Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Cruel and Unusual

Quite a few years back, I used to contribute reviews and articles to a small literary magazine based in Turin. It was a lot of fun, I met some great people, and started to develop the habit of writing regularly on themes and with schedules set by others.

The magazine hosted a number of independent writers, and it even had some international contributors. One of these was a Japanese gentleman who was writing a book about the Tokyo underworld of fetish and BDSM clubs. He would send chapters to the magazine, that published them as a series. He was quite a good writer, and his pieces were always a great read, very literary and really in no way X-rated.

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The Algorithm got me wrong – and a neat dance

In the last weeks I’ve spent quite an amount of time on Youtube watching streaming, subbed Chinese TV series, and it was a lot of fun. I like watching something new, and often the different cultural nuances add an unexpected spin on classic themes and tropes.
It’s good entertainment, and food for thought.

A curious side-effect was that the Youtube Algorithm decided, based on my viewing history, that I am obviously Chinese – and as a consequence it started suggesting a selection of Chinese language contents – of which I can’t even read the description.
And this is curious, because – for instance – I usually watch a lot of Japanese music videos on Youtube, and it never tried to push on me Japanese drama, or Japanese news service.
I wonder what’s different in this case.

Anyway… being considered Chinese does have its perks, as I am discovering a lot of traditional music and other contents.
So, today being Sunday and all that, I offer you a neat little song and dance number.
Enjoy!