I tweeted about this several weeks ago, but it seems to be making rounds on the internet today, so in case you missed it:
Modern architect in Hong Kong turns a 330 square foot apartment into a den of luxury by using movable, modular furniture units: Incredible.
See original coverage on Planet Green, and read what the New York Times had to say.
He is singing about Chinese New Year. It is awesome.
Via Adri.
From Techcrunch’s coverage of the 3G Industry Summit in Kunshan:
LEG3s is an award-winning mobile job hunting service specifically targeted at China’s 200 million migrant workers. The service informs those people about open positions, salary levels, the current situation in the job market etc. in over 100 cities in China. LEG3s has so far attracted 3 million end users who have to pay reasonable fees and can access the service through low-end mobile phones (LEG3s is pre-installed on some of those). CEO Jason Liu expects the user base to grow to 5 million by year-end.
More info on their website, though I couldn’t find a live demo there.
Above: Chocorange’s latest piece entitled “Peach Alien Opens Bag (仙桃星人开包).” Love the collage of old Chinese illustrations.
I’ve featured his work probably a dozen times now 
Background
Spoiler alert (read this only after you have watched it):
Footnotes:
China is building what is billed as its first sex theme park, aimed at improving both the sex education and the sex life of its visitors.
Due to open in Chongqing in October, Love Land will include displays of giant genitalia, naked bodies and an exhibition on the history of sex.
He was inspired to build the park after a visit to South Korea’s popular sex theme park in Jeju.
By May 18 BBC was reporting that it had been demolished, and according to an Eastday report (thanks awflasher), it had been taken down by city officials on the 16th already.
There is something about this story that, I believe, represents some of the development happening in China: It’s driven by sheer entrepreneurial bravery, backed by non sequitar logic, and involves imitation.
Photo via eastday.
ESWN translates an article from Southern Metropolis Daily about a real-life version of the popular BBS Xici Hutong. Specifically, the post detailed the failure to create a “Xici Street District in Nanjing to provide Internet users with a place to gather and spend money.”
The photo above is taken from the district’s apology ceremony for relying on the “internet economy” too much and failing to become profitable.
Given that large housing estates have online presences in the form of large web portals, is it wrong that large BBSs also have physical presences? And what is the business model for one?
Source: ESWN.
Excerpt from an Adobe think tank piece written by Dori Tunstall of University of Illinois (Chicago):
An example of the nature-nurture problem in design could be determining whether physical or cultural differences might account for different responses of Chinese children and Chinese adults to a technology. The methodological approach to this problem requires both ethnographic and ergonomic research. On the nurture side, a team of design anthropologists would need to carry out ethnographic interviews, observations, ask people self-document their experiences, and perhaps participate in Chinese household activities. On the nature side, they would have to take physical measurements of Chinese adults and children in a lab or in the field, create databases and tables.
Intel may have followed this approach in its 2005 design of the China Home Learning PC. Design anthropologist Dr. Genevieve Bell and her team observed and interviewed Chinese families with school-aged children. The team provided Intel with ethnographic insights about the educational aspirations of Chinese families. One of their main insights was that Chinese parents viewed the computer as a distraction from their children learning Mandarin for school, which was an answer to the nurture question. But also, as part of their design process, Intel would have tested how adults and children interact with the hard and software features of the PC. The result was a physical lock-and-key mechanism that, from across the room, could alert Chinese parents to when the PC was being used in an “open mode,” which allowed for surfing the web of playing games, versus in an “education mode,” which restricted their child to schoolwork.
Ironically, I also worked on a similar idea during my sojourn at Microsoft Research in Beijing. Looking back on it, and reflecting on my current experience of designing yet another parental system for a client in the Middle East, I’m led to believe that as designers, it should be our job to foster a dialogue between parents and children rather than allow parents to “lock” and “unlock” their children’s experiences.
