[Weekly Update] Small things I saw during my travel

Sorry for the late update, I just moved across multiple cities and are about to head back to Canada, so this is the only bit of time I have to write this update.

Anyway, within the one month time span I stayed in Asia, McDonald's in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and I think also Japan, went from using plastic sippy-cup lid to paper lid that resembles a coffee cup lid. It's a little wild to see how fast things get change around here abandoning straws years ago, while in Canada, people are still complaining about paper straws.

But first, let's house keep:

CHANNEL UPDATE

Our Wong Kar-wai's film location tour is currently in the work. Hopefully I can get it out within a week or so. It'll probably in a different format than our usual videos, perhaps closer to our eclipse video. Despite working on and off for a while, I'm still not 100% sure how I want to organize and present it. I guess we'll see.

After that we have part 2 of our Journey to the West series. I'm in the process of picking which shows to include. Ideally I want to include as much as possible, but there is no way I can include everything, especially not when many of the adaptations are only tangentially related to the novel. These adaptations will be discussed in groups. I think I'll, instead, highlight the TV and film adaptations that are important to the Chinese pop culture.

Final video of 2024 will once again be about Chinese movies that came out this year. I have a few films lined up, so it should be a pretty interesting topic. Just as an example, the Andy Lau movie The Movie Emperor is, for the most part, a fairly good drama and dark comedy. But it was advertised as family friendly Chinese new year picture, resulting in some serious tonal whiplash in theaters. That's the kind of interesting tidbits I want to focus on in this year's review. Let's see what we have this year.

CULTURE TALK

I promise this is the last bit of Culture Talk in a bit. We'll get back to media talk next week. But as my travel draws a close, I want to share some of the neat things I saw in East Asia.

One of my favourite thing is how pedestrian signal lights are handled in Guangzhou. I remember for a while, there were LED strips on the ground to mark the waiting area for crossings, and turn green when it's safe to go. It's nice for this age of smart phone when people don't look up. But it seems expensive and difficult to replace. This year, the system has been simplified to an overhead lamp that shines red light green light onto the ground. It's such an easy solution and makes crossing a street much more safe and accessible for people with visual impairment.

Okay, so this topic is a little gross, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't to learn about pooping habits. A few years back, on Chinese social media, there was a discussion on what to do with used toilet paper. Now, in the West (and in Japan), toilet papers are designed to be flushable. But in Mainland China and Hong Kong, that is not always the case. I've seen hotels with toilet paper roll that feels the same as facial tissue, which can easily clog the toilet. These toilets expect you to throw your poopy paper in the trash bin, which I find utterly wild. Not all toilets are like this in China, and it's not a cultural thing either. It's different from restroom to restroom. That's why it sparked such a debate. So, does your country have a similar situation? Or is this uniquely a Chinese thing?

In Tokyo, paid parkings are everywhere, but they are all extremely small. Due to the city layout, it's rather common to find small parking lots that has only one or two spots, and it charges you something like 500 yen for overnight parking. It seems like a pretty efficient way to make use of space that would otherwise be empty (too small for a living space). It's certainly a lot less disruptive than the mega parking lots that are so common here in the West. Tokyo is a very walkable city.

We previously mentioned how China is heavily incentivising the purchase of electric vehicles. Indeed, the Chinese government is spending a massive amount of money in renewable energy. Though, I'd say it's less about it being the right thing to do, and more so about it being an as of yet untapped future market. In any case, the way China (and also Japan) approaches environmental issues is quite different from the West. In China and Japan, most green efforts are spent on helping the individuals (electric cars, recycling programs, etc.) and ensuring the government is operating in a green way (waste disposable, renewable energy generation). This, intentionally or not, fostered a environmentally conscious culture, where individuals applause whichever green new trend they see. One memorable example I saw is the new shopping bag from 7-11. Instead of plastic bags, it's a single sheet of fabric cut into fishnet shapes. The holes are small enough that nothing can fall through, but it's big enough to cut the material use in half. It's the sort of low tech engineering I find fascinating. I have a feeling this sort of bags would draw negative attention in North America. But in China and Hong Kong, it is a widely accepted practical solution, which is neat.

And that is the update for this week. Next week I'll be back in frozen land, bringing you our new video. I hope you have a good winter, or summer if you are from the Southern Hemisphere. I'll see you in our next update.