This month I tried something new: each Thursday I'll visit a restaurant in Sunset Park, and I'll email friends details beforehand—they can show up if they want. This is to share my the experience with minimal emotional effort. Here's an ongoing thread on this #SunsetThursday /1
The motto: 好吃好喝,爱来不来. Feel free to sign up, run late, or ghost me altogether. I ain't putting in efforts to organize, and my friends don't need to spend energy to commit. The more ppl come, the more food we get to try. Yesterday was Malaysian joint Langkawi /2
We started with Roti & Satay Tofu /3
Hainanese Chicken, pork ribs, water spinach, seafood casserole. 海南雞,南乳排骨,馬拉盞通菜,砂鍋海鮮銀針粉 /4
This glorious Bak kut teh 肉骨茶 deserves its individual post /5
I failed at taking photos of drinks. But we ordered three different sodas with lychee, longan, and rambutan. Try your luck. /6
That was the second Sunset Thursday. For the debut gathering two weeks ago, we raided Fei Long's food court for roasted fish 烤魚, xiao long bao 小籠包, ci fan 粢飯 and braised pork chop 醬骨架. /7
There's more to come in the coming weeks. In the name of fried chicken wings 炸雞翼, support your local restaurants. /8
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In the past 4 months, I've buried myself in creating this short doc on China's stunning underground queer ballroom scene. There's so much love and support in the community. I hope this vid brings you as much joy as it did for me:
.@yilingliu95 has made her wonderful debut! Our video editor, the incomparable Jose Flores created something magical from an ocean of footage we filmed. Special thanks to @KarishmaTV and @thomson_craig for indulging me to chase this story that makes many ppl feel seen.
Some additional thoughts on queerness, China, and myself: I teared up watching the final cut, for the beauty, courage, and fun that I never got to experience as a queer person in a place where I grow up 1/
Nowadays, when it comes to China coverage, it’s VERY important to distinguish how information is censored from how the government actually addresses the situation. Nuances often get lost between these two…
…Info control itself in China is now a well-oiled mechanism, but it doesn’t always automatically shed light on the events themselves. Gag orders—often coordinated with private platforms thru self-censorship—could be used to cover up utter incompetence on the ground level…
…More often than not, ppl who aren’t familiar with China would take the censorship on the face value and make easy arguments about the government’s malice and evil doing. Yes. They exists. But …A LOT MORE damages are done thru incompetence and willful ignorance…
Exactly. “Think” pieces often argue that “media” ignore the Wuhan lab theory. But it’s actually the opposite. Many who try to make the case actually disregard the report from seasoned journalists and coverage from the field…
…as well as the context and trajectory of the conspiracy’s initial spread (first inside China based on a retracted India study, then picked up by right-wing outlets in collaboration with Chinese diaspora disinfo machine). Ofc this doesn’t mean lab leak theory is impossible…
but when someone looks at the lab leak theory within the context of early 2020, they’ll have a much clearer idea on how it emerged in the first place instead of an isolated, hidden incident that “media” “conveniently” ignored…
Thread: Here's the most fun & frivolous tech news today: Railway Operation Depot in the Chinese city Dalian just published an article on their harrowing journey racing to restore the old version of Flash after Adobe's ban, which collapsed their system and paralyzed the railway /1
The article was written a bureaucratic, propaganda, war diary style, with a detailed timeline down to minutes. "Jan 12, 8:16, Depot received malfunction report. The computer system stopped displaying pages...within 30 mins, computers in the entire depot had the same prob" /2
"After calls and online searches, we identified the source of the issue is American company Adobe's comprehensive ban of Flash content" /3
guess I’m old enough to say that one of the saddest things in my life is to witness an entire generation of talented artists in China don’t have the privilege to freely express themselves—without sacrificing their future, finance, or abandoning their home and native language
This goes beyond my generation, but the realization is personal and visceral: They are my friends. They have great ambitions. They are so talented. Some already earned national attention until smackdown from past speeches. Some caved in and drown themselves in nihilism.
Want to highlight this video I produced in 2019 again. Even rock stars are dealing with this kind of censorship—what’s behind the censorship is the sweeping narrative that makes media public enemy and opposing voices “unpatriotic”.
A CCTV-affiliated Weibo account (央视网快看) posted a news video claimed, "Two-thirds of U.S. medical workers are hesitant about or hope to delay the vaccine." Oddly, the video cannot be accessed from America. Weibo videos are rarely region-locked.
The video below shows how the region-lock works. Note: Other videos from the same Weibo account are unrestricted. As a seasoned Weibo user, I can only recall similar region-lock used when accessing third-party video platforms from Weibo
Can't confirm if this region-lock is politically driven (like most other censorship measures). But I can't fact-check this news clip about American medical workers from America. It seems we are one step further towards alternative realities.