Category: Chinese

  • 1000 Days of Xiami

    I’m about to clock 1000 days on Xiami logins xD

    xiami-1000-days

    Sad for this excitement, I know. LOL But I get obsessive-compulsive over these things easily. I took a screen grab because I don’t know whether the count will reset to zero or continue. Back in March when I went to Japan, I told my friend to login for me, so I don’t lose my clocked days, and there was a weird bug that made the counter go back to zero, so we thought for a while that it was done. A couple of days later, it went back to normal :P

    I’ve been using Xiami for a lot longer, of course. And gone are the days when you could find everything on the site for stream and download :P Though you can still find stuff and download, it’s often the case when albums are empty. Recently, Xiami has taken to just be able to stream music (which is better than having blank albums), without download capabilities— Faye Wong’s most recent track is only available for stream, so you gotta find it elsewhere if you want it. The site is still a great source for Chinese music, especially from the independent scene. However, now Xiami-approved artists are allowed to mark their music as only-Mi tracks, meaning that you have to have Xiami credit on your account and not download music from your VIP free-tracks perk or use your red envelopes (points).

    Having said that~~~ I have like +500 points (you get points for single days and months counted, albums added and music shared, etc.) and haven’t used them in so long. What the heck~ What are the perks of the VIP account if you still gotta pay for the Chinese music that you download; at least make it so that you use twice or thrice the # of downloads for those.

    I still haven’t figured out what the note reputation is (eg. Re*), but I’m just a few hundred away from reaching the other level. Increasing my stars is a little trickier because English reviews don’t get as many likes or comments. lol

    Also~ OMO! 1000 days on the 10 of 10. xD

  • Look! You’ll Never Miss This I Am Not Madame Bovary Poster

    … from 10 miles from the movie theater xD

    im-not-madame-bovary-chinese-poster-001

    It’s like bright highlighter marker color xD I love it. There’s been a couple of other Chinese posters [the series for Song of the Phoenix (百鸟朝凤), and Big Fish & Begonia (大鱼海棠)].

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  • Bibi Zhou Slaying for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue China

    Apparently, BiBi now has an official Facebook page (finally!). And it turns out that I’ve missed a couple of photoshoots, since BiBi has been promoting the release of Cold War 2, one of them a shoot by an unknown photographer for the July issue of Harper’s Bazaar China, featuring this gorgeous dual cover.

    bib-zhou-bichang-harper-jul16

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  • Just Discovering the Amazingness of Ivana Wong~

    So I was browsing album covers on Xiami when I ran into the one for Ivana Wong’s latest single, Goi Sei Dik Faai Lok (該死的快樂, translated to Damn Happy)… which turns out has a brand new video. And I was like- where have you been all my life when I started going down her discography~

    Jyu Jat (如一, As One) is great. Siu Sau Seot (小手術, Minor Surgery) is amazing with the Lyrics Video. It’s also helping me practice my Cantonese xD My jyutping game is totally poor. I also hate that sometimes I’m fixing my music library and it’s not Cantonese but Mandarin, so I gotta fix my romanization. But I’m totally digging her music. More her less popular songs that are not straight up sappy ballads. Her piano skills seem to be on point.

    Not new talent, but total new discovery.

  • The Polite Fight for the Bill~

    I just finally finished catching up to Fresh Off the Boat, and though it seems like there were a lot of filler episodes, there were actually a lot of more meaningful moments too. Of course, Chinese New Year celebrations was a major thing, but I also enjoyed the episode of Lao Ban Santa, which focused on Evan’s loss of innocence… alongside the development of his OBVIOUS gambling problem. First the bunny he lost to grandma in poker, now his Pogs. And his totally Machiavellian plans in the Jessica Place Melrose Place spoof.

    And Emery gets his own development too! Loved that he was so devastated to find out his parents’ definition of romance, how we got to see him dealing with his anger and frustration, and his best moment having to deal with puberty.

    I think I may have to write a review. xD

    Anyway~ this post is because my life is literally the “polite fight” every single time we go out for lunch or dinner with my aunties.

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  • Come on, hey, Amy~

    Oh, man~ I got it bad~~~

    Look who’s totally officially a Moomoo. First time ever with a Kpop group, too!

    amy-the-mamamoo-moo

    Bonus of Su Yunying, though~

    But I’m totally rocking the radish onesie!

    Kigurumi is probably out of stock again.

  • Flawless BiBi Zhou

    I haven’t been stanning BiBi like I used to (I did listen to her new song, and I do know she’s on the latest Cold War 2 movie), but look at that face and flawless make-up! I don’t even know what the image is for. I was only able to find this black and white version on BiBi’s Weibo, so I’ll just call it a snapshot~

    bibi-zhou-2016

    It’s a flawless snapshot.

  • Everyone for L’Oreal Paris’ Color Riche Collection

    L’Oreal Paris has a bunch of brand ambassadors by region, and they all get invited to Cannes; among them, there’s people like Eva Longoria, Aishwarya and Sonam Kapoor, who all end up walking the festival’s red carpet events, just like last year. This time around, they got them all for this commercial that also credits J.Lo and Blake Lively, even though I don’t really spot them in it.

    Those who do make it and aren’t listed, however, include Aishwarya, Sonam Kapoor, and the Bingbings– Fan Bingbing and Li Bingbing. That’s on top of Jane Fonda, and everyone’s faves Julianne Moore and Naomi Watts, who all come together to gather round John Legend.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkN38gSytHk

    The idea of them coming together around Legend gave me vibes of that Lux Soap Commercial that Shahrukh Khan did like a decade ago, which featured Hema Malini, Juhi Chawla, Kareena Kapoor, and Sridevi… but then I watched it again, and that one was grosser. xD La Vie en Rose, at least, is a nice soft tune to give you the feeling of floating in the clouds xD

    — EDIT 12Aug’16 —

    Here’s the L’Oreal India upload.

    Australian upload.

     

  • SK-II: Marriage Market Takeover

    There’s been much talk on China’s “Leftover Women” (剩女, Sheng Nv) [Wikipedia], and Japanese beauty brand SK-II is putting it to good use in the brand’s latest Chinese campaign… and it’s lovely, heartfelt and empowering.

    Don’t think that I missed your Tang Wei ad at LA’s International Airport, SK-II.

  • Su Yunying Meets Mayday + HAYA Band Meets Bjork

    *dies*

    Oh, hey! I’m back from my trip! And as I work on the photos (+1k) I took, I wanted to share these quick perfections~

    These are pictures I took on the plane on my way there and on my way back, during perfect break of dawns across the Americas — one was near landing time in Los Angeles and the other in plain flight across Central America — to the most beautiful soundtrack moments~ Su Yunying’s Ming Ming 冥明 and Strong Sky People 空人得坚强. That album is certainly topping my favorite album list this year, LOL.

    Anyway~ Su continues her perfection with a performance of Mayday’s Contentment (知足) [MV] in this year’s season of I Am Singer (我是歌手), which I thought I was done with. LOL I don’t get how this show works. But Su Yunying made another appearance and her presence just makes things better. I didn’t realize it was the Mayday song until the last moment or halfway through. xD Her version is so hers and so unique, makes me appreciate the original even more.

    But if I thought that was it? Turns out HAYA Band also did a rendition of Bjork’s Joga [MV], which is also life itself. They topped it off with more chants. I’m not entirely sure why they call it 英格玛.