This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Back in the days of the Cultural Revolution here in China, Lei Feng was the person every young Communist wanted to be and Mao Zedong proclaimed him the shining star in Communism’s pantheon.. He was selfless, loyal and true. According to the legend, he fixed military trucks, he darned his compatriot’s socks, he read Mao’s Little Red Book by candlelight. And he died at age 21, felled by a falling telephone pol. He was an icon. Until now, that is. Apparently, icon status has a shelf life and it is 50 years. Fifty years and a shift from Communism to Capitalism that is. These days, Lei Feng is box office poison. Not a single ticket sold to the opening of three new films about Lei Feng that were to be shown on “Learn from Lei Feng Day.” Even an app called Micro Lei Feng failed to raise his profile. Apparently, Chinese youth are laid back about Lei Feng.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

In this time of reusing, recycling, repurposing, pretty much anything can become anything else: tires to playground turf, soda bottles to fleece parkas, rails to trails. Here in Shanghai, they’ve got bomb shelters to transform and transform them they have. The approximately 2000 shelters in the Xuhui district date back to the 60s and were built to protect people from possible air strikes from the Soviet Union. Now they stand empty. Damp and empty. Damp, clammy and empty. But their clamminess has not prevented them from being reborn as clothing shops, gay bars and wine sellers. There’s an underwear store exclusively for men called MANifest and a club called The Shelter which is very popular among the underground clubbing set for its “pitch-dark” parties in which all lights and wifi are shut down and only the music – and drinks –remain. What better spot to get bombed than a bomb shelter.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Here in China, shark fin soup is a delicacy that was first served, it is said, by an emperor of the Song Dynasty over a thousand years ago. It was long seen as a sign of prosperity and respect and was one of the Big 4 foods of the traditional wedding banquet. A wedding without shark fin soup was a sure way for a family to lose face. Being associated with the reviled elite, the dish naturally fell out of favor during the Maoist years but it experienced a return of popularity with the rise of the new middle class. Lately, however, it is falling out of favor again but for environmental reasons rather than proletarian ones. The harvesting of the fins is horrific: they are sliced off and the rest of the shark is dumped back into the water. To add insult to injury, the fin itself has no nutritional value or flavor: its is purely symbolic. Bucking 1000 years of tradition, nowadays killing sharks is more about losing face than saving it.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

There’s a new activity that’s taking the rapidly growing senior community by storm here in Japan and it ain’t shuffleboard. It’s blow darting. You heard me. Blowing darts. This ancient rain forest tradition has attracted thousands of practitioners among the graying Japanese set. In fact, in a mere five years, membership in the national blow dart club has tripled and the average age of the blow darter is about 70. When you think about it, blow darting, or fukiya, might just be the perfect sport for the elderly: you can do it standing, from a wheelchair, even without using your arms, if you need to. Sure, practitioners use blunt plastic darts when they’re practicing but…we would still advise their children to treat their parents with care and to cover their necks at all times.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Here in South Korea, it doesn’t matter how famous you are, if you’re in the army – and Korean men are required to do about 2 years of military service – you wear your hat. This point was driven home recently when paparazzi captured the singer/actor/soldier Rain escorting Kim Tae-hee, his main squeeze and Korea’s most beautiful woman, hatless. Thousands of people, mostly men, complained on-line about this breach of protocol and about the number of days he has taken off which, so far, is almost twice what the ordinary citizen would get. Rain, whose 2004 album “It’s Raining” sold a million copies and who has appeared in a couple of Hollywood movies, is not the only Korean superstar who has taken his military service a bit lightly. Psy ended up doing his military service twice because he apparently neglected his duties. The Gangnam Style rocker was clearly a little too at ease.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Starbucks ushered in the era of the ridiculously expensive cup of coffee but even they would be surprised by a $200 cup of tea, don’t you think? Still, an entrepreneur in the New Market Economy China is growing an organic green tea that he plans to sell for just this price. The tea is fertilized using panda poop. There’s really no other way to say it. An Yanshi, the brains behind this endeavor uses tons of panda guano to fertilize his tea plants. He claims that panda dung is a superfertilizer partly because it makes the tea more healthful. See, pandas feed exclusively on wild bamboo and they only really absorb maybe 30% of the nutrients, such as they are, in bamboo meaning that a full 70% is excreted and is taken up directly by the tea plant and, in turn, by you, the drinker. Prices should drop, An says. We hope so. Tea has to be steeped; it doesn’t also have to be steep.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Criminals always worry about being fingered for a crime. Here in Japan, they also have to worry about being de-fingered. If they are members of the Yakuza crime family, that is. The Yakuza, aka the Japanese mafia, traces its roots back to the Edo period in the 17th Century and is known for tight control and strict rules of conduct. Rule breakers risk a punishment called yubitsume or finger severing. Traditionally, yubitsume begins with the first joint of the little finger on the left hand because, in bygone times, this weakened the sword hand. After the pinky, the ring finger. Missing fingers are a dead giveaway of Yakuza membership and some Yakuza members wish to hide this at, say, family gatherings or if they are hoping for a legit job. Hence a thriving custom-fitted finger replacement industry. At about $3,000 per digit, it’s a lot to pay for getting the finger.

With thanks to Chubby Smith for this idea, from the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Mt. Fuji, or Fujisan is it is known here in Japan, has just been added to Unesco’s World Heritage list as a cultural asset, honoring it for providing thousands of years of inspiration to artists, poets and religious pilgrims. This is good. This is also bad because it is expected to vastly increase the number of visitors to the country’s tallest and most sacred mountain. And with an increase in people comes an increase in eco-degradation. Already, the nation’s most recognizable landmark is visited by millions every year and that has taken its toll: traffic is horrendous and though tons of legal trash are hauled away annually, tons of illegal trash litter the forests. Will Fujiysan’s designation as a cultural asset draw so many more visitors that the very attributes that made it a cultural asset will be lost? Environmentalists, politicians and local officials are working to prevent this mountain from becoming a molehill.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

China’s Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 19th this year. This holiday is celebrated by reciting poetry to the full moon and eating moon cakes. Moon cakes feature an elaborately stamped pastry shell that can be filled with a variety of things: red bean paste or five different kinds of ground nuts, or lotus seed paste or salted duck egg yolk. Their roundness symbolizes the moon. Everyone, from peasant to government official gives them as gifts and, apparently, up until this year, government officials have used public funds to buy their moon cakes. This year, President Xi Jinping has made cracking down on excess the centerpiece of his administration and buying moon cakes with public funds, well, it just won’t stand. Cutting back on unnecessary expenditures is always difficult but compared to, Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe and John Edwards’ $400 haircuts (remember those?), this is a (moon) cakewalk.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.

This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Across dynasties here in China, imperial stone lions have guarded the entrances to imperial buildings. On the right, a male lion, his right paw resting possessively on a globe, symbolizing dominion over the world. On the left, a female lion, her left paw resting possessively on a cub symbolizing the cycle of life. The two genders appear together to balance yin and yang. Called shí shī, or “stone lion” in Chinese, they bear a striking resemblance to dogs which might explain, in some kooky, backhanded way, the logic behind the People’s Park Zoo’s decision to claim that a Tibetan mastiff was an African lion. Sure, Tibetan mastiffs are large and have shaggy, mane-like fur around their heads, but still there was a dead giveaway that tipped the public off. In China, dogs say "wangwang.” In the US, they say "woofwoof.” Whatever. Neither is the sound a lion makes in any language ...

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.