Global Voices Online

Indonesia Anonymus conducts another one of their social experiments: this time they try to see whether superstition has a hold on urban office workers.

Kenny Sia gets up before dawn to run in the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. His pictures tell the tale.

An underthought article in the Guardian decrying the lack of democracy in Southeast Asia angers Eevil Midget, a Filipina in London, who responds: “democracy is a farce anyway! as if the Western world is that much better.” Torn and Frayed in Manila shares his own thoughts on the piece.

Singapore's Tinker, Tailor explains the difference between working in a low office cubicle and working in a high one.

Our Man in Hanoi worries that he'll end up like many Westerners in Asia: “Am I destined to be the movie ex-pat villain, stuffing my face, sweating profusely and shouting at a befuddled waiter to be quicker with the drinks? I hope not. But you can see it happening over time.”

At UDPS Liege [blog of the Liege, Belgium chapter of a DRC opposition party] blogger Kayembe Tshipamba Jean P. opposes (FR) the parceling of the DRC in 26 provinces, deplores interim President Joseph Kabila's blaming of the continent's problems on the West, invites the DRC to cooperate with Belgium in bettering the DRC and incites the East Kasai province to continue protesting the 26-province parceling.

Stunner finds that there's a price to be paid for being light-skinned in Jamaica.

March 9 is the 192nd anniversary of the birth of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's national poet. Two translations of his best-known poem, The Testament, are posted at Orange Revolution. Peter Byrne at Abdymok recalls this day five years ago, when opponents of Leonid Kuchma's regime clashed with the police - first by Taras Shevchenko's monument and later near the presidential administration in Kyiv.

Miyakonojo gives a heart-warming (and lung-burning) account of his debut at the volunteer fire department in a small town in southern Japan, where visits to Filipina hostess bars punctuate the sameness of fishing and pachinko.