Flickr user Vintage Lulu is sharing her collection of Japanese postcards from late 19th and early 20th century…
The photoset was dubbed as vintage Geisha postcards, but most of those ladies look like ordinary people (including some westerners) wearing traditional Japanese kimonos instead of real Geishas… pretty neat nonetheless.
A laugh a day, keeps the doctor away…
Mickey Mouse celebrates his 80th birthday on Tuesday (Nov 18)…
An under-construction subway tunnel in Hangzhou, China, collapsed on November 15. Seven people was killed while 14 workers still missing.
“As wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun…”
This is how Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak (5,895m) was described by Ernest Hemingway in his famous short story “The Snow of Kilimanjaro”.
Kilimanjaro has long famed for its shiny bright snow cap, but United Nations’ Environment Program (UNEP) has warned that the iconic white glacier covers the rooftop might vanish forever in two decades as a result of global warming.
There are other reports suggesting that the diminishing snow is not solely caused by global warming, but it’s probably undeniable that human activities are contributing to the shrink one way or the other.
The shrinking snow cap is contributing to the local tourism though… many tourists are flocking to the mountain fearing that they might not have the chance to see the snow of Kilimanjaro in future. Ironically the influx of tourists might hasten the melt.
Domino Day is an annual event organised each year by Dutch TV production company Endemol with one goal in mind… to break the world record for the highest number of toppling domino stones.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Domino Day 2008 was held successfully on November 14 with a new world record of 4,345,027 dominoes being toppled…
~590,000 Korean students took their College Scholastic Ability Test (수능 - Suneung) on Thursday (Nov 13)… a day where the students had to endure a gruelling nine-hour tests that would significantly influence their future career prospect.
It’s a day where stock market and offices were opened an hour late to ease the morning traffic; where flights had to be rescheduled during the listening test to avoid the slightest disturbance… and it’s a day where temples and churches were packed with parents praying for good performances from their kids.
The CSAT would determine which university/college the Korean students would be enrolled to… and the reputation of the universities will make a huge impact on their career path. A student who gets into a top university is almost guaranteed a bright future in their working career.
The larger-than-life exam culture is not entirely unique to Korea; most of the East Asian countries are adopting similar ideology, presumably originated from the Chinese civil servants’ exam in ancient Chinese dynasty some thousand of years ago. The Koreans however seem to be taking the whole idea to its extremity.
Many quarters have criticised that the high pressure of preparing for the CSAT attributes to the high suicide rates of Korean teenagers; while some others are criticising that the system are undermining the students’ creativity and other talents by overemphasising the exam results.
