Angry Little Tree

The Microflat, a potential solution to overcrowding in urban areas. It’s an IKEA-esque vresion of Japan’s tiny cubicle apartments, designed to be owned by young professionals or middle-income types who would otherwise by throwing money into rent year after year. Whether anyone can live for long in a 345 sq. ft. “home” is questionable, but if it puts you downtown for less than the cost of a replacement kidney, who’s complaining?

How to create a monster in eight easy steps.

• Step one: Angie Chai, a chain-smoking Taiwanese television producer, creates Meteor Garden, a 90210-esque show about boy toys living the life in Asia.
• Step two: Sony creates a boy-band for said boys. First album, Meteor Rain, is a runaway hit.
• Step three: Shanghai teens and twentysomethings pick up the show from Taiwan using illegal satellite receivers, and the black market piracy rings kick into overdrive.
• Step four: China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television wins state approval to air the show nationally.
• Step five: Profits skyrocket and advertisers pay an arm and a leg for slots, something state-run stations aren't exactly used to...
• Step six: Amidst buzz that Meteor Garden is more popular than celebrated Communist Party martyr, China's government announces that, "Because Meteor Garden can easily mislead the youth, it is being temporarily taken off the air."
• Step seven: Watch, as no one pays attention to the government. Hello, pirated videodiscs, Beatles-esque screaming girls.
• Step eight: Watch, as Chinese businesses openly defy the ban, lobby the government to back off, and win concessions allowing the boy band to tour the country.

That’s right, folks. Want to defeat communism? Send in the boy bands.