Thursday, May 28, 2009

























Items from a restaurant menu in Dongguan - Spiced Donkey Meat on left; Snake on right

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 2:26 AM Comments: 0

Travel Channel in Asia (Forget Seville)

Ahhhh!! ...... It's Samantha Brown climbing to the top of the Cathedral of Seville again! I feel like I'm stuck in a rerun of Groundhog Day!

But I look outside, and I'm in North Carolina. It's not Dongguan this time! What's going on?

Okay, it was just a local rerun of Samantha Brown's visit to Seville on Travel Channel. Unfortunately, that's the same show I saw over a hundred times while living in China. It was the default show whenever the China censors didn't like the ABC Evening News broadcast. Which was frequent!

But I have enjoyed a couple of other Travel Channel shows in particular recently. The best is Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods. He travels the world and tries everything and anything. Recently, I caught reruns of his shows from Guangzhou, Taiwan, Thailand, and Asia. Wow! It had me downright wanting some of those local specialties, like black chicken, duck tongue, tofu, and tea. ............Okay, maybe not the tofu.

I didn't get to where I loved the foods of Asia, but I certainly enjoyed the foods. The adventurous nature in the choices, the spices, and the settings were all great. And Andrew explores them well. He even visits the Guangzhou Reasturant where our company dined on a business trip to the city. And the fresh chicken with the yellow skin looks exactly like that I had almost daily from our company chefs.

The shows get rerun often, so set your DVR and travel from your home to these special locales in Asia. The Guangzhou show is next on June 8 at 2 PM EDT. Catch it if you can, and just think of me sitting there being served all the same "bizarre foods".

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 1:47 AM Comments: 1

Saturday, May 16, 2009

From 30 Rock: Kidney Now !

And I must make mention of the hilarious skit and song on 30 Rock's season ending show last Thursday night. The song "Kidney Now" parodied "We Are the World", and included many top singers, including Sheryl Crow, Cindi Lauper, Clay Aiken, and Michael McDonald. (Info on the show and the song available here.)

But the song still made a point about the importance of kidney donation. And the proceeds generated from sales of the video on iTunes are being provided to the National Kidney Foundation.

The full show is available here (song is near the end).

Nice touch!

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 10:57 PM Comments: 0

Interesting Book Published: Larry's Kidney

I just got word about a most interesting titled book that has me doubly interested. The title is Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant -- And Save His Life. (Some background on the book can be found here.)

I said "doubly", because first, I lived in China for three years, and two, now need a new kidney myself. And while in China, I contemplated purchasing a kidney, and even visited a hospital there. But I couldn't go through with it, and in fact it is against the law to transplant a foreigner, so this author went through some interesting actions to get the kidney for his cousin.

The book is available on Amazon. Search Larry's Kidney. Or click here (it might work, if I set it up right).



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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 10:16 PM Comments: 0

This Week in China

In gathering news from China this week, I came across some interesting developments (as usual, a click on the underlined italized note will take you to the original article):

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 10:04 PM Comments: 0

Saturday, May 09, 2009

In the News - Guangdong & Dongguan

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 10:50 PM Comments: 0

Guangdong Retains CBA Championship

The Guangdong Tigers won the CBA Championship 4-1 with a 106-95 victory in the deciding game in Dongguan in early May. It is the fifth time in six seasons that the Guangdong team has captured the national basketball title in China. Several former NCAA athletes play in the league, including Smush Parker, formerly of Fordham and the Denver Nuggets.

Congratulations to the Tigers! One of my biggest regrets is not getting to see a CBA game while I was in China.

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posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 10:37 PM Comments: 0