Before you think I have gone all perverted, stop. These are actual mascots of events. From top right clockwise:
* 1996 Atlanta Olympic mascot “Izzy”
* 2008 Spain World Expo * 2010 Shanghai World Expo
* 2009 Hong Kong East Asian Games

Having lived through and participated in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta I heard all the “blue sperm” jokes you could imagine. After that I thought, “ok mistake over, now back to lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.” Nope. I just saw the Shanghai mascot last week. Not only is it ambiguous but it is also blue! Then this week I arrive in Hong Kong to the “white sperm twins” for the East Asian games. Those three alone would have been enough for this article, but then I find the 2008 Spain expo mascots. Posis? Negas? Are you serious? What is Posis even doing to Negas on the bottom right? Do people really want to see this? Please tell me I am not the only person who feels this is wrong.

I only have a few questions:

1. What’s wrong with an animal? Starbucks can dress up the same bear 6 ways to Sunday, but these events can’t manage a new animal look? What about the lemur? When was he a mascot? Or the moth? For that matter, they might as well put Alabama’s dung beetle up as a mascot given this company.
2. Why Blue or White? If you made them brown then… oh…I get why not brown.. but orange or green? What about black? Why can’t we have a “black” mascot, hmm? HMMMM???
3. Why so close together? We have gone from 2008-2010 and all three look very close. STOP COPYING CHINA! The problem with being ambiguous is you can be anything and when you are anything you are also nothing which is what they tend to end up. I think I need to report these and collect my reward to China’s new porn policy: http://bit.ly/7yQ5cw

Now most of these were designed using children’s imaginations and focus groups. The problem with children is that they don’t even know all the animals yet, so of course they sneeze on a paper (or worse) and someone calls it “Izzy!” Please, please, please, to the next event planner, find something with legs, a pulse, and a defined neck and NOT something that looks more like what people in Asia spit on the sidewalks.

Posted via email from beuk’s posterous

So,YouTube has a few strange policies that are affecting me a bit. If you haven’t seen my famous Tiger video you need to check it out. Now, for the record, all I did was take the video. I have NOTHING to do with the comment section which is out of hand underneath. There is everything from the stupid to the crass. My biggest complaint is when people cannot figure out how to comment correctly and end up emailing me directly. Besides that it is quite an interesting read.

Now I say “famous”, but don’t take my word for it. YouTube constantly updates stats. I have even made the #1 most viewed video on a given day. Here are the latest stats.

I was also featured on the BBC. There is even a Korean blog site that has provided over 300,000 clicks! Now with all the depravity that occurs around this video, you would think that it would come down, right? Nope.

So, what does Beuk.tv post that gets blocked? Why pictures of his baby daughter shaving her legs in the tub like Mommy. Most of my videos have ~200 views. Usually, my dad one time, Jack one time, and me 198 times, BUT the two videos of G in the tub jumped to 4000+ views before YouTube took it down. I get it. It hit some sick depraved website and all of a sudden a lot of sickos posting crazy comments caused the YouTube police to take notice (still talking about the baby here, not the tigers) The reason?

Rejected (content inappropriate)

Let me see if I get this right. Babies in tub=BAD, Tigers eating cow=GOOD. Sort of a sad commentary on today’s society, don’t you think?

Today was an interesting lesson. It is Friday the 13th and so I was trying to explain how 13 meant unlucky (bu ji li) just like the number 4 means unlucky in Chinese. One thing led to another and we expounded upon many an American and Chinese story that has dual meanings. Examples include:

• giving a Green hat
• a Black cat crossing your path
• Walking under a ladder
• saying, “youle”
• etc…

As I finished class I needed to pay for some more hours at reception and thus the following conversation ensued with ANOTHER teacher, not mine. Bear in mind that all of this was all spoken in Chinese in a room full of female Chinese teachers:
—

Me: Hey, I think that teacher is 24 years old, do you know?
Receptionist: I don’t know, why do you think that?
Teacher: Hey, why do you think I am 24?
Me: Oh, you know. In China, now is a time for people who are 12, 24, and 36 years old to take care.
Teacher: yeah, the year of the golden pig!
Me: Yes. What animal are you?
Teacher: I can’t tell you (tee hee) and that is not the way to say it. You must say to which animal do you BELONG?
Me: Oh sorry, to which animal do you belong?
Teacher: I can’t tell you. What about you?
Me: I am a tiger!
Teacher: You “belong” to tiger. What is your Chinese name? Oh yeah. I remember you. I am going to call you tiger and not your Chinese name.
Me: Ok, sounds good. I like all things tiger. Harbin tigers, tiger beer, etc..

Me: So, I think you are/belong to either Pig or Dog because you are 24 or 25.
Teacher: No, why do you think that?
Me: Because when you are 24 you need to wear red to protect yourself from all the other animals because it is your year and they want to harm you.
Teacher: Wow, you are the clever tiger. That is correct, but my t-shirt is yellow and not red. If I was wearing a red belt you could say that.
Me: Yes, but you are wearing red underwear which is hanging out of your pants!
Teacher: What!?! Oh. Oh no. We have to watch out for you clever tiger. I am a chicken (ji), but don’t tell anyone.
Me: Oh, chicken. Like ‘ji rou de ji’ cool. So, I will call you chicken!
Teacher: What? No, you cannot.
Me: (to room) Bye friend, bye my teacher, bye chicken
Teacher: What! No, don’t say that, wait come back!

—
At this point I just thought it was a strange conversation, so I told the story to my driver who ’bout drove us off the road laughing. I thought we was going to die he was crying so hard. He then explained that calling someone “ji” which sounds like chicken is the same as calling them a prostitute. Doh! I had no idea. She called me tiger, I called her chicken. Fair’s fair, right? Not when you are saying, “Bye, Bye, Hooker.”

My bad ‘G’ guess I have some ‘splainin to do come Monday.

Yes ’tis true. We have made the news again! This time on the BBC. Our recent trip to Harbin received some attention when I posted the tigers eating a cow video on YouTube.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC that aired on March 21st, 2007:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/player/?item=4450939

If you have troubles playing the video, don’t feel bad. I did too. It probably requires that you use RealPlayer, so if it does not run right away click on the link at the bottom of the page that looks like this picture:
Then set it to RealPlayer. It should reload and you should be fine. Hey, it is the BBC’s website. Don’t blame me. The kicker is if you are in China, you probably won’t be able to get to the site anyway as the BBC is blocked.

The video is quite long and goes through a whole long story about tiger bone and how it is illegal. The one stat I did not believe is that there were only 50 wild tigers in China. I do not know where they got that number, but they mention it twice.

My video contribution is at the very end. I am the “Western Tourist” (I guess I was a tourist to Harbin ;) and it is my voice that you hear saying, “I think its a cow!” To answer your question, No, I did not get paid and that is OK with me. I think the BBC is quite smart to use YouTube to find content they can use in a story. Beats hiring a photographer. Now if they could just make the video easier to play :)

Click here for other pictures from our Harbin trip.

Harbin pics are up and for the record, yes, it was VERY cold. I know in about 3 months I will have warmed up and say, “Oh.. it was not that bad”. That is not true. It was bad! I wore double layers of everything and everything we saw was outside. The Russian Cafe was awesome, but be aware of everyone asking for a tip…IN CHINA!

You can see pics from the trip here or you can click on the photo link on the left hand sidebar.

Rebecca’s blog also has a great story.

WARNING: This next link is quite graphic, do not let your kids watch! We saw them feed the tigers a live cow. I warned you.