#cmedia

[2700lagostas]

A Moment But Forever (Nian Wushuang) - Episode 01

[xiaoshengnu]

wallpaper collage of xiaolanhua by yours truly ;)

[pangzi]

Hou Minghao for PowerCircles

[999-roses]

aight I finally sat down and finished watching live action Hikaru no Go and I kind of lost it when I saw the status under 褚赢‘s 围达 Online Go profile read ’你是我的眼‘ after 褚赢 disappeared forever/right before 时光 deleted the profile 😭😭😭😭😭 also 时光 sings a lil line out of that song too 💔

[mistiwysteria]

I just watched the 2013 movie 我想和你好好的 (love will tear us apart) after finding it for free on youtube. I’d never heard of the movie before and knew nothing about it besides a few comments saying how unexpectedly the movie progressed, but I loved it. I liked how liang liang and miao miao weren’t presented as anyone special, they were both just normal young people who made do with what they had, who happened to come together and came apart again. 

but what I really like was the fact that they didn’t villainise miao miao for her attempts to control the relationship. sure she tried to control liang liang, she was paranoid and borderline abusive but neither was her behaviour completely unfounded; her job as an actress contributed to her insecurities and liang liang did sneak around her back instead of confronting her behaviour in a honest and constructive way- and then later went as far as to meet up with his ex on the regular. while this does not excuse her abusive behaviour, it humanises her. 

maybe I haven't been watching many movies recently but I was actually quite surprised how fast paced it was. the speed in which liang liang and miao miao’s relationship went hurtling downhill was quite jarring and a little exaggerated but to be honest I actually quite appreciated it for what it was. it’s like that idea in literature where you highlight the fact that the piece of literature is actually just a piece of literature in order to emphasise the point you’re trying to make. what I took from the movie was how easy it was for what seemed to be a totally normal relationship to become so toxic, that abusive behaviour is not the evil rootless thing that it’s often presented as- it is awful, but it’s never totally black and white- miao miao at the end of the day is still a human being. 

[blorbocedes]

if anyone is curious, nico's leaf jacket is LV and 2000 euros 😭😭😭

you just know he's stunting on the rest of the commentators at sky in their office wear

as per dug up by @legobrickcow

[hunxi-after-hours]

collecting some of the thoughts in The Disappearance of Rituals on performance, communication, and authenticity:

Chapter 1: "The Compulsion of Production"

"Digital communication is increasingly developing into communication without community. The neoliberal regime encourages communication without community by isolating everyone as the producer of him- or herself. Producing is derived from the Latin verb producere, meaning presenting or making visible. Like the French produire it still carries the meaning of presenting. Se produire means 'to play to the gallery'. The colloquial German expression sich produzieren probably has the same etymology. Today, we are constantly and compulsively playing to the gallery. This is especially the case, for instance, on social media: the social is coming to be completely subordinated in order to garner more attention. The compulsion of self-production leads to a crisis of community. The so-called 'community' that is today invoked everywhere is an atrophied community, perhaps even a kind of commodified and consumerized community. It lacks the symbolic power to bind people together" (13).

Chapter 2: "The Compulsion of Authenticity"

"The society of authenticity is a performance society. All members perform themselves. All produce themselves. Everyone pays homage to the cult of the self, the worship of the self in which everyone is his or her own priest" (16).

"Taylor's moral justification of authenticity ignores that subtle process, within the neoliberal regime, by which ideas of freedom and self-realization are transformed into vehicles for more efficient exploitation. The neoliberal regime exploits morality. Once it is able to present itself as freedom, domination becomes complete. Authenticity is a neoliberal form of production. You exploit yourself voluntarily in the belief that you are realizing yourself. In the cult of authenticity, the neoliberal regime appropriates the person himself and turns him into a highly efficient site of production" (18).

"With the rise of the cult of authenticity, tattoos have also become fashionable again. Within a ritual context, they symbolize the alliance between individual and community. In the nineteenth century, when tattoos were very popular, especially among the upper classes, the body was still a surface onto which yearnings and dreams were projected. Today, tattoos lack any symbolic power. All they do is point to the uniqueness of the bearer. The body is neither a ritual stage nor a surface of projection; rather, it is an advertising space. The neoliberal hell of the same is populated with tattooed clones" (20).

"The culture of authenticity goes hand in hand with the distrust of ritualized forms of interaction. Only spontaneous emotion, that is, a subjective state, is authentic. Behaviour that has been formed in some way is denigrated as inauthentic or superficial. In the society of authenticity, actions are guided internally, motivated psychologically, whereas in ritual societies actions are determined by externalized forms of interaction. Rituals make the world objective; they mediate our relation to the world. The compulsion of authenticity, by contrast, makes everything subjective, thereby intensifying narcissistic tendencies" (23).

[rinbylin]

[inserts the most mundane thing that is in no way transgressive] "how did it get past censors" 🤡🤡🤡

[999-roses]

omg the animation clips/proofs of concept they've put out are amazing!!

Artworks by chinese artist Yu QIuyang for his "You Ming Zhi" global project (animations / illustrations / comic books).

[2700lagostas]

Martial God Asura (Xiuluo Wu Shen) - Episode 08

[pangzi]

Hou Minghao for PowerCircles

[999-roses]

奔跑 - Run the cover artist is 林童学 Lin Tongxue ; the original artist is 黄征 Huang Zheng & duo 羽泉 YuQuan

[tianshiisdead]

All the Chinese American movies being about trad mom VS westernized daughter is crazy where is my mom who wants western approval/to fit in/for her daughter to fit in VS annoying China obsessed daughter who hates white people and LARPs as mainland Asian online

[lanliingwang]

Genuinely think people need to realize it's not. Bad or makes your love of a media less if you criticize its instances of racism and other problems -- if anything, we should all strive to be critical of those instances in general (regardless of it being largely amongst ourselves and our friends or out on public social media)

[homo-trashcanicus]

side note but how did fangs of fortune manage to score an entire lead ensemble cast with PIPES? like i know the idol-to-actor pipeline goes crazy, pretty people will be doing pretty people things (chen duling appears to be the only one with no musical background), but these character themes are actually... good?? in fact??? the omnipresent shoehorned pop ballads are always my leeeaast favorite part of cmedia esp with the annoying hard subs and overuse of the same song often multiple times an ep, just so immersion-breaking and bad AND YET i am actively searching up this ost to listen to on its own! it's good!! i even really truly enjoy the credits' goofy little dance number. wild shit

[999-roses]

is too long for a normal ass comment orz continue for Unwarranted Music Recs 🎉->

found this guy's youtube channel a while back when trying to dig for up-to-date chinese underground/metal scene. there is some crossover in rock w/ punk elements (numetal hardcore etc etc) but i dont see just punk too often.

most of my (limited) exposure to the punk music genre in china is uh... the bands really like to use english lyrics XD so I'm not sure if that would help in terms of learning (mandarin) Chinese hhahaahah examples: * Dummy Toys (super punk girlband from Qingdao) - theyre'.. pretty stylish ig. I haven't seen a song they put out that ISN'T in english lol * The Hormones / 荷尔蒙小姐乐队 I think they had a punk phase but they're like... post-punk now? girlband based in Chengdu. much of their songs are english lyrics xD well here's a chinese language song of theirs Ghost of Brocken //// more... 'traditional' (major chord) punk * Shave 'n Shut old school "oi" (skinhead?) punk band from Beijing "瓦尔登啤酒湖" * N95 punk band from Shanxi Take Me Home

there is misc metal/rock out there that incorporates some elements from chinese opera. off the top of my head: I like the vocalist for Sacred Rock/聖Rock乐队 she uses some sheng-ish (chinese opera) style sometimes like here in 大圣归来; I like this song 一个人 from this band as well (they're from Ningbo)

========

other recs;;; random ass chinese rock I like 🌟sad toys/悲伤玩具 (rock) not particularly hard rock. think theyre based in beijing? 今夜南方故事 // 人魚 // 觝制与接受 wawa @/rongzhi posted a translation of their song 在我二十岁的时候，我回到了爸爸的小村庄，那是我的乌托邦 (When I was 20 years old, I returned to my baba’s little hamlet. That is my utopia) a while back

✨Lilith/莉莉丝 visual-kei band was based in shanghai. not sure if they officially disbanded, the leader is doing other projects in japan now. Legacy -> I really really love the lyrics, I kind of want to post my own translation sometime. just rly wanted to plug this track in particular

⭐ continuing down the visual bands... probably a bit corny compared to the other reccs but I do enjoy DengeL ("Devil & Angel"). 新的世界 + Death is the Beginning of Birth | link to their bandcamp. they're melodic gothic metal (not exactly symphonic) from Beijing.

I need to find like Chinese punk bands that I really really like I feel like I'm make myself learn that way faster LOL