McDonald’s Norwegian Salmon Wrap

In 1997, McDonald in Norway has once released a Salmon burger called McLaks for a while. After ten years, the new product utilizing salmon again finally comes in the name of Laksewrap (salmon wrap in Norwegian). The TV commercial plays with clanging of the words “wrap” and “rap”, but I like the design of the poster much better. The design of that laksewraps leap over the sea in the resemblance of live salmons is far more attractive than the real ones in front of me.

Mexican tortilla as the wrap with one piece of deep-fried crispy fish fillet, the spotlight is the salmon bought from Hitra the famous  fish-farm  in Norway. Inside the wrap, salad and a tiny piece of Mango are covered by honey or wasabi dressing. It is really tasty. Comparing to hamburger, it is lighter and more refreshing, and an extra satisfaction of fullness can be gained comparing to solely salad. What is important is that the price is not expensive at all, only 35 NOK with one drink, around 6 usd, which is just the half-price of the Hamburger set meal.

A sudden thought, if the Norwegian pitta Lompe made of potato replaces Tortilla, the laksewrap will be much more indigenous. The eatting habit of Norwegian, however, is conserative all along. Well, keep using Lompe to wrap the pølse ( a Norwegian word for sausage ) is still fine.

Playing with dogs in Norwegian Woods

In general, people of mixed races are considered beautiful, but not for dogs. When animal-breeding becomes one of the profitable businesses in the world, more and more non-pure-breed animals have been "given" to animal shelters. One by one staying in outside cages, waiting. When there are visitors, they just run to greed them desperately, hoping the visitors will bring them home.

If visitors find one they like, they can take the dogs for a walk in the nearby forest to see whether they like each other. Today, we pick two brothers for a trial.

music source: Aus ．【Curveland】,2007,track: Lied

What to Eat Now at Ikea

One of the must-do-thing when going to Ikea is to have lunch there. It serves very common Northern European dishes: potato with meatballs or salmon. The annual sales from its restaurants contribute to about 5% of its revenue. I particularly like its Swedish meatballs which are smaller than Norwegian ones, reminding me of the Chinese dim-sum: beefball. With the traditional Lingonberry Jam, Lingonberry Jam，I can eat 16 pieces each time. If not enough, we would buy a bag home.

Actually, are you really fat?

Nowadays, everyone want to lose weigh, in Hong Kong particularly. In every tabloid, you can see articles creating scenes that celebrities who have gained ½ inches on the waist or arms have committed a serious crime/guild. My friend, who is a 5’7” tall man, wants to lose 20 pounds to be 117 pounds. Could it be too skinny? To show the world about the misconception that bony is the beauty, Anorexi Bulimi Kontakt a Swedish anorexic-concern group, advertises the below to raise awareness on the issue visually. Two extreme body-types, one fat and one skinny, on the opposite side of the mirror; displace a strong message about the seriousness of being too skinny.

source: Little Snow-white and the Mirror Issue

Another Artwork stolen in Norway

After recovering “Scream”, there is another artwork being stolen from Oslo, Norway. This time, the thief no need to sell the artwork in the black-market for money. This is because the artwork is really made of real money. “Relative Value”, the artwork made of only 100 Norwegian Krone notes putting together in a frame. This kind of conceptual arts, I prefer to call it Silly Art, does not need lots of skills; and easy to duplicate. Remember when I was in London, I have made a sculpture with just pennies. Too bad, it fell apart on the way to school in the tube. I’d wonder how much this artwork which consists of 100,000 Norwegian Krone notes is worth.

Relative Value, 2007 by Jan Christensen

Related News:

Content of money picture stolen, leaving the frame behind

Not everyone knows how to appreciate arts. However, there is a Norwegian arts, even though a thief may not appreciate its artistic value, he will definitely “appreciate” its actual one; because it is made of real bank notes. An artist named Jan Christensen used 100,000 worth of Norwegian Krone (about 127,000 HKD) bank notes. This attracts a thief to steal the money.

This money picture, Relative Value, was stolen from Oslo’s MGM Gallery. The owner believed the thief broke the window of the gallery between last Saturday night and early Sunday morning; and stole all the notes, leaving an 2 metre x 4 metre empty frame.

Artist: the work has a buyer

Jan Christensen said the original idea behind which he created this work with his own money was to inspire the public to talk about value of arts, capitalism and the way the arts world function. It has a buyer already. Although it has been stolen, Jan doesn’t feel sad. On the other hand, Jan believes the incident is quite interesting because he created something which interest people outside the gallery; and eventually “his work” will “circulate” in the market very soon. Jan also believe the thief is an art lover too.

Oscar’s Animated Short Film: The Danish Poet

The 79th Academy Award has just been over. Who won, who lost, I don’t really worry about as I don’t have the great passion towards movie as I had in the past. If the winner is from Nordic countries, I will take a closer look. This year’s animated short film winner is “The Danish Poet”,a co-work of Norwegian and Canadian production companies. Without the help of computers, director Torill Kove used traditional method to produce this 15minute film about a young Danish poet, Kasper, who went to Norway to visit Nobel Literature Prize winner Sigrid Undset for inspiration and fell in love with other’s wife.

video source : ifilm, director: Torill Kove

trailer: Aftenposten TV

Female Terracotta Warriors

Some are pregnant, with children, handicapped with one arm, walk with artificial limbs. These are real-size replica of terracotta of China. Daughter of Norwegian famous ethnographer and adventurer : Thor Heyerdahl, Marian Heyerdahl uses an artistic way to look at another way of adventure in life. She uses these replicas to represent the same horrible impact wars have on women. Some screams, some scares, and some even are suicide bombers. There are 70 pieces in total. You can find them in Beijing’s 798 Space for exhibition.

"Norwegian female artist Marian Heyerdahl, utilizing her unique artistic vocabulary, recontextualizes the Terra-cotta Warriors by duplicating the Terra-cotta Warriors in their original scale, while inverting their gender from male to female. She doesn’t at all utilize her Western aesthetic ideology to transform this Chinese symbol in order to satisfy consumer culture; her work is not simply a replacement or a consumption of the local culture. Rather, her work depicts an in-depth exploration in an innovative manner. Her work also carries on conversations with Chinese culture on an equal level."

text by Wang BaoJu

The list of SuperStars by Lesile Kee

Recently, you might have read about “Super Stars by Leslie Kee”. Leslie Kee, a famous Singaporean photographer who uses “Asia is One” as the idea, spends over 2 years photographing more than 300 famous actors, actresses, singers, and athletes in various creative ways. They are mostly from Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. In pertinence to the idea of “SuperStars”, Leslie also organizes exhibition tours and publishes photo albums. With all the star-powers, no wonder the Omotesando Hills’ exhibition became Japanese media’s main event recently.

The exhibition tour has finally come to Hong Kong. However, due to differences in media cultures between Japan and Hong Kong, what we can only read from Hong Kong papers are: “Stars taking off their clothes…, showing their navel hair…”, etc. Words regarding the main purpose of the event: “Charity for South Asia Tsunami Disaster Victims” are just the side-track of the news. The most disgusting or astonishing thing is that a lot of the editors have put filters on the pubic hair, making the beautiful nature of human bodies look filthy.

Talking about the photo album, “Super Stars by Leslie Kee” is sold in a deluxe limited-edition of six hundred and forty pages. Only 7000 copies and each costs a hefty 30,000 yens. The cover page featured Leslie’s idol: Matsutoya Yumi. In addition, there is “The Making of Super Stars by Leslie Kee”. A eighty-eight page publication which includes interviews. Each costs 3,500 yens.

“SuperStars” Photo Exhibition

Date: 25th of November to 3rd of December

Time: 10:00am to 6:00pm

Place: Hong Kong Design Centre, 28 Kennedy Road, Hong Kong.

Tel: 31971147

The following are just part of the 300 superstars in the album, of course including my only idol Kosuke Kitajima. Feel free to find your favourites or others. Anyone who has been missed out, I will put it back later.

Matsutoya Yumi　Maki Ohguro　Takako Tokiwa　Ou Yang Fei Fei 　 Yosuke Kubozuka　Kyoko Koizumi Ayumi Hamasaki　Kimura Takuya　Hidetoshi Nakata　Ai Otsuka,　Ryuichi Sakamoto　Kosuke Kitajima　Shidou Nakamura　Koda Kumi　Kyoko Hasegawa　Hiroshi Fujiwara　Ayaka Hirahara　Amuro Namie　Haruki Seto　Koji Kikkawa　Kumiko Goto　Mika Nakashima　Tadanobu Asano　Hiroki Narimiya　 Nanase Aikawa　Yutaka Takenouchi　 Noriko Sakai　 Shizuka Kudo　Norika Fujiwara　Kaori Momoi　Teppei Koike　Satoshi Tsumabuki　Rikiya Kurokawa 　Tetsuya Kumuro & Keiko　Wantz　Chara　Gackt　 Hitomi　 UA　 TRF　 TM Revolution　Takuro　My Little Lover　 Chemistry　Sho

Sam Lee Chan-Sam　Daniel Wu　Faye Wong　 Edison Chen　Aaron Kwok　Alex Fong　Miriam Yeung　Andy Hui　Carl Ng　Carina Lau Kar-Ling　Cecilia Cheung　BoBo Chan　Charlie Yang　Dicky Cheung　Duncan Chow　Gigi Leung　Jaycee Chan Fong　Joey Yung　Josie Ho　Julian Cheung Chi-Lam　 Karen Mok　Kenny Bee　Kenny Kwan　Maggie Cheung　Tony Leung　Nicholas Tse　 Sammi Cheng　Sandy Lam　Shawn Yue 　Stephen Fung　Tony Leung Ka-Fai　Twins　William So　Yumiko Cheng　Anthony Wong　Terence Yin　Jimmy Wong　Maggie Q　 Danielle　Shine　Deep Ng

Gong Li　Tian Liang　Zhang Zi-Yi　Du Juan　Amin　Cheung Ming Zeung　Guo Ziao-Dong　Guo Jing-Jing　Hu Jun　Lu Yi　Li Xiao-Lu　Qu Ying　Vicky Zhao Wei　Xia Yu　

Leehom Wang　 Shu Qi　Alec Su　Andrew Lian Kai　Chen Bo-Lin　Cyndi Wang Xin-Ling　Dylan Kwok Pin-Chao　Ethan Ruan Jing-Tian　Elva Siu Ya-Xuan　Fan Wei-Qi　Fan Zhi-Wei　Jolin Tswi Yi-Ling　Joseph Cheung Yuan-Chang　Lin Chi-Ling　Vivian Hsu Ruo-Zuan　Hsu His-Ti　Chen-Jian Zhou　Kenji Wu Ke-Qun　Mavis Fan Ziao-Zuan　Pace Wu Pei-Ci　Peter Ho Yun-Tung　Law Ji Cheun　Stanley Huang Li-Zing　Tony Yang Yu-Ning　Valen Hsu Ru-Yun　Awaking　Mike Ha Jun-Xiang　

Stella Huang Xiang Yi　Bae Yong-Joon　Tony Jaa　Devon Aoki　Dick Lee　Johnny Tri Nguyen　Daniel Henney

Mao and Campbell’s Soup Can

The newspaper headline two days ago was tycoon Lau Luen-hung spent US$16.5m to get the famous printing “Mao” by Andy Warhol, the best quality one out of ten pieces. Neglecting for his purpose of buying this, I just believe it is just a piece of cake to sell to other uprising tycoons in China one day,there is always someone rich enough to afford it .

Of course, there is always someone not rich enough to do so as most of us. In order to join in the fun, let’s buy the Campbell soup! I don’t mean the postcard or poster, I mean the real canned campbell soup which can be served. As hearsay Andy Warhol Foundation is going to corporate with Campbell’s Soup to release four versions of different versions of tomato soup, after the cooperation with Hysteric Glamour and Levis. Hold on, wasn’t it out in 2004 already? eBay still has stock left. Well, the point is whether you dare open the can to have a sip of it or not, even though you are willing to give the limited edition up.

Maybe it is just a mistaken rumour from SlamXHype But to be assure, Campbell and the US supermarket Kroger have been long participated the Pink Ribbon, an onrush of business opportunities which is in the name of making a donation to a breast cancer care organization to whip the sales. Then the pink version of Campbell soup is successfulluy put into shelf. It donates 35 cents per can following the upper limit, 250000 US dollars. Two millions HKD seems not a small amount, however, in regard to their predicted sales, at least seven millions cans, this amount of promotion cost is utterly cheap. And please be reminded that at least 200000 people suffering from breast cancer.

It is just an analysis of the value of Andy Warhol’s “Mao” to the price of Campbell soup. If you just think I am just making a comparison, I have to say sorry to waste your time spent on reading this article.

Brad Pitt on Vanity Fair

Skimming over the headline of tidbit, ” Brad Pitt’s furious over his hot and wet photo becomes cover art” from “Apple Daily”, I burn with curiosity by this headline, though I know “hot and wet” is exaggerated, I still wanna have a look how “Hot and Wet” Brad Pitt can be. However, no photo is provided in the newspaper so that I have to find out in Google. Oh my good grief, what makes this cover of December’s “Vanity Fair” become a big deal? Anyway, those photos captured from the short film by the avant-garde director Robert Wilson are appealing enough. You have to realize, Pitt meets the standard well already, the standard for a man of fourty-three. Why have to be angry? Besides, his totally naked photo is widespread in the net for ages.

Still and all, the cover has been exposed already. For a celebrity, bad news is better than no news.