Came across these cool infographic cultural comparisons from Chinese-born German designer Yang Liu. Depicted are some typical East versus West cultural differences, some possibly a little stereotypical, but nevertheless very true!
Here’s a small selection (pictures from the actual exhibition here):
Weekend Street Scene
Shower Time
Queuing
In many ways German and Chinese culture are about as far apart as you could probably get and for me that’s a large part of the attraction of Asia from a Western perspective. It’s about as close as you can get to visiting an alien planet but sad to say that these differences are diminishing by the day. Pseudo-American culture is engulfing all corners of the globe via the upwardly mobile youth - ask any young person in Asia what their favourite TV show is and a large proportion will probably reply with an American drama or sitcom.
Funnily enough the respective governments have noticed this phenomenon and in some countries have gone out of their way to cleanse the TV networks of American exports but this has done little to diminish peoples appetites who have simply gone elsewhere to consume - via the internet and pirate DVD’s.
The homogenisation of the world through globalisation seems to be somewhat inevitable but I can’t help but wondering that when we look back in 50 years time at the desertified wastelands of the 21st century we’ll be known as both environmental and cultural vandals by our children…
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Last week saw a terror alert in central London sparked by a pot of burning chillies in a Thai restaurant which some people confused for a chemical attack. Funnily the chef didn’t even realise as he was used to the smell!
Not far away some equally fiery chillies were about ready for the picking at my very own chili plantation! You may remember back in May I planted 7 “Demon Red” chili plants - unfortunately growing conditions this summer have been pretty poor with the strange weather we’ve had in the UK. Given this the speed of growth and yield have been below expectations but there were still reasonable results and the above are the first harvest!
I cooked some last night in a pasta sauce and can confirm that they indeed live up to their name 
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I had a pretty busy, but very enjoyable, weekend spent mostly in the leafy suburbs on Surrey (just outside London). On Saturday afternoon I visited Richmond Park, the largest of the Royal Parks in London (2500 acres), which is home to over 650 free roaming red deer. My uncle had brought with us his Nikon D200 and 300mm lens so it was the perfect opportunity for a bit of wildlife photography Ray Mears style!
As they were in the middle of rutting season the male stags were in fighting mood so we made sure to keep down wind and a safe distance! Every so often when a stag strayed onto another’s territory they would bellow at each other but unfortunately we didn’t witness any antler clashing action! The 300mm was great for getting some nice close-ups but you certainly need a tripod to get a steady shot at that distance.
Unsurprisingly the female hinds seemed pretty oblivious to all this and were just wandering around having a nice time. More photos here.
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September was all about Korea so it’s about time to get back to the basics and a little more random! The past few weeks have been predictably busy at work. I’ve been busy designing a web service API (Application Program Interface) for a major organisation which basically allows it to syndicate it’s content and data to others for various purposes. It’s been an interesting challenge with many different aspects to it, not just technical, but that’s about all I can say here!
iPhone UK Launch
We’ve been waiting so long for this magical piece of technology to hit British shores that you would imagine the hype would have died down by now but since getting my hands on an iPod Touch for a few minutes I for one am still very excited! Yes, it’s not cheap, not 3G yet, and Apple haven’t exactly warmed to the 3rd party apps/hacks but it still marks a landmark device which fuses a host of technologies in revolutionary ways to create something pretty unique. The iPhone is just the first step in changing the way we interact with technology, the internet, and ultimately each other. I’ll certainly be lining up on Nov 9 to get my hands on it!
Harry Potter - WARNING: *POTENTIAL SPOILERS*
During my long flights to and from Korea I read the final Harry Potter instalment. To be honest I was a little disappointed. Two-thirds of the book are spent with the characters in a tent arguing with each other and the rest watching countless other characters getting killed in rather predictable ways. After all that Rowling could have at least killed Harry off properly without all this resurrection nonsense and then a sappy flash-forwards to their future lives. I guess there’s no satisfying everyone and it’s somewhat sad to see the end of the series.
China Is Getting Ready
“In the name of ensuring stability and harmony in the country during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese Government continues to detain and harass political activists, journalists, lawyers and human rights workers. Get involved: www.amnesty.sk” [via]
I know Amnesty is somewhat controversial but I still wholeheartedly believe that China are continuing to sweep human rights under the proverbial carpet. It’s such a shame because the Olympics were the perfect opportunity for China to clean up it’s act. As I once heard someone say, China likes to seem democratic on the outside but on the inside it’s as despotic as it ever was. The sad thing is that many of the Chinese I’ve spoken to don’t really care as long as they have a satisfactory quality of life.
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