spring Festival, 6 million Chinese travelled overseas and spent a total of 90 billion ($13.8 billion) yuan on shopping.

The products they purchased abroad included expensive luxury items, smart bidets, and electric rice cookers, but surprisingly, most Chinese tourists bought items used in everyday life such as cough syrup, sanitary napkins, condoms, stockings, electric toothbrushes, and nail clippers.

Chinese media also reported on the phenomenon of their people buying commonplace items during their travels abroad. Various media outlets reported that Chinese tourists bought condoms, sanitary napkins, nail clippers, tumblers, and cough syrup from Japan, and hair dye, shampoo, sanitary napkins with oriental medicinal herbs, ramen, and honey butter almonds from Korea.

Cosmetics, health supplements and clothing were popular items from the US, as well as fountain pens, knives, key chains and electric toothbrushes from Europe.

A clerk at a duty-free store in Osaka commented that sales were 2.6 times higher than in 2015, thanks to the spirited purchasing of low-priced, everyday items by Chinese tourists.

A tour guide in Seoul commented that along with cosmetics, skincare products, and shampoo, snacks and stationary were popular Korean items among Chinese tourists.

Some Chinese media outlets suggested that because overseas products are of better quality, can be purchased at more reasonable prices, and are safer than Chinese products, Chinese tourists stock up on foreign products when they have a chance.

A Chinese consumer commented that she comes to Korea every year to buy facial packs and BB creams.

“Of course, there are quality packs in China too, but so many are fake, and sometimes side effects occur even if the products are purchased at official stores.”

Officials at Chinese consumer associations point out that China still lags behind neighboring countries in the manufacturing, design, and development of products, and should overcome the fact that the quality of their products is low in comparison to prices.

* By Lina Jang of Korea Bizwire.

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

The enduring popularity of the Monkey King
How Journey to the West influenced 400 years of culture and entertainment.
by Cassandra Khaw - Apr 18, 2016 2:20am PDT


A painted mural depicting Sun Wukong and other characters from the novel.
Wikipedia / shizhao

It’s been a watershed year for Chinese blockbuster movies. 2016 saw the release of The Monkey King 2, a fantastical adventure that has the eponymous primate meeting a monk and then clashing with the White Bone Demon. The film netted about £135 million at the box office worldwide, almost three times the amount of its £42-ish million production budget.

But these numbers, while large for the local box office, are hardly unprecedented. The Monkey King, though not terribly well regarded by critics, broke several domestic records in 2014, including highest-grossing opening day in China. Similarly, Stephen Chow’s comedic adaptation Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons took the box office by surprise, becoming the highest-grossing Chinese language film ever before it was eventually overtaken by Monster Hunt.

It might seem that a well-performing sequel would be an outlier, but even if local audiences have demonstrated fatigue with Western imports, there are plenty of domestic offerings that succeed magnificently as franchises and follow-ups. But none, perhaps, as well as those that draw from the Journey to the West.



The Monkey King 2 is the latest in a long line of such adaptations, one that spans every imaginable entertainment media, all drawing from a 400-year-old novel. What’s fascinating is how much of the original story, the seminal Journey to the West, is retained in these modern retellings, a stark contrast to the gleeful butchering of Greek, Egyptian, and Judeo-Christian mythology in American movies. (Let’s not even pretend Exodus was anything but a farce.)

Part of it might have something to do with the fact that the Journey to the West is venerated as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of ancient China, which are not only largely recognised as the best novels of their eras, but also as influential cultural forces. It’s not just a thing, collated and curated by generations of opposing ideologies. It’s a literary institution.

Of course, Journey to the West has suffered subtractions in its translated forms, but is generally adapted more or less intact. For those less familiar with the book, Journey to the West is an epic fantasy that draws from local folk tales, history, and possibly even, according to certain scholars, elements from the Ramayana. (Hanuman from Hindu mythology is believed to have been one of the inspirations for Sun Wukong.) It was anonymously published in the 16th century but widely believed to have been written by Wu Cheng’en.

"If you understand the Monkey King, you understand China."

The plot is loosely inspired by the life of a Buddhist monk named Xuanzang, whose travels to South Asia were recorded in the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. Journey to the West introduces a host of fantastical characters to the pilgrimage, notably a coterie of supernatural disciples: Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, and the inimitable Sun Wukong.

Easily the most recognisable figure from the 16th-century novel is Sun Wukong, or Monkey as he’s known in many Western translations. He’s an archetypal folk hero, a commoner who rises above his station with a spectacular outburst of bad behaviour. He shares the same cultural appeal as characters like Coyote, Loki, and Odysseus. They’re mischievous rebels, unwilling to submit to the status quo, openly defiant despite the threat of divine retribution.

But the Monkey King, being the narcissist that he is, takes it a step further than most. Not only does he scrub his name out of the Book of Life and Death, effectively rendering himself immortal, the Monkey King even, in some varieties of the tale, pees on Buddha’s hand. It’s an unparalleled act of blasphemy, made all the worse by the fact that it follows a whirlwind of other misdemeanours, all precipitated by his own sense of indignity, rather than any actual wrong.

And that is an incredibly powerful image, especially in Chinese culture, which traditionally espouses family over individuality, duty over personal desire. What makes Sun Wukong so enduring though, perhaps, is the paradoxical nature of his existence. On one hand, he contradicts everything that Confucianism and Taoism represent, being neither humble nor diligent, a hedonistic creature of instinct. On the other, he eventually redeems himself through service, transcending into Buddhahood. He’s the personification of the idea of having your cake and eating it too.



With that in mind, China’s continued fascination with Sun Wukong makes a lot of sense, as does his popularity in Western media, although the latter seems more inclined towards borrowing the concept of the Monkey King, as opposed to lifting him wholesale from legend. Namco Bandai’s action-adventure game Enslaved is the first example to leap to mind. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, it reimagines the monk Xuanzang as a woman named Trip (short for Tripitaka), and Sun Wukong as a man named Monkey, who ends up conscripted into Trip’s service.

Enslaved deviates heavily from Journey to the West in that it is only concerned with the journey, as opposed to matters of enlightenment and the retrieval of sacred scriptures. But it maintains the symbiosis between the monk and the Monkey King along with the general narrative structure. The '70s television series Monkey Magic (also known as simply Monkey) might be more familiar to those in the UK, a cult favourite that featured a strangely beguiling triptych of Chinese fable, Japanese programming, and somewhat suspect dubbing. Regardless of its problems, the show was a hit, introducing young British children to kung-fu and the nature of Chinese mythology, where gods and demons are fallible entities as opposed to amorphous manifestations of good and evil.

References to Journey to the West can be found virtually everywhere. There's Monkey: Journey to the West, a stage adaptation helmed by Chinese opera director Chen Shi-Zeng, British artist Jamie Hewlett, and Blur's Damon Albarn. Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, a graphic novel, draws parallels between the Monkey King’s journey and diaspora. Dragonball Z is also a nod to the novel, though it diverged quite quickly into its own thing. Even AMC’s new series Into the Badlands has an ambiguous link to the centuries-old classic. Over and over, Journey to the West has been modified, retold, and reimagined, tethering the present to the distant past.



That said, China and Hong Kong remain at the forefront in this tireless fascination with the novel. The Monkey King 2 had the largest-ever opening-day gross for a local-language film in IMAX, and it looks like there won’t be any stopping the simian juggernaut. The next two years will see a succession of movies inspired by the Journey to the West, likely propelled by the success of The Monkey King 2 and Monkey King: Hero is Back, which was previously the highest-grossing Chinese animated film.

It’s worth noting that cultural sensitivity seems to be integral in determining how well a film performs in China. Tong Gang, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV, described Monkey King: Hero is Back, for example, as respectful of the original work. And if that is correct, perhaps that is also how Journey to the West has stayed so cohesive across the centuries, with the love of a people enforcing the need to maintain the story as it is. As actor Zhang Jinlai, who might have played the most popular depiction of Sun Wukong ever, said: “If you understand the Monkey King, you understand China.”

Or maybe, people just love a rascal.

I think we've discussed all the films/books/shows mentioned above here.

[GeneChing]

I love White Rabbit candy.

Former White Rabbit candy chairman slain by rock kicked by monkey



In a strange and tragic accident that once again shows that, much like humans, monkeys are total *******s, the former chairman of one's China's most beloved candy brands was murdered by a rock-kicking monkey.
Weng Mao, the former head of Guan Sheng Yuan Co. Ltd., manufacturer of the iconic White Rabbit milk sweets -- known as Da Baitu (大白兔) -- that have been the favorite treats of generations of Chinese kids, was visiting Henan's scenic Yuntai Mountain last week when he was tragically killed.
According to a brief statement released by the park, Weng had been "accidentally hit by a rock from above which was kicked down by a monkey." He was sent to a local hospital, where he later died.



Yuntai Mountain is famous for its wild monkeys, as well as a glass bridge that was opened late last year, and immediately cracked after just two weeks, freaking out tourists. Maybe just give it a miss next time you're in Henan.



Weng retired in 2010, a couple of years after the Shanghai-based candy company was hit with accusations of formaldehyde and melamine contamination in its sweets exported abroad to the Philippines and Singapore; and before its Year of the Rabbit comeback.
Some netizens couldn't help but add some sarcastic comments to Weng's eulogy:
"Big white rabbits had better not play with golden snub-nosed monkeys..." one netizen wrote.
"Travel well, I hope that there are no monkeys in heaven," another commented.

By Alex Linder in News on Apr 25, 2016 5:30 PM

[GeneChing]

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[GeneChing]

What amazes me is that the monkey survived.

Kenyan power company says monkey caused nationwide blackout
New York Times Updated 1:21 pm, Wednesday, June 8, 2016


In an undated handout photo, a monkey that climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru Power Station in Kenya and fell or jumped onto a transformer. A nationwide blackout that knocked out lights, severed internet service and paralyzed countless businesses for more than three hours Tuesday was caused by the monkey, KenGen said. The monkey survived and was given to Kenya�s wildlife services. (KenGen via The New York Times) -KENGEN, NYT
BY JEFFREY GETTLEMAN FOR JUNE 9, 2016.


Photo: Ben Curtis, Associated Press
IMAGE 2 OF 3 In this photo taken Tuesday, April 10, 2012, a Vervet monkey prepares to leap from a branch in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Kenya's power generation company said Wednesday, June 8, 2016 that a nationwide blackout for a number of hours on Tuesday was caused by a monkey climbing onto the roof of a power station and falling onto a transformer. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)


Photo: Ben Curtis, Associated Press
IMAGE 3 OF 3 In this photo taken Tuesday, April 10, 2012, a Vervet monkey looks for fruit to eat in a tree in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Kenya's power generation company said Wednesday, June 8, 2016 that a nationwide blackout for a number of hours on Tuesday was caused by a monkey climbing onto the roof of a power station and falling onto a transformer. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan consumers have long suspected a little monkey business when it comes to their power bills, but the news making its way around the country on Wednesday was almost too much to believe.
A nationwide blackout that knocked out lights, severed Internet service and paralyzed countless businesses for more than three hours on Tuesday was caused by a monkey, the electricity company announced.
The monkey, which appeared to be of the vervet species, with a collar of white fur, climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru Power Station and fell or jumped onto a transformer. The transformer tripped, which in turn tripped other machines at the hydroelectric power station, setting off a nationwide blackout, the Kenya Electricity Generation Co., or KenGen, said.
“KenGen power installations are secured by electric fencing, which keeps away marauding wild animals,” the company said. “We regret this isolated incident and the company is looking at ways of further enhancing security at all our power plants.”
The monkey survived and was given to Kenya’s wildlife services, KenGen said. The company posted a photograph on Facebook showing the animal on the transformer, crouching shyly.
Vervet monkeys, which are usually about 2 feet long, not including the tail, can be pesky creatures. They can be seen everywhere in Kenya, and they often travel in packs, scampering along power lines, snacking on mangoes in backyards and even sneaking into kitchens through open windows to pinch a banana or two.
KenGen, which has been criticized over what some call Kenya’s high electricity costs, said late Tuesday that the failure had been fixed. Some homes in Nairobi were still without power on Wednesday.
In another development Wednesday, Kenya’s president said parliament will form a bipartisan committee to discuss the country’s election commission after opposition protests demanding its disbandment over alleged corruption and bias turned deadly.
The announcement follows almost weekly opposition protests and a police response that has included tear gas and live ammunition. Witnesses said at least five people have died and at least 30 have been wounded, many by bullets.
There are fears that next year’s election will see the kind of violence that plagued the 2007 election, in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 forced to flee their homes.
The government on Tuesday banned the weekly protests, but the opposition vowed to continue if there are no negotiations.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said he had met with religious leaders from all faiths and the speakers of the senate and parliament to decide on the way forward.
Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga called the president’s announcement “a welcome development.”

[GeneChing]

I confess that this has been my favorite zodiac thread to date.

Chinese village under siege by wild monkeys after tourism plans backfire


IMAGE: WEIBO

BY ALICIA TAN 6 HOURS AGO

A tourism plan involving monkeys that was drawn up more than a decade ago has turned into a living nightmare for the locals of Xianfeng village in Sichuan, China.

According to CCTV News, the villagers wanted to boost their local economy and therefore came up with the idea of using wild macaque monkeys to attract tourists. Apparently, they had been inspired by Emei Mountain, which is a famous tourist spot populated by wild macaques.

So in 2003, the villagers spent a total of 48 days transporting 73 apes from nearby mountains and setting up home for them in Xianfeng.

Initially, the plan took off and brought in a wave of visitors from around the country, who were eager to get up close and personal with the monkeys. Soon, investors also began to show interest and funded the park for the monkeys to reside in.


IMAGE: WEIBO

In 2014, Xianfeng village's fortunes took a turn for the worse when main investor Zhou Zhenggu passed away, and the park was forced to shut down due to poor management and lack of funding.

Today, Xianfeng is overrun with 600 monkeys who have been left to fend for themselves. Unlike Emei Mountain where the primates live in the wild and are independent, Xianfeng's monkeys had grown used to being bred in captivity.


IMAGE: WEIBO

The villagers are now being terrorised by the monkeys who have taken to destroying crops and homes, as well as starting fights among themselves.

So far, only half of the Xianfeng monkeys have been recaptured and sent back to live in the wild. Experts said the remaining half are determined to stay and the villagers will have to learn to co-exist with the apes, until they leave on their own accord.

Remember to get your Monkey shirts!

[GeneChing]

Stop the monkey from driving my taxi! Moment animal is thrown out of a cab after it snatched steering wheel

Images posted online today show the aftermath of the incident in Qingdao
The monkey climbed onto the steering wheel almost causing a crash
According to the animal's trainer, it is trained to ride a unicycle
The trainer says whenever it sees a wheel, it instantly has to jump on it

By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:29 EST, 19 September 2016 | UPDATED: 12:25 EST, 19 September 2016

A circus performer and his monkey were thrown out of a taxi in China by the driver after the monkey tried to seize the wheel.

The monkey almost caused the taxi to crash when it tried to get onto the steering wheel in Qingdao, eastern China's Shandong province, reports Huanqiu, an affiliation with the People's Daily Online.

According to the animal's trainer, the monkey is trained to ride a unicycle and so every time it sees a wheel, it jumps on it.


Rage! The driver of the taxi was unhappy when the monkey jumped on the steering wheel


According to the animal's keeper, every time the monkey sees a wheel it has to jump on it

The pictures were posted online today.

The trainer and the animal were taking a trip using a taxi when the monkey tried to grab hold of the steering wheel.

Concerned that the animal would try and do it again, the driver asked the monkey and its trainer to leave the vehicle.

Pictures show the tense situation after the taxi came to a standstill.

People have been discussing the story on Chinese social media site Weibo.

One user commented: 'Monkey King, you are so naughty.'

While another wrote: 'Maybe the monkey got car sick. It wants to take over to stop the car.'

And one user said: 'You will be detained if you drive without a licence.'


The driver says that the monkey almost caused him to crash his vehicle

This reminds me of this (tragedy narrowly averted ):

[GeneChing]

2016 Tiger Claw Elite Championships: Part 1 – A Barrel of Monkeys by Gene Ching

[GeneChing]

Revealed: Tourist spot known for its playful monkeys has staff equipped with SLINGSHOTS to scare away any 'misbehaving animals'

Playful monkeys at Mount Emei are famous for their boisterous behaviour
Staff with sling shots are introduced while China has its national holiday
Holiday this week will see tens of thousands of tourists visit the attraction

By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 12:01 EST, 3 October 2016 | UPDATED: 12:05 EST, 3 October 2016

A tourist spot in China has revealed its original way of keeping its playful monkeys in line.
Mount Emei, in southwest China's Sichuan province, has equipped its staff with slingshots to scare off any misbehaving animals, reports the People's Daily Online.
The system is said to be put in use during busy national holidays in the country, such as National Day this week.


Employment: Zhou Chuanbin has worked at the mountain for 12 years scaring away monkeys


Popular: Visitors pose for photos with a wild monkey at Mount Emei, one of the popular attractions at the tourist spot (file photo)
The monkeys at the popular tourist spot are famous for their boisterous behaviour and are often stealing food and other objects from visitors.
Occasionally, they have also attacked people.
Zhou Chuanbin has been working at Mount Emei for the past 12 years and has been using the slingshots each year.
According to reports, no animals have been harmed during the period as Zhou fires the slingshot close to the monkeys to scare them away from the area.
Eleven other members of staff working at the tourist spot are also equipped with the sling shots.


Holiday snaps: Tourists try and pet one of Mount Emei's wild monkeys (file photo)

Zhou says that taking care of the wild monkeys is also an important part of his role, including treating the animals when they are sick or injured.
Zhou along with 11 other keepers will be working during the peak season to prevent monkeys from grabbing their food or stealing items from them, reports CCTV News.
China is currently in the middle of a national holiday celebrating the country's National Day.
Mount Emei is one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism and is a popular tourist attraction in China's Sichuan province.

What a funny job - slingshot monkey frightener.