I AM FEATURED IN THE ASIA! MAGAZINE

May Yip, a Singaporean, is a freelance writer for a new magazine called Asia! . The publication has a circulation of 50,000 and is distributed on various international airlines. She contacted me earlier to let me know that she is going to feature my blog in an article along with some other Asian blogs. Here is a snippet of the article published in the Asia! magazine backpage via "The Spoon Blog".

A revolution is sweeping through Asia's virtual community, transforming what began as a random collection of personal journals into a dynamic, controversial and sensationalised community known as a blogosphere.

With 3.35 million people operating blogs in Japan, and networks like www.blogkumedia.com aiming to make blogs a mainstream reality in Chinese Internet, it is hardly surprising that Asia has been dubbed the next frontier in blogging. Join us on this voyeuristic ride as we log onto some of the best virtual idiosyncrasies the east has to offer.

XIAXUE – WHY ARE YOU WORSHIPPING THE BLOG I WALK ON?
From Singapore, a cross between an FHM model and manga character, the (photoshop-enhanced) pictures of “Xiaxue” alone are worth a blog visit. Foul-mouthed or irreverent, sex kitten or just plain smutty, decide for yourself at XiaXue's Blog Site.

Blog Quote:
“Some girls say they are mean & bitchy too, but they are actually mild like hand soap - while I am the real thing, baby! I look at you in the eye and tell you you look like a blind La Salle student (note: art school student) dressed you up.”

If you prefer the girl-next-door, check out: BKKSoul by Lynn, an equally photogenic, but utterly wholesome, Thai blogger with so much grey matter that her first manuscript has landed a New York literary agent representation.

REZWAN, THE THIRD WORLD VIEW
The outsider view of Bangladesh isn’t always postcard-pretty. Political unrest, natural disasters and religious extremism define the South East Asian republic in global news headlines. The mission of Third World View is to offer an alternate perspective, to be “a window of Bangladesh” from an insider’s point of view. Learn about Bangladeshi bands (the blogger, Rezwan, is a fan of The Doors), cricket and one opinionated blogger’s take on affairs around the world at The Third World View.

On the Bangladeshi rock scene (and piracy):
“Elephant Road is a street which has three stores (namely Rainbow, Gitali, Ganer Bhuban) which has all kinds of LPs and later on CDs which they copy onto cassette for you for a fee (screw copyright). I remember that in my teens "Rainbow" was also my favorite shop for recording songs of my choice into cassettes. The owner Kabir was famous for knowledge in world music and his collection.”

YAN SHAM-SHACKLETON, GLUTTER.ORG
Using the blog as a kind of alternative journalism, Gluttergirl, or Yan Sham-Shackleton writes about freedom of the press, art and the state of Hong Kong’s political affairs. Her blog is banned in China for its support of the democratic movement in Hong Kong. If you happen to be residing outside the state, do visit Glutter.org for no-holds-barred opinions, otherwise absent from mainstream media.

On the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989:
It was an incomprehensible day because few and seldom days in history do we ever see a government launch a military attack on its own people. And in the backdrop students sang the “Internationale” and the residents of Beijing shouted “Ting Si, Ting Si” -Stop the killing, Stop the killing” as machine guns fired, people fell, tanks did not stop, and hospitals overflowed.

MASAMANIA
Masamania is a documenter of Japanese subculture, porn director and student of the English language. His blog is subsequently a hilarious melange of visual anecdotes, peppered with “Engrish” commentary on Tokyo’s neon underbelly. Possessing a keen eye for the weird and subversive, the level of photojournalism represented on this blog is not quite something you’ll see on Lonely Planet. It is, however, a through and through off-the-beaten-track guide to some of the stranger sights Tokyo has to offer.

Blog Quote:
“Hi, this is masamania who create this page, MasaManiA.com. This page is made up of photos I actually take in twon. I hope I can show and tell you the real, true Japan that cannot be seen in other mas media. I am living in Tokyo, Japan. I was born in Japan, grown up in Japan, study English in Japan. This is the reason I can speak Engrish. Some people complain that my updating and email response is slow. And other people conplain that my englsih is poor. Please forgive me. Now I study English hard, so i have no time to post new entry to my site. And I also update my site so hard, so i have no time to study English."

Thanks May Yip for promoting these blogs. I hope you would be promoting more blogs in a regular basis.

Tags: Bangladesh, blog, blogs, weblog, weblogs, blogging,