Asia`s Growing Taste For Wine

CHANGING ASIA:
POPDOM:
Caught in
the Web
Celebrities who
tweet
TRAVEL BITES:
Watching the
‘beautiful game’
J ULY 2 - 15, 2010
Asia’s Growing
Taste For Wine
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Cheers For
Asian Wine
A
sia is not the first
continent that comes to
mind when it comes to
wine, but as the demand
in the region grows, so
does local production.
Wine-growing has specific requirements. Countries that are located 13
degrees north or south of the equator
are deemed not suitable since they
only get a maximum of 12 hours of
light a day while vines need from 13
to 15 hours daily.
This has not stopped countries like
Thailand to develop its own vineyards. The country has six main
wineries that also welcome tourists.
This model is catching up in the rest
of the region, like Cambodia.
But it is China that is growing fast,
not only as a consumer but as a
producer. It ranks 10th worldwide in
wine production, boasting 600
wineries last year. Even French
wineries are looking for joint venture
partners in the mainland so it could
get a share of the domestic market.
Even Burma has its own domestic
wine brand and reportedly produces up to 100,000 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc. Experts say the military-ruled country has the right
climate and moderate monsoon
rains to grow grapes.
Japan, of course, is quite ahead
in terms of quality with its products winning awards in the international stage. This could be
because Japan has been making
wine after World War II.
So the next time you think of wine,
don’t look any further. Try the Asian
wines that are winning local palates
and international critics alike.
Photo By A FP
Asia News Network
asianewsnet@gmail.com
JULY 2-1 5, 2010 • Vol 5 No 1 3
COVER STORY
Growing Taste For Wine P8
Late
bloomer
Asia is
changing
its palate
SPECIAL REPORT P16
The ‘Peterporn’ Saga
Indonesia’s latest sex
scandal peeps into
celebrities’ lives
and the real world look the
same
F E AT U R E S
Legacy
Former Philippine president
Arroyo has left behind
glaring atrocities
BUSINESS P20
From Copycats To Topdogs
China’s tech copycats take
on the world
CHANGING ASIA P 24
Caught In The Web
For many youths, the virtual
SPORTS P48
Celebritweet
Stars who tweet
Two Koreas’ Tale
By making it to the World
Cup, North and South
Korea have proven
something
PEOPLE P40
All Dressed Up Again
Fashion-conscious Bangkok
recovers
Little Men
For two Asian child stars,
the entertainment world is
their playground
FOOD P30
TRAVEL BITES P42
Tasting Taiwan
The island’s cuisine goes
beyond translation
The Beautiful Game
Bars and restaurants in Asia
where you can watch the
World Cup
LIFESTYLE P28
THE VIEW P7
POPDOM P38
ENTERTAINMENT P36
Bollywood Dreams
Mumbai is the ultimate
destination for wannabe
stars
EXPLORE P44
High Art For The Holy
Tibet’s spiritual and artistic
wealth
COVE R IM AG E | M I K E C L A R K E/ wwafp photo
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The View
By The Yomiuri Shimbun
Declining Influence?
Japan must halt decline of diplomatic clout
v Tokyo
PHOTO BY K az uhiro NO GI /AF P
T
he summit meetings of
the Group of Eight major
powers and the Group of
20 major industrialised
and emerging countries
just took place in Canada.
While it is noted that Japan’s
clout in the international community has been on the decline for
several years, Prime Minister
Naoto Kan’s diplomatic competence has been put to the test in his
first trip abroad as prime minister.
Addressing the global economy,
which is being rocked by Greece’s
debt crisis, leaders of the G-8
m a j o r p o w e r s a ffi r m e d d u r i n g
their meeting the importance of
t a c k l i n g fi s c a l r e c o n s t r u c t i o n
while securing growth.
Kan explained and sought understanding for Japan’s policy of increasing expenditures in the nursing and
medical fields while pursuing economic growth and fiscal soundness.
Upon returning to Japan, Kan
certainly will be pressed to give
concrete form to measures, including the consumption tax rate hike,
to reconstruct the country’s economy and state finances.
The G-8 leaders also agreed to
pledge US$5 billion over the next five
years to aid maternal and child health
care in developing countries. Kan announced Japan would offer $500
million in this sector.
Japan possesses various types of
know-how in providing medical assistance. The government should
conduct finely tuned strategic aid diplomacy.
In the political arena, the March
sinking of a South Korean naval patrol ship was another focus of attention at the G-8.
Maintaining peace and stability in
areas surrounding Japan is directly
linked to its national interests. To secure its say at the G-8 summit meet6•
FRIENDLY HANDSHAKE: Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (L) talks to US President
Barack Obama at a hotel in Toronto, Canada as part of the recent G20 summit.
ings and shepherd its assertions to
reality, it is indispensable that Japan
fulfill its role as a major power in the
political and economic arenas.
However, Japan’s position in G-8
diplomacy has been extremely tenuous in recent years. Different prime
ministers attended past G-8 summit
meetings, with Shinzo Abe participating in 2007, Yasuo Fukuda in
2008 and Taro Aso last year.
Every time the prime minister
changes, the new premier has to rebuild relationships from scratch with
his counterparts from each country.
While summit diplomacy is becoming increasingly important, there is
no way we can expect, under such circumstances, the prime minister to
exercise leadership in diplomatic negotiations, such as with Russia over
the northern territories dispute.
Kan’s diplomatic competence is
u n k n o w n , a l t h o u g h a s fi n a n c e
minister, he attended the meeting
of finance ministers and central
bank governors from the Group of
Seven major industrialized nations in February.
Former prime minister Yukio
Hatoyama drove Japan-US relations
astray with his go-it-alone judgment
and immature approach.
Kan said he would try to promote
diplomacy based on pragmatism, but
he needs to humbly give ear to the advice of his specialists to avoid following the same rut as his predecessor.
A problem besetting Japan’s diplomacy is its declining budget for official development assistance, which
has been an important card for years.
The ODA this fiscal year dropped
to nearly half the level of its peak in
fiscal 1997. From its position at the
top of world rankings for total assistance in 2000, Japan has remained
in fifth place since 2007. Japan must
stop its position from declining by
boosting the assistance.
July 2-15, 2010
By Philippine Daily Inquirer
Arroyo’s True Legacy
The ex-Philippine president made some exemplary decisions but
her administration will be remembered as the most politicised
v Manila
F
July 2-15, 2010
ed (according to the
evidence itself) by another appointee, election commissioner
Virgilio Garcillano.
Gutierrez created a
new category, the
perfect crime, after
failing to hold anyone
to account for the
Mega-Pacific contract that both the
Supreme Court and
the Senate had found
anomalous; and has
since continued to take her sweet time
investigating allegations of corruption
levelled against the Arroyo administration. (The latest case in point:
What, precisely, has Gutierrez done
after Secretary Annabelle Abaya’s explosive disclosure of pervasive corruption in the office of the presidential
adviser for the peace process?)
For these two appointments, as
well as the similarly crucial designations of Garcillano at the Comelec
and Jocelyn Bolante at the department of agriculture, the public consensus of the last few years is that
Arroyo had named them to protect
and promote her self-interest.
Other appointments may not have
been as brazenly single-minded, but in
the end the performance of the appointees could only be described as both
compromised and compromising.
The cantankerous Iloilo politician
Raul Gonzalez politicised the administration of justice; the perpetually scheming Norberto Gonzales turned the office
of the national security adviser and later
the department of national defence into
a launchpad of conspiracies; the brutally frank Jovito Palparan, once the President’s favourite general, turned the
countryside into killing fields; the
spineless new Supreme Court justices
served as co-dependents of an Executive addicted to slighting the Constitu-
tion. The list goes on
and on.
Even the cooperation of men and
women with independent reputations,
such as Ignacio Bunye and the late
Cerge Remonde,
ended up diminishing them, because
they were perceived
as offending both
truth and the national interest.
But beyond personal reputation, the
true cost of the legacy of the Arroyo
administration must be counted in
terms of the increased weakness of our
political institutions. In Philippine
history, the House of Representatives
was always an adjunct of Malacañang
(presidential palace), but under Arroyo, its subservience reached new
lows; the Supreme Court in the last
year or so was all but coopted; and
even the Senate, that last bastion of
political independence, has been undermined. The budget process, which
controls trillions of pesos, was bastardised. The pork barrel (congressional budget) system, already unfair
to begin with, was reshaped to favour
only those loyal to the president, and
parts of it institutionalised outside the
legislative system. The practice of
naming temporary appointees was
abused, the tradition of executive privilege manipulated, the principle of civilian supremacy over the military repeatedly violated.
In sum, the entire system has been
“Macapagalised”.
(On June 30, Benigno ‘Noynoy’
Aquino III was inaugurated as the
15th President of the Republic of the
Philippines, succeeding Arroyo. Aquino has vowed to go after the corrupt
but it was not clear if he will go after
his predecessor.)
•7
Ph oto by Rico B o rja /O PS/ HO
ormer Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, it
must be admitted, made
some exemplary appointments. Among those we
can include in this list are her first
two appointees as chief justice of the
Supreme Court, Artemio Panganiban
and Reynato Puno; her first appointee as chairperson of the civil service
commission, Karina David, and her
last appointee as chairperson of the
commission on human rights, Leila
de Lima; and two election commissioners who helped oversee the 2010
vote, chairperson Jose Melo and
commissioner Rene Sarmiento.
Some may also include her rapidly
reassembled team of credible economic managers, led by Margarito
Teves as finance secretary, immediately after the Hyatt 10 (eight Cabinet
members and two bureau heads who
resigned after Arroyo was imbroiled in
an election cheating controversy) resignations in 2005; while the resignations were made, rightly, for political
reasons, the fate of the economy
should not have been held hostage to
the political crisis, and her swift action
made sure of that.
But despite these and similar highquality appointments (Raul Roco to
education, Esperanza Cabral to health,
Narciso Abaya as armed forces chief of
staff, and so on), in the end President
Arroyo’s record will be defined by her
catastrophic choices, including her
second appointee as commission on
elections chairperson, Benjamin Abalos, and her second appointee as Ombudsman, Merceditas Gutierrez.
Abalos’ controversial tenure at the
Comelec was rocked by some of the
biggest corruption scandals of recent
history—the anomalous Mega-Pacific
contract and the non-election-related
NBN-ZTE deal—as well as solid evidence of massive election fraud in the
2004 polls, an operation mastermind-
COVER STORY ASIAN WINES
dpa
W
Asia’s
Growing
Taste For
Wine
Ph oto by M IKE C LAR KE /A FP
❖ Bangkok
EXPANDING MARKET:
Chinese wines are displayed
at the VINEXPO Asia-Pacific
in Hong Kong in May 2010.
8•
ine has been a late
bloomer in Asia,
lagging behind
more affordable
means of imbibing
such as beer and spirits, but with economic booms, rising prosperity and
changing lifestyles, Asian wines are
beginning to make a splash.
Japan’s winemakers have been at it
longer than most. The first winemakers
were sent to study viticulture in France
shortly after the 1868 Meiji Restoration,
but vineyards only took root there after
World War II.
Using their own Koshu variety grapes,
Japanese wines have been winning international awards and good reviews
from critics of late.
“Overall, Japanese wines are the most
consistent across the board, red and
white, partly because they have been
making serious quality wines for several
decades, much longer than China and
other Asian countries,” said Jeannie Cho
Lee, author of Asian Palate: Savoury
Asian Cuisine and Wines and creator of
the asianpalate.com website.
One drawback for Japanese wines is
their expense, which means that while
they might impress a few connoisseurs,
especially Japanese, they will not make
a real ripple on the world market for
affordable plonk.
To compete with the world’s major wine
exporters such as Australia, Chile, France
and South Africa, one needs mass production and a reasonable price tag.
While no Asian country has reached
that stage yet, one shouldn’t write off the
continent just yet.
“China is really the country to look
out for; in 10 years time, it’s going to
be amazing to see,” Hong Kong-based
Lee said. “It is definitely going to happen, but the first waves of exports are
not going to be very high end.”
China, per usual, has its sheer size going for it.
China is the world’s number eight
wine consumer with sales expected to
reach 1.1 billion bottles next year.
(With a population of 1.3 billion, that’s
still less than a bottle per person.)
In terms of production with 600
wineries in 2009, China ranks 10th
worldwide. Three state-run giants—
Great Wall, Dynasty and Changyu—
dominate about 80 per cent of the
local market. Dynasty recently carried
out an initial public offering in Hong
Kong, hoping to raise funds to finance
its move into exports.
Meanwhile, several famed French
wineries are looking for joint venture par tners in China to tap the
domestic market.
India, another huge market, has further to go. The government’s recent efforts to promote local wineries—there
are about 55—has led to a glut of poor
quality vintages on the local market that
have left the industry with a hangover it
July 2-15, 2010
July 2-15, 2010
CHANGING PALATES: Local
Chinese check out wines in Beijing.
CHI N A
Booming Business
By Bill Smith
dpa
❖ Beijing
“M
y wine’s not the same as
theirs,” Liu Wenzhong
said as he poured a
tumbler of cloudy red wine at his home
in Cizhong village in south-western
China’s Yunnan province.
Liu, 74, has been making wine a
little longer than some of his neighbours and the scores of large companies that have jumped into viticulture in China over the last 30 years.
Perched above the upper reaches
of the Mekong, dozens of rows of
grapevines fan out around Cizhong’s
100-year-old Catholic church, a
giveaway clue that European missionaries made the first wine here.
Vineyards and churches across
China became cornfields and barns
during the early decades of the People’s Republic of China, but both
have made a comeback.
Yunnan, one of China’s poorest
provinces, is one of the major recent
growth areas for wine production.
Liu said the government in
Cizhong began the revival of grapegrowing in 2004, much later than
many other areas.
Old-growth vines from Cizhong
have been used to produce hybrid
grapes for the Yunnan Red Win-
ery, which is best known for its
Shangri-la-brand wines named
after the Tibetan-style tourist
town of Zhongdian, now officially
named Shangri-la.
In 2007, Yunnan Red attracted a
US$14-million investment from the US
private equity firm Texas Pacific Group.
Dozens of other private investors,
foreign wine producers and multinational drinks firms have already made
similar commitments in China.
They are drawn by the rapid
growth of China’s urban middle
class, which has fuelled double-digit growth in wine sales. Wine bars
and exclusive clubs have sprouted
in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Yunnan Red was among more
than 400 mostly state-run wineries
set up by 1997, and that number had
increased to more than 600 last year,
according to government reports.
The overall market is still dominated by three state-run giants—
Great Wall, Dynasty and Changyu—
but many smaller firms are finding
niches in China for producing or
importing wine.
China is already the world’s numbereight wine consumer and ranks
10th in production, according to international exhibitors Vinexpo.
State media recently forecast total
revenue of some $13.7 billion this
year, up from $10.5 billion in 2007.
By volume, annual wine sales are
expected to hit around 1.1 billion
bottles, or 828 million litres, next
year, roughly double the 2007 to•9
Ph oto by P eter PA RK S/AF P
might take years to recover from.
Elsewhere in Asia, unsuitable
grape-growing conditions and high
taxes have put a crimp on domestic
vineyards and wineries.
Vineyard productivity depends
chiefly on sunlight, so countries 13
degrees north or south of the equator
are deemed unsuitable for grape
growing because they are limited to a
maximum of 12 hours of light.
Such a location hasn’t stopped
countries such as Thailand from producing some palatable wines that are
selling well domestically. Its six main
wineries are following a similar business model of turning their vineyards
into tourist attractions and banking
on on-site sales or local distribution
to hotels and restaurants.
The vineyard-tourist model has been
picked up elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
The 3-hectare vineyard of Cambodia’s Phnom Banan winery in Battambang province has given up on local
retail sales and is depending on a
steady stream of tourist dollars instead.
In Viet Nam, where the French colonialists tried and failed to kick off a
local wine industry in the 19th century, a French investor is giving it another go. Daniel Carsol’s family winery De La Cote SCEA in Valreas,
France, established a joint venture
with Dalat Beverage Co in 2006.
Their 16-hectare vineyard on Ta
Nung Mountain north of Dalat plans
to launch Viet Nam’s first ‘French’
wine in September.
Even military-ruled Burma boasts
a domestic wine brand. Aythaya
Vineyards, the brainchild of German
investor Bert Morsbach, was set up
10 years ago near Inle Lake. The
vineyard claims to produce about
100,000 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.
“If Myanmar (Burma) did not have
its problems and was not so isolated,
I would say it should become one of
the leading Asian countries in the
wine business because it has a good
climate to grow grapes in the north
and has only moderate monsoon
rains,” said Kathrin Puff, head winemaker at Thailand’s Siam Winery.
COVER STORY ASIAN WINES
PHOTOs BY E PA
SCENIC RIDE: An elephant
takes a tourist on a ride through
the Hua Hin Hills vineyard.
tal, according to a forecast by the
London-based International Wine
and Spirit Record.
Yet annual per-capita consumption
among China’s 1.3 billion people is
still only around 0.5 litres, meaning
there is no let-up in the 20-year quest
for pole position in the world’s fastest
growing major market for wine.
“The professionalisation of the wine
sector, with a public eager for more
and more information, not to mention
the existence of over 300 million wine
drinkers to win over, heralds a bright
future,” said the French Castel group,
which imported 13 million bottles of
French wine last year. It is also cooperating in local production with
Changyu, which claims some 30 per
cent of the Chinese market.
High local taxes, reduction of import tariffs under World Trade Organisation rules, and rapidly rising
consumption have all helped to bring
down the price of imported wines.
China appears undaunted by the imports. Like those in Cizhong and other
areas of Yunnan, many local governments are supporting new, large-scale
growing and production programmes,
particularly in poorer areas with cheap
labour and more land.
Bayan Nur city in the northern region of Inner Mongolia announced
plans in May to develop 27,000 hectares of vines in an arid zone.
Similar projects are under development in other areas including the
neighbouring arid region of Ningxia,
the far western region of Xinjiang,
the northern province of Hebei and
the eastern province of Shandong.
The rapid growth of local wines,
which still account for nearly 90 per
cent of sales volume, has meant a continuing focus on quantity rather than
quality for most Chinese producers,
forcing down prices.
Commercial dry red wines from Great
Wall, for example, sell for as little as 20
yuan ($3) a bottle in supermarkets.
Although some connoisseurs rate a
few Chinese premium wines, those are
often overpriced compared with similar
imports.
10 •
T HAI LAN D
Extreme Winemakers
By Peter Janssen
dpa
❖ Hua Hin
T
hailand, situated 7-20 degrees north of the equator,
shouldn’t be a wine-making
country, according to viticulture
textbooks.
With only 12 hours of sunshine
and a hot climate, Thai vineyards
will never produce the quantities of
grapes their counterparts do in
Australia, France and Italy. But this
has not stopped a handful of entrepreneurs from trying, and their efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
In recent years, Thai wines—especially whites—have been racking up
accolades at wine fests such as London’s International Wine & Spirits
Competition and Australia’s International Wine Challenge, suggesting
that they are doing something right.
Whether these wines offer something unique taste-wise to the expanding world of viticulture, remains debatable.
“All we know is that our brands are
winning a lot of international awards,
so it tastes like wine,” said Kathrin
Puff, German viticulturist and head
winemaker at Siam Winery, producer of the Monsoon Valley brand.
Monsoon Valley’s Colombard vintage 2009 won a trophy at Hong
Kong’s International Wine & Spirits
Competition, using grapes grown on
its 240-hectare vineyard near Hua
Hin, 130km south-west of Bangkok.
Situated just 40km outside Hua
Hin beach resort, the vineyard has
become a popular tourist attraction
over the past two years, offering elephant rides through the grapes, a
wine-tasting bar and a restaurant.
With 56,000 Thai and foreign
visitors in 2009, and 60,000 expected this year, the vineyard’s wine
sales have doubled.
Previously, Siam Winery concentrated on exports, primarily to cities
with plenty of Thai restaurants such
as London, New York and Tokyo.
With the growing popularity of
Hua Hin Valley as a tourist attraction, the winery is now more optimistic about the domestic market,
despite Thailand’s high excise taxes
on local wines which make them as
expensive as imported products
The business model that works
best in Thailand, is to turn your vineyard and winery into a tourist attraction and live off the on-site sales.
This is how PB Valley, GranMonte Estate and Chateau des Brumes,
three of Thailand’s established wineries, have survived. All three are
based in the elevated Khao Yai National Park in the northeast.
With its cooler climate and loamy
soil, Khao Yai (Big Mountain) has
proven suitable for growing Shiraz
and Chenin Blanc grapes, the two
most popular varieties in Thailand,
usually grown from vines imported
from Australia or France.
GranMonte, with its 16-hectare
vineyard and a $1.25-million winery installed last year, is making
wines from Shiraz, Syrah, Chenin
Blanc, Verdelo, Viognier grapes and
this year is to offer its first batches
July 2-15, 2010
of Cabernet Sauvignon.
“In Thailand it’s very difficult to get
a good yield from Cabernet Sauvignon, but we succeeded because my
daughter studied how to treat vines,”
said Visooth Lohitnavy, managing
director of GranMonte Company.
Visooth’s daughter Nikki studied
viticulture at Australia’s Waite University, making her one of Thailand’s
first local wine-making experts.
GranMonte sells about 60,000
bottles a year, mainly at its vineyard which also boasts a French
restaurant and a seven-room
guesthouse for those who don’t
want to drink and drive.
Visooth, who is also president of
the Thai Wine Association, acknowledges that low grape yields and high
government taxes mean Thai wines
THAI WINE: German viticulturist and head winemaker at Siam Winery Kathrin Puff offers a sample
of her Monsoon Valley red from oak barrels at Siam
Winery in Samuth Sakhorn near Bangkok.
are limited to a niche market.
“I don’t think we can be a major
force in the world wine industry.”
Thailand’s largest wine producer,
Siam Winery, produces about
250,000 bottles a year.
“It’s still peanuts,” Siam Winery
factory manager Songkiat
Audsabumrungrat said. “Even for
our five-year plan I don’t think we
will be able to produce half a million
bottles of Thai wine.”
That said, the tropical wineries
could well prove pioneers in preserving the ancient art of viticulture on a
warming planet.
July 2-15, 2010
Japan
Aiming For The World
By Takehiko Kambayashi
dpa
J
❖ Tokyo
apanese wine enhanced its
global presence when the country’s winemakers won six silver
and 25 bronze medals at the International Wine & Spirit Competition
(IWSC) in Britain in mid-May.
Japan may be well known for its
sake rice wine and fine food, but the
Asian island nation is not the first
country that comes to mind when
thinking of wine.
However, Japanese winemakers,
trying to catch up with the nation’s
other proud products,
have started putting more
effort into exports.
Japanese winemakers
still have to deal with
different settings such
as higher humidity,
more rain and less sunshine compared with
their European counterparts. Also local farmers, most of whom farm
small plots, opt to grow
produce that can fetch a
higher price than grapes for
wine, such as peaches.
Moreover, there used to be no
government body with the authority to examine whether wines meet
the quality requirements stipulated
by European markets, said Mari Inose, a spokeswoman for the Japan
Wine Project (JWP), which works
to sell Japanese wines abroad.
Cost is among the biggest problems facing those producing wines
for export.
“It is very costly for small-scale
wineries to produce wines for export by themselves, so we need an
organisation like ours,” said Chikao
Okubo of Koshu of Japan (KOJ), an
organisation of 15 wineries and
business groups in Yamanashi, a
major viticulture region in Japan.
Many of the award-winning
wines at the 2010 IWSC are produced from the Koshu grape in
Yamanashi.
The grape was regarded a delicacy by the ruling class during the
Edo period (1603-1868) as Yamanashi is just 100km west of Edo, today’s Tokyo. Soon after the 1868
Meiji Restoration, which opened up
Japan to the West, the idea of winemaking began to gain a foothold in
the country and some Japanese
were sent to France to study.
Wine production expanded rapidly especially after the end of
World War II. The region today is
dotted with 80 wineries and most
wines are sold domestically.
In December 2007, JWP’s Koshu
wine, derived only from native Japanese grapes, received the government’s export approval and the winemakers in January 2008 shipped a
first batch of 480 bottles to Britain
and later another 5,800 to France.
The JWP grows the Koshu grapes
in Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka, central Japan. In 2009 they bottled 1,000 bottles of its VSP Cuvee
Denis Dubourdieu 2009 for export
and hope to sell it at 5,000 yen
($55) per bottle in Europe.
Meanwhile, major Japanese winemakers like Mercian Corp show little
interest in exporting their products.
Mercian sells about 1,900 wine,
champagne and sparkling wine
products, including imports from
more than a dozen countries. The
company’s Chateau Mercian
Niitsuru Chardonnay 2008 and
Chateau Mercian Kikyogahara
Merlot 2004 won silver awards
at the 2010 IWSC.
Mercian is taking advantage of
the prestige to attract more Japanese consumers.
“Our focus is to expand our customer base in Japan,” Etsuko Minami, a spokeswoman for Mercian,
said. “The average Japanese person
consumes only about three bottles
of wine (or about 2.25 litres) a year.”
• 11
COVER STORY ASIAN WINES
I ND I A
Growing Pains
By Siddhartha Kumar
dpa
❖ New Delhi
F ILE PHOTO BY A FP
W
ith its fast-growing economy and expanding middle-class, India is a new
market for both wine consumption
and production, but the local industry is still taking baby steps.
India is a country where abstinence
from alcohol is rooted in religion and
politics. The constitution even endorses principles of prohibition espoused by
Mahatma Gandhi.
But sociocultural
changes brought on with
the opening of the economy have seen some segments of this essentially
conservative society shed
their prejudices against
alcohol consumption.
Sales of whiskey and
beer have shot up in recent years, and now urbanised Indians are
showing marked preference for wine.
“The drinking culture
is changing. Wine is now regarded a
status drink, the younger lot, particularly women find it fashionable to
drink wine,” said Delhi-based business executive Vishal Rastogi.
“Many health-conscious people
like me have switched from hard liquor to wine,” said Rastogi, 35.
Wine clubs are opening in cities such as Delhi, Hyderabad and
Bangalore.
From a non-existent market over a
decade ago, wine production and consumption is growing 25 per cent annually and expected to maintain that
momentum for the next five years.
The wine industry is relatively
small but holds enormous potential
given the low per-capita consumption, high growth in disposable in12 •
comes and urbanisation.
Every year 1.6 million cases are
sold, of which some 20 per cent are
imported, mainly from Europe.
Over 50 local wineries have been
set up in recent years, most in and
around Nashik in western state of
Maharashtra, the principal wine district. Other vineyards are located in
Bangalore and the highland state of
Himachal Pradesh.
Realising that support is crucial for
the nascent industry, the government
is providing financial concessions
and facilities such as wine parks to
give a boost to the sector.
Maharashtra is waving excise taxes
for vintners and offering subsidies for
grape farmers.
Local wineries benefit from import duties on foreign wine of up
to 160 per cent, prompting protes ts from the EU agains t dis criminatory taxation.
Another key government initiative
is the establishment of the Indian
Grape Processing Board, tasked with
setting quality standards, preparing a
national strategic plan for the industry and promoting it internationally.
Although local winemakers justify
protectionism in the context of highly
subsidised European wines, they complain of varying excise fees across states
and complex licensing processes.
“The government is helping sustain
the growth momentum. We are fo-
cusing on quality and are working to
resolve problems faced by producers,” board vice chairman K
Rajeswara Rao said.
“What is needed are policies that
generate more competition, lowering
the cost of market entry in every state
and applying the minimum possible
taxes on wines,” industry expert Alok
Chandra wrote recently, citing the
success in Maharashtra.
Currently, the industry is in a rough
patch owing to global recession, a
drop in tourist traffic following the
Mumbai attacks and tax issues. A
global glut of wine and domestic
overproduction by grape farmers led
to unsold stocks.
One of the country’s
largest wineries, Chateau
Indage, has been in dire
financial straits, mainly
due to its acquisitions of
wineries in Australia and
South Africa.
A court recently gave
the company a temporary
reprieve from liquidation, allowing it some
time to sort out debt of
about US$100 million.
In a first-ever foray
overseas, eight Indian
companies exhibited
their wines at the London International Wine Fair last
month. India is also slated to become the first Asian country to join
the elite Paris-based Organisation
of Vine and Wine.
United Breweries conglomerate
recently announced plans to export
wine to Britain, and Italian winemakers have signed a joint venture
with a local company.
“India’s wine market is not mature
yet but the industry is on an aggressive growth path, as most of the winemakers are relatively young,” Ankush Mittal, an entrepreneur in his
early 20s, who plans to launch a wine
brand soon.
“There are serious players now, so
one can expect genuine quality wine
from India.”
July 2-15, 2010
Quirky
Five wives live
harmoniously
G EO RGE TOWN The five wives of a Malaysian
laundry business owner M. Muniandy, who was killed
when a car rammed into his motorcycle, will honour
his wish for them to live together harmoniously.
He left behind four
Malaysian wives while
his first, S. Meenachi,
56, is an Indian national
staying in Paramakudi,
Tamil Nadu.
And he had wanted
the five wives, 17
children and 12
grandchildren to live under the same roof even
after his death.
The four mothers staying in a house in York Close
here are M. Jayamani, 62; N. Suppamal, 57; M.
Marimuthu, 54, and N. Santha Thevi, aged 53.
Jayamani and Marimuthu are a pair of sisters; as
are Suppamal and Santha Thevi. Muniandy was
returning home after picking up his clients’ laundry
when a car crashed into his motorcycle at a roadblock at Jalan Mesjid Negri last week.
— Kasturi Dewi/The Star
A granny’s romance
—Tay Tian Yan/Translated by Dominic Loh/Sin Chew Daily
14 •
Making over a president
M AN I L A Does Philippine President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III need a makeover?
The only son of Filipino
icons has been the subject of
ridicule because of his poor
posture and fashion that some
deem not “presidentiable”
enough. But there are also
those who admire him for his
simplicity.
Philippine Daily Inquirer did
a survey and many agreed
that the President needs a
better image.
But VJ KC
Montero a rg ued
that Aquino was
not elected for his
l o o k s . “ He wa s
elected because the
majorit y of the
people believe he
can run our countr y the best. If
looks were important, half of the
presidents around
the world would
be in trouble.”
Stylist Ram De
vera, however, said
“image is ever ything and credibility follows” especially since Aquino
will be representing the country.
“Looking good would be
a great addition to the package and it would enhance
his appeal,” said marketing
officer Anna Go.
Musician Jugs Jugueta said
Aquino doesn’t just need to be
a good president but he has to
look the part. “He represents
every Filipino worldwide. I
want my president to look like
a president.”
There are those who said he
needs more hair and one even
suggested that he goes bald.
Still, there are some of those
who argue that it’s the least of
anyone’s problems and that the
Philippine economy is the one
that badly needs a makeover.
“I think this country has bigger issues than Noynoy’s look.
If giving him a makeover can
serve our country better, then
fine; otherwise, it’s the Philippines and not Noynoy that
needs a makeover,” said makeup artist/actor Ricci Chan.
Adve r t i s i ng c o py w r i t e r
Maui Reyes-Drilon, on the
other hand, admires Aquino’s
down-to-earth style because it
makes him approachable. “I
don’t think we’ve had a president like that for the longest
time.”
Aquino is known for his signature spectacles and during
the campaign, wore mostly
yellow or black shirts with the
emblem of the Philippine map.
His youngest sister, Kris Aquino—a famous TV host and actress—is helping him with his
clothes and look.
Another actor, John Lapus
said: “It’s the government that
badly needs a makeover and
I’m sure P-Noy (short for President Noynoy) is the perfect
man for the job!”
— PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
July 2-15, 2010
PHOTO by A FP
KUA L A LUM PUR A 73-year-old granny came to
know through the Internet someone who
claimed to be a ‘super handsome young man’
from Britain. He was looking for a life partner
online, while she was looking for a companion.
After the Briton came to know the
granny, he went all out to court her. Even
at this age, the granny remained emotionally excitable and easily fell into the love
trap set up by her ‘Prince Charming’.
What came next is no more a novel plot.
The handsome man said he had bought some
expensive gifts for the granny as a pledge of his
love, but unfortunately it was held up at customs
and needed some money to get it out.
Lost in love, the granny took out 150,000
ringgit (US$46,274) to retrieve the gifts but in
reality, there wasn’t any gift, nor a handsome
man... only a setup by some Nigerian conmen.
The granny was just one of the syndicate’s
many victims. Among others, a teacher and a
lawyer have also fallen prey to the love trap of
the ‘handsome man’.
AS I A
“Helping to solve people’s problems – that’s simply
part of why I am an architect.”
Silvia Soonets, Architect, Caracas, Venezuela: Winner of the Global
Holcim Awards Gold 2006.
Develop new perspectives for our
future: 3 rd International Holcim
Awards competition for projects
in sustainable construction. Prize
money totals USD 2 million.
www.holcimawards.org
In partnership with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH Zurich), Switzerland; the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, USA; Tongji University, Shanghai, China;
Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City; and the Ecole Supérieure
d’Architecture de Casablanca, Morocco. The universities lead the
independent juries in five regions of the world. Entries at
www.holcimawards.org close March 23, 2011.
The Holcim Awards competition is an initiative of the Holcim
Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Based in Switzerland,
the foundation is supported by Holcim Ltd and its Group companies
and affiliates in more than 70 countries. Holcim is one of the
world’s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates as well
as further activities such as ready-mix concrete and asphalt
including services.
SPECIAL REPORT
Asia News Network
The ‘Peterporn’
Saga
Indonesia’s latest sex
scandal has thrown a
spotlight on the lives
of celebrities
H
Ph oto by A FP
❖ Bangkok
ousewife Patty Syamsuddin avidly follows Indonesian soap operas—
known here as sinetrons
—as well as gossip shows
on television, but frowns on celebrity
lifestyles and the way the media sensationalises them.
“Since the start of the sinetron
boom over a decade ago, many have
risen to fame too quickly and lost
touch with reality, choosing a life of
drugs, for example,” she said.
Syamsuddin, 42, is a mother of
four girls and worries about these
celebrities’ effect on them. But she
16 •
said: “What’s worse is that the
media overexposes their lives and
portrays this false image of them as
people who are immoral. That’s just
to boost their viewer ratings. But I
am sure there are a number who
lead good and normal lives.”
In June, two explicit clips were
widely circulated online, which appeared to show popular Indonesian
singer Nazril ‘Ariel’ Ilham having sex
with television presenter Luna Maya,
his current girlfriend, and model Cut
Tari, his former girlfriend.
The six-minute and two-minute
clips were posted on the Internet on
June 4, apparently showing the front-
THE STARS: This
photograph taken on
June 8 shows a giant
advertising billboard in
Jakarta displaying
Indonesian model Luna
Maya (R) and singer
Nazril Ariel (L).
July 2-15, 2010
man of the band Peterpan—who has
now been christened ‘Peterporn’—in
bed with Luna in a hotel. Another
clip hit the Internet on June 8 allegedly showing Ariel having sex with
Cut, who is married.
Although the three celebrities immediately claimed they were framed
upon release of the videos, many
didn’t believe them. Within hours,
Internet cafés reported a surge in
customers as young people rushed to
log on to watch the clips.
Those with iPhones and Blackberries spread the video on Facebook
and Twitter. Television stations aired
blurred-out portions of the clips
July 2-15, 2010
when discussing the issue—until the
Indonesian Broadcasting Commission told them to stop.
The videotapes even reached outside the country.
US porn star Vicky Vette was so impressed by the hot scenes she asked
Vivid Interactive, the corporation
dealing with adult movies in US, to
help distribute the movies, which have
shocked the mainly Muslim nation.
She also expressed interest to join
Ariel on a porn movie. “I just want to
say that I’d like to get involved in the
next ‘Ariel’ movie,” Vicky said.
In 2008, private pictures of various
actresses taken by Hong Kong actor
Edison Chen were stolen and distributed on the Internet without his consent, after the star sent his computer
for repair.
The photos showing Chen having
sex with at least six popular actresses,
singers and models were released and
made headlines all over Asia.
A computer technician was convicted and sentenced to jail for
obtaining access to a computer
with dishones t intent in Hong
Kong. Ten people were arrested in
connection with the distribution
of the photographs.
In the latest Indonesian sex scandal, police have also nabbed two
suspects for uploading sex tapes.
But after the Indonesian police
said the detectives have collected
enough evidence to charge Ariel
for pornography offences, it is
suspected he may be behind the
distribution of the tapes.
Police have also said they are
charging him for violating another controversial law on electronic information and transaction,
which punishes those who spread
indecent images, and for violating
the Criminal Code.
The country’s tough Pornography
Law stipulates anyone who produces, makes, copies, circulates, broadcasts, offers, trades, loans or provides porn content can face up to 12
years in prison.
Article 43 of the same law also
rules that anybody who stores porn
content in any form should destroy
it or hand it over to police within 30
days after the law was endorsed.
These incidents have encouraged
the conservative groups of the
country to press for stricter regulation of the Internet. Religious
conservatives—known as morality
policy— have already highlighted
the case as an example of rising
immorality in the country and students have burnt images of the
celebrities demanding they be
publicly caned and stoned to death.
Bandung deputy mayor Ayi Vivananda has called on his fellow Mus• 17
SPECIAL REPORT
Ph oto by A FP
MORALITY POLICE: Hundreds of Indonesian Islamists, some carrying banners saying “Stop free sex”, rally in central Jakarta on June 22
to demand the stoning to death and public caning of celebrities who allegedly appeared in homemade sex videos circulating online.
lims to “stop admiring” celebrities.
Referring to Ariel, he said: “He is an
icon for the youth. What he does
makes a big impact on the lifestyle of
our younger generation. It’s destroying their morality.”
Like what Ayi said, the lifestyle of
celebrities does have a impact on ordinary citizens as gossip shows and websites track their every move, reporting
their affairs, divorces, flirtations and
showing them in revealing photos, as
well as smoking and drinking.
Even the mainstream newspapers
have gotten in on the act.
Some days ago, Indonesia’s leading
newspaper’s health section featured
dangdut singer Dewi Persik and actress Julia Perez saying they were
open to undergoing vaginoplasty—an
operation to reconstruct the vagina.
Dewi, who has been divorced twice,
said she wanted to be a born-again virgin to please her third husband.
Last year, when the breakdown of
18 •
the 13-year marriage between a power
couple—pop diva Krisdayanti and
musician Anang Hermansyah—became public, gossip mills went into
overdrive to report that Krisdayanti
had two-timed her husband with a
married East Timor businessman.
The businessman’s wife was then
quoted as saying earlier this year she
knew there was something going on
between the two, even though both
denied the affair. Krisdayanti has refused to comment.
In some instances, the behaviour of
celebrities has caused problems for
those linked to them. In 2006, a mobile clip of dangdut singer Maria Eva
cavorting naked in a hotel room with
senior legislator Yahya Zaini ended up
on the Internet.
Yahya was forced to resign from
Parliament some months later.
From time to time, the authorities
have clamped down on scandalous celebrities—by banning music videos
from national television, for instance.
Last week, Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters he had banned a singer who
dressed “improperly” from performing
at the presidential palace. He did not
name her, but she is widely thought to
be pop star Mulan Jameela, who often
dons skimpy costumes.
Some celebrities have acknowledged that their activities, such as
smoking, can have an impact on the
young. But others like Perez, who is
running for a seat as deputy district
head in Pacitan, East Java, believe
they should not be singled out for promoting bad behaviour.
“Indonesian celebrities are not as
bad as those in the West,” she told
The Straits Times. “It’s just that
here, anything involving a celebrity
could get exaggerated easily and
become a big issue. Everyone
should mind their own business.
That’s better.”
July 2-15, 2010
The Jakarta Post
A Society Of Hypocrites
S
❖ Jakarta
July 2-15, 2010
• 19
Photo by A FP
for instance, issued a statement terials that are freely sold in the
ex is still deemed ta- recently, saying the alleged ac- streets across the city?” she said.
b o o , a t o p i c t h a t tors involved in the video were
Ayu Utami, a renowned fiction
mo s t In d o n esia n s, free-sex devotees, undeserved writer whose works touch on culand even most Jakar- to be worshiped as idols, if tural and feminist issues, contans, are still uncom- proven guilty.
curred, saying sex through the
fortable with.
The videos also provoked the lens of Indonesian society was
But Google Trends, an applica- communications and informa- still confined within the concept
tion that provides insights into tion technology minister Tifatul of copulation, which they deemed
Internet search patterns, tells a Sembiring, who unexpectedly still exclusive only to a husbanddifferent ‘sex story’ about Jakar- raised a rhetorical question: and-wife relationship.
ta, the capital of a country where “Why would anyone tape such a
“Sex is far more complex than
moral conservatism is
gaining ground.
In 2009, it ranked Jakarta as the second largest metropolis to google
the word ‘sex’.
Amid the blizzard
coverage of the recent
s e x v i d e o sca n d a ls,
which purportedly involve high-profile Indonesian celebrities Nazriel ‘Ariel’ Ilham, Luna
Maya and Cut Tari, sexual double standards
seem to be alive and well
in Jakarta.
Erlyna Folie, 30, an
urban socialite, said
the more people repressed the issue of sex,
sweeping it under the STEAMY: This picture taken on June 9 shows a computer screen showing a still of a grainy
carpet, the more likely sex video on the internet allegedly featuring Indonesian celebrity Luna Maya with popular
singer Nazril Ariel.
they would become
hypocrites.
Folie said the sex videos were private thing?”
such a concept; it is a cultural
just the tip of the iceberg as all
Tifatul also said anyone who and social reality,” she said.
fell under the great scheme of produced sex videos, even for
Pinckey Triputra, a media exsexual adventures for urbanites, p r i v a t e p u r p o s e s , c o u l d b e pert from the University of Indobe they married or single.
guilty of violating Indonesia’s nesia, explained that the media
The sex videos have indeed pornography law.
also played crucial roles in cetested urban conservative
But Julia Sondakh, 27, an menting the double standards.
ground, which is dominated by entrepreneur, said the authori“Media outlets should take up
some vigilante-style groups that ties had squeezed more mileage the gauntlet for a good cause by
politically carry religious sym- from the scandals.
providing inferences for comprebols to justify their status as mor“The authorities have double hensive public interests, not just
al guardians.
standards. What about porn for the sake of entertainment
The Islamic Defenders Front, DVDs or other pornographic ma- purposes only,” he said.
BUSINESS
Ph oto by AFP
By Peh Shing Huei
The Straits Times
Jack Ma, chief executive of
alibaba.com, speaks at a
press conference in Beijing.
China’s Tech
Copycats Take
On The World
These companies are clear winners in the
China market, with near monopolies.
They now have the strength to go out
20 •
July 2-15, 2010
N
❖ Beijing
o longer content to be top dogs at home,
China’s mega IT copycats are taking the
cyber battle overseas.
After having copied and slayed global
giants Google, eBay and ICQ respectively in China, Baidu, Taobao and QQ have signed
deals in Japan, Russia, India and the United States
in recent months.
The latest foreign venture started a fortnight ago,
when Chinese online shopping site Taobao, which
has effectively annihilated eBay in China, launched
a Japanese site.
“These companies are clear winners in the China
market, with near monopolies. They now have the
strength to go out,” said Fang Xingdong, CEO of
Chinese tech portal Chinalabs.com.
Tencent Holdings, which owns instant messaging
platform QQ, is among the most ambitious.
It has earmarked US$1 billion to take its signature
chubby penguin logo overseas, targeting the other
three Bric nations—Brazil, Russia and India—as well
as Southeast Asia.
The Hong Kong-listed company, with a market
July 2-15, 2010
value of about $36 billion, showed its intent by putting
down $300 million in April for 10 per cent of Digital
Sky Technologies, operator of Russia’s most popular
social networking site and an investor in Facebook.
The Russian company also owns ICQ, which it
bought from American giant AOL. This means
that Tencent now has a stake in the product which
it has named QQ after. The original name of QQ
was OICQ or OpenICQ.
To extend its international reach, Tencent has
even signed up football superstars Kaka and
Lionel Messi as spokespersons.
Chinese viewers of the World Cup can catch
Messi, an Argentinian, saying ni hao (hello in
Mandarin) in commercials.
Joining Tencent overseas is Baidu, which copied
Google’s clean-screen look and is the No. 1 search
engine in China.
After celebrating its 10th anniversary last December,
Baidu, which has a Japanese search engine, said it
would gun for markets abroad in the next decade.
Taobao’s parent company, Alibaba, announced in
April that it would sink 5 billion yuan ($735.8 million)
into its Alipay to ensure that the Chinese version of
PayPal is ready for use around the world.
Online gaming giant Shanda also bought American
gaming firm Mochi Media in January for US$80
million to advance its global ambition.
A key factor for the Chinese charge has to do
with the firms’ deep pockets. Baidu, for example,
saw its Nasdaq shares jump by more than 80 per
cent since Google first announced its withdrawal
from China in January.
Its market value is now $25 billion, which already
exceeds Yahoo’s $21 billion even though it is still far
short of Google’s $155 billion.
This has given analysts here confidence that these
firms can succeed in its foreign ventures, going one up
on other Chinese brands such as Lenovo, Haier and
Geely, which have largely failed to replicate theirs
domestic successes abroad.
Also, unlike the other industries, the gap between
Chinese online companies and the rest of the world is
smaller, observed Cao Junbo, chief analyst with online
media consultancy firm iResearch.
Added Fang: “Look at Baidu, for example. Its
technology and market value are comparable to those of
any big American online companies.”
The Chinese firms are bullish. Baidu founder Robin
Li Yanhong said of its “stepping out” strategy recently:
“The curtains have just been drawn. There will be
good shows one after another.”
• 21
TECHNOLOGY
By Ignatius Low
The Straits Times
THE TRENDSETTER:
Apple chief executive
Steve Jobs introduces the
iPhone 4 during the
keynote address at the
Apple Worldwide
Developers Conference in
San Francisco on June 7.
Apple
Of My
Eye
As Apple picks up more and more customers,
opinion becomes more polarised and the
disdain louder and louder
A
❖ Singapore
Ph oto by A FP
couple of weeks ago, right around
the time that Apple overtook Microsoft to be the world’s most
valuable technology company, I was
observing a similar sort of changing
of the guard in Singapore.
I was instant-messaging a young colleague
and friend and, at some point, our conversation
eventually turned, predictably as it does in
Singapore, to mobile phones.
I was asking her why on earth she was still
using a BlackBerry when she could switch to
an Apple iPhone.
You see, people in our company who had an
iPhone used to still have to carry a BlackBerry if they wanted access to their office email accounts on the go.
But about two months ago, IBM finally released
a new application for the iPhone that allows messages on Lotus Notes e-mail systems to be funnelled to the handheld device.
Indeed, many of my colleagues (and bosses)
were already starting to ditch their BlackBerries.
But many others—including the one I was
chatting with—had also missed the announcement of the change from the IT department (who
reads those messages anyway?), so I thought I
was being helpful.
“But I don’t want to switch to the iPhone,”
22 •
came my colleague’s reply.
Why, I asked, feeling the outrage rise in me.
The BlackBerry is hopeless for surfing the Internet, I hotly pointed out. I know because I had
one. You move the cursor from one block of text
to another, harking back to the days before the
point-and-click mouse was invented.
BlackBerry users also liked a chat function
that allowed them to message each other free
on data networks, without sending costly
SMSes. But that has now also been available
on the iPhone for some time, with applications
such as Ping and WhatsApp.
“So the iPhone can now do whatever the BlackBerry can, but the BlackBerry can’t do half the
things an iPhone can,” I typed furiously in conclusion. “What reason can there possibly be for
you to still want to carry a BlackBerry?”
There was a pause, and then her reply came.
“Because BlackBerries are for serious people.”
Oh, I replied sarcastically, how interesting the
way things change.
The iPhone used to be carried by image-conscious poseurs and the BlackBerry by people who
actually wanted their mobile phones to work.
Now it’s the other way round.
The next day, I wanted to tell her I regretted
that nasty remark.
That no, she was not one of those (yes) “gullible dummies” that would knowingly carry a
July 2-15, 2010
technologically inferior product
purely for its brand.
I blame it on the fact that it is Apple season again, the couple of
weeks every year when the company releases a new product and everyone who either loves or hates
them gets their claws out.
This year, Apple season is doubly
long, because the company has released the iPad and the iPhone 4 in
succession.
As the Californian juggernaut
rolls on, picking up more and more
customers, opinion becomes more
polarised and the disdain louder
and louder.
I know someone on
Facebook who makes
it a point to share any
piece of negative news
about Apple, however
small, all year round.
The weblinks he
shares are useful
enough, such as the
latest one warning
that the new iPhone
4’s “engineered” glass
screens shatter more
easily than advertised,
but they are invariably
accompanied by colourful expletives.
Others—such as a
video showing several blowtorches
melting an iPad—are just pornography for him.
Apple users are equally defensive,
and those in Singapore recently
flamed top civil servant Philip Yeo
on the Internet for his recent take
on why he thinks Apple products
have mass appeal.
In fact, people get so worked up
over this that they sometimes remind me of the way debates on religion or morality are played out online and in real life.
Why all this needless angst over a
stupid mobile phone or computer?
For the answer to that, I guess you
need to go back in history.
Apple users have, for a long time,
been a persecuted minority.
After the glory days of the Apple
July 2-15, 2010
IIe which saw wide appeal, the company went through a rough patch
when it refused to programme its
machines to run the ubiquitious
Windows operating system.
Instead, it focused on selling
overpriced machines with dropdead beautiful aesthetics to design
professionals and a niche group of
home users who had to jump
through all sorts of hoops to get the
outside world to be able to read
their documents and files.
Plagued by inconveniences and
ridiculed for years, the loyalty of
this group of users transcends mun-
dane details such as cost or technical specs such as processor power.
The fact that Apple is finally taking over the tech world is the sort of
sweet revenge they have waited for
all these years. The underdog they
backed so faithfully all this time is
finally winning.
Then there is the fact that the design and ease-of-use of products
such as the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes
and the Appstore has genuinely
changed people’s lives.
But much like converting to a religion, it is one of those transformations that you have to actually experience first-hand to understand.
If you’re outside of the circle, you
can’t really understand what the
hype is all about. You certainly
won’t take a believer’s word for it,
and the fervour that you see scares
you somewhat.
On this other side of the fence,
sceptics are also thinking that the
Apple phenomenon confirms their
worst fears about humankind.
It tells you that people will
worship at the feet of smoothtalking preacher-men with black
turtlenecks and killer Powerpoint presentations.
That people are shallow and
will fall for glitzy marketing, the
superficiality of colour and design, or the immediacy of playing
catchy music in
packed auditoriums.
That some sort of
silly herd instinct is
allowing a fringe
group that really has
no reason to be powerful or influential to
gradually win over
the world.
I say live and let
live. Whether it is
choosing a cellphone,
ideology, religion or
creed, it is the diversity of choices—and
the possibility of finding personal happiness in one of them—
t h a t i s m a n k i n d ’s
strength.
I switched over to Apple years
ago and have been a fan ever since. I
wear its colours and defend the
brand robustly enough, but I will
also admit to its many failings (why
does Apple seem to have this annoying aversion to Flash, USB ports
and file managers?).
Having gotten used to the Apple
operating system, I find other devices frustrating and unresponsive,
but we should respect that there are
plenty of other ways to programme
something or plug it in.
In the last 10 years, technology
has done wonders in bringing people together and allowing them to
share their knowledge and opinions
with one another.
Let’s not spoil that just yet.
• 23
CHANGING ASIA
By Rupak D Sharma
Asia News Network
Caught In
The Web
The line between the
virtual and real world
is getting blurred for
many youths
H
Ph oto s by C hina Daily
v Bangkok
e was 27 and single then,
yet was not desperate to
get into a relationship.
Even so, he stumbled
upon a girl and fell in
love with her at first sight.
After he started dating the
‘doe-eyed beauty’, he grew even more
fond of her as she talked to him
whenever he wanted and went out
with him to places as far as Guam
without complaining. Finally, in
November last year, the two decided
to get hitched.
But after the wedding ceremony—
which was aired live by a video-sharing website—people started
calling him an obsessive nerd, for
his doe-eyed super sexy was a
character in the Nintendo DS
videogame called ‘Love Plus’.
Yes, this guy from Japan—who
only wanted to be known as ‘Sal
9000’—had actually married a video
game character called ‘Nene Anegasaki’ in front of a real audience and a
priest in Tokyo.
By now you may have also started
assuming him to be insane, but for
Sal it was a feat.
“I feel like I’ve been able to achieve
a major milestone in my life,” he
wrote in a letter to boingboing.net
after the wedding, trying to explain
tying the knot was the only way to
show his deep love and affection for
24 •
his “dream girl”.
He also sounded sure that any
“misgivings” about the couple
would be resolved “as long as the
two of us can go on to create a
happy household”.
People like Sal represent today’s
Web-savvy youngsters who are more
accustomed to avatars than human
beings made of flesh and blood. This
group of people fancy customising
video game appearances from
superhumans to nasty villains or
even animals, and love slaying
demons and wandering around
mystical lands of the fantasy world.
Because of the fun and thrill associated with the games, many even
don’t hesitate to say the virtual world
is in fact their real world.
This kind of obsession to the
fantasy world is turning many into
video game addicts like 41-year-old
Kim Jae-beom and his 25-year-old
wife Kim Yun-jeong.
The South Korean duo was so
immersed in online role-playing
games, they’d leave home in the
evening for the Internet café and
return only in the morning. In the
online world, they’d tread the
unknown paths each holding the
hand of their own virtual daughter.
But in the real world their real
daughter was suffering from malnutrition as they had very little time to
feed her properly. The three-monthold girl—who had virtually turned
into a skeleton—died on September
24 last year. They came to know
about it upon returning home from
their regular gaming session early in
the morning.
On May 28 this year, the husband
was sentenced to two years in prison,
while the wife was handed a twoyear suspended jail sentence because
of her pregnancy.
You can call it ‘technology curse’ as
people like Jae-beom and Yun-jeong
probably wouldn’t have turned into
compulsive video game players had
South Korea’s broadband penetration rate remained low.
Almost 90 per cent of the homes
in the world’s most technologically
wired nation are connected to
high-speed communication network.
In other words, almost every
household with school-going
July 2-15, 2010
games. And in Viet
Nam, 16-year-old
Phan Quoc Thai,
stabbed his grandfather to death on April
20 after the 64-yearold man refused to
give him money to
play online games.
Surveys have
shown that almost
two-thirds of young
Internet addicts are
hooked to massive
multiplayer online
role-playing games.
In these games,
players create their
own avatars and form
groups to battle with
each other. These
fights can go on for
days and some
China’s netizens at an Internet café in Beijing.
players even sit in
front of the computer
children has a computer. So children round the clock—in many cases
get acquainted with Internet and
skipping meals—to win the game or
Internet games from the time they
get an edge over the opponent.
start attending primary school. And
To control the menace, many
as they grow up, the Internet and the governments have even opened
games they play on it become
rehabilitation centres for Internet
integral parts of their lives. No
addicts. South Korea took the lead in
wonder almost 2 million people out
this endeavour in Asia. China has
of the nation’s population of 49
also established several of these
million and 12.8 per cent of teenagdetox centres for Internet addicts.
ers are addicted to
games.
This ‘technology
curse’ is infecting other
Asian countries as well,
as rising incomes are
spurring growth in the
IT sector. In China, at
least 33 million
Internet users are
classified as addicted
and 50 per cent of
youngsters who log into
the Internet play
games. In Japan, there
are reports about
people quitting their
jobs and peeing into
A worker at 315ts.net in Beijing, China, reviews
plastic bottles just to
posts on the consumer rights protection website.
concentrate on their
July 2-15, 2010
But after a Net-addicted teenager
was allegedly beaten to death by
counsellors at an illegal rehabilitation centre in Guangxi Zhuang
autonomous region last year,
questions are being raised on the
measures these centres are taking to
treat people.
To tighten the bolt, the Chinese
government is now introducing a
new regulation. Under this law, all
Web users, beginning August 1, will
have to register their names before
playing games online. Viet Nam is
also mulling over introducing a
similar regulation, under which
online game players will not only
have to register each time they sit
down to play the games but will be
prohibited from playing for more
than three hours per session.
But many players in both China
and Viet Nam already said the new
regulation would not affect them,
and others, in a survey conducted
earlier, warned to turn to smoking,
drinking or even consuming drugs if
their right to play video games is
snatched away.
Kourosh Dini, writes in his book
Video Game Play and Addiction: A
Guide for Parents: “When beginning
to address (video game) addiction,
we need to focus on what is gained
and then find ways to provide these
gains elsewhere, if
such a change is
deemed necessary.
Growth of sorts does
occur within video
games through the
strong learning
mechanism of play.
The types of growth
require exploration,
as they are neither
all good nor all bad.
“However, which
games are good for
you or your child is
an individual matter
just as the choice of
a book or movie is a
matter of personal
taste.”
• 25
LIFESTYLE
CHINA
By Gan Tian
China Daily
Zhao at a drag
show in a pub
in Kunming,
Yunnan
province.
Sex Appeal
Though the cross-dressing
population in China is small,
they are struggling to live
their own lifestyle
W
❖ Beijing
PHOTO PROVI DE D BY C HINA DA ILY
henever he goes travelling in
China, he has trouble
checking into a hotel.
T he receptionists w il l
always question him for
a long time and then check w ith the
manager if it is OK for him to stay
in the hotel.
The problem? His identity card shows he’s
male, but he dresses like a woman.
A 26-year-old teacher at a Beijing-based
high school, who wished to remain anonymous, wears shirts and trousers at work, but
26 •
when he goes travelling on his own, or with
friends, he wears skirts, leggings and
high-heeled shoes.
He developed an interest in cross-dressing
when he was very young. He used to
secretly try on his sister’s skirts, but it was
not until he went to college that he started
buying women’s clothes.
“I knew my parents would consider it
abnormal. I could only do it after going to
college when they couldn’t watch me that
closely,” he says.
“I still can’t wear women’s clothes in
my daily life, as it is still not the
July 2-15, 2010
mainstream culture, and is not
easily accepted by other people.”
During his four years in
college, he rented a small apartment near the campus to store
the dresses he bought.
One of the biggest problems he
finds when he’s dressed like a woman
is using the washroom. He wore a
skirt to a friend’s party at a KTV, but
when he tried to use the men’s
washroom, a cleaner stopped him.
“He told me to use the women’s
washroom, and at that time, it was
really embarrassing,” he says.
He says it is hard to find other
cross-dressers and while he believes
that society does not accept crossdressers easily, he admits his friends,
mostly gay and female friends, are
kind to him.
“When I graduated in 2007, a very
good female friend said to me, ‘I
know what kind of person you are,
just be careful, especially as you are
about to become a teacher. I’m
always your best friend’. I just
couldn’t help it, I started crying.”
Zhao Gang, head of Trans China,
says it is difficult to give a specific
number of transgender people as it is
a group easily ignored by society.
Based in Kunming, Yunnan
province, Trans China is a non-government organisation set up after the
first Transgender Sex Workers Health
and Human Rights Workshop held
by Asia-Pacific Network of Sex
Workers in Thailand in 2006. Two
years later, it was officially registered
under the International Gay and
Lesbian Association.
Zhao, a cross-dresser himself,
says the organisation aims on
empowering transgender communities in China and educating the
public, winning their understanding on transgender issues.
Though he admits, “Society is
more tolerant towards us now.”
Recalling one of his own early
experiences, he says that in 2002, he
wore a dress and heavy cosmetics to
celebrate his birthday with some
cross-dresser friends in a pub at
night. But the guards refused to let
July 2-15, 2010
CROSSING OVER:
Chinese society is becoming
more tolerant of transgenders, according to a rights
group.
them in, unless they took off their
dresses and cosmetics.
“I could understand why they did
this to us. At that time, other
customers would feel very strange if
we appeared there. But we still felt
very disappointed,” Zhao says,
adding that now that would probably not be the case.
The changing attitudes can be seen
in the reaction to cross-dresser Liu
Zhu, 19, from Sichuan province, who
was called ‘pseudo-girl’ by his fans
for his cross-dressing performance on
Hunan TV’s 2010 Happy Boys.
Liu brought the issue of crossdressing into the media spotlight.
“He won a lot of positive support,
which means society is beginning to
know what a cross-dresser is and is
ready to accept it exists,” Zhao says.
“Liu brought the transgender issue
to the surface. Though the population is small, they are struggling to
live their own lifestyle,” says Li
Yinhe, a sociologist and sexologist
with the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, who started looking into
the issue 10 years ago when local
police banned a drag-queen troupe
from northeast China from performing in Beijing.
She explains that transgender
describes people who have different
psychological genders from their
physical ones.
Li says their rights include refusing
to write down their gender when
filing their personal information and
using independent washrooms.
“It will take a long time for
society to fully accept the idea, but
the situation is getting better,
slowly,” she says.
Zhao says transgenders include
transsexuals, referring to those who
have sex reassignment surgery, or
have the intention of having it,
cross-dressers like himself—who dress
like the other gender—and drag
queens, male entertainers who
impersonate women.
“Our theory is everyone, and his
or her way of life, should be respected, as long as it brings no harm to
other people,” says Zhao.
• 27
THAILAND
By Kupluthai Pungkanon
The Nation (Thailand)
All Dressed
Up Again
S
❖ Bangkok
PHOTO S BY A nant Ch antarasu t/ THE NATIO N (THA ILA ND )
As Bangkok
recovers, it’s
people turn
to fashion
redux
28 •
iam Paragon and Siam
Centre boosted
Bangkok’s recovery
efforts two weekends
ago with Siam Fashion
United, a show of spring and
summer clothes and a fundraiser
for the Bangkok Metropolitan
Administration’s ‘Together We
Can’ campaign.
The ‘Siam smile’ was back as a
concept as 16 labels trotted out
new ideas, including those of the
celebrated New York-based
designer Koi Suwannagate.
Koi went for an elegant but
semi-casual look, as in a oneshoulder ivory top worn over
lotusprint trousers and a glamorous bright pink blouse with
handsewn lotus patches against
black slacks.
Tube Gallery’s Phisit Jongnarangsin and Saksit Pisalasupongs
explored ancient Rome, grabbing
attention with a blue, oneshoulJuly 2-15, 2010
der gown and a
meticulously embroidered golden evening
dress.
Chamnan Pakdeesuk of Flynow
combined romanticism with a modern
feel. One model wore
a white, layered
cocktail dress in a
sophisticated fabric.
Issue’s Bhubawit
Kritpholnara paid
stunning tribute to the
label’s signature exotic
prints and cutting
techniques not found
anywhere else.
Theatre’s Sirichai
Daharanond offered
romance on a sensuous
sunlit vacation, deploying a striking orange and
structural cutting in
mix-and-match outfits
based on striped trousers.
July 2-15, 2010
For 27 Nov, Chanachai Jareeyathana
came up with a Gothic schoolboy
and a new approach to grunge, made
all the more refreshing with the
creative use of layering.
Polpat Asavaprapha of Asava drew
inspiration from the preppy ladies of
New York’s Upper West Side. “Pleats
make the look lively and light,” he
said. “This season I like green, coral,
sand, pastel pink and purple.”
Pusdee Muntarbhorn’s Busardi, a
new semi-couture label, was distinctively feminine, with chiffon dresses
in pink, purple and green that will
look great on working women.
A sailor-style mingling of
colours and stripes in ocean blue
was presented by Dusk Till
Dawn’s Nissara Liptawattana,
while Painkiller gave the traveller
a luxurious global outlook.
Siriorn Teankaprasith tailor-made a
‘Shroom’ print on linen, filled with
dancing mushrooms, and 8E88
showed smart and chic men’s and
women’s wear by Saruda and
Chinchan Nimpitakpong.
Singha Life had more great
readytowear outfits for men, Chamnan Pakdisuk, Roj Sangkasaba and
Kowit Pongpandecha mixed grunge
and postpunk with wild preppy, and
Siam Paragon’s Code 10 shops had
fascinating work by Nagara Sambandharaksa, Tra Chantasawasdee of
TRa and Tipayaphongpoosanaphong.
Siam Centre’s Mob F combined
stylish items from Bean of Jack,
CommonT, Curated, Good for
Nothing, Paul B, Spooknic, Truss,
Frank and Sign In.
The new kid on the block was
Fash from Srinakarinwirot University, with Chatuporn Charoenem
presenting costumes inspired by
insect camouflage!
Shanghai’s popular teen brand
JNBY was also represented, with
designer Wang Zhen showing his
own gift for cutting and the thoughtful use of different fabrics. Although
it’s essentially casual wear, JNBY can
match the mood of any wearer.
• 29
FOOD
TA I W A N
1
2
TA I W A N
By Yasmin Lee Arpon
Asia News Network
Tasting Taiwan
Taiwanese cuisine is rich in flavour that
reflects its cultural influences from southern
China and Japan, as well as its own
I
❖ Taipei
t’s a good thing that the taste of
food does not need any translation. Either it tastes delicious or
tastes bad. Of course you can say
it in different language like arooy
maak in Thai or hao chu in Chinese, but
a simple “good!” would suffice.
This I realised when I found myself
in the middle of a Thai-speaking
group in April, travelling around Taiwan to sample its delicacies. The tour
guide could barely speak English to
explain the details of the food and
what makes them special so in most
cases they were tagged as “famous
fried chicken” in Kaohsiung or “famous shrimp rice” in Tainan.
Of course Taiwan is famous for its
stinky tofu and no trip there would
be complete without sampling the
smelly snack. Ever y nightmarket
around Taiwan is sure to sell this but
9
30 •
not all tofu lovers necessarily like the
stinky version. There’s a certain aftertaste that lingers long after eating it
but who can argue with those who
love this snack?
Taiwan food is not all about stinky
tofu though, thank goodness. Some of
its most famous snacks are steamed
bun, dumplings, egg custard tart,
mochi, tempura and pork blood cake.
Taiwanese cuisine is mostly influenced by mid to southern provinces
of mainland China, particularly Fujian
since most of Taiwan’s immigrants
were from this area. There is also a
Japanese influence owing to the period when Taiwan was under Japanese
rule. It also features traditional Chinese food and Hakka-style.
In Kaohsiung, we stopped by the
Mei Nung Hakka Restaurant for dinner and it was one of the tastiest meals
during this trip. Hakka cuisine is said
10
3
to be saltier and greasier because the
Hakka people did the toughest jobs
and, thus, needed more calories.
Among the restaurant’s specialties
are the Hakka-style stir fry pork, peanut tofu, fish with marinated mustard
and fu tsai (a kind of wild vegetable)
soup with pork. But a favourite would
be the Hakka-style pig leg, which has
similar counterparts in Filipino and
Thai cuisine, stewed in a dark rich
sauce. The pork meat is so tender that
it melts in your mouth. The food was
served with steamed rice that had
pieces of boiled sweet potatoes. The
restaurant also has branches in Tainan, Taichung and Fengshan.
Another restaurant in Kaohsiung
that is worth a visit is Man Fu Taiwan
Goat. It has gotten the thumbs-up
from the tourism bureau and obviously, based on its name, serves only
goat dishes. The owners assure that
the goats they serve have been farmraised for six months.
One does not have to be a goat cuisine lover to enjoy the food and those
who think that goat meat has an unpleasant after-taste when not cooked
properly may end up liking it.
T he goat hotpot w ith radish,
pickle and bamboo is an all-time
favourite for guests who come all
the way from China and Japan.
Every part of the goat from the meat,
liver, stomach to the internal organs,
are used as ingredients for various
dishes like soup and shabu-shabu.
Highly recommended by the staff is
the goat hotpot w ith 10 herbal
medicines and stewed for 20 hours.
For those with queasy stomachs, the
fried goat with pepper and chillies
is the best alternative, with the meat
11
12
July 2-15, 2010
4
5
so chewy and almost tastes like beef.
Al over Taiwan, there are a lot of small
shops that may not be as established or
have good marketing skills as the big restaurants but are still worth a visit simply
because they have their own history to tell.
In Tainan, there is a small unassuming
shop whose name literally means “short
guy Cheng’s shrimp rice” that has been
around since 1992. They use the traditional way of cooking through an antique
cooking range and charcoal. When we
visited, it was a few hours before lunchtime but several men have dropped by to
make their orders of the shrimp rice.
Another small shop in the city serves prawns
and pork dumplings. The flour is made from
ground rice and the recipe has been handed
down for 25 years in the Yeh family.
Of course, any Taiwan meal is not complete with their plum juice or the famous
bubble tea that other countries have imported. Practically every nightmarket and
average food shops would serve these.
But the mother of all desserts would be
Ice Monster and its copycats of shaved ice
topped with fruits. Too bad that the original
shop was closed due to a dispute between
the ex-couple who owned it, although it has
recently reopened but under the new name,
Yun Kang 15, which refers to its address on
No. 15, Yun Kang Street, Taipei.
The new name may not be as interesting as Ice Monster but the famous dessert
certainly outlives any name. Aside from
the original mango flavour, the dessert has
evolved into other toppings including
kiwi, strawberry, red bean, watermelon,
peach and guava.
In Tainan, a large group of friends
shared an equally large bowl of mixed
fruits topping that was soon empty in no
time. What makes the dessert enticing is
the ice, which is not ordinary shaved ice,
13
July 2-15, 2010
but is flavoured to match your topping.
Around the area of the original Ice Monster shop in Taipei are similar sweets shop
selling the so-called ‘national dish’ of Taiwan, as well as other desserts.
If one wants to have a nice ambience, a
place worth checking out is Shin-Yang
Culture Restaurant. The restaurant, located in Xi Zhi City in Taipei county, in the
outskirts of Taiwan’s capital, offers privacy
and nature at the same time.
Its cuisine—though not as interesting
and experimental as the goat and Hakka
restaurants in Kaohsiung nor as varied as
the nightmarkets—has Japanese influences
and are served artistically.
The architecture is made of wood with
sliding windows overlooking the lush
greenery outside. At night, they light candles and torches in the separate private
rooms. It’s perfect for a date, celebrities
wanting to go incognito or diners who
simply have the time to drive out of the
city and try a different dining experience.
This trip only goes to prove that one is
spoiled for choice when it comes to food
and unique places to check out when in
Taiwan. And that it’s not all about stinky
tofu all the time.
Finally, delicious food goes beyond
words so no need for translation here.
6
7
8
1 Sampling Taiwan’s famous
shaved ice
2 Shin-Yang Culture
Restaurant
3 Stinky tofu at Taichung
nightmarket
4 Grilled snails
5 Preparing shrimp rice at Ai
Zai Cheng
6 Making dumplings in Tainan
7 Food stall in Kaohsiung’s
nightmarket
8 Mei Nung Hakka Restaurant
9 Steamed rice with chunks
of sweet potatoes
10 Sticky rice in bamboo
11 Goat fried with pepper and
spices
12 Goat’s internal organs
13 Hakka-style pig leg
14 Grilled sweet potato
15 Shrimp rice
16 Goat hotpot
17 Cold snacks at Jiufen
market
17
∫∫ Details:
∫ Man Fu Taiwan Goat
www.manfu.com.tw
∫ Mei Nung Hakka Restaurant
137, DaDun 12th St
Taichung
∫ Ai Zai Cheng Shrimp Rice
www.shrimprice.com.tw
∫ Shi-Yang Culture Restaurant
www.shi-yang.com
14
16
15
• 31
FOOD
SOUTH KOREA
By Jean Oh
The Korea Herald
Korean Royal
Cuisine
Uncovered
Royal cuisine takes your health
into consideration and enables you
to digest your food comfortably
W
PHOTO S BY J U NG HE E - CHO A ND K IM MYUN G- SU B / THE KO R E A HE RAL D
❖ Seoul
Han Bok-ryo, the
third holder of the
38th Important
Intangible Cultural
Property (Royal
Cuisine of the
Joseon Dynasty),
holds classes at the
Institute of Korean
Royal Cuisine.
32 •
hen Korean Wave pioneer
Jewel in the Palace (Daejanggeum)”
swept across Asia from 2004
to 2006, royal cuisine—spun
out by the hands of the series’
heroine, Jang-geum, and the series’ kitchen
court ladies—transfixed viewers with its sumptuous brilliance and intricate nature.
Mouths watered. Palates tingled with the
desire to savour the parade of dishes, so evocatively presented in
lush, vibrant colours
and textures.
International viewers were awakened to
a realm of hansik (Korean food) that went
beyond the standard
trinity: kimchi, Korean BBQ and bibimbap. Interests were
piqued.
Restaurants called
Daejanggeum sprung
up throughout Asia, a sign that while the drama enraptured Asian audiences, it was the
culinary creations of the Institute of Korean
Royal Cuisine president Han Bok-ryo that had
excited their palates.
“I made food with the institute’s students,”
Han said of her work as food consultant for
Jewel in the Palace (2003).
Royal cuisine
restaurant
Jihwaja offers a
six-course meal
called “Royal
Court Dinner.”
✮ ✮ ✮ Preserving an edible legacy
Han’s relationship with royal cuisine runs deep.
Han is the third holder of the title of the
38th Important Intangible Cultural Property
(Royal Cuisine of the Joseon Dynasty). Her
mother, the late Hwang Hye-seong (19202006), was the second holder of the title,
who trained under the first holder of the
title, the last Joseon Dynasty kitchen court
lady, Han Hui-sun (1889-1972).
Furthermore, since the government-designated title needs to be carried on, Han’s two
younger sisters, Han Bok-sun and Han Bokjin, are initiates for the title.
In essence, this is a family affair, one that
stretches over to her brother, Han Yong-kyu.
After Han and her mother established the
Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine in 1971
and their first palatial food restaurant, Jihwaja, in 1991, her brother took over the
task of running Jihwaja (there are currently
two restaurants) and Goongyeon (a royal
food restaurant started by Han Bok-ryo in
2005), allowing Han, who remains a consultant for all three establishments, to focus on
her role as the institute’s president.
Now, at the age of 63, Han still teaches regularly,
imparting her knowledge to those who are interested.
✮ ✮ ✮ Kitchen court ladies
To begin to understand why Han Hui-sun,
July 2-15, 2010
the last Joseon Dynasty kitchen court
lady, was designated the first holder of
the 38th Important Intangible Cultural
Property, one must first understand
what a kitchen court lady is.
According to Han Bok-ryo and
Chung Kil-ja’s Joseon Dynasty Korean
Royal Cuisine (The Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine, 2009), kitchen
court ladies were responsible for
preparing the royal family’s regular
meals, while male cooks were responsible for royal banquets.
In order to become a kitchen court
lady, one needed to enter the palace at
around the age of 13 and train for over 30
years. As a result, one generally
became a kitchen court lady past
the age of 40.
dish. Side dishes, a total of 12, also
accompanied the meal.
Sura was more than just food; it was
a reflection of the crops harvested and
the fish and meat caught and hunted
by the country’s people. The foodladen table allowed the king to indirectly observe his people and the conditions of their crops and the land.
“The king would taste a side dish
first and then after chewing and savouring it, he would cleanse his palate
with a little bit of rice,” Lee Soonhwa, food and beverage team director
of the court cuisine company Jihwaja,
explained. “Therefore in order to eat
✮ ✮ ✮ Sura: The royal meal
According to Joseon Dynasty
Korean Royal Cuisine, the king
dined on sura, his main meals,
at around 10am and 5pm. At
the break of dawn, he enjoyed
chojoban—usually a type of porridge or a medicinal brew. In
Special shrimp skewers with vegetables, adorned with lines
of pine nut sauce and crowned with gingko biloba nuts.
between his morning and evening sura
he would have natgeot—usually clear
soup or tea and sweets—and after his
evening sura he would have yacham—
noodles, sweet rice with nuts and Korean dates, sikhye (rice punch) or milk
porridge. This meant that the king ate
approximately five times a day.
His most elaborate daily meals
were sura, which, according to The
Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine,
consisted of two types of rice, two
soups, three kinds of kimchi, two
stews, three sauces and one steamed
July 2-15, 2010
all those different dishes, the
food was somewhat blandly
seasoned.”
A surprising lack of salty
dishes is not the only defining
characteristic of royal cuisine.
Health was stressed as well as
the abundant use of garnishes
(including the white and yellow
strips of omelet called jidan),
pine nut powder and three
kinds of soy sauce, said Lee.
✮ ✮ ✮ Jihwaja: Dining like royalty
Enjoying court cuisine in its original form would most likely require
sitting through a five-meal day.
Jihwaja, located at The National
Theatre of Korea, offers up an abbreviated affair in the form of a sixcourse meal aptly named ‘Royal Court
Dinner’ (US$52).
Raw chestnuts, fried bows of kelp
and pumpkin seeds ground and
mixed with honey initiate the diner
into the world of royal cuisine.
A creamy porridge of milk, called
tarak-juk, pays homage to the king’s
chojoban. The silken delicacy, mild and
slightly sweet, is followed by a revamped form of the gujeolpan where
the eight seasoned vegetables and
meat come pre-wrapped in their
translucent pancakes.
A healthy salad made of blanched
and seasoned slices of burdock root,
vegetables, pyogo mushrooms and
meat and sprinkled with a savoury
mixture of soy sauce, vinegar and
sugar, is delicious all by itself. In fact,
none of these dishes require an accompaniment of rice.
“ The f lavours of
(court cuisine) are
not too strong, they
highlight the original
flavours of the ingredients themselves,”
Lee explained.
Beef brisket sizzling
on an earthenware
pot and paired with a
delicious and zesty
ginseng-based salad,
japchae (clear noodles
with vegetables), skewers of shrimp
adorned with lines of pine nut sauce
and bibimbap make for a meal that,
while hearty, is not heavy.
Dessert—a small rice cake, fruit and
yakgwa—rounds out the meal. The yakgwa, a deep-fried sweet that runs
somewhere between a croissant and
baklava, is phenomenal.
Lee explained that flour was very
precious in the past and that it was
mixed with sesame seed oil. Honey
and syrup were added to form the
dough. “Then it was rolled out, cut in
half. One layer was placed over the
other and then rolled out again.”
Lee described how the multiple layers would turn into the flaky delicious pastry known as yakgwa.
After the meal has ended, there is
an overall sense of having just consumed something incredibly healthy,
beautiful and delicious.
“Royal cuisine takes your health into
consideration and enables you to digest your food comfortably,” said Lee.
• 33
SHOPPING
By Nasa Maria Entaban
The Star
Grand sale in down town Kuala Lumpur.
Buying Frenzy
The highs and lows of a sale
L
❖ Kuala Lumpur
PHOTO by Saeed K HAN/afp
ast month, the annual Great Singapore Sale kicked off with a bang
and many Malaysian shoppers made
their way there to check out the
bargains. T his month, you can
expect Malaysian shopping complexes to be
packed, too, as the country’s biggest sales
event—the Mega Sale Carnival—begins.
During the sales season, most of us would
rush to the shopping malls with the imp re ss i o n t h a t we’ l l b e s av i ng l o a d s o f
money because most of the things would
be available at discounted prices.
However, one needs to really figure out
whether this habit actually helps us save money, or make us spend even more than we
would normally do.
For some young people, a sale definitely gives them the chance to save more
money. Student Wong Boon Ken says that
34 •
he doesn’t usually shop throughout the
ye a r. In s te a d , h e wa its u n til th e s a les
period to indulge in shopping.
“I usually stock up on new clothes during
sales and make them last the rest of the year.
In terms of value, sometimes it is not worth
paying the full price for certain items (especially if they’re branded goods) as they will,
more often than not, be sold at a discount
eventually,” says Boon Ken, 21.
The only time he would ever pay the full
price for items are when they are on limited
edition, or stuff from stores that rarely hold
sales promotions.
Another person who only shops during sales
is events manager and actor Davina Goh.
“I would only shop for myself during
sales. When friends compliment me on
something that I’m wearing, they’re shocked
when I tell them how much I bought it for,”
said Davina, 27.
July 2-15, 2010
July 2-15, 2010
more, too, with all the fantastic deals
and discounts,” he said.
That said, though, not everyone
feels the same way as Boon Ken as
there are some who feel that the few
ringgit saved during a sale isn’t worth
the trouble, or the wait. “I wouldn’t go
to a sale if it wasn’t convenient, and I
dislike people who push you around,”
said Samantha Ong Eu Min, 19, of the
fact that some people do tend to get
physically rough during sales.
As much as she appreciates the discounted prices during a sale, Samantha said that she would rather pay for
items at full price because she just
cannot be bothered to hit the malls
when there is a sale happening.
Samantha is not alone in this, as
others like 20-year-old Nina Hidayat,
too, doesn’t like spending time to look
for bargains. Instead, Nina shops
whenever she wants and needs to, but
works around a budget. This means
that she might get fewer items for the
amount she is spending.
“I prefer to shop less and only get
things I like rather than getting stuff
just because they are cheap. Quality
over quantity,” Nina shared.
The only time she buys items on
sale is when she really likes something
and not because it’s cheaper as she is
not easily tempted by the low price.
Malaysian Retailer-Chains Association secretary-general Valerie Choo
observes that consumers these days
are more savvy and smarter when it
comes to shopping, and know what
they want in a product and how to
get it at a good price.
“ They look for value-for-money
products. Sometimes, they would
wait for a sale before doing any
major purchases,” she said. She
noted that chasing sales and bargains
are a big part of the Malaysian
lifestyle, and also important as it
drives the economy.
“One of the quiet contributors
to the nation’s economy is the retail industry. Irrespective of local
or foreign (tourists) consumers, the
retail and services industry provide
the stimulus for the economy,”
explained Valerie.
“In today’s economic situation, sales
happen mostly because they fulfill
consumers’ needs,” she said, adding
that sales are not “myths” which draw
people into spending more money
under the illusion of saving, but rather an option for those who do not
mind waiting for the really good deals
to fall into their laps.
“In this current economic climate,
competitions among the businesses are stiff. Sales period are essentially where consumers have a
wider choice of products at special
prices,” said Valerie.
While sales do, in a way, “encourage” shoppers to overspend, the fact
remains that nothing beats having
your favourite brands and products
sold at lower prices.
• 35
(L-R) ph otos by Carl Cou rt/AFP PHOTO, Anant Ch antarasu t/ THE NATI ON (T HAI LAN D)
Davina added that she shops mostly
for clothes and beauty products, and
that she never buys these at full price.
“I like sales in that sense, because it
encourages people to buy smart.”
The one thing that puts Davina off
shopping during the sales period is
the massive crowd in malls and the
awful traffic jams.
“I dislike sales for the traffic jams
they cause! I used to travel far and
wide for warehouse sales, but now
I’m not so keen,” she said.
As for Boon Ken, he thinks that
distance and effort are not such big
deals. Despite the traffic jams in shopping areas, difficulty in finding parking spots and the sometimes too rowdy crowds, he still frequents sales
whenever he can.
“I would definitely go for a sale
even if it is inconvenient. Once, I
travelled all the way from Seremban
(Negri Sembilan) to a certain store in
Kuala Lumpur before the shop
opened, to make sure I could get
hold of some clothes in my size,”
said Boon Ken, who studies in Melbourne, Australia.
“When I was in Melbourne during the holidays, I planned days in
advance on which shopping malls
I’d go to for their famous ‘Boxing
Day’ sale,” he added.
While he spends quite a bit during the sales, Boon Ken feels that
it is justified.
“I would like to think that I save
ENTERTAINMENT
INDIA
By Tathagata Chowdhury
The Statesman
Bollywood
Dreams
Hordes of wannabe stars
from West Bengal emigrate
to Mumbai every year to
get a break into india’s
most-established
entertainment industry
I
Ph oto s by A FP
❖ Kolkata
s it just the money and
glamour?
“No,” says Samrat Sarkar.
Remember the song Paas aao…
paas aao na (Come closer... come
closer) in the Close-Up ad?
Now, know the singer. Behala-boy
Samrat. His co-singers range from
famous Indian singers such as Alka
Yagnik to Kumar Sanu, Shaan,
Shreya Ghosal and Udit
Narayan.
Samrat started his
career in hometown
Kolkata, capital of
eastern Indian state
of West Bengal, but
decided to shift base to
Bollywood—an Indian movie
industry based in Mumbai—not
because of fame or deutschmarks but
because of “self respect”.
Quiz him further and he replies
36 •
FROM KOLKATA TO
MUMBAI: Sonali
Sehgal, a 2006 Femina
Miss India finalist and a
native of Kolkata, is now
settled in Mumbai.
that in Mumbai music directors are
willing to listen to his previous
recordings and give him a break but
in his birthplace he has to prove
himself time and again, not by talent
alone but on the strength of PR.
“I truly don’t know what
works here. Those who are Page
3 regulars get work and I hear
one needs to hire a PR firm or
pay a certain amount to an
agency and it’s important to get
invited to the right parties. But
for a guy like me I can only
depend on talent,” Samrat
laments.
He isn’t the only Kolkata talent
lamenting. Sonali Sehgal, a Femina
Miss India finalist in 2006 and a
regular face on television commercials, is now well settled in
Mumbai. “I would love to work
in Kolkata but somehow I was
appreciated a lot more here,” says
July 2-15, 2010
WANNABE STARS: Indian actress Mallika Sherawat (C) mingles with contestants on the
set of the ‘Indian Idol’ television series in Mumbai. Every year, thousands of people from all
across India throng Mumbai to pursue their dreams in India’s most-established film industry.
the girl from Dhakuria.
“I accept I’m not strong with my
communications skills in the
regional language but here my peers
who’d socialise communicating in
Bangla do have an edge. Models
have a shelf life and I need to make
hay when it’s day. I’m glad that in
Mumbai I was accepted.”
Sonali has recently bought a flat
in Kandevelli East. She’s willing to
do an odd show in her native
Kolkata but refuses to settle down
anywhere else but Mumbai. She
performed as an anchor in a UTV
reality show, Dadagiri.
Is Mumbai’s gain Kolkata’s
loss? Are people in Kolkata
blind to talents?
Akanksha Kanjilal, a former
student of The Assembly Of God
Church School, thinks that the
work environment is different in
Kolkata. “Connections” matter
July 2-15, 2010
more than “content”.
“In Mumbai being connected
with the right people matter as
well. But an actor is graded by
portfolio and CV.”
When asked about casting couch
incidents, she reasons that tens of
millions of rupees are invested in any
film and an actor needs to perform
on camera and not just in bed. She
further clarifies in regional cinema
most producers treat filmmaking as a
side business. The real income comes
from selling fish or potatoes. Such
vendors who are film producers have
no idea about the business or
aesthetics of cinema.
Unfortunately, most of the moneybags in the West Bengal film industry make a living selling fish.
Yet another interesting observation
is shared by model-cum-actor Sawra
Khemka. “I enjoy my freedom here
(in Mumbai). In Kolkata I live in a
joint family and from the
milkman early in the morning to
the maternal grandmother,
everyone wants to know when I
will get a decent job and marry.
I don’t understand the definition
of a decent job. Is acting as a
profession indecent? Most of my
family members are ashamed to
accept me as a struggling actor.
I’m fortunate I don’t have to face
all this in Mumbai. The city lets
you be yourself.”
It’s almost ironic when he says:
“I don’t miss Kolkata. I now
belong here.” Sawra will soon be
seen in a reality show, and he’s
also a participant in the UTV
reality show Yamaha Dream Ride.
There are a few who strike a
balancing act between the two
cities. Chandan Sanyal tasted
blood with Vishal Bharwaj’s
Kaminey but followed it up
with Sumon Mukhopadhyay’s
Mahanagar@Kolkata. Joy Sengupta is an actor who has one
leg in Mumbai and the other
back home in Kolkata. Joy is
now associated with Mahua
channel and as a result he’s
wearing a different hat altogether—that of a producer.
“To introduce the World Cinema
Movement in Kolkata was a big
mistake on my part. It’s difficult to
convince the upward elite of the city
to invest in a project that provides
cerebral fodder. On my last trip to
Mumbai to perform a solo act, I was
cursed by friends for not having
started the ‘movement’ there. I had
friends willing to invest in the
project. I thought Kolkata would
appreciate the project more than any
other city but, as of now, it’s sheer
disillusion that swallows me.”
Well, the youth for sure won’t stay
back if constant disillusion continues
to engulf them. The creme de la
creme will pack up and come back…
for a holiday. The city will celebrate
the leftovers.
The writer is an actor and founder of
Theatrician, a theatre group.
• 37
POPDOM
By Yasmin Lee Arpon
Asia News Network
Celebritweet
No need for official
statements or press
conferences. Stars
are tweeting the
latest about them
on cyberspace
Jackie Chan
M
❖ Bangkok
ore than two weeks
ago, Philippine actress
and T V host Kris
Aquino announced on
her Twitter account (@
itsmekrisquino) that she will cease being active from the micro-blogging site
to keep what is left of her privacy.
Aquino, the loquacious
youngest daughter of the late
former president Cory Aquino
and sister to newly elected
President Benigno ‘Noynoy’
Aquino III, hinted at trouble
in her marriage even as she
said that her tweets may be
susceptible to judgment and
speculation.
The actress-host previously used her account to
update the public on her
activities at the height of
the campaign for her
brother. She would also
tweet about her shows and
sons Josh and Baby
James, but seldom
to never mentioned
her husband,
popular basketball
player James Yap.
38 •
This has prompted the public to
query her on why she never tweets
about James.
“... In the interest of keeping what
is left of our privacy—I will suspend
being active on Twitter,” she announced on June 18. She has earlier
announced that she was leaving two
entertainment talk shows in
deference to her brother’s
high-profile job.
“It doesn’t make sense for
me to leave (the two
shows) and keep this
avenue open for people to
speculate and judge.
Sometimes being quiet
(obviously difficult for
me) is the only
prudent course
when (you are) the
sister of the
country’s
(President).
Thanks to all
who followed
my tweets.”
Obviously,
Aquino is not
the only
celebrity
to
Kris Aquino
use the
popular site. Even the Dalai Lama (@
DalaiLama) tweets.
Celebrities use the site as a
platform to keep in touch with
their fans and bridge the gap—
that used to be facilitated by
managers—between them.
Twitter has somehow made
redundant the job of PRs and agents
as well as the need for press conferences. It has made these celebrities
more accessible, and yes, more
human especially when they tweet
on trivial matters like what they eat,
the traffic and other mundane things
that affect ordinary mortals.
And the beauty of it is, the fans
can react real-time to their posts, and
if they are lucky, their idols can
engage them in a cyber-conversation
(or at least what 140 characters can
allow). Think of it as the modernday fan mail.
One of the Asian celebrities with
more than half a million followers is
Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan (@
iamsrk, 470,000+ followers as of this
writing). Of course that is nothing
compared to Hollywood actor
Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk)’s more
than 5 million followers but there
may be other factors like the connecJuly 2-15, 2010
Shah Rukh Khan
tivity of Asians and the popularity of
Twitter among the larger population.
In China for example, they have
their own Twitter versions, Twitter
not being accessible in the mainland.
So a Chinese celebrity like Jackie
Chan (@Eyeof JackieChan) has only
58,291 followers on Twitter, while he
has more than 628,000 on his Sina
Weibo account.
Chan is perhaps one of the most
active celebrities. He not only tweets,
he also posts photos. He explained
that he chose his Twitter name
because he wants his fans to see his
life through his eyes. Sometimes
when Chan is too busy, his assistant,
Victoria (@EyeofVictoria), tweets his
activities using her own account.
It is not uncommon for some
celebrities to let somebody else
manage their tweets, but most of the
stars on Twitter do it on their own.
This is the beauty of the site because
it is very personalised (including
grammar and spelling mistakes).
Sometimes though, it’s not enough
to engage fans in a virtual interaction. Chan also holds contests for the
fans like when he asked them to
tweet their name and location. The
entries were selected randomly and
July 2-15, 2010
the winners received a gift from him.
During the promo for his new
movie, The Karate Kid, he asked his
followers to tweet pictures of the
movie poster from their locations.
Of course when celebrities engage
in online repartee like this, they are
bound to “offend” some fans who
complain that they never get a
response or never get “re-tweeted”
(having their tweets re-posted on
one’s account). But when you’re a
busy celebrity like Chan, who travels
almost every week to a different
country/continent then tweets about
it, it would be impossible to read or
reply to every tweet.
Some celebrities are also
selective and opt to keep their
tweets private and one has to
request to subscribe to the feeds.
This is perhaps to avoid running
into controversies with strangers.
Fans, meanwhile, are susceptible to
fake accounts. Twitter has set up a
system to verify accounts, particularly of celebrities who are in danger
of impersonation. It goes without
saying that a lot of fake celebrity
accounts proliferate on Twitter and
sometimes, it is difficult to tell which
one is real.
It is not easy too to verify an
account. Khan had to seek the help
of his followers on the verification
process. Once an account is verified,
a ‘verified account’ badge appears on
the user’s profile.
Without the verification though, it
may still be easy to determine
whether a celebrity account is fake,
based on the tweets. Impersonators
lack the personal details and would
usually stick to general and safe
statements like “thank you for
watching my movie” etc. But then
again, it does not also mean that too
much personal information means a
real account.
Back to Aquino, however, it has
been her trademark to be ‘talkative’
and over-share information that her
siblings, particularly the Philippine
President, have prevailed on her to
be more discreet.
Simply because some things are
not meant to be tweeted.
asianpopdom@gmail.com
POPBOX
Verified Twitter accounts
Jackie Chan: @EyeofJackieChan
Shah Rukh Khan: @iamsrk
Dalai Lama: @DalaiLama
Coco Lee: @cocolee117
Amitabh Bachchan: @SrBachchan
Lea Salonga: @MsLeaSalonga
Not Verified accounts
Van Ness Wu: @VanNessVanWu
Elva Hsiao: @ELhsiao
Gigi Leung: @Gigi325
Kris Aquino: @itsmekrisaquino
Paula Taylor: @punlapa
Charice: @officialcharice
• 39
PEOPLE
By Asia News Network
Little Man
ered stopping his son
from acting, but that
it’s the boy who
enjoys his job.
The boy, whose
parents are divorced,
has also been subjected to awkward
situations including
being made to choose
for a ‘new mom’ in a
TV show. Local
audiences were
outraged that he
would be put on the
spot for such a
sensitive matter.
While Xiao Xiao
Bin may be too
young to re alise what is going
on around him, he seems to
love the attention.
But there are also fears that he may
be suffering not only from over-fatigue
but from over-exposure. A reporter
from a TV station created a stir
recently when she asked the boy about
the supposed “poor ratings” of his
recent dramas and that this may be an
effect of the audience getting tired of
seeing him on TV.
Xiao Xiao Bin was clearly shaken by
the question that he asked his father
later why people don’t like him
anymore, prompting his older co-stars
to take the cudgel for him and
castigate the media for putting the
child under intense pressure.
“I was shocked at the time, and also
angry. The ratings are not a child’s
responsibility. It makes people’s hearts
ache. Moreover, the ratings are higher
whenever he appears on screen,” said
actress Bianca Bai (Bai Xin Hui), his
co-star in P.S. Man.
But more than the ratings, many
have also expressed concern on
how Xiao Xiao Bin is exposed to a
lot of “adult” things in the industry and that his childhood has
been taken away from him.
Some were shocked when he asked
Lan upon the latter’s return from the
Cannes Film Festival: “Did you see
any pretty girls there?”—‘grown-up’
words from a five-year-old who is fast
losing his innocence and childhood.
Is the entertainment
business the best
playground for a
five-year-old boy?
L
❖ Taipei
ast year’s biggest discovery in
Taiwan’s entertainment industry was a five-year-old boy
named Wen Xuan Ye who is
better known as Xiao Xiao
Bin in his dramas.
Xiao Xiao Bin, which literally means
‘Little Bin’, stole many TV viewers’
hearts as the little boy Xiao Le
yearning for a father’s love in last
year’s hit drama Autumn’s Concerto.
The child actor is known for being
able to cry at the drop of a hat and
fans have swooned over his cuteness.
His father, Xiao Bin Bin (which
makes the boy a junior), also entered
the entertainment industry at around
the same age and was an equally
famous child star during his time.
Now, it’s the son’s turn to rise but
many have raised an alarm on Xiao
Xiao Bin’s welfare especially after he
was seen in a public appearance trying
to fight off sleep.
After Autumn’s Concerto, he has
appeared in two other dramas
namely Down With Love and P.S.
Man, acting alongside A-list stars
Van Ness Wu (Wu Jian Hao), Jerry
Yen (Yen Cheng Xu) and Blue Lan
(Lan Cheng Long). He is set to
star in a movie with Hong Kong
superstar Andy Lau too.
The public has criticised his father
for overworking the poor boy, calling
him a ‘Devilish-Money-Loving-Daddy’. Xiao Bin Bin was upset over the
accusation and said he has consid40 •
July 2-15, 2010
By The Straits Times
Child’s
Play
The three-year-old son
of Hong kong actor
Nicholas Tse and actress
Cecilia Cheung is soon
making his debut in the
entertainment world
A
❖ Shanghai
July 2-15, 2010
the f loor with a plop. He refused
to be helped back to his seat by
Chow, said Sing Tao Daily.
Cheung made her debut in Chow’s
1999 film, The King Of Comedy. She said
she picked CJ7 2, the sequel to his 2008
film on a cuddly alien creature, for her
first post-maternity project and her
son’s debut to show her gratitude.
Chow said the collaboration came
up during a chat, when Cheung told
him Lucas did not speak much
Mandarin. “Since Lucas likes CJ7, I
proposed that mother and son sing the
theme song and Lucas could learn
Mandarin on the side.”
Cheung said: “Actually, my plan was
to have him concentrate on his
studies. I never thought about him
being in show business.”
Because “the Hong Kong media
make him a cover boy every week and
wait for him outside the kindergarten
every day”, she thought she would
play along and let him have fun
during the making of CJ7 2.
Asked what her husband thought of
her decision, she demurred. “I’m just a
little woman. You should ask my
husband yourself.”
• 41
Photo s courtesy o f facebo o k .co m/ pages/ Lucas-Tse/
mid some oohing, aahing
and tumbling, a child star
was born in mid-June.
Hong Kong actress
Cecilia Cheung and
comedian Stephen Chow announced
that her three-year-old son, Lucas—one
of the most photographed tykes in
Hong Kong—will record a duet with
her for Chow’s animated film, CJ7 2.
It will be an entertainment
debut for the son of actor Nicholas Tse and grandson of erstwhile
matinee idol Patrick Tse.
The press conference was interrupted by Lucas himself, who scrambled on stage as Chow, a one-time
children’s television host, said: “You
came out before we announced you.”
Speaking into the microphone of his
mother, who gave birth to his brother,
Quintus, last month, Lucas told the
media in English: “I love you... Don’t
say my mother’s fat.”
But as their cameras clicked nonstop, he told them: “You’re naughty.”
Darting and crawling around as
the adults spoke, he got the media
in a tizzy and at one point, fell to
TRAVEL BITES
BANGKOK
JUBILANT: Thousands of youth celebrate Japan’s victory against Denmark last week at the
World Cup group E match in downtown Tokyo.
By Jofelle P. Tesorio
Asia News Network
Where To Watch
The ‘Beautiful Game’
THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS ABUZZ WITH THIS
YEAR’S FIFA WORLD CUP IN SOUTH AFRICA.
AS EARLY AS LAST YEAR, TICKETS WERE SOLD
OUT AND FLIGHTS AND HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS
WERE PRICEY AS EVER. DIE-HARD FANS HAD TO
SPEND A FORTUNE IN ORDER TO SECURE SEATS
TO PRIZED MATCHES. THE GOOD NEWS IS
WHEREVER YOU ARE RIGHT NOW, YOU CAN
CATCH YOUR FAVOURITE TEAMS AND
WAVE THEIR FLAGS
E
Ph oto by Yos h ikazu TS U NO/A FP
❖ Bangkok
very four years, the FIFA World Cup generates big business from
fans who cannot afford to watch the games in person. Fans, men
and women, of different creed and colours, go to restaurants and
pubs to cheer on their teams, rather than stay home. There’s more
fun in sharing the excitement and the frustration on scored or
missed kicks when you have the whole tribe with you.
Travel Bites (thanks to friends and Internet sites) has compiled a list of
bars and restaurants in major Asian countries, where you can chillax while
watching the world’s most beautiful game direct from South Africa.
42 •
☛ Bangkok Beat
Sukhumvit Soi 7/1; +66-2-651-3919
☛ Bradman’s Sports Bistro
Sukhumvit 23, +66-2-661-7176
☛ Old German Beerhouse
Sukhumvit Soi 11; +66-2-651-3838
☛ O’Reilley’s
62 Silom Road, +66-2-632-7515
☛ The Big Mango Bar
Sukhumvit Soi 4; +66-2-234-2875
☛ The Londoner
591 UBC II Building, Basement B 104,
Sukhumvit 33, +66-2-261-0238/9
☛ The Sportsman
496/1 Sukhumvit Road; +66-2-663-6405
☛ Woodstock
Sukhumvit Soi Thonglor 13; +66-2-7150202/3
BEIJING
☛ Frank’s Place
Jiang Tai Xi Lu, Lido Area; +86-10-64378399; franksplacebeijing.com
☛ Goose ‘n’ Duck
S1, Green Lake International Tower,
Chaoyang District; +86-10-5928-3045
☛ Paddy O’Shea’s
28 Dongzhimenwai Da Jie, Sanlitun;
+86-10-6415-6389; paddyosheas.com
☛ Souk Bar & Restaurant
Chaoyang Park West Gate; +86-10-65067309
☛ The Den
4 Gongtidong Rd, Chaoyang District;
+86-10-6592-6290
☛ The Pavillion
Gongti Xilu; +86-10-6507-2617; pavillionbeijing.ucehk.com
HO CHI MINH CITY
☛ Lucky Bar
224 De Tham street, District 1
☛ Boston Pizza
175/6 Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1
☛ Lepub
175/22 Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1
☛ Hoa Mai Coffee
43-45 Do Quang Dau street, District 1
☛ No. 5 Bar
44 Pasteur, District 1.
HONG KONG
☛ Delaney’s
18 Luard Rd., Wanchai 71-77 Peking Rd.,
Tsim Sha Tsui; +852-2804-2880;
delaneys.com.hk
July 2-15, 2010
☛ Dickens Bar
281 Gloucester Rd, Excelsior Hotel,
Causeway Bay; +852-2837-6782
☛ Dublin Jack
1/F, 17 Lan Kwai Fong, Central; +8522543-0081; dublinjack.com.hk
☛ Grappa’s Cellar
Jardine House, 1 Connaught Place,
Central; +852-2521-2322; elgrande.com.hk
☛ McSorley’s Ale House
55 Elgin St. Soho, Central; +852-25222646; mcsorleys.com.hk
☛ Manchester United Restaurant & Bar
32-34 Lock Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, TST MTR
station; +852-2366-4880; manutd-cafe.
com
JAKARTA
☛ Potato Head
Pacific Place Mall
51 A, Jl. Jend Sudirman
+62-21-5797-3322
☛ Mambo Bistro Bellagio
Boutique Mall Lt UG, Kawasan
Mega Kuningan; +62-21-30066179
☛ Eastern Promise
Jl. Kemang Raya No.5; +62-217179-0151
☛ The Pub
Jl. Taman Kemang No.19;
+62-21-719-9988
☛ Immigrant
Plaza Indonesia 6th floor, Jl. M.H
Thamrin Kav 28-30; +62-213983-8257/58
MANILA
☛ Attica Bar and Lounge
G/F A.Venue Hall, Makati Avenue, Makati
City; +63-2-729-5121
☛ Fiamma
32 Jupiter Street, Bel-Air Village, Makati
City; +63-2-897-1352
☛ Heckle and Jeckle Bar
Villa Building, Polaris Street corner
Jupiter St, Bel-air Village, Makati City;
+63-2-890-6904
☛ Howzat Sports Bar
8471 Kalayaan Avenue corner Fermin
Street, Makati City; +63-2 897-3335
☛ Il Ponticello
2/F Antel 2000 Building, 121 Valero St.
Salcedo Village, Makati City; +63-2-8877168
☛ National Sports Grill
Level 3, Greenbelt 3, Makati City;
☛ Hollywoods
☛ Wolfhound
☛ Dillenger’s
☛ Seoul Pub
☛ Rocky Mountain Tavern
☛ Sam Ryans Sports Bar & Grill
☛ Lotte Hotel Seoul
Sogong-dong, central Seoul; +82-2-7711000
☛ Lotte Hotel World
Jamsil, southern Seoul; +82-2-419-7000
☛ Sheraton Grande Walkerhill
+82-2-455-5000
SINGAPORE
☛ Clarke Quay
+65-6337-3292; www.clarkequay.com.sg
☛ Harry’s @ Chijmes
30 Victoria St., #B1-06 Chijmes;
+65-6334-9150; harrys.com.sg
☛ Penny Black
26/27 Boat Quay; +65-65382300; pennyblack.com.sg
TOKYO
☛ Gecko’s Terrace
☛ Scrooge
July 2-15, 2010
travelbites.asia@gmail.com
• 43
Photo by B rend o n O ’Hagan/AF P
☛ Bar Estadio
Shibuya Football Tower B1,
Shibuya; +81-3-5784-5488;
sskamo.co.jp/estadio/index.html
☛ Bar Quest
3F Rene Bldg 2, 5-3-1 Roppongi,
Minato; +81-3-5414-2225;
barquestroppongi.com
AWED: Nothing beats the excitement or shock when you
☛ Bernd’s Bar
watch the FIFA World Cup with fellow footbal aficionados.
Pure Roppongi 2F, 5-18-1
Roppongi, Minato; +81-3-5563+63-2-728-4126
9232;
berndsbar.com
☛ The Reserve Liquor Lounge
☛ Samurai Blue Park
KUALA LUMPUR
City Golf Plaza Compound, Doña Julia
☛ Finnegan’s
Harajuku; samuraiblue.jp/fanzone/park/
Vargas Ave., Ortigas, Pasig City; +63-220 Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang;
about.html
470-2776
+60-3-2145-1930; finneganspubs.com
☛ Golden Lion Pub & Grill
☛ Insadong
☛ Uncle Chilli’s (Hilton Petaling Jaya)
Pure Roppongi 4F, 5-18-1 Roppongi,
65 Kalayaan Ave., Quezon City
+60-3-7955-9122
Minato; +81-3-3584-9096; goldenlion.jp
☛ Mint Bar Bistro
☛ Sid’s Pub (three locations)
3rd Level The Fort Strip, Bonifacio Global
34 Lorong Rahim Kajai14, Tamun Tun Dr
VIENTIANE
City, Taguig; +63-2-818-6297
Ismail; +60-3-7727-7437
☛ Blue Bananas
M-5A The Village, Bangsar South, 2Jalan
Samsenthai Road; +856-20778-64379
SEOUL
1/112H, off Jalan Kerinchi; +60-3-2287☛ Mali Namphu Guest House
☛ Coex
7437
114 Pangkham Rd
Samsung-dong; coex.co.kr/eng/index.asp
H2 Taman Tunku, off Langkat Tunku,
☛ Novotel Vientiane
☛ Imperial Palace
Bukit Tunku; +60-3-6205-2588; sidspubs.
Samsenthai Road, Sikhotabong;
313 Eon-ju Ro, Kangnam; imperialpalace.
com
+856-21-213570/1
co.kr
☛ Souled Out
☛ The French Centre
☛ Seoul Plaza at City Hall
Jalan 29/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas;
Th Lan Xang, Talat Sao; +856-21-215764;
Taepyeongno, Jung-gu
ambafrance-laos.org/centre
+60-3-2300-1955; souledout.com.my
☛ Itaewon Area
EXPLORE
TIBET
By Manote Tripathi
The Nation
our journey and we can’t believe
what the guide tells us!
People come a long way to see
Tibet, to take in the history, climb a
mountain, learn the language, teach
English, or “discover themselves”.
The three of us are interested only
in the region’s spiritual and artistic
wealth. Specifically, I’m tracking
Siddhartha and Vasudev.
I end up in the midst of Avalokiteshvara, Sakyamuni, Tara, Maitreya,
Manjushri, Amitabha, Vairocana and
the mahasiddhas, all gazing at me
from murals or intricate thangkas or
glass showcases in dimly lit and
bitterly cold monasteries.
The temples’ assembly halls
invariably exude an air of impenetrably mystifying antiquity, as well as
profound solemnity.
The sacred relics peer back at you
through time, the glow of yak-butter
Kumbun stupa
lanterns seeping through whirling
plumes of incense smoke. As if by
divine intervention, it’s easy to find
inspiration in Tibetan art.
Many of these centuries-old
monasteries—Sera, Deprung, Samye
and Pelkhor Chode—were damaged
during the Cultural Revolution, as
was the Yumbu Lhakhang Palace in
the Yarlung Valley. Each of these
places has at least 1,000 depictions
of the Buddha, either on the walls
or as sculpture.
The Tibetans have a saying:
Lha-khang gi kyi zahm-bu-ling gi kyi
chik-ba ray. “The centre of the temple
and the centre of the world are
Our guide is lobbying
the same.”
for a hotel that charges
In India lie the roots of
120 yuan (US$18) a
both Tibetan Buddhism
night. We were
and its mainly religious
expecting to pay 40
art. Neighbouring Nepal
yuan ($6) outside
served as both channel
Lhasa. We learn later
and filter for the artistic
that he and the driver
ideas and techniques, and
stay for free at the
toward the end of the 17th
hotels where they bring
century, China added its
foreign customers. It’s
own aesthetic elements.
Images and deities
the same situation with
Tibetan art is not to be
are everywhere at
the restaurants they
underestimated,
despite the
the Pelkhor Chode
recommend.
pessimism of Giuseppe
monastery
complex.
It’s the first night of
Tucci, the leading Italian
High Art
For The Holy
PHOTO S BY MA NOTE TR IPATHI /T HE NATIO N(TH AIL AND )
Tibetan craftsmanship rose to the challenge
of portraying Buddhism, and ascended further
A
❖ Lhasa
fter three days in Lhasa,
I and my travelling
companions, Mike and
Jane, have become
inured to less oxygen
and are ready to venture beyond the
capital to Tsethang, the Yarlung
Valley, Gyantse and other destinations in the west.
We aim for Shigatse, Tibet’s
second-largest city, aboard a Landcruiser 4500, and strike up a
conversation about the remnants of
colonial times.
44 •
July 2-15, 2010
scholar on Tibet, whose 1949
treatise ‘Tibetan Painted Scrolls’
set the standard for all that
followed but warned that Tibetan
art would be less appreciated than
that of India and Persia.
He was wrong. Its popularity in
the world has only increased in the
past 60 years. Many tourists happily
pay extra for permission to photograph the temple art.
It’s generally accepted that when
Buddhism reached Tibet in the
seventh century, no native craftsmen
were up to the challenge of portraying its founder or his teachings. The
art initially came with foreign
preachers, including images on metal
and illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts
with painted covers.
The 10th-century ‘Second Coming
Wooden Buddha
of Buddhism’ refers to its spread
from western Tibet to the rest of the
country, whisked along by Indian
Of special interest is a painted
holy men and Tibetan scholars
cycle of 84 mahasiddhas, the ‘great
returning from Kashmir. Artists were
perfected ones endowed with
encouraged to help sow the seeds
supernatural faculties’, in the
where complicated theology was
Lamdre Chapel of the Baiju
difficult to nurture.
Temple, also known as the Pal
The mid-eighth-century Samye
Kho Tsug Lag Khang.
Monastery was built with the
A siddha is a tantric adept who has
help of renowned Indian masters
attained perfection and boasts special
Padmasambhava and Santarakpowers. The most renowned of the
shita, as the first formal Tibetan
Indian siddhas of the ninth and 10th
sanctuary of the Buddha, the
centuries were the 84 mahasiddhas.
dharma and the sangha.
The siddhas were ascetics, practisWith elements of Han, Tibetan
ing outside the discipline of the
and Indian architecture, it was
monasteries, pursuing the existential
designed in ‘the shape of universe’.
rather than the metaphysical.
The main monastery in Gyantse,
The gloomy main chapel has
the Pelkhor Chode complex, was
extraordinary Buddha images carved
completed in 1418. A
survivor of the
Cultural Revolution,
it has 108 cells with
their own murals
and holy images,
numbering 100,000
in all. It’s the only
such place in Tibet
that’s affiliated with
three different
Buddhist schools—
Sakyapa, Zhalupa
Pelkhor Chode in Gyantse
and Gelukpa.
July 2-15, 2010
in wood, their varied hand gestures
frozen in time. In the delicate
woodwork resides the pinnacle of
Tibetan artistic prowess.
There are many more halls and
many more personalities rendered in
wood, stone and pigment, reminding visitors of the complexity of
Tibetan Buddhism. It’s a world
crowded with holy men, gods and
goddesses, some at rest, deep in
meditation, others dancing all
through eternity.
The most amazing aspect of all,
perhaps, is how this sacred population, so rich in artisan’s nuance,
could thrive in Tibet’s arid and
barren landscapes.
Main Dzong fortress
• 45
EXPLORE
VIET NAM
I
❖ Dalat
JAMMED: Motorcycles get stuck during
a traffic jam at a busy commercial street
in downdown Ho Chi Minh City.
BY Paolo Coluzzi
The Brunei Times
From Sai Gon To The
Mountains Of Dalat
PHOTO S BY A FP
Viet nam’s financial city
is a mix of Bangkok
and Phnom Penh
46 •
t was Tuesday, at around
2:30pm, that I got off the
bus I had caught in
Phnom Penh that very
morning.
A little over six hours to
reach Ho Chi Minh City, aka
Sai Gon, one of the biggest
cities in Southeast Asia (more
than 7 million people), and the
one that witnessed the last
stages of probably one of the
most vicious wars of the last
century, the so-called Viet Nam
War (1955-1975).
Sai Gon is a mixture of
Bangkok and Phnom Penh,
crowded, sprawling, noisy, with
the worst traffic I’ve seen so far.
It makes Phnom Penh look like a
small country town in comparison. In spite of this, Sai Gon has
a few interesting things to see,
which made my three-day stay
worth it, two days in the actual
city and one outside.
In the city I walked around
the centre, in the modern area
around Dong Khoi and Hai Ba
Trung streets, which have some
nice historical sights like the
Municipal Theatre, the Hotel de
Ville (the former town hall) and
the Notre Dame Cathedral, all
legacies of the French era.
However, what I found particularly interesting were the
Reunification Palace built in 1966
in a beautiful 1960s modern style,
and the War Remnants Museum
nearby. Both are testimonies of
the modern Viet Nam history.
In fact, the Reunification
Palace was the residence of the
President of South Viet Nam,
and it was there that the Viet
Nam War ended when a North
Vietnamese tank smashed
through its gate on April 30, 1975.
On the other hand, the War
Remnants Museum shows the
most horrible aspects of that
long war. Displayed are pictures
of some of the thousands of
children that were born deJuly 2-15, 2010
formed on account of the Agent
Orange, a chemical herbicide that the
Americans spread from the sky in
huge quantities to defoliate the
forests that were protecting the
North Vietnamese troops. This is the
terrible legacy of a war that claimed
around two million civilian lives.
After days of touring the city
centre, I took a local bus to get to
Cholon, the busy Chinatown of
Sai Gon, to visit a few Chinese
motorcycle drivers, during the
seven-hour trip to Dalat.
I wasn’t able to enjoy the beautiful
landscape of the mountains around
because of this driver’s vicious
overtaking (most of the time he was
in the middle of the road or driving
in the wrong direction) and continuous deafening hooting.
Anyway, I arrived in one piece
even though under torrential rain.
I spent the first of the three days
After that we reached the foot of the
Lang Biang mountain, 12km northwest of Dalat, and from there a jeep
took me and other six Vietnamese
tourists to the top at 2,200m.
When we got there it was cold
and rainy and we couldn’t see
anything as dark clouds hovered.
We were still lucky because half an
hour later the clouds cleared and
we were finally able to enjoy a
magnificent view of the mountains
around—Dalat in
the distance on one
side and a beautiful
lake just in front.
After Lang Biang
we rode back to the
outskirts of Dalat to
visit the Flower
Gardens. We then
reached the cable
car station from
where I descended
for 8km towards
the village of Trai
Mat, hanging high
above the woods
surrounding Dalat.
In Trai Mat I visited
the Linh Phuoc
pagoda (Buddhist
temple) and then I
walked down as far
as placid Lake of
Sighs.
Then I was
picked up by my
NOT YOUR AGENT ORANGE: A vendor pushes her stall-cart displaying oranges in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.
motorbike driver
and went to see the
temples. On my last day here, I
indoors because of the rain. The
Datanla Falls, not far from there.
signed up for a tour around the
temperature was quite low at
After the nice but rather crowded
Mekong Delta, less than 100km
around 20°C. Dalat lies at almost
waterfalls (which can also be
south of Sai Gon. I really enjoyed
1,500m above sea level, and its
reached by a kind of jungle roller
sailing along the narrow canals
climate feels more European than
coaster), we headed back to Dalat
surrounded by thick vegetation.
Southeast Asian.
to see my last and possibly most
After five days, I took a bus for
When the weather got better,
interesting sight of the day, the
Dalat, my next destination. I thought
I arranged to be taken out of
so-called Crazy House, a wonderful
the traffic in Sai Gon was the worst
town by a local motorbike
piece out of fairy-tale. The house,
I had come across since the beginrider/mini tour operator.
similar to Catalan architect Gaudi’s
ning of my journey (to the point that
After a first stop to visit the
masterpieces, was designed by
crossing the road was sometimes a
temple of Linh Quang with its
Vietnamese architect Dang Viet Nga.
real feat), but I wasn’t prepared for
impressive giant statue of a dragon in I finished the visit of the main
the crazy and dangerous driving of
the garden, we rode on to the village
sights with Bao Dai’s Summer
the bus driver. I think it is a miracle
of Lat, inhabited by the ethnolinguisPalace no.3, one of the residences of
he didn’t kill anybody, particularly
tic minority with the same name.
the last emperor of Viet Nam.
July 2-15, 2010
• 47
SPORT
F I FA W O R L D C U P
By Song Woong-ki
The Korea Herald
Ruing Missed
Chances
Now that the World Cup
journey has come to an
end for the South Korean
national football team, it
must look to the future
F
Ph oto by A FP
❖ Seoul
orget the nationwide atmosphere of consolation
sweeping South Korea after
its football team’s defeat to
Uruguay on June 26.
There’s something saddening about
the public’s lack of criticism and frustration at a match the Koreans should
have snatched away from the undefeated South American side.
Though it was a great achievement
for the Taeguk Warriors to have secured a last 16 berth for the first time
away from home, it seems fans and
media forgot how dominating a game
the Korean team had played and how
dubious the circumstances were in
conceding that eighth minute goal.
“They played a great game,” Uruguayan coach Oscar Tabarez said after
the game. “Maybe luck helped us, but
this is football.”
Korean defender Cha Du-ri, whose
persistence in venturing into the Uruguayan half all throughout the match
highlighted the team’s push forward, was
particularly crestfallen with the result.
“We were controlling the game, we
had played a great second half and
then to lose like this—that hurts twice
as much,” he said, holding back tears.
“We were so close, it’s sad, it makes
you bitter.”
Chance after chance of goal scoring
opportunities were squandered by
Korean attackers and defensive lapses
threatened to widen the score-line in
favour of Uruguay.
48 •
TRAGIC ENDING: South Korea’s defender Lee Young-Pyo (C) is consoled by a
teammate and South Korea’s coach Huh Jung-Moo (R) after the 2010 World Cup round of
16 football match Uruguay vs South Korea on June 26.
Not much was said about goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong’s misguided decision to get off his line in his halfhearted attempt to clear what was
essentially a harmless cross by striker
Diego Forlan in the eighth minute—a
cross that should have been swiftly
cleared by the defence.
As witnessed by millions of Koreans throughout the country, the ball
rolled past Jung and a line of static
defenders who simply stood there
watching as Luis Suarez fired in his
shot from an acute angle.
It might as well been handed to the
Ajax striker on a platter.
In all four of Korea’s games in the
World Cup, not much was made of
the flimsy defence and the suspicious
decision-making of goalkeeper Jung
Sung-ryong.
Against Greece, the Koreans displayed some of the best football skills
of the tournament but a late surge
from the Greeks in the dying moments of the second half exposed
holes in the squad’s defence that were
unfortunately never addressed in the
matches that followed.
Another setback—one that has dogged
the national football team for decades—
was the lack of a skilled striker.
In Park Chu-young, coach Huh saw as
his only option up front and placed his
bets on the Monaco forward who has
mostly been known as a shadow striker.
Park was known to carry finesse, vision and the individual skill that could
set-up goals by drawing in defenders,
opening up space for teammates.
But as the lone gunner in the frontlines of the Korean attack, the 26-yearold struggled to find the net.
As it turned out, after having outplayed the South Americans for long
spells of the match, suspect finishing
and defending became the biggest factor in garnering the Uruguayans their
first trip to the quarterfinals since 1970.
But despite failing to open a new
chapter in Korean football history by
going a step further, the team has returned home with their heads held
high by attaining their original goal of
reaching the second round.
“Our players never gave up and no
amount of praise is enough for the
Koreans’ distinct mentality of maintaining their challenge under any circumstance,” Huh said at a post-match
press conference on June 26.
Huh is now the first Korean manager to lead a World Cup team to the
last 16, while the country’s four previous wins at the tournament were captained by Dutch managers Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat.
Now that the World Cup journey
has come to an end for the South
Korean national football team, it must
look to the future.
For South Korean football to stand
side by side with the sporting giants,
a concerted effort to strengthen both
the team’s defensive organisation and
its finishing must be addressed in the
next four years if the team is going to
go further than the second round.
July 2-15, 2010
By Lim Mun Fah
Sin Chew Daily
The Unkindest Kick Of All
against Brazil had even made a mistake
on the name of Kim Jong-il and the
country. Obviously, it was a sick joke.
As for the halt to the live broadcast
of the game against Brazil, it is uncertain whether or not it is true.
The shocking news also included
claims that players would be sent to a
coal mine as punishment when they
returned home and some even said
that they have lost connection with
four players in South Africa.
❖ Kuala Lumpur
tainted glasses.
he fairytale outing evapoMany people think that the North
After North Korea lost 1-2 to Brazil,
rated and the North Kore- a video was widely distributed across Korean team members are as narrowan footballers woke up in the cyberspace. The video accused a minded as the country’s leaders. On
shock when their sweet North Korean TV station of lying by the contrary, there are several players
dream turned into a night- claiming a 1-0 victory for North Korea in the North Korea team who live and
mare, and the harsh criticism, unmer- against Brazil.
work abroad. In addition to Japaneseciful sarcasm, and contemptuous
North Korea allowed an unprec- born Jong Tae-Se, who plays for the
scorn were directed at them.
edented live broadcast back home Kawasaki Frontale, at least three other
That, I think, is the unkindest kick
players are attached to foreign football
for these passionate
clubs.
and committed sportsLegend Jong Tae-Se
men for losing 0-7 to
was born in Japan to
Portugal in the World
s e c o n d g e n e ra t i o n
Cup Group G match.
South Korean parents
Whatever the critics
with South Korean
may say, the North
citizenship and he
Korean football players
never settled down in
should walk tall and
North Korea.
proud as they did not
When his tears
shrink back even in
touched the world,
the face of very powChinese netizens
erful and skillful opaccused him of makponents on the field,
ing some offending
but gave their all to do
gestures during a
battle in true sportschampionship tourmanship.
n a m en t in Tia n jin
The North Koreans
last year. T hey said
have showed the
that Jong Tae-Se was
wo r l d wh a t n o b l e HEAD-TO-HEAD: North Korean player Jong Tae-Se (R) and Portugal’s midfielder
actually not as great
sportsmen they are as Tiago jump for a header during the Group G first round 2010 World Cup football
as people think.
match between North Korea and Portugal on June 21. Portugal won the match 7-0.
they did not violate a
T he FIFA World
single rule in the first
Cup tournament,
half-time.
of the match against Portugal but like the Olympics, is not merely
The North Korea team has been after Portugal won the game, the sports per se, but events with all
described as a mysterious team. The Western media reported that the live sort of politic al considerations
fact is that the world has prejudices broadcast was immediately halted and consequences.
against the team. Most of the people and replaced by a programme showNowadays, sports are inseparable
agree with the United States by call- ing factory workers and engineers from politics. The European powers
ing North Korea a “rogue state” as praising Kim Jong-il.
are facing a recession while Asia is
they hate the North Korean autoThe world condemned the authori- striving for the best and the South
cratic political system and Kim Jong- tarian regime after the news was America is beginning to shine again.
il’s dictatorial high-handedness. Thus, spread, accusing it to be shameless.
But an irrefutable absolute fact is that
they looked at the North Korean
However, the video that was said to no one can ever be the winner or
football prayers with stereotype have faked the victory of North Korea loser always.
The North Korean football players should
walk tall and proud as they did not shrink
back even in the face of powerful and
skillful opponents
T
• 49
Photo by A FP
July 2-15, 2010
DATEBOOK
TO KYO
N EW DEL H I
Gion Matsuri
Mango Festival
Gion Matsuri takes place
annually in Kyoto and is one
of the most famous festivals in
Japan. It is considered a
living symbol of Kyoto’s 1,200
years of rich, colourful history.
Highlight of the Gion Matsuri
Festival are elaborate floats,
adorned with exquisite
craftwork such as woven
fabric, dyed textiles and
sculptures, parading down the
main streets of Kyoto. During
the parade, children wearing
make-up and musicians
playing the flute, drums and
bells are seated on the second
level of the floats.
They say there are around
500 varieties of mango in
India. It is only fitting to
honour this fruit through a
festival. Every month of July,
Dilli Haat plays host to the
Mango Festival where visitors
can sample the different
varieties of mango and other
mango-related delicacies.
When: July 2010
Where: Dilli Haat
Info: tourism@delhitourism.gov.in; +91 11 2464 7005
When: July 1-29
Where: Yasaka-jinja Shrine
BAN G KO K
SI N GAPORE
S I N GA PO RE
Singapore Garden Festival 2010
This biennial event is the
only garden show in the world
that brings together international landscape and garden
designers, florists and
horticulturalists under one
roof.
When: July 15-22
Where: Suntec Singapore
Info: www.singaporegardenfestival.com
World Cup Festival
Make Noise, Not War!
Sentosa Island's Siloso
Beach offers matches on
giant screens, live music,
online gaming, DJs and a
five-a-side beach-soccer competition, with food and drink
available.
On the first Saturday of
every month is a night of
pure noise. Bands, solo
artists and jam sessions
create unusual performances
at the Nospace Gallery, a
space wholly dedicated to
Bangkok's young artist
community.
Where: Siloso Beach,
Sentosa Island
When: Ongoing until July
12
Tickets: From S$8
(US$5.7) a day to S$68
(US$6 to $48) for all days
Info: www.2010fwc.sg
When: July 3, 9pm-12am
Where: Nospace Gallery,
21/108 Block D, Royal City
Avenue
Info: info@nospacebkk.
com, +66 2 641 4040
Equus by Peter Shaffer
answer to this psychological
puzzle.
Repertory Philippines
presents Equus, a stage
play about a psychiatrist
Martin Dysart, who is faced
with the most challenging
case of his career as he
treats a seemingly normal
17-year-old boy. Only Dysart
seems able to grasp the
When: July 9-25, 8pm (Fridays
& Saturdays), 3:30pm (Saturdays
& Sundays)
Where: OnStage, 2/F Greenbelt 1, Ayala Centre, Makati City
Tickets: P250-P600 (US$6$13)
Info: www.repertory.ph; +63
887 0710
MA NI L A
50 •
M AN I L A
Cats Now and Forever
On its limited run in
Manila, CATS, the second
longest-running musical in
Broadway history, will feature
Tony Award-winner Lea
Salonga as Grizabella.
CATS tells the imaginative
tale of a tribe of Jellicle CATS
as they gather for the annual
Jellicle Ball.
It features a larger-than-life
junkyard set, colourful
make-up and costumes, ‘80s
choreography, and often
eclectic array of music.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber
musical production is based
on the Old Possum’s Book of
Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot.
Where: Cultural Centre of
the Philippines
When: July 24-August 15
Info: www.ticketworld.com.ph.
July 2-15, 2010
ASIA NEWS NETWORK
21 newspapers in 18 countries—covering Asia for 10 years
W e
K n o w
A s i a
B e t t e r
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