Ai Ra Bu Yuu Kishidan...

My sis has recently asked me to show to Papa and Mama who she is currently interested in.



Unfortunately, she is not romantically involved with them. :)


Kishidan has been around for a decade already, and recently celebrating their 10th year anniversary with some shows and activities. Go here to have a look if you know japanese. They are really one-of-a-kind, with their stage performance, looks, and music. Don't let their looks and goofy antics fool you. If you listen closely, their musical talent is not to be underestimated, and it is waiting to be fully released one day.

This group, consisting by Ayanokouji Sho (Vocals and leader), Saotome Hikaru (Gibberish Vocals and dance), Saionji Hitomi (Guitar), Hoshi Grandmarnier (Guitar), Shiratori Shouchikubai (Bass) and Shiratori Yukinojoe (Drums).

Their Style: Early 50's bosozoku biker gang, sporting exaggerated and permed pompadour hairstyle, black japanese high school uniforms modified to their own style with large kanji. Their rock songs are always accompanied with para-para moves, each song having its own.

Their Music: About high school love, bikers, friends, gangs... anything yankii.

Their Popularity: Already 10 years in the industry and still not phased out. Need to say more? However, they are limited to the Japanese, as their style does not really appeal to the international market. Which is good because I would hate for them to be compared to the Danish techno group Cartoons. Their songs are also a favourite among karaoke goers, whey they can dance along with it.

Their Influence and influence to culture: Obviously, Sho and his buddies took from the bosozoku culture which is common in their hometown, and took it to a national recognition. Despite their outlook, they have never promoted violence and stuff. Instead, their songs are mostly about love, courage, and faith. They are one of the most recognisable rock groups in the country, and have influenced the fashion industry with their style. You will see a lot of mangas and animes emulating their outlook when depicting gangsters and yakuzas.

Trivia:
- Has appeared in Kouhaku shows. It is a national show for New Year's eve.
- Kishidan are friends with Glay, another famous rock group. It was one of Glay's home party, that Sho was introduced to Utada Hikaru, and they became best friends from that day onwards.
- Hikaru has a gimmick where he is the one in the group that speaks in gibberish. Even his self description in the live concert pamphlets/flyers will consist of "!@#$%&*" or something like that.

Lately, Sho has a side project with an alternate persona, DJ Ozma. His bandmates from Kishidan are involved in this, but they never admit that they are the same people. In live interviews, DJ Ozma will never admit that he actually Ayanokouji Sho, instead he will say that they are distant relatives. Of course, this is just a jest, everyone knows that already. But according to my sis, some people actually believed that! :)

So for those who are interested, don't be shy and give them a try. Start with their great hit single "One Night Carnival", and the recent "Ai Ra Bu Yu (I love you)"

Stripping when you are gone...

No, it's not something that I did when my fiance went back hometown for a couple days or something. It's just something I found on the Yahoo! news.

So I was doing my usual work, when I came across a funny name for a place in China -> Donghai. I was amused at how vulgar it sounded in Cantonese, but it was really Mandarin, pronounced doong-high, meaning "eastern ocean". So I googled up "donghai china", and found the following article on the top of the search result:

Wed Aug 23, 11:09 AM ET
Police crack down on striptease funerals...
BEIJING (Reuters) - Striptease send-offs at funerals may become a thing of the past in east China after five people were arrested for organizing the intimate farewells, state media reported on Wednesday.

Police swooped last week after two groups of strippers gave "obscene performances" at a farmer's funeral in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, Xinhua news agency said.

The disrobing served a higher purpose, the report noted.

"Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas to allure viewers," it said. "Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honored."

Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to attract a crowd. Two hundred showed up at last week's funeral.

Five strippers were detained and local officials "issued notices concerning funeral management," Xinhua said.

Now village officials must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager dies. And residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, the report said.

Read original article at Yahoo! news


So now Donghai is not only that a name for a county in China and the name for a strait between the Pacific Ocean and China, it's a place where you have strippers at funerals. I don't know how long this has been going on, but this act has made this village now synonymous with strippers in the eyes of the world.

Now, being a chinese myself, I could understand the drawing-big-crowd-at-funeral part. In fact, we had marching bands and mini parades strolling the main streets led by the hearse and a Taoist priest. But isn't this a going a tad bit too much? So for all those of you who still think the East is still exotic, virgin, and unattached from modern civilisation and culture - think again.

I'm busy now, but I have a lot to say about this, so I'll be back to update this entry.

Oh by the way, I did get back on track finding its location and here it is...

Do the Programming...

I didn't start out being a geek, to be honest. In fact computing is one of the four things I hated in my life, the others are politics, accounting, and asparagus. I was turned in a geek under circumstances.

As some of you guys know, I used to be a CAD draughtsman for Best Wide Matrix . Up till this day, I still don't know why they did not come up with their own website yet. My first attempt at programming was scripting a LISP AI for my AutoCAD work. Working with AIs are cool in cadding cos it eases my work and speeds up my productivity.

So I studied IT and Computing with APIIT, to broaden my range of skills and in hopes to better my LISP scripting. Of course, I found out later thatn they didn't really teach LISP in IT classes but I was hooked with programming.

Read another blog, the other day, and from there it finally hit me in the head, and brought to the surface the real reason why I liked programming, which has been eluding me for a long time. I love writing, learning new languages, and I love puzzles & problem solving. And programming fits perfectly all 3 of them. There are so many languages in programming, from the lowest level right up to the top. My expertise of course is mainly in web-application programming. So now i finally understand why I never tire of it.

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In truth. I had the first taste of programming way back when I was a kid doing Basic Programming. But our family was too poor to own a computer and my enthusiasm just died off. Wonder what would have happened if things happened otherwise...?