必先若其心志，勞其筋骨，
餓其體膚，空乏，其身，
所以動心忍性，
以增益其所不能。」
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
「醜陋的中國人」
今天我們最後一堂課時，一位波蘭的學生提出一個奇怪的現象。她說別的民族會害外地來的人民，但中國人或台灣人反而最愛害自己人。然兒舉了例子，她說她的朋友具有台灣人的臉，但在美國出生的。那位女生去面談時被拒絕，因她看起來向台灣人。那家補習班反而請了一位不會說英文的歐洲人當因問老師。
這個變態的形態怎麼回事呢？
我最近讀了柏先楊的演講在美國愛荷華大學叫「醜陋的中國人」：
「有許多朋友同我所：如果頂頭上司是中國人時，你可要特別注意，特別小心，他不但不會提升你，裁員時還會先開除你，因為他要表示他大公無私，所以我們怎麼能跟猶太人比？」
華人最可能互相被判，最大的敵人也就是別的華人。
為何華人之間有那麼多仇恨？
那華人能依靠誰呢？不能依靠以養民族的民眾，也不能依靠外地來值得人民。那只能依賴自己了。
這個變態的形態怎麼回事呢？
我最近讀了柏先楊的演講在美國愛荷華大學叫「醜陋的中國人」：
「有許多朋友同我所：如果頂頭上司是中國人時，你可要特別注意，特別小心，他不但不會提升你，裁員時還會先開除你，因為他要表示他大公無私，所以我們怎麼能跟猶太人比？」
華人最可能互相被判，最大的敵人也就是別的華人。
為何華人之間有那麼多仇恨？
那華人能依靠誰呢？不能依靠以養民族的民眾，也不能依靠外地來值得人民。那只能依賴自己了。
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Amerika
So after a year or so of hearing from various sources about America's lack of healthcare, religious fundamentalism, rampant racism, poor educational system, hypocritical Neo-cons in positions of power (e.g., Larry Craig scandal), authorized torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Patriot Act, illegal NSA wire-tapping, racial profiling, pork-barreling, Sarah Palin, "Dubya," declining economic superiority, etc. my N. Irish friend, Conor S., naturally asked the question: "Why would anyone want to live in America?"
At the time we were discussing America's lack of universal healthcare, so I just answered that there are other things in life that matter besides healthcare . . . but I was swimming earlier and so I had some time to think about it.
1. The Lotto Theory
I liken it to why so many people buy lottery tickets day after day, even after a lifetime of not winning. Even though statistically it is more likely for them to be struck by lightning, they still continue to spend their money on a dream that doesn't come to fruition because of that minuscule chance that they may strike it rich. I think people abroad buy into this American dream. They think that they have the best opportunity to become a wealthy baron in the US of A. These people might not even be that naive and know how corrupt the system is--that odds are stacked against them since the rich, white Republicans are in a tight-knit, incestual circle and without the networking relationships, despite your talents and skills, you'd be hard-pressed to rise above the middle-class threshold. Still, blind hope drives them.
American society has long been famous for its social mobility. Unlike India, there is no caste-based society and its not your background or race that counts but your bank account figure-in other words, money talks. Well, that's what they say anyways. I like how the indie movie, "Igby Goes Down," addresses this in a humorous way. By painting Upper East Side folk as soulless and bankrupt of human emotion.
2. Hollywood/Media
American TV and movies are what kids around the world grow up on. Hollywood really sells America. Just take a look at movies like "Die Hard 4.0" or "Rambo." The tough American hero saves the day by killing the enemies and bringing American-style democracy to the world. I don't even think it's really a conscious decision. It's only natural that American Hollywood execs and the like would want to paint their homeland in an idyllic manner. After all they do live in the US, so they also want to buy into the notion that America is one-of-a-kind, special, and better than any other place in the world.
Just take a look at Fox News. Despite widespread allegations of inaccuracy and bias, it is still the most watched news station in the nation. Precisely because it ignores its own tag-line of being "Fair and Balanced," instead they give the people what they want. People don't want the truth, they want to be deluded and told that they are living in the no. 1 country in the world and that the only problems affecting America are coming from outside the country. Fox News viewers like to live in a simplistic black-and-white world, where there is an easy to identify enemy, Muslims. And the neocons even explain away critics by painting liberals as treasonous, "anti-American" traitors that may or may not be sympathetic to terrorists.
Of course there are other factors that may contribute to people seeking American residence. For instance, a cleaner environment . . . that is unless you live near a pig farm: Rolling Stone article.
People also look to America as a paragon for civil liberties . . . that is unless you care about the environment, animal rights, or in general social activism: NY Times article.
Author's note: Don't get me wrong. America has its faults but all countries do. I write this mostly because I fear America is sliding into another McCarthy era. Nazism started in Germany when the economy was in shambles and a charismatic leader appealed to the mob, namely people's base emotions (i.e., fear and hatred of minorities). Fascism doesn't develop overnight; an entire nation must be lulled into accepting these policies and essentially demand for them to be implemented.
At the time we were discussing America's lack of universal healthcare, so I just answered that there are other things in life that matter besides healthcare . . . but I was swimming earlier and so I had some time to think about it.
1. The Lotto Theory
I liken it to why so many people buy lottery tickets day after day, even after a lifetime of not winning. Even though statistically it is more likely for them to be struck by lightning, they still continue to spend their money on a dream that doesn't come to fruition because of that minuscule chance that they may strike it rich. I think people abroad buy into this American dream. They think that they have the best opportunity to become a wealthy baron in the US of A. These people might not even be that naive and know how corrupt the system is--that odds are stacked against them since the rich, white Republicans are in a tight-knit, incestual circle and without the networking relationships, despite your talents and skills, you'd be hard-pressed to rise above the middle-class threshold. Still, blind hope drives them.
American society has long been famous for its social mobility. Unlike India, there is no caste-based society and its not your background or race that counts but your bank account figure-in other words, money talks. Well, that's what they say anyways. I like how the indie movie, "Igby Goes Down," addresses this in a humorous way. By painting Upper East Side folk as soulless and bankrupt of human emotion.
2. Hollywood/Media
American TV and movies are what kids around the world grow up on. Hollywood really sells America. Just take a look at movies like "Die Hard 4.0" or "Rambo." The tough American hero saves the day by killing the enemies and bringing American-style democracy to the world. I don't even think it's really a conscious decision. It's only natural that American Hollywood execs and the like would want to paint their homeland in an idyllic manner. After all they do live in the US, so they also want to buy into the notion that America is one-of-a-kind, special, and better than any other place in the world.
Just take a look at Fox News. Despite widespread allegations of inaccuracy and bias, it is still the most watched news station in the nation. Precisely because it ignores its own tag-line of being "Fair and Balanced," instead they give the people what they want. People don't want the truth, they want to be deluded and told that they are living in the no. 1 country in the world and that the only problems affecting America are coming from outside the country. Fox News viewers like to live in a simplistic black-and-white world, where there is an easy to identify enemy, Muslims. And the neocons even explain away critics by painting liberals as treasonous, "anti-American" traitors that may or may not be sympathetic to terrorists.
Of course there are other factors that may contribute to people seeking American residence. For instance, a cleaner environment . . . that is unless you live near a pig farm: Rolling Stone article.
People also look to America as a paragon for civil liberties . . . that is unless you care about the environment, animal rights, or in general social activism: NY Times article.
Author's note: Don't get me wrong. America has its faults but all countries do. I write this mostly because I fear America is sliding into another McCarthy era. Nazism started in Germany when the economy was in shambles and a charismatic leader appealed to the mob, namely people's base emotions (i.e., fear and hatred of minorities). Fascism doesn't develop overnight; an entire nation must be lulled into accepting these policies and essentially demand for them to be implemented.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Role Race Plays in US Politics
Taipei Times Editorial
"Race is a crucial factor in the US presidential race
By Sin-ming Shaw
Monday, Oct 20, 2008, Page 9
Three-quarters of Americans now disapprove of US President George W. Bush’s performance. Given this, and the fact that the policies and values of Senator John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush, you would expect Senator Barack Obama to be leading in the polls by a wider margin than he is.
The reason that he is not, I suspect, is racism. When polled, most older white voters overwhelming reject Obama, even if many of them are unhappy with Bush. Indeed, one-third of Democrats have at various times told pollsters that they will not vote for a black candidate. And a recent Associated Press/Yahoo News poll suggested that his race is costing Obama 6 percentage points in the polls.
Most of the time, this racism is covert, only hinted at through code words. The media, particularly the increasingly popular conservative media and talk radio, are particularly important here.
Obama is consistently criticized for his “otherness” and his “arrogance,” terms that call to mind the label of the “uppity nigger” from the days of segregation, which are actually not so far in the US’ past.
FOX CONDESCENSION
In a recent interview, Bill O’Reilly, the most popular TV talk show host at Fox News, the US’s most watched news station, talked down to Obama in so condescending a manner that some viewers were reminded of the image of a slave owner in an old Hollywood movie putting a young black upstart in his place.
Sean Hannity, another star host at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, demanded repeatedly on air from one interviewee, Fareed Zakaria, a well-known columnist at Newsweek with a CNN talk show of his own, to know whether he thought the US to be the greatest nation on earth.
The dark-skinned Zakaria, a naturalized American from India with a doctorate from Harvard University, felt compelled to affirm his loyalty for the US twice. It is hard to imagine Hannity demanding such a public affirmation of loyalty from anyone with white skin.
THE ‘BRADLEY’ EFFECT
So how much is race costing Obama? The problem is that pollsters cannot effectively measure the problem. They call it the “Bradley effect,” first noted during the 1982 governor’s race in California, when Tom Bradley, the then African-American mayor of Los Angeles, lost the race to his white opponent despite leading in pre-election polls throughout the campaign.
The idea behind the “Bradley effect” is that white voters won’t reveal their prejudices to pollsters. Instead, they lie and say that they will vote for the black candidate when, in fact, they have no intention of doing so.
Of course, many people now say that Obama has proven that the “Bradley effect” is a thing of the past. But his continuing difficulties with white working-class voters, who in the primaries went with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggest that, perhaps, the “Bradley effect” is still alive and well.
Younger Americans accept inter-racial relationships as part of the normal social and sexual landscape. Yet, the very speed with which American society has progressed has threatened half of the country, older and mostly white, unable and unwilling to live in the present.
The moderate Republican Party of former US president Dwight Eisenhower and the Rockefellers has been taken over by a radical crowd, with even Eisenhower’s granddaughter now openly backing Obama. So it boggles many non-Americans’ minds that so many in that great nation still do not wake up to the reality that four more years of Republican rule will further degrade and bankrupt the country.
In any civilized society, ignorance is not illegal and being moralistic is anybody’s inherent privilege. But what is alarming is how private religious beliefs and morals have increasingly shaped the secular agenda of the US, whose Founding Fathers had specifically designed the Constitution to separate state and church.
RADICAL REPUBLICANS?
Today’s radical Republican Party represents a large segment of the population that believes that abortions and same-sex marriage are immoral, that God sent the US to Iraq, and that bailing out Wall Street is “socialism.”
At the Republican Convention in August, the ear-splitting chants of “USA! USA!” and “Drill, baby, drill” sounded like cries of desperation, as well as of defiance against an enemy who threatens American’s divine right to remain supreme. Palin has since identified the enemy, proclaiming of Obama: “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
Whether or not her judgment carries a racist undertone, as many observers believe, the polls indicate that many Americans agree.
Sin-ming Shaw is a former visiting fellow in History at Oxford and Princeton universities."
___________________________________________________________________________
I don't normally copy and paste entire articles but I thought he made pretty good points, especially on 'the Bradley effect.'
Speaking of articles...they wrote my name wrong in the MTC Quarterly so I have been downgraded from a triumphant black stallion with a white mane to a lowly camel-long story-I might clarify in a later post.
I like this song by 四分衛:
(I saw them live in concert at Spring Scream and their other songs were good too. This one is sort of 'emo.')
"Race is a crucial factor in the US presidential race
By Sin-ming Shaw
Monday, Oct 20, 2008, Page 9
Three-quarters of Americans now disapprove of US President George W. Bush’s performance. Given this, and the fact that the policies and values of Senator John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush, you would expect Senator Barack Obama to be leading in the polls by a wider margin than he is.
The reason that he is not, I suspect, is racism. When polled, most older white voters overwhelming reject Obama, even if many of them are unhappy with Bush. Indeed, one-third of Democrats have at various times told pollsters that they will not vote for a black candidate. And a recent Associated Press/Yahoo News poll suggested that his race is costing Obama 6 percentage points in the polls.
Most of the time, this racism is covert, only hinted at through code words. The media, particularly the increasingly popular conservative media and talk radio, are particularly important here.
Obama is consistently criticized for his “otherness” and his “arrogance,” terms that call to mind the label of the “uppity nigger” from the days of segregation, which are actually not so far in the US’ past.
FOX CONDESCENSION
In a recent interview, Bill O’Reilly, the most popular TV talk show host at Fox News, the US’s most watched news station, talked down to Obama in so condescending a manner that some viewers were reminded of the image of a slave owner in an old Hollywood movie putting a young black upstart in his place.
Sean Hannity, another star host at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, demanded repeatedly on air from one interviewee, Fareed Zakaria, a well-known columnist at Newsweek with a CNN talk show of his own, to know whether he thought the US to be the greatest nation on earth.
The dark-skinned Zakaria, a naturalized American from India with a doctorate from Harvard University, felt compelled to affirm his loyalty for the US twice. It is hard to imagine Hannity demanding such a public affirmation of loyalty from anyone with white skin.
THE ‘BRADLEY’ EFFECT
So how much is race costing Obama? The problem is that pollsters cannot effectively measure the problem. They call it the “Bradley effect,” first noted during the 1982 governor’s race in California, when Tom Bradley, the then African-American mayor of Los Angeles, lost the race to his white opponent despite leading in pre-election polls throughout the campaign.
The idea behind the “Bradley effect” is that white voters won’t reveal their prejudices to pollsters. Instead, they lie and say that they will vote for the black candidate when, in fact, they have no intention of doing so.
Of course, many people now say that Obama has proven that the “Bradley effect” is a thing of the past. But his continuing difficulties with white working-class voters, who in the primaries went with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggest that, perhaps, the “Bradley effect” is still alive and well.
Younger Americans accept inter-racial relationships as part of the normal social and sexual landscape. Yet, the very speed with which American society has progressed has threatened half of the country, older and mostly white, unable and unwilling to live in the present.
The moderate Republican Party of former US president Dwight Eisenhower and the Rockefellers has been taken over by a radical crowd, with even Eisenhower’s granddaughter now openly backing Obama. So it boggles many non-Americans’ minds that so many in that great nation still do not wake up to the reality that four more years of Republican rule will further degrade and bankrupt the country.
In any civilized society, ignorance is not illegal and being moralistic is anybody’s inherent privilege. But what is alarming is how private religious beliefs and morals have increasingly shaped the secular agenda of the US, whose Founding Fathers had specifically designed the Constitution to separate state and church.
RADICAL REPUBLICANS?
Today’s radical Republican Party represents a large segment of the population that believes that abortions and same-sex marriage are immoral, that God sent the US to Iraq, and that bailing out Wall Street is “socialism.”
At the Republican Convention in August, the ear-splitting chants of “USA! USA!” and “Drill, baby, drill” sounded like cries of desperation, as well as of defiance against an enemy who threatens American’s divine right to remain supreme. Palin has since identified the enemy, proclaiming of Obama: “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
Whether or not her judgment carries a racist undertone, as many observers believe, the polls indicate that many Americans agree.
Sin-ming Shaw is a former visiting fellow in History at Oxford and Princeton universities."
___________________________________________________________________________
I don't normally copy and paste entire articles but I thought he made pretty good points, especially on 'the Bradley effect.'
Speaking of articles...they wrote my name wrong in the MTC Quarterly so I have been downgraded from a triumphant black stallion with a white mane to a lowly camel-long story-I might clarify in a later post.
I like this song by 四分衛:
(I saw them live in concert at Spring Scream and their other songs were good too. This one is sort of 'emo.')
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
"It's been said since time begun, youth is wasted on the young"
The grass is always greener, eh?
Before I got this job I thought I was wasting my life and was desperate to start making money and start getting real work experience...and now that I'm in that position I want nothing more than to have my freedom and idle time back.
Everyday is the same now. I rush off in a daze to my hour-long commute to work. Waiting for the subway, waiting for the bus, always waiting for something...Then I get to work and wait for the workday to end so I can go home and eat something.
-Driftland, "Youth is Wasted on the Young"
Before I got this job I thought I was wasting my life and was desperate to start making money and start getting real work experience...and now that I'm in that position I want nothing more than to have my freedom and idle time back.
Everyday is the same now. I rush off in a daze to my hour-long commute to work. Waiting for the subway, waiting for the bus, always waiting for something...Then I get to work and wait for the workday to end so I can go home and eat something.
The world's on fire
and my heart keeps on telling me that these are early days
Philosophy don't worry me
I've changed my mind so many times so many ways
and acting like the only one of thinking about what I have done I've found
experience is cursed
It's been said since time begun, youth is wasted on the young
-Driftland, "Youth is Wasted on the Young"
Monday, October 13, 2008
The End of the World As We Know It?
"Some of us—especially those under 60—have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time. It compares with the big ones—1907, 1929—and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the financial system, the economy or society as a whole."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163449
That said...I certainly don't feel it on the other side of the Pacific in Taipei, Taiwan where 'recession' or 'economic downturn' (經濟不景氣）hangs on everyone's lips but the fact remains that restaurants and department stores remain packed and busy and people are still going about life as usual. So here in the East, I just don't feel the panic.
Seeing the news from America is like watching a car crash from afar, worrying about those affected but bewildered at what to do or how to empathize.
On a related note, I skimmed part of "Network" after watching a provocative, controversial 'documentary' called "Zeitgeist" on Google Video, which played several dramatic clips from "Network (1976)":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
(it got an 8.8 rating on IMDB)
From IMDB, Memorable Quotes from "Network":
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
I'm not alone cause the TV's on yeah.
I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills everyday.
And rest, clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside with your grain.
Clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Tune in and we can get the last call.
Our lives, our coal.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Sign up it's the picket line or the parade.
-Jimmy Eats World, "Bleed American"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163449
That said...I certainly don't feel it on the other side of the Pacific in Taipei, Taiwan where 'recession' or 'economic downturn' (經濟不景氣）hangs on everyone's lips but the fact remains that restaurants and department stores remain packed and busy and people are still going about life as usual. So here in the East, I just don't feel the panic.
Seeing the news from America is like watching a car crash from afar, worrying about those affected but bewildered at what to do or how to empathize.
On a related note, I skimmed part of "Network" after watching a provocative, controversial 'documentary' called "Zeitgeist" on Google Video, which played several dramatic clips from "Network (1976)":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
(it got an 8.8 rating on IMDB)
From IMDB, Memorable Quotes from "Network":
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
I'm not alone cause the TV's on yeah.
I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills everyday.
And rest, clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside with your grain.
Clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Tune in and we can get the last call.
Our lives, our coal.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Sign up it's the picket line or the parade.
-Jimmy Eats World, "Bleed American"
呆若木雞
Maybe its the warmer climate
Maybe I'm a smarter primate
Maybe its the beer I'm drinking
Maybe I've stopped over thinking
[...]
But the universe is just an empty space
And all the stars can disappear without a trace
I'm so glad that this has taken me so long
Cos it's the journey that made me so strong
-Snow Patrol, "Warmer Climate"
Recently, I keep listening to certain tracks on the "Eyes Open" album.
I don't consider myself 'EMO' but I guess I've been in that mood as of late.
(I think "Open Up Your Eyes" is a little overplayed but I like the music video).
I want something
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
[...]
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
-SP, "Beginning To Get To Me"
I read this poem/short story (?) by Zhuangzi （莊子）called "Fighting Cock" (「鬥雞」) and no it's not supposed to be funny, despite the name translated in English...
Anyways, I sort of feel like that cock in the story. He had so much passion and fire (鬥志高昂 in the beginning but after all the training, he just becomes a wooden cock ( 呆若木雞).
(And if anyone knows the story they are probably thinking: you dumbass! you misinterpreted the entire morale of the story! Well I know that in this story, 木雞 is actually used in a positive manner in that he had reached such an elevated state that the other cocks did not even dare get close to him...but anyways when applying that state to me I'm using it in a negative way).
Before the intense training and reformation, the impulsive （根本沉不住氣) cock also felt he was superior to the riff raff around him: 他老是自命不凡地對周遭怒目相向。I've found that since I've come to Taiwan I've been feeling more 自命不凡 than before. Is that necessarily bad? It is according to Chinese culture and yet all the luminaries of Chinese have regarded themselves as so.
So I don't think I'm making any coherent sense anymore...and I feel like a dick by making obscure references to an old Taoist philosopher, whose poems or short stories are written in 文言文. Plus, I need to get back to work bc the format problem (Microsoft Word-> Open Office -> Windows -> Mac OS X as well as font issues, etc) has been resolved and so I need to get crackin' at it.
Maybe I'm a smarter primate
Maybe its the beer I'm drinking
Maybe I've stopped over thinking
[...]
But the universe is just an empty space
And all the stars can disappear without a trace
I'm so glad that this has taken me so long
Cos it's the journey that made me so strong
-Snow Patrol, "Warmer Climate"
Recently, I keep listening to certain tracks on the "Eyes Open" album.
I don't consider myself 'EMO' but I guess I've been in that mood as of late.
(I think "Open Up Your Eyes" is a little overplayed but I like the music video).
I want something
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
[...]
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
-SP, "Beginning To Get To Me"
I read this poem/short story (?) by Zhuangzi （莊子）called "Fighting Cock" (「鬥雞」) and no it's not supposed to be funny, despite the name translated in English...
Anyways, I sort of feel like that cock in the story. He had so much passion and fire (鬥志高昂 in the beginning but after all the training, he just becomes a wooden cock ( 呆若木雞).
(And if anyone knows the story they are probably thinking: you dumbass! you misinterpreted the entire morale of the story! Well I know that in this story, 木雞 is actually used in a positive manner in that he had reached such an elevated state that the other cocks did not even dare get close to him...but anyways when applying that state to me I'm using it in a negative way).
Before the intense training and reformation, the impulsive （根本沉不住氣) cock also felt he was superior to the riff raff around him: 他老是自命不凡地對周遭怒目相向。I've found that since I've come to Taiwan I've been feeling more 自命不凡 than before. Is that necessarily bad? It is according to Chinese culture and yet all the luminaries of Chinese have regarded themselves as so.
So I don't think I'm making any coherent sense anymore...and I feel like a dick by making obscure references to an old Taoist philosopher, whose poems or short stories are written in 文言文. Plus, I need to get back to work bc the format problem (Microsoft Word-> Open Office -> Windows -> Mac OS X as well as font issues, etc) has been resolved and so I need to get crackin' at it.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
〈頭髮的風波〉深邃的一段
「中國人的反抗，何嘗因為亡國，只是因為拖辮子。頑民殺盡了，遺老都壽終了，辮子早留定了，洪樣又鬧起來了。全留著頭髮的被官兵殺，還是辮子的便被長毛殺！有多少中國人只因為這不痛不癢的頭髮而吃了苦，受難，滅亡。」
－魯迅
一九二零年十月
－魯迅
一九二零年十月
Friday, September 19, 2008
Human Frailty/ 人類的脆弱
So today the teacher said something that stuck with me. We were reading the preface to Lu Xun's collection of short stories, which is titled 啊Q正傳. And the author said that the characters in Lu Xun's stories all have a defeatist attitude, resign themselves to fate, oppress the good and timid but fear the wicked, are hypocritical, and are cynical. The Chinese is much more eloquent than my slipshod English paraphrase at 2:30 AM, so I'll provide the quote here: 「道盡了世間眾生的真是面貌－宿命意識，失敗主義，欺善怕惡，假仁假義，犬儒性格。。。等。」
Anyways, so then she went off on a tangent somewhat and talked about the phenomenon of buffets cropping up around Taipei. She said that the 吃到飽現象 started around the late '90s and reflected this need by humans to stuff themselves with food in order to fill a void. They need to fill their stomachs up in order to feel a sense of contentment, of fullness（ 滿足口福）。She spoke of this as human frailty. That we as human beings constantly chase after this ephemeral feeling of contentment, which can come from as simple and base a source as eating till one bursts. 人類很脆弱，必須己撐著滿滿地才能滿足。
I apologize for my English readers for all the Chinese in this entry (I doubt I have any regular readers anyways), but I think I'm going to start moving in that direction as I have been in Taiwan for a year and I feel I've only recently started to take my studies seriously. I think it's reality setting in that I'm going to leave this fantasy isle in a few short months and I don't have much time left to study. The prospect of being another cog in the machine is not exactly motivational, so I'm trying to savor what little time I have left.
Well, this is day X of my insomnia month(s) and I find it's when I write the most-whether that be on Facebook walls, messages, MSN, or e-mails. I want to stop but like I said I have insomnia...well it's not even really insomnia because I eventually fall asleep just not at the time I want to as I have class in the morning.
無論如何，我都是最想睡時就往往失敗。我發現半夜是我最常反省的時光，也是我最犬儒性格和失敗主義的時段。白天心靈裡埋下去的思想與感情都冒出來了，顯然是胡思亂想。好了，我得避免上網沈溺自己的廢話了。晚安。
Anyways, so then she went off on a tangent somewhat and talked about the phenomenon of buffets cropping up around Taipei. She said that the 吃到飽現象 started around the late '90s and reflected this need by humans to stuff themselves with food in order to fill a void. They need to fill their stomachs up in order to feel a sense of contentment, of fullness（ 滿足口福）。She spoke of this as human frailty. That we as human beings constantly chase after this ephemeral feeling of contentment, which can come from as simple and base a source as eating till one bursts. 人類很脆弱，必須己撐著滿滿地才能滿足。
I apologize for my English readers for all the Chinese in this entry (I doubt I have any regular readers anyways), but I think I'm going to start moving in that direction as I have been in Taiwan for a year and I feel I've only recently started to take my studies seriously. I think it's reality setting in that I'm going to leave this fantasy isle in a few short months and I don't have much time left to study. The prospect of being another cog in the machine is not exactly motivational, so I'm trying to savor what little time I have left.
Well, this is day X of my insomnia month(s) and I find it's when I write the most-whether that be on Facebook walls, messages, MSN, or e-mails. I want to stop but like I said I have insomnia...well it's not even really insomnia because I eventually fall asleep just not at the time I want to as I have class in the morning.
無論如何，我都是最想睡時就往往失敗。我發現半夜是我最常反省的時光，也是我最犬儒性格和失敗主義的時段。白天心靈裡埋下去的思想與感情都冒出來了，顯然是胡思亂想。好了，我得避免上網沈溺自己的廢話了。晚安。
Thursday, September 11, 2008
讀書人的酸味; Voluntary population control based on utilitarian ideology
So I've been reading 魯迅 (Lu Xun) in my Advanced Chinese Reader course and when we were reading a literary criticism of his short story, “孔乙己," the author mentioned 讀書人的酸味, which prompted our teacher to talk about 與人寡合, which means that these educated scholars living in their ivory towers cannot communicate with the average Joe. Our teacher essentially said that she was like this and that it is so tiring have to deal with the crass, base Taiwanese people when she leaves the school. Then she went on a tirade about living in Taiwan amongst these philistines and then chided herself for expressing the aforementioned 酸味 (literally sour taste). And it's funny because I'm also finding myself frustrated with people taking rudimentary Chinese courses at Shida even though they've been here for the same time or longer than me. I know it sounds pompous but reading short stories or novels by 魯迅 and the like just opens up a whole new perspective that was closed off to me when I was studying intermediate Chinese ( learning about sentence patterns, grammatical structures and order, and memorizing vocabulary).
Before taking this course I had started to get weary of studying Mandarin, the rote memorization of vocab lists and phrases and reading random poorly written dialogues or essays, but now that we are reading a critical writer that challenges the very society he was born in, coupled with a teacher that demands independent thinking and open debate, well it has reignited my interest in learning Chinese as well as studying Chinese literature. She was discussing how short the history of modern, colloquial Chinese (白話） is and how 魯迅 essentially bridges the gap between the two as he and Hu Shi promoted the development of colloquial Chinese (白話）and it's evident as the words used in his works are very rarely seen nowadays. And even the words that are still used today are pronounced and used differently in his literary works.
When I started this entry I had some idea of what I wanted to write but somewhere along the middle of it I lost my train of thought and ended rambling about my interest in modern Chinese literature...oh well.
Oh tomorrow we will continue reading "藥" ("Medicine"), which is about a mother, who in efforts to save her son afflicted with tuberculosis, takes a 饅頭 (white flour bun) and uses it to soak up the spurting blood effusing out of a freshly decapitated criminal and feeds it to her dying son...
_________
I just remembered what I originally wanted to write about. Our teacher was telling us that even though she teaches for a living she has raised two idiots as sons, but she didn't do a huge disservice to society because she only had two children. She also said she was against the idea of her son attending university but her husband insisted; she said that her husband still has a traditional outlook on life. She also said she is against the whole idea of graduate school as well. She thinks only people who cannot work end up in grad school. She said Roosevelt Road and Heping Road are filled with people with doctorates walking around. And she continued to say that they have not helped society but instead have only increased the unemployment rate. Oh and she attributes the low birth rate in Taiwan to people being self-aware of their lack of self-worth and contribution to society. She said since they know their children will be nothing but a burden on society, thus everyone chooses to just not have children. Haha I like her cynicism.
Before taking this course I had started to get weary of studying Mandarin, the rote memorization of vocab lists and phrases and reading random poorly written dialogues or essays, but now that we are reading a critical writer that challenges the very society he was born in, coupled with a teacher that demands independent thinking and open debate, well it has reignited my interest in learning Chinese as well as studying Chinese literature. She was discussing how short the history of modern, colloquial Chinese (白話） is and how 魯迅 essentially bridges the gap between the two as he and Hu Shi promoted the development of colloquial Chinese (白話）and it's evident as the words used in his works are very rarely seen nowadays. And even the words that are still used today are pronounced and used differently in his literary works.
When I started this entry I had some idea of what I wanted to write but somewhere along the middle of it I lost my train of thought and ended rambling about my interest in modern Chinese literature...oh well.
Oh tomorrow we will continue reading "藥" ("Medicine"), which is about a mother, who in efforts to save her son afflicted with tuberculosis, takes a 饅頭 (white flour bun) and uses it to soak up the spurting blood effusing out of a freshly decapitated criminal and feeds it to her dying son...
_________
I just remembered what I originally wanted to write about. Our teacher was telling us that even though she teaches for a living she has raised two idiots as sons, but she didn't do a huge disservice to society because she only had two children. She also said she was against the idea of her son attending university but her husband insisted; she said that her husband still has a traditional outlook on life. She also said she is against the whole idea of graduate school as well. She thinks only people who cannot work end up in grad school. She said Roosevelt Road and Heping Road are filled with people with doctorates walking around. And she continued to say that they have not helped society but instead have only increased the unemployment rate. Oh and she attributes the low birth rate in Taiwan to people being self-aware of their lack of self-worth and contribution to society. She said since they know their children will be nothing but a burden on society, thus everyone chooses to just not have children. Haha I like her cynicism.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Disappointment
It truly never ceases to amaze me how much people can let me down. I mean people who I consider to be close friends, people I assume I can rely upon when the going gets tough, but they just keep on disappointing me and for some reason after a momentary period of peace I forget that you just can't rely on people not related by blood (you can't even rely on family sometimes either). I'm probably overreacting but it doesn't make this any less true. You can really only rely upon yourself, but as they say nobody is an island. Finding those rare people you can actually trust...now that is hard.
I'm not going to clarify any more. I sometimes forget this is a public blog that can be read by any and everyone.
I also want to apologize for being a downer recently but things have just not been going my way.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The longest day
So I went to Roxy last night for the 4 free drinks but two of my friends gave me their tickets so I ended up getting 11 tickets, plus I had to take care of a friend who drank too much...so I didn't get home until really late.
So naturally it was hard waking up this morning. I ended up missing a meeting I had with my cousin's friend to discuss possible career options because it would have been a huge pain to get there since he works at Standard Charter Bank on Dunhua North Rd. close to Nanjing E. Rd. on the Muzha Line. Anyways, I ended up canceling that even though it was in my interest to go. I always keep forgetting to call this head hunter, who is a friend of a friend, who I was supposed to call a month ago...I'm a perpetual procrastinator...sigh
Anyways, I ended up sleeping through several phone calls (which later got me in trouble). And then I finally left for work and took the MRT to Jingan MRT stop but then waited and waited and after 20 min I finally decided to try a different bus than Orange 5. (I looked on the sign and it said even at peak hours it would take 15-20 min and that it could take up to 30 min or more). I saw several 262 buses pass by so I decided to take one and get off on a stop that I thought was close to where the office was...it wasn't. So I got off and then called my boss to ask how to get to the office from where I was but he wasn't even sure himself. Then I asked some policemen who could barely speak Mandarin (in Taipei Xian they mostly speak Taiwanese) and they sent me in the wrong direction. I confirmed with my boss that I was walking in the same direction and then after asking some more people I headed off in the right direction. This is where it started to get weird.
There were all these cops everywhere and there were 8 lanes and the light was green but all the cars were parked. So I just decided to cross the street and the cops just watched me. Well, I just thought to myself this is Taiwan who knows and kept walking because I was already really late for work. Then I noticed that there were no cars on the roads and then I heard a loud siren and people peeking out of their stores and apartments. There was only one other person walking on the street. It was something like out of "28 Days Later." So I started to get worried and asked the guy in front of me what the hell was going on in Chinese. I was afraid there was a pesticide spraying or bomb threat or something that might harm my health since nearly everyone was indoors. He replied in accented Mandarin, "惶恐演戲 （huang kong yan xi）" which means terrified acting literally translated. So I was pretty confused but he replied the same thing more than once when I asked him again. Then when I crossed another street a cop stopped me and told me the same thing. Again I didn't understand but he said that it was broadcasted on TV. So there I was stuck with a group of 4 other people waiting impatiently in the heat and humidity.
*I'm too tired to finish tonight...more on the military air raid drill （防空演習） tomorrow...
So naturally it was hard waking up this morning. I ended up missing a meeting I had with my cousin's friend to discuss possible career options because it would have been a huge pain to get there since he works at Standard Charter Bank on Dunhua North Rd. close to Nanjing E. Rd. on the Muzha Line. Anyways, I ended up canceling that even though it was in my interest to go. I always keep forgetting to call this head hunter, who is a friend of a friend, who I was supposed to call a month ago...I'm a perpetual procrastinator...sigh
Anyways, I ended up sleeping through several phone calls (which later got me in trouble). And then I finally left for work and took the MRT to Jingan MRT stop but then waited and waited and after 20 min I finally decided to try a different bus than Orange 5. (I looked on the sign and it said even at peak hours it would take 15-20 min and that it could take up to 30 min or more). I saw several 262 buses pass by so I decided to take one and get off on a stop that I thought was close to where the office was...it wasn't. So I got off and then called my boss to ask how to get to the office from where I was but he wasn't even sure himself. Then I asked some policemen who could barely speak Mandarin (in Taipei Xian they mostly speak Taiwanese) and they sent me in the wrong direction. I confirmed with my boss that I was walking in the same direction and then after asking some more people I headed off in the right direction. This is where it started to get weird.
There were all these cops everywhere and there were 8 lanes and the light was green but all the cars were parked. So I just decided to cross the street and the cops just watched me. Well, I just thought to myself this is Taiwan who knows and kept walking because I was already really late for work. Then I noticed that there were no cars on the roads and then I heard a loud siren and people peeking out of their stores and apartments. There was only one other person walking on the street. It was something like out of "28 Days Later." So I started to get worried and asked the guy in front of me what the hell was going on in Chinese. I was afraid there was a pesticide spraying or bomb threat or something that might harm my health since nearly everyone was indoors. He replied in accented Mandarin, "惶恐演戲 （huang kong yan xi）" which means terrified acting literally translated. So I was pretty confused but he replied the same thing more than once when I asked him again. Then when I crossed another street a cop stopped me and told me the same thing. Again I didn't understand but he said that it was broadcasted on TV. So there I was stuck with a group of 4 other people waiting impatiently in the heat and humidity.
*I'm too tired to finish tonight...more on the military air raid drill （防空演習） tomorrow...
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Swimming Pools in Taipei
So recently I've been swimming a lot at the Shida (NTNU) pool. It's quite expensive but I get more than half off because I am a Shida student. The facilities are decent and they include a spa, steam room, and a sauna. I mostly just use the sauna and the pool though.
When I first started I was pretty satisfied because it was a big improvement from where I used to go at Zhongshan Sports Center (中山運動中心) as that pool was only 25 meters (vs. 50 meters a length at Shida) and now that it's summer it had become unbearably packed at night. The one upside to Zhongshan was that it closed at 10:30 PM, 30 min later than Shida. However, I went swimming this afternoon at Shida and it was deja vu. I changed lanes at least 4 times to try and find a lane with less people. It wasn't just that it was crowded though, the people swimming today just didn't seem to understand basic swimming pool etiquette. Throngs of people would just stand at both sides of the pool so I couldn't do a flip-turn. Then even during swimming people would swim so slowly that I would end up passing 3 or 4 people at a time. Even passing became an ordeal because as I was passing someone, someone from the opposing lane would suddenly want to do the same and would hit me. There were even a group of girls that were just doing handstands or walking in the middle of the swimming lane.
Also, there's this system at Shida where they put up signs that say "慢 （slow）," "中（normal）," and "快（fast）" in each of the lanes in Chinese. However, people swimming incredibly slow, swimming breaststroke, or doing drills with the flotation devices would always choose to swim in the "fast" lane. In the "normal" lane people would just stand around on either side of the pool resting. So I ended up using the "slow" lane even though there were a bunch of kids being taught how to swim in that lane (it turned out to be the fastest lane de facto because it was less crowded).
When I was in the "normal" lane I even hit about 4 people unintentionally. Once I was passing a person and the person in the opposing lane swam near the middle of the lane and I hit him on the head with my hand accidentally rather hard. Then when I was swimming past a person doing the backstroke I hit his arm and when I turned to look, I saw that he had stopped swimming altogether. Then later I was swimming freestyle and this lady hits me hard straight on. This was the last straw. She was swimming completely on the wrong side of the lane! I was fed up by this point so I didn't apologize and just told her straight that she was on the WRONG side of the lane. Then she basically scolded me on how I should look where I'm swimming. Then I told her to look at the ceiling and swim in a straight line. Anyways, she was being rude so finally I just said swim however you like I'm going in another lane.
When I got into the "slow" lane I learned my lesson and constantly looked up ahead of me to dodge kids swimming on the wrong side or other random obstacles that occur in Taiwanese swimming pools and actually ended up having a rather good swim.
[On another note, at the Shida pool they use these planks that they put on one side of the pool so that people can walk on them...I find them rather unnecessary and annoying because they get in the way. Sometimes they put it so that you can't do flip-turns at all on one side and sometimes they are stacked so high in the middle of the pool that it's rather dangerous to swim in those affected lanes. It's also really unnecessary since they could just do 'egg-beater' or swim to keep afloat instead of being lazy, walking on planks].
In other news, it's been raining a lot recently and it's rather annoying.
When I first started I was pretty satisfied because it was a big improvement from where I used to go at Zhongshan Sports Center (中山運動中心) as that pool was only 25 meters (vs. 50 meters a length at Shida) and now that it's summer it had become unbearably packed at night. The one upside to Zhongshan was that it closed at 10:30 PM, 30 min later than Shida. However, I went swimming this afternoon at Shida and it was deja vu. I changed lanes at least 4 times to try and find a lane with less people. It wasn't just that it was crowded though, the people swimming today just didn't seem to understand basic swimming pool etiquette. Throngs of people would just stand at both sides of the pool so I couldn't do a flip-turn. Then even during swimming people would swim so slowly that I would end up passing 3 or 4 people at a time. Even passing became an ordeal because as I was passing someone, someone from the opposing lane would suddenly want to do the same and would hit me. There were even a group of girls that were just doing handstands or walking in the middle of the swimming lane.
Also, there's this system at Shida where they put up signs that say "慢 （slow）," "中（normal）," and "快（fast）" in each of the lanes in Chinese. However, people swimming incredibly slow, swimming breaststroke, or doing drills with the flotation devices would always choose to swim in the "fast" lane. In the "normal" lane people would just stand around on either side of the pool resting. So I ended up using the "slow" lane even though there were a bunch of kids being taught how to swim in that lane (it turned out to be the fastest lane de facto because it was less crowded).
When I was in the "normal" lane I even hit about 4 people unintentionally. Once I was passing a person and the person in the opposing lane swam near the middle of the lane and I hit him on the head with my hand accidentally rather hard. Then when I was swimming past a person doing the backstroke I hit his arm and when I turned to look, I saw that he had stopped swimming altogether. Then later I was swimming freestyle and this lady hits me hard straight on. This was the last straw. She was swimming completely on the wrong side of the lane! I was fed up by this point so I didn't apologize and just told her straight that she was on the WRONG side of the lane. Then she basically scolded me on how I should look where I'm swimming. Then I told her to look at the ceiling and swim in a straight line. Anyways, she was being rude so finally I just said swim however you like I'm going in another lane.
When I got into the "slow" lane I learned my lesson and constantly looked up ahead of me to dodge kids swimming on the wrong side or other random obstacles that occur in Taiwanese swimming pools and actually ended up having a rather good swim.
[On another note, at the Shida pool they use these planks that they put on one side of the pool so that people can walk on them...I find them rather unnecessary and annoying because they get in the way. Sometimes they put it so that you can't do flip-turns at all on one side and sometimes they are stacked so high in the middle of the pool that it's rather dangerous to swim in those affected lanes. It's also really unnecessary since they could just do 'egg-beater' or swim to keep afloat instead of being lazy, walking on planks].
In other news, it's been raining a lot recently and it's rather annoying.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
California Fitness; 'The Office;' MMOROP
So last night my friend brought me to his gym, California Fitness (the Daan branch), which is also known as 24 Hour Fitness in the states. Long story short (bc it's past 3 am and I should be asleep) I nearly got swindled...in fact I did--in large part bc my friend convinced me--but in the end I got a refund on my credit card. I think I will update more on this later...it has to do with being enrolled in an autopay system without my consent, completely arbitrary slashing of prices and random 'special deals,' and irregular mind games played by the salespeople or 'consultants.'
I also will be starting on my first editing project for Island Technology soon. They are developing an 'MMORPG,' which apparently stands for mass multi-person online role playing game. He said that I should do it at home and then tell him how many hours I spent on it and then come up with a hourly rate...I'm not quite sure how much I should request though. I talked to my grandmother over dinner at a hot pot restaurant and she said I should ask what he thinks is reasonable before I start working. That probably seems like a better way of haggling since I'll have more leverage if I just refuse to work if the pay isn't up to par.
Anyways, on a different note I'm going to start swimming in the mornings (8:30 AM...yikes) before class because once I start working my evenings will no longer be free. Plus, I need to get out of this apathetic slump I've been in ever since I sprained my ankle (which still clicks when I rotate it and is sore if I try a slow jog). I just got done with this insane marathon of watching "The Office" (US version); I feel like the 1st and 2nd Seasons were much better--I'm not a huge fan of the people from the Stamford office. I think what's lacking in Season 3 is that genuine interaction b/n Pam and Halpert. Oh yeah another incentive is bc I found out I'm rather fat...after I went to Cali. They measured my body fat percentage and it's remarkably higher than I had thought. Technically, I'm 'healthy' but I think I read somewhere that professional athletes are 10-12% or lower, and to add insult to injury the friend who brought me to Cali is a mere 2%...
I also will be starting on my first editing project for Island Technology soon. They are developing an 'MMORPG,' which apparently stands for mass multi-person online role playing game. He said that I should do it at home and then tell him how many hours I spent on it and then come up with a hourly rate...I'm not quite sure how much I should request though. I talked to my grandmother over dinner at a hot pot restaurant and she said I should ask what he thinks is reasonable before I start working. That probably seems like a better way of haggling since I'll have more leverage if I just refuse to work if the pay isn't up to par.
Anyways, on a different note I'm going to start swimming in the mornings (8:30 AM...yikes) before class because once I start working my evenings will no longer be free. Plus, I need to get out of this apathetic slump I've been in ever since I sprained my ankle (which still clicks when I rotate it and is sore if I try a slow jog). I just got done with this insane marathon of watching "The Office" (US version); I feel like the 1st and 2nd Seasons were much better--I'm not a huge fan of the people from the Stamford office. I think what's lacking in Season 3 is that genuine interaction b/n Pam and Halpert. Oh yeah another incentive is bc I found out I'm rather fat...after I went to Cali. They measured my body fat percentage and it's remarkably higher than I had thought. Technically, I'm 'healthy' but I think I read somewhere that professional athletes are 10-12% or lower, and to add insult to injury the friend who brought me to Cali is a mere 2%...
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Common Decency
So today I went to Yonghe to see my 90 (give or take a couple years) year old grandmother, who's been very ill with something and has been vomiting at night. Seeing her I could see her frailty immediately as her skin looked sallow and she is visibly slimmer from just a few weeks prior.
Anyways, what spurred me to pen this new post after such a long hiatus is what happened as we were heading downstairs to grab lunch. I was walking behind my grandma, who was already weakened and walking slowly due to her condition so we decided to take the elevator. Well, as the doors opened my grandma walked in but then the doors suddenly closed on her right as she took a step in, even though a young girl was inside and was clearly pushing the open button. At first I thought the old lift must be broken since the girl was repeatedly pushing the open button with vigor. Then when I tried to walk in after my grandma (while holding the two doors open) it shut on me as well. So then I felt something was fishy and alas I saw that the young girl was actually pressing the "Close" button which was clearly stated in English. Now you may say she didn't know English but open and close are words that every child in Taiwan comprehends since English is a required and heavily stressed subject. Furthermore, anyone could see by the actions of the lift that it was indeed CLOSING. At this point I was furious. The intense heat and the walk over to my grandma's place had already set the stage for my anger and then this extremely rude gesture just set me off.
In Chinese, I asked the girl, "What do you think you are doing?! Can't you see my grandma is trying to get on the elevator? Don't you have any manners at all? You should be ashamed of yourself. Apologize to my grandmother right this instant!"
But to my surprise the girl just stared ahead like a retard (even her mouth was slightly agape) and kept pressing the "Close" button! I just stood there watching her completely shocked at her response. Before I could recover she bolted out and down the street.
When I asked my grandma why she let the spoiled brat off so easily she just said, "Well, she's just a spoiled Taiwanese kid." That certainly is no excuse in my book. I was quite close to slapping that kid some manners. Her only excuse would be that she was actually retarded or autistic and wasn't sure what she was doing. While she looked somewhat slow and could possibly be special ed, I still think she was just an extremely rude kid with absentee parents.
Well, this really bothered me because my grandma is really old and frail and I can't be there always to look after her as she lives alone. If it happened to me I probably wouldn't even think that much about it besides that she is a juvenile delinquent but since she purposely did it to my grandmother for her own twisted amusement-to me that constitutes as a cruel crime that deserves retribution.
This incident just showed me that you really cannot count on the common decency of strangers. If a sick, elderly woman doesn't inspire compassion or sympathy in a human being that I don't know what will.
Anyways, what spurred me to pen this new post after such a long hiatus is what happened as we were heading downstairs to grab lunch. I was walking behind my grandma, who was already weakened and walking slowly due to her condition so we decided to take the elevator. Well, as the doors opened my grandma walked in but then the doors suddenly closed on her right as she took a step in, even though a young girl was inside and was clearly pushing the open button. At first I thought the old lift must be broken since the girl was repeatedly pushing the open button with vigor. Then when I tried to walk in after my grandma (while holding the two doors open) it shut on me as well. So then I felt something was fishy and alas I saw that the young girl was actually pressing the "Close" button which was clearly stated in English. Now you may say she didn't know English but open and close are words that every child in Taiwan comprehends since English is a required and heavily stressed subject. Furthermore, anyone could see by the actions of the lift that it was indeed CLOSING. At this point I was furious. The intense heat and the walk over to my grandma's place had already set the stage for my anger and then this extremely rude gesture just set me off.
In Chinese, I asked the girl, "What do you think you are doing?! Can't you see my grandma is trying to get on the elevator? Don't you have any manners at all? You should be ashamed of yourself. Apologize to my grandmother right this instant!"
But to my surprise the girl just stared ahead like a retard (even her mouth was slightly agape) and kept pressing the "Close" button! I just stood there watching her completely shocked at her response. Before I could recover she bolted out and down the street.
When I asked my grandma why she let the spoiled brat off so easily she just said, "Well, she's just a spoiled Taiwanese kid." That certainly is no excuse in my book. I was quite close to slapping that kid some manners. Her only excuse would be that she was actually retarded or autistic and wasn't sure what she was doing. While she looked somewhat slow and could possibly be special ed, I still think she was just an extremely rude kid with absentee parents.
Well, this really bothered me because my grandma is really old and frail and I can't be there always to look after her as she lives alone. If it happened to me I probably wouldn't even think that much about it besides that she is a juvenile delinquent but since she purposely did it to my grandmother for her own twisted amusement-to me that constitutes as a cruel crime that deserves retribution.
This incident just showed me that you really cannot count on the common decency of strangers. If a sick, elderly woman doesn't inspire compassion or sympathy in a human being that I don't know what will.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
MOE Scholarship Issue
So today I find out that my MOE scholarship stipend was revoked this month due to absences/tardiness. This being the case despite the fact that I had pneumonia (specifically chlamydia pneumoniae) and was told to rest at home for 3-5 days. I even got an official, stamped letter from the ear, nasal, throat physician to prove it. It wasn't until I flashed that letter that the secretary in charge of MOE scholarship let me talk to the chancellor's secretary, who was much more understanding since she actually was willing to listen to my reasons, which were legitimate and varied. After hearing me out she told the other secretary to contact the Ministry of Education and fax them the doctor's note.
While the first secretary really set me off, I think ultimately my teacher is the source of all the trouble. Having a serious, infectious disease should have precluded marking me absent, which is what my other teachers had did. Even if she did mark me absent she told me she put me down for 10 hrs absent, which is within the allowed allotted amount but it turned out to be 14 hrs, which is why I'm in this precarious position now.
In any case, until this is resolved I can't pay my landlord, my cell phone bill, my health insurance, kickboxing fee, nor my tuition, which means the classes I wanted to take may fill up before I can register. I asked more than once if I could sign up before paying because of my situation but they said it was impossible. In the meantime, the only reason why I'm not starving is because I had 1,000 NTD left over from last month's stipend and because my grandmother gave me some money for my birthday.
It's nearly mid-May and I find out by accident that I don't have my scholarship...I don't know why they don't have a system that notifies you when you are at risk of losing your scholarship or why they don't just tell you in an e-mail, letter, whatever that you aren't receiving one this month. I thought it was just arriving late AS USUAL.
Anyways, I'm hoping this will be resolved soon. In any case, I will not take this lying down. While the office secretary is dealing with it. I'm planning on sending out several e-mails to respective persons and if all else fails I will go to the MOE myself in person (once I find out where it is).
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Suicide at the MTC
So I could easily write reams on the recent devastating earthquake in Sichuan, China or the appalling lack of rescue efforts by the military junta in response to the cyclone in Myanmar (echoes of Hurricane Katrina but on an even bigger scale), however, today I'd rather describe the suicide that occurred right on our very own campus, Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University or MTC at NTNU for short.
So I arrive in class today and find out that around 8 AM, a girl had climbed on to the rooftop of the MTC (11th floor) and had jumped off. The girl was a reticent Korean girl, known by few at the institution. She was described as having emotional difficulties since she arrived.
Conor S. said that he had a friend who had an 8 AM class and had seen the girl in free fall from his classroom window. Her impact on the hard concrete ground was described to be a very loud thud.
Our teacher stated that in the morning she witnessed many different reactions: some immediately broke down and started crying, others sat in quiet contemplation, and some even burst out laughing...
During class we had a discussion about the recent events at the MTC and the natural disasters in Asia, which my teacher callously described more or less as "mother nature's population control measures."
The Korean girl in our class said that suicide is a serious problem in Korean society and her Japanese boyfriend said that its gotten so bad that its nearly parallel to the notorious situation in Japan.
She attributes it to the fact that young students in Korean suffer from tremendous pressure from parents, family, friends, and society to succeed and that their success is only measured in entry into prestigious universities and material wealth. She states that girls in middle school even attend cram schools (補習班) until 1 AM or later. She also said that nobody in Korea understands how to let loose or to spend their leisure time. She said this competition is made even more fierce as those who graduate with master's degrees still find it nearly impossible to land a decent job. She claimed the unemployment rate in Korea was around 50%. Seems far-fetched but I have heard from another girl in Seoul that the job market is pretty bleak as well (she left a good financial job and is now studying Mandarin Chinese at Tsinghua Uni. in Beijing).
I'm not sure how accurate her portrayal is of Korea since she always is scathingly critical of her homeland having suffered through the iron-fist discipline of traditional, stereotypical Asian parents.
In class I was saying how it's interesting that suicides in Asia almost always seem to be young students jumping off roofs. Then the Korean girl said it's because it's less painful than slitting your wrists and if you swallow pills someone can take you to the hospital and save you. I feel like it's a really dramatic way to go out and that it's a cry for attention. I wonder if she wanted someone to talk her out of it, but the Korean girl in class said that truly depressed people are committed to suicide when they get to that point. The teacher said that the MTC has a counselor from America available free for those with emotional troubles, but that she's not equipped for the most needy students (usually those hailing from Japan or Korea). The counselor knows Chinese but of course is most fluent in her native English.
The teacher also stated that the girl brought nothing with her--no purse, money, backpack, nada. That her sole purpose of going to the MTC this morning was to jump off a roof...
Walking outside after lunch today, I couldn't help but notice the gorgeous blue skies with fluffy white clouds. The gentle breeze cooling me off while the sunshine warmed my skin. I can't imagine a less appropriate day for a suicide.
**UPDATE**
I found out today that it was actually not an MTC student but a Taiwanese girl who jumped off the roof yesterday. Someone, who had been dating a guy who attended MTC and had been dumped by him. She was heartbroken and then decided to end her life in that dramatic fashion.
***August 7, 2008 CORRECTION*****
I found out that my teacher was dead WRONG (the update above) and she spread the false rumors to all of her students, including me. While I should I have double-checked I thought my teacher was telling the truth.
The girl who committed suicide was in fact a Taiwanese girl but she was not dating anyone at the MTC. She actually wanted to get a government job in Taipei but apparently was not selected and in her despair she jumped off the building. I don't know why she chose the MTC as her location but this is what I'm told from more than one student who had an 8 AM class at the time of her suicide and saw her in freefall from the window. Once again this is what I've heard from a third party but both of them are confident that this is the true reason for her suicide.
After all of these retractions and corrections I'm tempted to just scrap this post but I think I'll leave it be.
***August 7, 2008 CORRECTION*****
I found out that my teacher was dead WRONG (the update above) and she spread the false rumors to all of her students, including me. While I should I have double-checked I thought my teacher was telling the truth.
The girl who committed suicide was in fact a Taiwanese girl but she was not dating anyone at the MTC. She actually wanted to get a government job in Taipei but apparently was not selected and in her despair she jumped off the building. I don't know why she chose the MTC as her location but this is what I'm told from more than one student who had an 8 AM class at the time of her suicide and saw her in freefall from the window. Once again this is what I've heard from a third party but both of them are confident that this is the true reason for her suicide.
After all of these retractions and corrections I'm tempted to just scrap this post but I think I'll leave it be.
Friday, March 28, 2008
China's Involvement in Darfur
:: Class Discussion::
So I was nominated by my classmates to host a debate/discussion on the Beijing Olympics in class for the speaking portion of the test yesterday. During the discussion Okabe, the Japanese student, pontificated that the Chinese were selling weapons to the Darfur rebels and that this was amoral. I had never heard of this before since I had always thought the Chinese were neutral and there purely for pragmatic reasons, namely to acquire resources to feed the beast that is the Chinese economy. Recently, they had even denounced the genocide.
Thus, this inspired me to make my second post concerning the misinformation in the Western media surrounding China, human rights, etc. Folks, I can't stress enough the importance of reading independent, alternative media. Whether that's through blogs (Technorati), lesser known media outlets like The Huffington Post, Alternet, Harper's, etc. From what I've heard the younger generation in China doesn't trust the media either so they resort to blogs and alternative media sources as well. As Noam Chomsky has asserted, manipulation through the media is even easier in democratic, supposedly open societies because people assume their media is trustworthy, while in autocratic states the people intrinsically are skeptical and find their own answers through creative outlets.
::Alternative News Sources::
I also like to read some well-known news sources (albeit most of them are from the UK), like The Economist, BBC, Newsweek, and occasionally The Washington Post or Christian Science Monitor. For the most part these are very trustworthy, especially The Economist, but the danger with these is that they often are so successful because they rely upon advertising and sponsors and they have vested interests as well that sometimes conflict with giving unbiased news. Of course the smaller independent media sources also have this problem so it's important to read myriad, diverse media to get a more realistic picture. This was probably the best lesson I garnered working at CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights) in NOHO, Manhattan. I had to do research on the mistreatment and torture of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Grahib, and also on US policies of repatriation of political asylum seekers even in the face of imminent death or torture when they return. I also was doing a research paper on the NSA wiretapping scandal, where American civilian phone conversations were being illegally recorded and screened to find terrorists amongst the American populace. Time, BBC, and Newsweek had many articles but I often had to resort to searching out alternative news sources for more information. And I was advised by my mentor at CCR to seek out alternative news sources as well (he's the one that introduced me to Google News and Technorati).
::China's Role in Development in the Third World::
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I've seen a documentary and read a great article that highlights how China actually has a mutual symbiotic relationship with these resource rich, capital poor countries in South America and Africa.
The documentary, "China vs. USA: Battle for Oil" (Part 1 of 5):
From the article, "The Forgotten Oil War in Sudan:"
Unattached development aid from China:
"China has actually helped Sudan’s economic development while serving its own needs for oil. With its more than $1.3 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves, China has been generous in dispensing its soft loans, with no interest or outright grants to some of the poorest debtor states of Africa. The loans have gone to infrastructure including highways, hospitals, and schools, a stark contrast to the brutal austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank. In 2006 China committed more than $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, versus $2.3 billion to all sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank. Unlike the World Bank, a de facto arm of US foreign economic policy, China attaches no strings to its loans."
US policy in these countries:
“ 'The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005, by John Garang, trained at US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
By pouring arms into first southern Sudan in the eastern part and since discovery of oil in Darfur, to that region as well, Washington fueled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the SPLA, the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.
The Pentagon has been busy training African military officers in the US, much as it has for Latin American officers for decades. Its International Military Education and Training (IMET) program has provided training to military officers from Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, in effect every country on Sudan’s border. Much of the arms that have fuelled the killing in Darfur and the south have been brought in via murky, protected private “merchants of death” such as the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor Bout. Bout has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across Africa. US Government officials strangely leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.
US development aid for all Sub-Sahara Africa including Chad, has been cut sharply in recent years while its military aid has risen. Oil and the scramble for strategic raw materials is the clear reason.' "
So I was nominated by my classmates to host a debate/discussion on the Beijing Olympics in class for the speaking portion of the test yesterday. During the discussion Okabe, the Japanese student, pontificated that the Chinese were selling weapons to the Darfur rebels and that this was amoral. I had never heard of this before since I had always thought the Chinese were neutral and there purely for pragmatic reasons, namely to acquire resources to feed the beast that is the Chinese economy. Recently, they had even denounced the genocide.
Thus, this inspired me to make my second post concerning the misinformation in the Western media surrounding China, human rights, etc. Folks, I can't stress enough the importance of reading independent, alternative media. Whether that's through blogs (Technorati), lesser known media outlets like The Huffington Post, Alternet, Harper's, etc. From what I've heard the younger generation in China doesn't trust the media either so they resort to blogs and alternative media sources as well. As Noam Chomsky has asserted, manipulation through the media is even easier in democratic, supposedly open societies because people assume their media is trustworthy, while in autocratic states the people intrinsically are skeptical and find their own answers through creative outlets.
::Alternative News Sources::
I also like to read some well-known news sources (albeit most of them are from the UK), like The Economist, BBC, Newsweek, and occasionally The Washington Post or Christian Science Monitor. For the most part these are very trustworthy, especially The Economist, but the danger with these is that they often are so successful because they rely upon advertising and sponsors and they have vested interests as well that sometimes conflict with giving unbiased news. Of course the smaller independent media sources also have this problem so it's important to read myriad, diverse media to get a more realistic picture. This was probably the best lesson I garnered working at CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights) in NOHO, Manhattan. I had to do research on the mistreatment and torture of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Grahib, and also on US policies of repatriation of political asylum seekers even in the face of imminent death or torture when they return. I also was doing a research paper on the NSA wiretapping scandal, where American civilian phone conversations were being illegally recorded and screened to find terrorists amongst the American populace. Time, BBC, and Newsweek had many articles but I often had to resort to searching out alternative news sources for more information. And I was advised by my mentor at CCR to seek out alternative news sources as well (he's the one that introduced me to Google News and Technorati).
::China's Role in Development in the Third World::
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I've seen a documentary and read a great article that highlights how China actually has a mutual symbiotic relationship with these resource rich, capital poor countries in South America and Africa.
The documentary, "China vs. USA: Battle for Oil" (Part 1 of 5):
From the article, "The Forgotten Oil War in Sudan:"
Unattached development aid from China:
"China has actually helped Sudan’s economic development while serving its own needs for oil. With its more than $1.3 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves, China has been generous in dispensing its soft loans, with no interest or outright grants to some of the poorest debtor states of Africa. The loans have gone to infrastructure including highways, hospitals, and schools, a stark contrast to the brutal austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank. In 2006 China committed more than $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, versus $2.3 billion to all sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank. Unlike the World Bank, a de facto arm of US foreign economic policy, China attaches no strings to its loans."
US policy in these countries:
“ 'The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005, by John Garang, trained at US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
By pouring arms into first southern Sudan in the eastern part and since discovery of oil in Darfur, to that region as well, Washington fueled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the SPLA, the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.
The Pentagon has been busy training African military officers in the US, much as it has for Latin American officers for decades. Its International Military Education and Training (IMET) program has provided training to military officers from Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, in effect every country on Sudan’s border. Much of the arms that have fuelled the killing in Darfur and the south have been brought in via murky, protected private “merchants of death” such as the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor Bout. Bout has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across Africa. US Government officials strangely leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.
US development aid for all Sub-Sahara Africa including Chad, has been cut sharply in recent years while its military aid has risen. Oil and the scramble for strategic raw materials is the clear reason.' "
Monday, March 24, 2008
Spin Control
So it's been awhile since my last post, it's not that nothing has been happening but rather too much personal stuff that has been occupying my time and I would rather not discuss it on a public blog. In any case, I figure the recent Taiwanese elections would make a good post to get back in the groove.
::Taiwanese Election Results::
So for those not living in Taiwan, yesterday the results of the presidential elections were released. This has been basically consuming the daily lives of Taiwanese for the past several months preceding the election and has caused a strict divide in Taiwanese society between green (DPP) and blue (KMT). Based on your affiliation, you either were rejoicing last night or in a pit of despair...or you plain didn't give a rat's ass.
These were the candidates:
Ma Ying Jiu (KMT; for improved relations with the mainland, direct flights to PRC)
Vs.
Frank Hsieh (DPP; for a strict stance against the PRC; stated that Ma could cause Taiwan to become a "second Tibet.")
The winner was the former. Today during class our teacher bitterly informed us that people set off fireworks in Taipei. She and the Japanese student in our class were extremely resentful and could barely contain their displeasure. During class, whenever we had to create sentences to practice vocab or grammar patterns, the Japanese student would to no avail create sentences that spoke of China's poor human rights record, xenophobia, and supposedly contradictory arguments. He also criticized the US since he said that because America wouldn't boycott the Beijing Olympics that no other countries would either. Then he complained about how Japan wasn't nationalistic/xenophobic enough...
Needless to say class is...quite interesting now. Especially since for the past two semesters both my teachers have been staunchly KMT, especially my last teacher, who constantly criticized Chen Shui Bian and urged us all to support Ma.
::Tibet Situation::
Oh and the other topic of discussion today was Tibet and how that affects how we view the Beijing Olympics. And we talked about how we all sympathize with the Tibetans' plight. Since I always advocate the point of view that is neglected (I'm somewhat of a contrarian), I informed them that the innocent Buddhist monks were trained militarily and armed with weapons by the CIA in a secret mission decades ago. I didn't mention this but the Tibetan monks had essentially an oppressive oligarchy in place and tortured dissenters, which is why some viewed the Chinese communist troops as liberators rather than conquerors. Especially since most of the Tibetan people's lives improved dramatically after Chinese takeover and it was only the small percentage of the Tibetan oligarchy that fled as refugees to India, including the famous religious and political leader, Dalai Lama.
Part 1 (of 6) of the documentary, "CIA in Tibet," posted on YouTube:
My friend posted an interesting article on this much lauded political/religious leader. I intrinsically distrust religious leaders and even more so when they are political leaders, so I wasn't that surprised when I read the article, "Behind Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak," by an Australian news source. (An excerpt: "No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet's government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama's own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.))"
::No Spin Zone::
It always amuses me when people decry the Chinese government's supposed deplorable treatment of the Tibetans when they know close to nil about Chinese history and Tibetan history, besides what is shown on TV, which brings me to my next point. People say the media is biased but in this case it's quite laughable. I didn't even know it was this bad until I saw numerous pictures posted by members in a Facebook group:
As you can see the pictures do not correspond with the captions or articles written. They use photos of violent crackdowns in India and Nepal but only mention China's oppression.Also, even in the photos that ARE of China, the photo is strategically cropped, which completely changes the meaning it conveys. Even the facts are highly exaggerated or fabricated. The official casualty toll was 16 but in that CNN screenshot this is inflated to a ridiculous 100 people dead. (FYI: All of these screenshots were taken from the Facebook group, "Tibet was, is and always will be apart of China," I did not create or own these screenshots).
Obviously, I don't think China has no culpability but I think it's ridiculous how much facts are being distorted in the media. Russia cracked down on Chechnya in a much more violent way and even resorted to extensive bombing on the region but didn't receive half as much negative press. Furthermore, what outsiders don't realize are the ramifications of allowing a province separate would entail. It would lead to a snowball effect where numerous provinces would also demand separation, such as Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ganxi, Hei Long Jiang, Inner Mongolia, and possibly others. One of the central jobs of a state is to protect the integrity of its borders. Outside observers seem to overlook the fact that China is a melting pot with numerous minorities groups and overseeing a country of that magnitude and diversity is not easy, just look at China's neighbors, India and Russia, and the problems with terrorism and language barriers that they have as well.
UPDATE:
Conor Stuart sent me this great Atlantic Monthly article, "Tibet Through Chinese Eyes," that gives a different perspective from an American correspondent who went to Tibet.
::Taiwanese Election Results::
So for those not living in Taiwan, yesterday the results of the presidential elections were released. This has been basically consuming the daily lives of Taiwanese for the past several months preceding the election and has caused a strict divide in Taiwanese society between green (DPP) and blue (KMT). Based on your affiliation, you either were rejoicing last night or in a pit of despair...or you plain didn't give a rat's ass.
These were the candidates:
Ma Ying Jiu (KMT; for improved relations with the mainland, direct flights to PRC)Vs.
Frank Hsieh (DPP; for a strict stance against the PRC; stated that Ma could cause Taiwan to become a "second Tibet.")The winner was the former. Today during class our teacher bitterly informed us that people set off fireworks in Taipei. She and the Japanese student in our class were extremely resentful and could barely contain their displeasure. During class, whenever we had to create sentences to practice vocab or grammar patterns, the Japanese student would to no avail create sentences that spoke of China's poor human rights record, xenophobia, and supposedly contradictory arguments. He also criticized the US since he said that because America wouldn't boycott the Beijing Olympics that no other countries would either. Then he complained about how Japan wasn't nationalistic/xenophobic enough...
Needless to say class is...quite interesting now. Especially since for the past two semesters both my teachers have been staunchly KMT, especially my last teacher, who constantly criticized Chen Shui Bian and urged us all to support Ma.
::Tibet Situation::
Oh and the other topic of discussion today was Tibet and how that affects how we view the Beijing Olympics. And we talked about how we all sympathize with the Tibetans' plight. Since I always advocate the point of view that is neglected (I'm somewhat of a contrarian), I informed them that the innocent Buddhist monks were trained militarily and armed with weapons by the CIA in a secret mission decades ago. I didn't mention this but the Tibetan monks had essentially an oppressive oligarchy in place and tortured dissenters, which is why some viewed the Chinese communist troops as liberators rather than conquerors. Especially since most of the Tibetan people's lives improved dramatically after Chinese takeover and it was only the small percentage of the Tibetan oligarchy that fled as refugees to India, including the famous religious and political leader, Dalai Lama.
Part 1 (of 6) of the documentary, "CIA in Tibet," posted on YouTube:
My friend posted an interesting article on this much lauded political/religious leader. I intrinsically distrust religious leaders and even more so when they are political leaders, so I wasn't that surprised when I read the article, "Behind Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak," by an Australian news source. (An excerpt: "No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet's government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama's own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.))"
::No Spin Zone::
It always amuses me when people decry the Chinese government's supposed deplorable treatment of the Tibetans when they know close to nil about Chinese history and Tibetan history, besides what is shown on TV, which brings me to my next point. People say the media is biased but in this case it's quite laughable. I didn't even know it was this bad until I saw numerous pictures posted by members in a Facebook group:
As you can see the pictures do not correspond with the captions or articles written. They use photos of violent crackdowns in India and Nepal but only mention China's oppression.Also, even in the photos that ARE of China, the photo is strategically cropped, which completely changes the meaning it conveys. Even the facts are highly exaggerated or fabricated. The official casualty toll was 16 but in that CNN screenshot this is inflated to a ridiculous 100 people dead. (FYI: All of these screenshots were taken from the Facebook group, "Tibet was, is and always will be apart of China," I did not create or own these screenshots).
Obviously, I don't think China has no culpability but I think it's ridiculous how much facts are being distorted in the media. Russia cracked down on Chechnya in a much more violent way and even resorted to extensive bombing on the region but didn't receive half as much negative press. Furthermore, what outsiders don't realize are the ramifications of allowing a province separate would entail. It would lead to a snowball effect where numerous provinces would also demand separation, such as Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ganxi, Hei Long Jiang, Inner Mongolia, and possibly others. One of the central jobs of a state is to protect the integrity of its borders. Outside observers seem to overlook the fact that China is a melting pot with numerous minorities groups and overseeing a country of that magnitude and diversity is not easy, just look at China's neighbors, India and Russia, and the problems with terrorism and language barriers that they have as well.
UPDATE:
Conor Stuart sent me this great Atlantic Monthly article, "Tibet Through Chinese Eyes," that gives a different perspective from an American correspondent who went to Tibet.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
My best friend in Taipei is an idiot
My friend, Alex, has become an ogre/monster in the span of one night.
He went to a dermatologist today and had his wounds scrubbed out w/ harsh chemical cleansers and antiseptics. Then they put synthetic skin grafts on it. He said the wounds were oozing pus which was dripping on his laptop...lovely, eh?
I should also mention that it's not just his face that's a mess. His jeans were ripped open at the knee where he has a deep gash. His palms are also cut, and he is cut behind his ear. He also went to a dentist because one of his front teeth is loose and cracked. He also may have had a concussion.
I know you are now dying of curiosity but even he wasn't exactly sure what happened initially. Then after calling some people and pondering about it he finally managed to reconstruct what actually happened. And in order to spare any shred of dignity he possesses I won't divulge the details on this public blog.
Just know that what actually happened is hilarious and completely ridiculous and could not have happened to anyone else. And of course it involved a girl...doesn't it always?
He went to a dermatologist today and had his wounds scrubbed out w/ harsh chemical cleansers and antiseptics. Then they put synthetic skin grafts on it. He said the wounds were oozing pus which was dripping on his laptop...lovely, eh?
I should also mention that it's not just his face that's a mess. His jeans were ripped open at the knee where he has a deep gash. His palms are also cut, and he is cut behind his ear. He also went to a dentist because one of his front teeth is loose and cracked. He also may have had a concussion.
I know you are now dying of curiosity but even he wasn't exactly sure what happened initially. Then after calling some people and pondering about it he finally managed to reconstruct what actually happened. And in order to spare any shred of dignity he possesses I won't divulge the details on this public blog.
Just know that what actually happened is hilarious and completely ridiculous and could not have happened to anyone else. And of course it involved a girl...doesn't it always?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Pingxi Lantern Festival
So I haven't updated in awhile because my internet is extremely slow plus I've been pretty busy with well...life.
Here are some photos from the lantern festival. Most of the pictures came out pretty poor due to the bad lighting and dreary weather.
This was on 3 sides of an ice cream machine. It was too great not to chronicle
I thought this one would fall and burn up but it later gained altitude again.
Many of these lanterns would fall and in a blaze of glory. This one hit the street lamp I was standing next to and poured some of the petro on me which slightly scalded my forearm.
I was teaching her how to use a digital camera...
One of the few pictures of the sky lanterns that came out somewhat clear. The white specs are water landing on my lens...
My classmate Chido and I set off a sky lantern along w/ hundreds of others
They looked like this on my camera...
Yes I want to get a new camera....nevertheless it came out pretty cool I think. I think the second photo looks like fluorescent bacteria in a petri dish.
Here are some photos from the lantern festival. Most of the pictures came out pretty poor due to the bad lighting and dreary weather.
This was on 3 sides of an ice cream machine. It was too great not to chronicle
I thought this one would fall and burn up but it later gained altitude again.
Many of these lanterns would fall and in a blaze of glory. This one hit the street lamp I was standing next to and poured some of the petro on me which slightly scalded my forearm.
I was teaching her how to use a digital camera...
One of the few pictures of the sky lanterns that came out somewhat clear. The white specs are water landing on my lens...
My classmate Chido and I set off a sky lantern along w/ hundreds of othersThey looked like this on my camera...
Yes I want to get a new camera....nevertheless it came out pretty cool I think. I think the second photo looks like fluorescent bacteria in a petri dish.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Update on Radio Taiwan International (RTI) Speech Contest Fiasco
The lady called me back today around 4 or 5 PM (I'm a little surprised that she took some responsibility and called me back at all) and she STILL could not pronounce my Chinese name. Anyways, before she was going to indirectly explain why people of Chinese descent-despite their level of Mandarin cannot participate in a Chinese speech contest-I just cut her off and told her I had no interest in joining their competition. She abruptly just said 不好意思 (bu hao yi si basically means sorry or I feel embarrassed but it's so often said that it's nearly lost all sincerity) and 拜拜 (bye-bye). I know regret saying that so quickly since I should have spent at least a few more seconds explaining to her the concepts of equal opportunity and basic civil rights.
Oh and I told my teacher about it today during class and she was shocked. She said that a lot of ABCs don't know even Mandarin Chinese, plus she said I AM a foreigner since I was born in America, so if I have any foreign language background then that is my 優勢 (you shi I guess it could be defined as attribute) and shouldn't be held against me.
I was at the office getting information for the trip to Taroko gorge and then off-hand I mentioned what happened and Xiao Mai said that the lady called her too. I told her that they should have stipulated this in the rules and it would have saved all this fuss. Xiao Mai said that in the Chinese rules it says if your parents are Chinese or Taiwanese then you can't join. I told her then that should have been written in the ENGLISH rules as well since foreigners don't usually look for trouble and try to translate the Chinese rules when English rules are readily available. Furthermore, they should have clarified that they don't care about nationality they only care about ethnicity...since technically my parents are NOT Taiwanese nor Chinese but American citizens.
One of my classmates said that in the English rules it specifically states that the Radio Taiwan International speech competition will not evaluate contestants based on their appearance...well apparently they bar eligibility based on race and the color of their skin. Way to go Radio Taiwan International (www.rti.org.tw)!
Radio Taiwan International (RTI)
E-mail: chiouyus@rti.org.tw
Mailing address: 55, Pei-An Rd, Taipei 104, Taiwan
Deborah, (02)2885-6168 ext. 723
So apparently RTI is actually the new moniker for CBS or Central Broadcasting System, so it's the radio station of the national government...
"For over 75 years the Central Broadcasting System has moved forward in harmony with the government and braved the perils of enemies, both foreign and domestic, in order to broadcast for the country, maintain a stable society, promote a sense of history, and take the people of Taiwan to new heights."
(http://english.rti.org.tw/Others/AboutRti.aspx)
Yes, that doesn't sound socialist or reminiscent of 1984/Brave New World at all...
Oh and I told my teacher about it today during class and she was shocked. She said that a lot of ABCs don't know even Mandarin Chinese, plus she said I AM a foreigner since I was born in America, so if I have any foreign language background then that is my 優勢 (you shi I guess it could be defined as attribute) and shouldn't be held against me.
I was at the office getting information for the trip to Taroko gorge and then off-hand I mentioned what happened and Xiao Mai said that the lady called her too. I told her that they should have stipulated this in the rules and it would have saved all this fuss. Xiao Mai said that in the Chinese rules it says if your parents are Chinese or Taiwanese then you can't join. I told her then that should have been written in the ENGLISH rules as well since foreigners don't usually look for trouble and try to translate the Chinese rules when English rules are readily available. Furthermore, they should have clarified that they don't care about nationality they only care about ethnicity...since technically my parents are NOT Taiwanese nor Chinese but American citizens.
One of my classmates said that in the English rules it specifically states that the Radio Taiwan International speech competition will not evaluate contestants based on their appearance...well apparently they bar eligibility based on race and the color of their skin. Way to go Radio Taiwan International (www.rti.org.tw)!
Radio Taiwan International (RTI)
E-mail: chiouyus@rti.org.tw
Mailing address: 55, Pei-An Rd, Taipei 104, Taiwan
Deborah, (02)2885-6168 ext. 723
So apparently RTI is actually the new moniker for CBS or Central Broadcasting System, so it's the radio station of the national government...
"For over 75 years the Central Broadcasting System has moved forward in harmony with the government and braved the perils of enemies, both foreign and domestic, in order to broadcast for the country, maintain a stable society, promote a sense of history, and take the people of Taiwan to new heights."
(http://english.rti.org.tw/Others/AboutRti.aspx)
Yes, that doesn't sound socialist or reminiscent of 1984/Brave New World at all...
Monday, January 7, 2008
The Warlords (投名狀); Radio Taiwan International Speech Competition Fiasco
So I think "The Warlords" lived up to the hype. I saw it last night and it was amazing, 很感動。An extremely intense movie.
There were definitely some parts that were overly dramatic and corny and sometimes on the verge of comical (i.e., when Takeshi Kaneshiro kept saying, "大哥是對的”). But overall it was a very passionate, brutal, EPIC film on so many levels. I would describe it as "300" but with substance.
The only thing is most of the females in our group did not seem to like it. They said the movie had too much violence, murder and betrayal. I thought the movie was gruesome, intense, and moving. It definitely got the testosterone pumping in my veins. I felt really pumped up afterwards. The themes of brotherhood really resonated with me as well.
There were also lots of great Chinese quotes that used 文言文, so I don't remember them but I'd like to learn them and then say a lot of the phrases at applicable moments in real life haha. I'm definitely going to see it again with my good buddies next time since I saw it with my classmates this time.
__________________
I was wondering whether to post this but I might as well. So against my better judgment I decided to join ANOTHER speech contest despite the previous horrendous results. In my case, 上一次當，學一次乖 doesn't apply. Well, I didn't even think about it until on Saturday I woke up at 11:30 AM and basically missed my entire makeup class (9-12 class on Sat.) so I was laying in bed and remembered that the deadline to apply for the Radio Taiwan International Chinese Speech Contest (aka "Mandarin/Holo Taiwanese/ Hakka Contests [sic] for Foreigners") was that day, January 5th. I thought well it's only 3 minutes long and it's at Shida, plus I could use all the economic vocab terms that I had been learning in class, so I might as well redeem myself for the last speech contest (The topic is "If i was president of Taiwan" or "如果我是台灣總統.") So I faxed my application out as well as e-mailed the information just in case.
I forgot all about it. Then this morning I get woken up by a call from some random lady. She asked if I was 華裔 (hua2yi4), a person of Chinese descent, and I said yes. Then she redundantly asked if my parents were 華裔 I started to say they were American citizens but she seemed to not even want to listen and just said well no I'm asking if they are ethnically Chinese or Taiwanese and I was like of course you dumb bitch (not quite as colorful but the same spirit). Anyways at this point it was clear what she wanted to say. She continued to ask a whole bunch of other questions but it was obvious what she was getting at. I also told her that I had already participated in a Chinese speech competition at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall but she said they had different rules. If I really cared I could have pointed out that nowhere in the rules does it state one cannot be of Chinese descent, since the competition is for foreigners and clearly American citizens (despite their ethnicity) are foreigners in Taiwan. Furthermore, I'm studying Chinese at an institute for learning Mandarin Chinese for chrissake (師大國語中心). So obviously, I'm not proficient in Chinese.
I also told her that I'm not the only ABC (American-born Chinese) to have signed up for this contest since there are a lot of ABCs at Shida. Plus, they never said in the rules that participation is restricted based on race. Eligibility requirements are 3 fold: 1) Foreign workers, spouses, or students who have lied in Taiwan for less than six years 2) Those currently employed Radio Taiwan International are not eligible 3) Participants can register as individuals or groups
So clearly, nowhere in the rules do they bar foreigners of Chinese descent. I didn't bother to tell her but most ABCs can't even speak Chinese. She didn't even ask what generation American I was. I did tell her that a lot of 華裔 probably did apply though since I know at least a Thai 華裔 signed up as well. She responded by saying she will go through the applications and root out those with suspicious last names (non-Anglicized names) and call them to let them know they are barred from participation.
Anyways, I basically was like fine that saved me a lot of time and effort and went back to sleep....but then she called me back. At this point, I was pretty annoyed that she was going to waste my time with more bullshit (廢話 fei4 hua4). Her second call was obviously an attempt to cover her own ass since she probably realized how racist she came across (maybe I'm giving her too much credit I doubt she understands this concept of racism). Anyways, she said something about discussing the issue with her supervisor and how she will discuss it with Shida teachers and get back to me on Monday. At this point I had the urge to just tell her to shove it up her rear but I held my tongue and just said fine.
This is what happens when you let greed cloud rational thinking. Logic and experience told me that this would be a contest such as this but the money and encouragement from teachers and office workers at Shida helped suppress those thoughts. First place prize is 50,000 NTD, 2nd place is 30,000 NTD, and there will be THREE honorable mentions with each receiving 10,000 NTD. Now the odds of winning are extremely high obviously and that's quite a bit of money for very little work. That's what I get for being 貪心 (greedy).
So if she calls on Monday I'll tell her to go fuck herself. More realistically, I'll tell her that even if she allows 華裔 to join their crackpot contest, that obviously 華裔 will be discriminated against during judging (種族歧視 zhong3xu2qi2shi4, racial discrimination). So why would I go through the trouble of drafting a speech and memorizing it and dressing up for the event itself if such was the case?
Well I haven't decided maybe I'll just go with the former.
Yeah I'm gonna thank my teacher and a particular person at the office tomorrow for convincing me to join this speech contest.
I told my friend, Ted G., about this and he said he appalled and said he was going to boycott the contest but then later he said he would just win the contest and dedicate it to me, his 華裔 friend haha. I don't blame him it's a lot of money. Plus he's blonde and 6ft and quite large, so I think based on their standards he has a pretty good chance of taking first.
There were definitely some parts that were overly dramatic and corny and sometimes on the verge of comical (i.e., when Takeshi Kaneshiro kept saying, "大哥是對的”). But overall it was a very passionate, brutal, EPIC film on so many levels. I would describe it as "300" but with substance.
The only thing is most of the females in our group did not seem to like it. They said the movie had too much violence, murder and betrayal. I thought the movie was gruesome, intense, and moving. It definitely got the testosterone pumping in my veins. I felt really pumped up afterwards. The themes of brotherhood really resonated with me as well.
There were also lots of great Chinese quotes that used 文言文, so I don't remember them but I'd like to learn them and then say a lot of the phrases at applicable moments in real life haha. I'm definitely going to see it again with my good buddies next time since I saw it with my classmates this time.
__________________
I was wondering whether to post this but I might as well. So against my better judgment I decided to join ANOTHER speech contest despite the previous horrendous results. In my case, 上一次當，學一次乖 doesn't apply. Well, I didn't even think about it until on Saturday I woke up at 11:30 AM and basically missed my entire makeup class (9-12 class on Sat.) so I was laying in bed and remembered that the deadline to apply for the Radio Taiwan International Chinese Speech Contest (aka "Mandarin/Holo Taiwanese/ Hakka Contests [sic] for Foreigners") was that day, January 5th. I thought well it's only 3 minutes long and it's at Shida, plus I could use all the economic vocab terms that I had been learning in class, so I might as well redeem myself for the last speech contest (The topic is "If i was president of Taiwan" or "如果我是台灣總統.") So I faxed my application out as well as e-mailed the information just in case.
I forgot all about it. Then this morning I get woken up by a call from some random lady. She asked if I was 華裔 (hua2yi4), a person of Chinese descent, and I said yes. Then she redundantly asked if my parents were 華裔 I started to say they were American citizens but she seemed to not even want to listen and just said well no I'm asking if they are ethnically Chinese or Taiwanese and I was like of course you dumb bitch (not quite as colorful but the same spirit). Anyways at this point it was clear what she wanted to say. She continued to ask a whole bunch of other questions but it was obvious what she was getting at. I also told her that I had already participated in a Chinese speech competition at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall but she said they had different rules. If I really cared I could have pointed out that nowhere in the rules does it state one cannot be of Chinese descent, since the competition is for foreigners and clearly American citizens (despite their ethnicity) are foreigners in Taiwan. Furthermore, I'm studying Chinese at an institute for learning Mandarin Chinese for chrissake (師大國語中心). So obviously, I'm not proficient in Chinese.
I also told her that I'm not the only ABC (American-born Chinese) to have signed up for this contest since there are a lot of ABCs at Shida. Plus, they never said in the rules that participation is restricted based on race. Eligibility requirements are 3 fold: 1) Foreign workers, spouses, or students who have lied in Taiwan for less than six years 2) Those currently employed Radio Taiwan International are not eligible 3) Participants can register as individuals or groups
So clearly, nowhere in the rules do they bar foreigners of Chinese descent. I didn't bother to tell her but most ABCs can't even speak Chinese. She didn't even ask what generation American I was. I did tell her that a lot of 華裔 probably did apply though since I know at least a Thai 華裔 signed up as well. She responded by saying she will go through the applications and root out those with suspicious last names (non-Anglicized names) and call them to let them know they are barred from participation.
Anyways, I basically was like fine that saved me a lot of time and effort and went back to sleep....but then she called me back. At this point, I was pretty annoyed that she was going to waste my time with more bullshit (廢話 fei4 hua4). Her second call was obviously an attempt to cover her own ass since she probably realized how racist she came across (maybe I'm giving her too much credit I doubt she understands this concept of racism). Anyways, she said something about discussing the issue with her supervisor and how she will discuss it with Shida teachers and get back to me on Monday. At this point I had the urge to just tell her to shove it up her rear but I held my tongue and just said fine.
This is what happens when you let greed cloud rational thinking. Logic and experience told me that this would be a contest such as this but the money and encouragement from teachers and office workers at Shida helped suppress those thoughts. First place prize is 50,000 NTD, 2nd place is 30,000 NTD, and there will be THREE honorable mentions with each receiving 10,000 NTD. Now the odds of winning are extremely high obviously and that's quite a bit of money for very little work. That's what I get for being 貪心 (greedy).
So if she calls on Monday I'll tell her to go fuck herself. More realistically, I'll tell her that even if she allows 華裔 to join their crackpot contest, that obviously 華裔 will be discriminated against during judging (種族歧視 zhong3xu2qi2shi4, racial discrimination). So why would I go through the trouble of drafting a speech and memorizing it and dressing up for the event itself if such was the case?
Well I haven't decided maybe I'll just go with the former.
Yeah I'm gonna thank my teacher and a particular person at the office tomorrow for convincing me to join this speech contest.
I told my friend, Ted G., about this and he said he appalled and said he was going to boycott the contest but then later he said he would just win the contest and dedicate it to me, his 華裔 friend haha. I don't blame him it's a lot of money. Plus he's blonde and 6ft and quite large, so I think based on their standards he has a pretty good chance of taking first.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
New Year's Eve in Taipei-2008
I meant to post this sooner but hey better late than never.
My Nikon digital camera doesn't record sound but here is the video I took from Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall:
My Nikon digital camera doesn't record sound but here is the video I took from Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall:
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