Mangazine and More Mu Zi Mei

Chris Barden writes:

Nanfang Newspaper Group is behind this one as well: Mangazine. It’s an, ahem, er, “man’s magazine.” Get it?

The name cracks me up because, for some reason, it instantly reminds me of the “manzier” – a bra for men featured in the American sitcom Seinfeld. But it’s even more pathetic because it’s seemingly an attempt to do some wordplay in English by people so out of touch with international pop culture that they don’t realize that “mangazine” is actually both a genre of magazine (for Japanese manga-style comics) and indeed the exact name of at least two other magazines. (See here and here. The latter is hosted on a flaky server and doesn't always work.)

Here is Mangazine.

The cover story is about extremely rich people in Beijing and Shanghai.

All your mangazine are belong to us. This is also Mangazine.

For Chinese readers coming into their 20’s right now — who are well-versed in manga — it will strike them as a cultural gaffe that could only have been unwittingly perpetrated by “middle-aged” (i.e. 30-something) publishers and editors who may indeed wear male bras.

Jeremy Goldkorn writes:

The editors of Mangazine have joined publications like Cosmopolitan, the Beijing Morning Post and Marie Claire by covering sex diarist du jour Mu Zi Mei this month. But Mangazine have figured something out a little better than the other publications: readers like photographs. Like this:

And this:

More on Mu Zi Mei (this is shameless: hello Google muzimei mu zimei zimei mu 木子美) can be found on danwei.org here and here. There's also heaps on the libertine blogger at Living in China here and some reflections on the growth of Chinese blogs, by way of Mu Zi Mei, at PRC News here.

There's something else I'd like to see: Conrad vs. Mu Zi Mei. Who is Conrad? Well, take a leisurely stroll around here.