马上

Horse year is here, and we're so excited that the 17-foot long poster on our wall proclaiming 马到成功--"when the horses are here, success comes with them"--is now more relevant than ever. A lot of advertisements are using the word 马上, which means something like "immediately" but, if you literally translate the two characters, is read as "on a horse"... like when someone in sports or at work tells you to "get on your horse" and hurry up.

CONTRADICTION: iPhone dominoes

China is a developing country. Hundreds of millions of people here live in rural poverty with limited access to basic necessities.

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http://bit.ly/1j88jmi

What is as crazy as spending all that money on all those phones is then posting it online with a "Happy Holidays" greeting expecting... what response? Why the choice of English? Easier to domino than Chinese characters?

Costner: Spring Festival

There's nothing quite like driving home to the sounds of high explosives after a good meal of pulled pork. Despite a generally quiet demeanor, it is incredible to see the interest people take in these parts to ear-shattering kabooms that accompany some of the rockets used during Spring Festival. For each of the past 10 or so nights, the explosions have been practically continuous, beginning early and the morning and continuing straight through until now, almost midnight. I am not sure where the tradition comes from, and what the bombs are intended to do--scare spirits away? Attract distant spirits closer? All I know is that the face of your average man on the street is changed during this season from a mask of general malaise, to a tinge of a smile, with a spring in his step and a ni hao for all passers-by. It is uncommon to see people grant strangers such consideration in public, holding doors and standing patiently in line, as they do during Spring Festival in Beijing.