Burma

Burma is a very special place for me. It's very poor and like Tibet, the last thing it needs is dramatic regime change or the different states will just slug it out like they did in the Balkans. If you read Monocle recently that article on Kosovo might help you understand because its great but also deeply depressing when the tribes get all....tribal. The best chance it has is for ASEAN to do SOMETHING but Asians have a culture of non inteference to the point where I've seen people run over by a car in Bangkok and nobody helps. It's not evil, its just a cultural fault. We have lots and lots too.

However China pretty much uses Burma as one of its Southern Ports so they have a lot of influence. But probably not enough to tell the Generals they are scum. They may not want to burn their bridges either.

So yesterday I finally bumped into my dealer again. I've been avoiding him because he sold me that Pop Communism painting and even though he's a nice guy, he's a bit pushy on the sales but yesterday was unavoidable so I did the decent thing and took a look around his gallery. That was a mistake because I found a painting about Burma there.

A Chinese person doing a painting about Burma takes a sort of internationalism that is hard to grasp to those outside this country. My heart melted and I bought it instantly. But I've been thinking about it, because I don't necessarily need to stack up on paintings and actually I put a deposit down on another painting that is about China and will be with me for the rest of my life. More on that later.

So I want to repay Burma and Rangoon back for the haunting beauty of Bagan and the tranquility of Pyae by offering this painting for sale. All money to the Burmese even if I have to fly there and stuff some dollars in someone's hand because I think they might be hit by a famine after that cyclone/hurricane/tropical monsoon that wiped out a 100 000 or so. 

It's pretty desperate as I understand things.

If someone knows how to turn this into a meme/contagious content I'd be very grateful.

Untitled

Skype

I know planners shouldn't shine lasers in their mouths but Creatives need inspiration. That's our job.

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

We're very lucky to have this building barely two minutes away from my house here in Beijing . I've been making the most of it and dropping-by on my electric bike and buying random tickets for the Ballet, Pianists and Orchestras. It's called 'The Egg' locally for reasons I can't figure out.

Last Monday a colleague and I went to see the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and they were seamless. A real transportation away from the outside world, conducted by the hugely talented Yannick Nézet-Séguin from Montreal. A classical superstar in the making , along with a sublime performance by the pianist from Shanghai called Yundi Li who was definitely on another level when he played a Prokofiev piece, Piano Concerto No. 2 in g minor, OP. 16 which is hideously dark, complex and confrontational. I loved it.

They get very annoyed about filming anything in the Egg (actually China loathes anything being photographed if they think copyright is being infringed - which is ironic) and even shine a laser spot on people during a performance if anyone is caught doing so.

Anyway, you know I like to shine, so I sneaked some of the two and half minute ovation they gave to the conductor with some never before seen panoramas (I should work in advertising shouldn't I?) of the auditorium. It's world class and here it is.

Just in case you've got loads of time on your hands there's an expression I picked up in Thailand from a P.R. professional, that also applies here in China. Do it first and ask for forgiveness afterwards. This is how we roll as Sam might say.

Average number of Asian searches

Thomas Crampton makes the witty observation that perhaps the Malaysians should help the Koreans with what they are trying to find.

JC Penney & Saatchi Saatchi

This is a beautiful ad. It feels more wholesome than prurient to me. I understand that Saatchi & Saatchi are saying this ad is nothing to do with them but they are nonetheless trying to take it down.

Trashvertising

I couldn't help laughing at this bag I saw in Xidan over the weekend. I'm probably going straight to hell aren't I?

There's an anthropological/linguistic/ethnographic study in the waiting for this little number above. I'm being serious because actually it's unacceptable in many Asian cultures to wear this and yet the intended irony has gone off-skew with this example I saw in Beijing. Lauren or Angus might have a bit to say on this.

Everybody loves a bit of Exciusive design don't they? Just splendid!


Or can we safely blame Moschino for this kind of stuff.