Trivia challenge: Which two Asian countries are predominantly Catholic?

Here's a disturbing experience I had in a Beijing taxi recently: Last week I went to a trivia night (my team won, due in part to my unhealthy knowledge of the TV show Friends) at a bar way across town, and the subway stopped running before I made it all the way home. Outside the subway station I jumped in an unofficial taxi, which is how many people here make a living. Sometimes drivers hang around to see if they can pick up a couple extra people, as this driver did, so there were two other passengers with me.

The driver did the thing where he went the wrong way up the off-ramp, which was old hat to me except I would have preferred to have a seatbelt since I was in the front seat. Then we got off the expressway and onto the frontage road, where he really started to make me nervous.

I hadn't noticed that the sun visor on the passenger side had a DVD player in it. I watched as the driver inserted a DVD and resumed watching a movie as he swerved in and out of traffic in the dark. His eyes darted between the road and two leather-bound chicks fighting each other on motorcycles, I don't know what it was - Ice Cube was in it. I mean, just what he needed to be watching: a movie about reckless driving where no one gets hurt.

On an unrelated note, here is an old but excellent Atlantic article that explains how China views Tibet.

Also, the Olympic torch was re-lit in Tiananmen Square today.

China Fun Fact: 1.28 million Chinese people die from lung disease each year.