While the Hong Kong Government is encouraging people to BYOB (bring your own bag), the Shanghai Government is busy working against PDOP.

With just 300 days to go to the Shanghai 2010 Expo, the neighbourhood committee in the city’s north-east is making public announcements in local communities to discourage residents’ longstanding habit of public displays of pyjamas (PDOP), an effort before the Expo to make Shanghai look more civilized.

The reason of their daytime love with the nightwear can date back to the China’s economic reforms over the past 30 years. It is an understatement of prosperity and economic status, which means you are rich enough to buy clothes for sleeping, but not just wearing some shabby old clothes to bed.

So despite how much you spend for your lovely sleepwear at Agent Provocateur or La Perla, it seems that the trends are “PDOPs should be out”, at least for 2010. (Although I don’t think your neighbour would mind much if it is something as nice as this from La Perla…)

The Guangdong Government has just announced a China version of “The Best Job in the World” – a recruitment of two ambassadors to safeguard the lavender fields at Panglongxia in Guangdong Province.

It is easy to pocket this job of a weekly wage of 20,000 yuan, as long as you are a female of age 18-25, with height of 163cm or above, sporty and love the environment. You will also have to be capable to stop unruly tourists from trampling on the field of purple.  There were as much as 20,000 daily visits during last Labour Day holiday.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has launched a similar program, targeting 50 yo or above, yet with no paycheck.

These 30 “Hong Kong Pals” will have to offer services at HKTB Visitor Centres located at the Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry Concourse and The Peak for a year starting this October. You will also have to be passionate about Hong Kong, speak fluent Cantonese, English and Mandarin. On top of that, you must also either be a living Michelin Guide or know much about Cantonese Opera, Hong Kong history or other tourism-related topics.

I immediately see a big contrast in the brand positioning of tourism in Guangdong and Hong Kong. One is Angelababy, while the other is Chung King Fai…

Just started on Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, the latest book from Harvard Law School professor and founder of Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig, urging re-thinking of copyright issue in the digital age.

See also this humorous interview by Stephen Colbert.

Sometimes we have to get lost to find ourselves. Sometimes we have to push away life’s daily routine, trivial and non-sense in order to truly savor life in all its forms and all its beauty.  To distinguish between wants and needs. To rediscover your priorities in life. To understand life is not only about work.

These are the absolutely beautiful messages within the US$26 million international advertising campaign by Tourism Australia. The commercial, directed by Baz Luhrmann, also pays a subtle tribute to his own award-winning movie Australia, starred by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The commercial encourages the tourists to refresh themselves by getting away from their daily hustle and bustle, while in the movie Jackman tries to persuade Kidman to go to Australia with him to discover a new life.

To me, this is one of my recent favourite advertising. The scenery is stunning. The message is beautiful.  Not only does it make you think of exploring Australia, it also reminds you of something important in your life. Yet reading from the comments on YouTube, the reaction is rather mixed and seems it is only appealing to foreign tourists like me, well, you can never get the best of both worlds, can’t you?

Don’t kiss the pig, baby! Despite its name, a deadly strain of Swine Flu is spreading quickly between humans, not pigs. So far, it has claimed 81 lives in Mexico and is spreading to UK.

You may think, it’s just similar to the avian flu that threatens us every summer, yet to a lot of virologists, the news of a human pandemic strain is an alarm of a step nearer to a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

I am not an expert in this area, but I have learnt something from my days working with doctors and pathologists – pigs have cells in their trachea that allow for both avian and human flu infections.

So imagine the pig as a mixer (I suddenly think of the Spider Pig in Simpsons Movie, well…), they can get three kinds of flu: swine, bird (avian) and human.  (No wonder sometimes they look so miserable…) And inside the pig host reassortment can happen to blend out a new set of viral genes.

The blended virus may not be able to infect humans, but if it can, it would carry new virulence thanks to the non-human genes. Also the new strain may infect other parts of the body apart from the respiratory tract, and it was what happened during the 1918 epidemic.

So now you may be looking at your delicious pork steak and hesitate: Should I? No worries, pork is safe, there is no concern of catching influenza from the pork. It is an air-borne virus, so you can continue your big feast, for now…

Have you ever sent a too-honest email just like what this Cisco guy did with his tweet? This kind of “Oops” incident is too common to you and me.

Google Labs has invented this Google Mail Goggles to save you from sending embarrassing email that you may regret later. It works like this:

By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as you most likely to send messages you wish you hadn’t. Gmail will ask you to solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind. Wrong answer? Don’t send the message! (Hopefully it is because you are drunk and not because you don’t know the answer…)

Photo from Agence France Presse

It has been quite some time after the Obama’s victory that you see the same phenomenon again – all televisions and newspapers are reporting about the same thing. A lost 10-meter humpback whale.

While the poor adult whale is struggling its way out of the muddy waters to rejoin its friends, a number of curious people were falling head over heels going to the sea for a closer look at the creature. It’s like what you experience in the Lunar New Year flower market – while you are trying to dash out, people keep flooding in and block your way.

It reminds me that earlier this month, 194 pilot whales and seven dolphins became stranded on a sandbar in Tasmania and only 54 whales and five dolphins were able to be saved. Today more than 80 long-finned pilot whales became stranded in Hamelin Bay, 300 kilometres south of Perth. Is it just a coincidence? Or a warning of our deteriorating natural environment?

In old times, the Romans reasoned that the whales had some-how offended Neptune and the mass stranding was his punishment. Although the phenomenon and the causes will remain the subject of scientific debate, at least it reminds us to care about the mother nature and the environment.

If you do care about the wandering whale, put down the telescope and start reducing your carbon footprints now.

Nothing is happier than going to movie with best friends, especially if it is “Confessions of a Shopaholic” on the screen.

OK, I admit. It’s a chick-flick. The film is trivial. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its moments, especially when the bad news keep coming in, and when you read that your once-most-treasured HSBC slumped to its 23-year low. Why not enjoy some amusing movie-going, popcorn moments? With a bonus too – a new song by Macy Gray!

As Rebecca says in the movie, there is a difference between cost and value. While someone is willing to pay a “Fou” drums which was used in Beijing Olympics opening for 50,000 yuan, other may prefer to use the same amount for a Hermes Kelly Bag. Both are totally fine, as long as you are not spending money that you truly do not and never will have.

Always distinguish between want and need, cost and value. Find something that worth investing in. Friends, relationships of trust and love, at last you will find value and happiness that comes with no price tag at all, but the greatest value any of us will ever find.

That’s the line of my mother whenever I come home with another shopping bag…

Fourteen years after her death, Eileen Chang is more current than ever. Thanks to Ronald Soong, her unreleased autobiographical novel, Xiao Tuan Yuan (Small Family Reunion) will finally appear on bookstore shelves this month, despite numerous holdback in publication in the past few decades.

As Chang put it, this novel is:

這是一個熱情故事，我想表達出愛情的萬轉千迴，完全幻滅了之後也還有點什麼東西在。

(A rough translation: This is a story of passion. I would like to reveal the highs and lows in love – something is left over even after the sparkle subsides.)

The appearance of this unpublished material will let us once again indulge in the world of Eileen Chang, and I am one of the fans anxiously awaiting the new work by one of the best writers of the 20th century.

This year is full of historic dates for China, just a quick look and you will be amazed:

• January – 30^th anniversary of the start of economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping and 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the United States.
• February – 20^th anniversary since the demise of the late Panchen Lama
• March – 50^th anniversary of the Tibet uprising that led to the exile of Dalai Lama ever since
• April – 20^th anniversary of the death of Party Secretary Hu Yaobang
• May – 90^th anniversary of May 4^th movement
• June – 20^th anniversary of the suppression of the student demonstration in Tiananmen Square
• October – 60^th anniversary of foundation of the People’s Republic of China

What do all these anniversaries translate to? Frosted with the current threat of slowing economic growth, factory closures and the rising unemployment rate, it would definitely mean an unusually testing year to the Government to maintain social order.

The Government will tend to be more cautious with an increase in internal military operations, an increase in overall security concerns, and a continuation of the current difficulties for foreigners in obtaining visas. Expect more complaints by journalists and netizens on the Giant Fire Wall (Feel blessed if you can still read this post now!) and difficulties to find information they need while the Government has to keep a lid of potentially explosive events with these anniversaries.