KT 3-4-2013_Layout 1 - Kuwait Times

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013
Psy’s new song
features ‘Psy style’
take
37
on Korean dance
People wearing clown costumes ride a bicycle during the Humorina carnival in Odessa on April 1, 2013. Thousands of people take part in Humorina, an annual festival of humor, in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa on and
around April Fools’ Day since 1973. — AFP
San Francisco’s other
Chinatown - the real one
There are two Chinatowns in San Francisco, one where tourists can
buy conical straw hats and tacky souvenirs, and a second where
the locals live, shop and eat. There are no defined boundaries-you
don’t cross a street and step from Tourist Chinatown to Authentic
Chinatown. Rather, the two overlap. A visitor can leave a neon-lit store,
loaded down with bamboo back scratchers and plastic Buddhas, and a
half-block away turn down a dingy alley dotted with shops and businesses
where no English is spoken.
“Chinatown is not a closed attraction. Anybody can visit,” said Linda
Lee, proprietor of All About Chinatown Walking Tours (allaboutchinatown.com),
which has been showing people around for more than 30
years. “Walk up Grant Avenue, the main street, then go to the rest (of the
area) for authentic tours.”
What Chinatown is is a bustling neighborhood. On one recent weekday
morning, men and women jammed the sidewalks outside markets
where oranges and mushrooms and other produce-some strikingly exotic-were
sold along with live fish and crabs; an elderly gentleman shuffled
down the street, Chinese music blaring from a radio under his coat; laundry
hung on balconies and from clotheslines strung over narrow alleys.
This is everyday life in Chinatown, and visitors are welcome. Any
street in Chinatown will have an authentic shop or business or two. But
explore side streets and alleys. For example, Waverly Place, on a long
block between Washington and Clay streets, has beautiful architecture as
well as a plethora of delightful smells. Cut down Ross Alley, between
Jackson and Washington streets, and you’ll find the Golden Gate Fortune
Cookie Factory, a 40-year-old institution that churns out 20,000 handmade
fortune cookies a day (and where a 50-cent donation is requested
for photos). Step into any number of herbal pharmacies or tea shops,
and be overwhelmed by the fragrance. The people are friendly and welcoming,
even if you don’t speak their language. — MCT
A woman deftly folds and inserts fortunes into cooling cookies at the
Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company, which produces 20,000 handmade
fortune cookies a day in San Francisco’s Chinatown. — MCT
This is not a TripAdvisor Top-10 list you want to
be on. Runner-up status for world’s germiest
tourist attraction goes to Seattle’s Gum Wall
in Post Alley, second only to Ireland’s Blarney
Stone. It’s a form of people’s participatory art
apparently started by improv Market Theatre-goers
in the early 1990s, who thought better of sticking
their gum under seats and started leaving it on the
brick wall outside. Over the years it’s grown vertically,
horizontally and now is spreading to the wall
Jean Yang gets help from Ankur Dhar in adding a
wad to the Gum Wall in Post Alley.
The curtain went up once more at one of Japan’s most
important theatres yesterday after the famous playhouse,
dedicated to the centuries-old kabuki performing art, was
rebuilt for the fourth time. An elaborate ceremony involving
incantations and large “taiko” drums was held as a big digital
countdown clock, installed six months ago, ticked away the last
few minutes ahead of the official opening. The theatre, called
Kabuki-za, was first established on the site in 1889, but has now
been rebuilt four times, this time as part of a 29-storey office
block.
The previous building, erected in 1951 to replace one heavily
damaged in World War II, was demolished in 2010 due to worries
over its ability to withstand earthquakes. Despite cold rain, more
than 100 people, many wearing full formal kimono, queued up
for seats on the top balcony to watch a single act, paying 2,000
yen ($22), against about 20,000 yen for the highest grade seats.
Breathless television reporting showed the scenes inside the
four-storey venue, where visitors walked across ornate carpets on
their way to stock up on the delicate “bento” lunch boxes that are
customary during a performance. The 2,000-seat theatre-akin in
cultural significance to Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London-is
the spiritual home of Japan’s indigenous kabuki, a highly stylized
art in which all-male casts perform in extravagant costumes and
mask-like facial makeup.—AFP
on the west side of the alley, with gum stuck to the
signs requesting “No Gum This Side, Thank You.”
Visiting Cal, Berkeley senior Jean Yang called it
“community pointillism.” The closer you get the
more you see, though it’s not exactly Jackson
Pollock.
There’s a wedding proposal from 170 pieces of
gum: “Will You Marry Me Nikki J.” There are business
cards, coins, Chinese fortune-cookie fortunes,
the Swedish and Brazilian flags, a 12th Man
Seahawks tribute, gum wrappers and love notes.
The Pike Place Market estimates the wall holds
750,000 wads of gum. Its Preservation and
Development Authority works to keep the 8-foothigh,
54-foot-wide curiosity from going too far.
Clearly, the germiest lists are not scientific: The
Gum Wall beat out Paris’ sewer tour and India’s
Karni Mata Rat Temple.— MCT
Geisha women pose in front of the re-built Kabukiza theatre
in Tokyo yesterday before they enter to watch second stage of
the day of Japanese traditional kabuki act. — AFP
Displays left in
gum include a
Swedish flag
and a heart
containing the
name Clara. An
estimated
750,000 gum
wads are on
the wall in
Seattle,
Washington.
—MCT