Archive
October 5, 2002
You might think Americans are odd because...
IANAP (I Am Not a Philosopher), but...
I can both come up with and appreciate philosophically significant musings.
Like the one I read on Slashdot today about software piracy. When you pirate a $500 copy of Photoshop it's not Adobe that loses $500, but JASC that loses $90 for the copy of Paint Shop Pro that you actually could have afforded if you didn't have the illegal albeit free alternative. Piracy hurts the little man. Shopping at Luckys hurts the mom-and-pop place down the street. Eating at McDonalds hurts the greasy burger joint on the corner. Does downloading an MP3 keep you from spending $5 on a local band's CD?
OK, that wasn't quite philosophical. Read on. In my limited experience, addictions are like races without a finish, itches that cannot be scratched away, yearnings that will not be filled. In fact, the existence of the desired thing creates the very need for it, and the absence of the desired thing eliminates the dependency or addiction. For example, a smoker craves a cigarette which provides him with nicotine, which in turn exacerbates the addiction. The smoker will never be satisfied, and yet will continue to consume because the very object of his desire has created a need for more.
How does one escape this cycle of endless addiction? By removing oneself from it completely. To borrow a term from the example, it requires a "cold turkey" end to the consumption. My brilliant application of this regards money. Money creates a psychological addiction that can never be satisfied. How much money is enough money? One dollar more, as Rockefeller said. There is hope, though, of breaking out of the "addiction" to money. By removing oneself "cold-turkey" from the cycle of pursuing and spending money, or by placing it in such a low priority that it becomes minute compared to other pursuits one can rescue themselves from the endless and wasteful race for the golden dollar.
[ Archived ]
October 7, 2002
Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, then President Yang Shangkun and Premier Li Peng found their car blocked by a cow in the road one day.
Li yells: "If you don't move, I'll declare martial law!"
The cow ignores him.
Yang yells: "I'll call out the military!" The cow stares blankly.
Deng whispers in its ear, and the cow runs off, terrified.
"I said I would name him general secretary of the Communist Party," said Deng, who had already sacked two party bosses.
Article found on Rice Cooker. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 8, 2002
DPRK delegate calls for U.N.-led anti-terror struggle. Axis of evil, my foot. The North Korean government "opposes all forms of terrorism and any support for it". Ya hear that, W?
The New York Times has begun grouping their travel articles by destination, and as a bonus is offering their travel articles since 1996 free of charge. [ Link ]
Tibet Beauty Pageant
After watching a documentary on the Miss America pageant tonight on public television, I thought it was very coincidental to find an article on Brand Recon's newspage about the Miss Tibet contest. Tibet brings to mind images of Buddhist temples, tall mountain peaks and nomadic yurt-people. But like the rest of the world, on Jan 1st 2001 Tibet entered the 22nd century. According to the site:
The MISS TIBET BEAUTY PAGEANT will bring Tibetan culture forward in time; it will provide a contemporary forum for Tibetan girls and women.
The issue of preservation of "backwards" cultures is one I've come around to a new opinion on. Just like I believe that the form of a nations government should be in the hands of the people, so should the culture be decided by the people themselves. This poses the possibility of so-called "hermit nations" like Bhutan, which choose to live in self-imposed isolation and antiquity. The king of Bhutan has made a decision (with the approval of his subjects, I believe) that McDonalds, Nike and other signs of advanced civilization do not belong in his state's system of values.
So Tibet has chosen for itself a beauty pageant. Note that this is not organized by the Han immigrants; rather, it has a decidedly independent bent. I wish the best of luck for the event, and wish I could be there to support the bright and forward-looking Tibetan women.
If anybody asks, I would vote for Lhakpa Dolma, naturally supporting a fellow teacher. [ Link ]
Congressional Debates on NPR
Did anybody else catch the congressional debates on NPR today? Not that they were hard to miss. Since driving to work this morning, to coming home from Borders in the waning dusk they have monopolized the airwaves of 89.3 KPCC. They are debating a resolution that would declare the United State's intention to carry out unilateral action against Iraq if it does not comply with UN weapons-inspection teams.
I heard a good speech by John Lewis of Georgia, a fiery speaker of the hellfire-and-brimstone type. It was very humanitarian, very Wilsonian. He quoted the Scriptures several times, reminding his fellow Congressmen of their heavenly mandate for peace.
The supporters of the resolution seemed to enjoy drawing parallels between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. Both were bloodthirsty dictators, who were initially dismissed as harmless and merely "contained" by their enemies.
Congressmen who opposed the resolution tended to ask where the evidence is that Bush hints about regarding Saddam's weapons capability; they also questioned the timing of Bush's aggressive attitude towards Iraq, asking "why now?"; lastly, the Democrats argued that Bush is using Iraq to ply attention away from more depressing domestic issues like health care and the economy. If the Democrats can focus attention on the home-front, they will be likely to win more seats in the upcoming Congressional election.
Qing Dynasty
Pardon me for being inspired tonight.
The Borders nametag hangs around my neck like a backstage concert pass. Inside the clear plastic pocket, I inserted a small picture card of a Chinese lady in traditional Chinese costume. On the backside, I have a Sprite bottle label in Chinese. But the second insert is beside the point. Tonight as I manned a cash register, a Chinese woman buying a single book asked me where the card picture was from:
"A friend gave it to me."
"Oh really? It's pretty."
"Yes, I like it too. I think it looks nice."
"Do you know what kind of clothes she is wearing?"
At that point I should have busted out some Chinese, "Wo zhidao. Ta zai chuan Zhongguo Qing-dai de yifu." But being slow of wit, I just asked her to tell me. Royal clothing from the Qing dynasty, in case you were wondering.
[ Archived ]
October 9, 2002
Updated and minimized: Sinoblogs.
Permalinks working, but archives may not validate.
[ Archived ]
October 10, 2002
The Google cache of this site links back to my original CSS file. By adding a table declaration with an attribute selector and an hr selector, I was able to remove the box that Google places at the top of the page. Thus, at the moment I've been able to make the cached version look identical to this page. This discovery opens up loads of other possibilities, like content:after messages for people looking at the cached page, and even different stylesheets served to Google/different referrers via CGI. [ Link ]
My brother's weblog is up and running again. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 11, 2002
I spent an hour after work tonight reading Foreign Policy magazine.
If Western governments really want to persuade reluctant allies in the Muslim world that the war against terrorism is not a war against Islam, they need to change their style. Forget the airdrops of anti-Osama leaflets and windup radios tuned to the BBC and Voice of America. Try using Britney Spears, Amnesty International, and a little truth, empathy, and understanding.
My emphasis would be on Britney Spears and Amnesty International. This was a good abstract for a mediocre article. [ Link ]
For a good recommendation on the direction of American foreign policy, go to Foreign Affairs magazine.
Thus, more than in the past, the United States will need to modify not simply the implementation of its foreign policies but, in certain cases, the foreign policies themselves. The purpose is not to increase U.S. popularity abroad for its own sake, but because it is in America's national interest to do so. This requires a deeper understanding of foreign attitudes and more effective communication of U.S. policies.
The section that most resonated with me argued that we need to change the style of delivery of our message from a one way "conveyer belt," feeding US policy to foreign reporters and officials. Instead we should promote discussion and allow dissenting opinions to be aired, in order to promote the testing and understanding of US foreign policy. [ Link ]
Also in this month's issue of Foreign Policy magazine is an article that attempts to explain nation-building, with many good examples to support its points. The author critiques several myths that the international community holds regarding nation-building, concluding that:
For nation building to work, some harsh compromises are necessary-including military coercion and the recognition that democracy is not always a realistic goal.
[ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 12, 2002
Family Trees and xHTML
I've concluded that it is not possible to mark-up a complete family-tree structure in a single HTML document. This is because child element cannot have two unrelated parents.
Do As The Romans Do?
When travelling or living abroad, a person faces a choice: blend in or be different. Blending in means to hold back, observe the local customs and imitate them. It has pros and cons:
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Make people more comfortable with your presence.
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Run less risk of commiting offending behaviors.
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Learn a new way of thinking, doing things.
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Be more bland and uninteresting.
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Lose sight of your native identity.
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Lose the advantage of unapplicable social and physical skills.
Being different involves keeping original cultural identity intact and minimally intergrating into a foreign culture. Like wise, it has it pros and cons:
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Able to communicate the positive aspects (and argue the negative) of the native culture.
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Live comfortably in the usual attitudes and customs.
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Avoid reveres culture shock on reentry into native culture.
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Create conflict between opposing ideas in different cultures.
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Remain ignorant of local customs and practices.
Are these goals mutually exclusive? Largely, they are not. As is usually the case, the optimal behaviour is somewhere in between the two extremes. I tend to follow the "blend in" philosophy, so I'm looking to build up skills and knowledge of behaviour that are characteristically American, eg reading books on American government and learning to play the harmonica. That would help me to balance out my passivity and the downsides that come with it.
Beijing Jeep
I received this book in the mail yesterday, I'll be reading it shortly. Re-released in 1997 for forty dollars US, I got it used through Amazon for three dollars plus shipping. Hooray for Amazon!
In Beijing Jeep, Jim Mann, a longtime Beijing correspondent, traces the history of the stormy romance between American business and Chinese communism, from its origins in the 1970's through the stunned foreign exodus after the Tiananmen massacre.
Written in 1989, it is dated but still historically significant. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 13, 2002
One of the most Rennaisance people I ever met now works at Google. That makes two Techers I know of who work there.
Randall Peerenboom has published a book called China's Long March toward Rule of Law. He has also written a set of essays on the topic for the journal of the Overseas Young Chinese Forum, Perspectives.
Peter N-H, recently, on reliable local tour guides in China.
China is somewhere it's not hard to get around by yourself, and where guides are generally best avoided, or used with great caution, and here's why...
Show Me The Money
In the article "To Be Rich, Chinese and in Trouble: 3 Tales", the NY Times says:
China's nouveaux riches are not going to jail for arrogance, exactly. But as top officials prepare to formally welcome some private entrepreneurs to join the Communist Party next month, they are also insisting that at least some rich people start playing by the rules.
Imagine this standard applied to the United States: the US government forces rich people to pay their taxes through the IRS and forms organizations like the SEC to investigate securities fraud, often the playground of the rich. China should be applauded for cracking down on the rich for flaunting their power. Their motives may be questionable, but this is an unquestionably honorable effect.
However, a few paragraphs later the article takes this as a chance to jab at the Chinese government:
The crackdown on industry titans shows how China's economy — however robust and Westernized it appears on the surface — still answers to an ossified political system.
Does the Chinese economy appear Westernized on the surface? Hardly. China is still debating with the WTO whether it counts as a developing nation. And how does this demonstrate that the political system in China is ossified? Rather, it shows that the officials are putting new market safeguards into practice and actively pursuing those who blow off what they thought was an inattentive and sluggish bureaucracy. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 14, 2002
Updates to Previous Stories
Alan Greenspan, H4x0r Economist has been updated with new comics.
Dolma Tsering was crowned Miss Tibet.
Home & Away
A new Japanese drama will start airing on KSCI next week. Home & Away is currently airing on Fuji TV, and being broadcast about 10 days delayed here in Los Angeles. It is unsubtitled, so I hope somebody out there will begin writing synopses. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 15, 2002
This is my Volvo DL. It went into the shop this last weekend and had $300 US of work done on it, and now it runs like a wild beast. Whereas before I was always uptight while driving, straining to hear every tick and tock of the fragile motor as it beat towards exhaustion, now I can excercise my lead foot and cruise down Imperial doing 50 in the 45 zones.
In the foreground, was the intended subject of the photo. It's a black and white photo that was taken for newspaper of the National Merit honorees at my old high school, Brea Olinda. I squat in a trash can kame-haing my three-finger pin while Amy squashes me down with great effort, and Andy freaks out in another trash can as Julie strangles him from behind. My sister Laurel rescued it for me from the newspaper room.
Query String of the Day: #1 on Google for "I want to hear Uighur music." (I found this in my logs today).
[ Archived ]
October 17, 2002
On Saturday, October 26, Charlie Rose will be moderating a discussion on science at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free. [ Link ]
Korea: New Cultural Powerhouse?
Backed by the strongest economy in the region, Japanese pop culture swept across East Asia in the 90's. Japanese music, TV dramas and movies, and pulp comic books were all symbols of a new cultural imperialism. Taiwan, the mainland, Singapore... nowhere was safe. Especially notable was Korea, which maintains a fierce animosity towards its former colonial oppressor.
Casual but careful observers, including myself, have noted the influence of Japan waning and being supplanted by Korean pop culture. DVD shops in Tianjin carried more sappy Korean romances and bloody horror movies. Doraemon was giving way to Pucca and her pals. Cool teens hanging out at the Binjiangdao shopping street sported oversized sports jerseys and long bangs. Korean music is climbing up the charts and more J-pop success stories are groups based on the HOT model: fashionable young guys dancing hip-hop style and breaking into rapping sessions, backgrounded by peppy dance tracks.
Not surprisingly, the media is beginning to note this phenomenon. A recent CNN article begins:
SINGAPORE (AP) — Call it "kim-chic." All things Korean from food and music to eyebrow-shaping and shoe styles are becoming all the rage across Asia, where pop culture has long been dominated by Tokyo and Hollywood.
How is this happening? Korea's increasingly dominant economy and Japan's economic stagnation have set up a reversal in the flow of goods and information in the East Asian arena. Should we be concerned about this new trend? Only if you're Kim Jong Il (dad's probably rolling in his grave). [ Link ]
Slightly Scary Ideas
In these uncertain times, children are likely to wear Mickey Mouse clothes, sleep on Hello Kitty pillows, use Winnie the Pooh backpacks and carry Pocket Monster pencil cases. Such popular characters add excitement and beauty to our lives. However, these days, a character is no longer just an image but a living entity; it lives and grows with each new generation making significant influences. In addition, characters are now being developed that cater to unorthordox and often deviant tastes.
Enter the Jdreamer Jesus, a Bible character which is "lovable and friendly". [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 19, 2002
This is one of my bookshelves. From left to right:
Family by Pa Chin and Story of the Stone, Vol 1 by Cao Xueqin, both bought my senior year at Caltech for Dr Lee's H 136 class, "Family, Friendship, and Love in Chinese Culture."
Julie brought me The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte when she joined Shirley and me in Hong Kong for our 2002 Chinese New Year trip. Next to it is the Lonely Planet China that I bought when I went to China for the first time in 2000 with the Princeton in Beijing program. The Let's Go China is Julie's, which she left with us when she went back to the US. I still haven't returned it.
The book that follows is Fingertip Chinese, one of the best Chinese phrasebooks I've found besides the annually revised Princeton in Beijing phrasebook. The black book is a collection of ancient Chinese stories written in triplicate: once in Classical Chinese, once in modern Chinese and once in English. It is called Classical Chinese: Present Day Chinese & English Renditions and published by Sinolingua.
Next is Selected Readings in American Literature, published by Nankai University, which I bought while living in Tianjin and starving for English books.
Following the literature anthology are two volumes of Canfonian Pte Ltd's Pictoral Stories of Chinese Classics, numbers four and five of the Water Margin series. They are basically comic books with both Chinese and English captions. They were purchased at the Wangfujing Xinhua Bookstore. Alongside these are cheap paperback versions of the Water Margin, in Chinese.
Beginning my modern book collection and also in Chinese is the version of Lord of the Rings that Shirley bought in Taiwan. Next is one in a series of biographies of great historical figures. There were biographies of great Chinese philosophers including Confucius and Mencius, and great men of the Western world including Newton and Lincoln. Naturally, I chose the most relevant one in the series: the biography of Bill Gates. I kid you not.
The next book is called Meiguo 911. I bought it outside the eastern gate of Nankai University at the so-called New Culture Street market a few days after September 11, 2001. It has color pictures and articles about Bush, Osama bin Laden and New York.
Next in my modern books are the political books. Since my reading level is not high, I chose simple books for elementary school kids. First, Wo ai Zhonguo Gongchandang or I love the Chinese Communist Party. Also, Zhonguo youle Gongchandang or China has a Communist Party, a longer history of modern China and its political party.
My education books include Yuwen Shijian or Language Practice, a first grade language book published by the Tianjin Educational Research department. I picked it up at the CRIS Elementary School in Tianjin. Daoxueshi Jiaoxuefa or Instructional Style Teaching Methods compiled by the principal of Zhongying Elementary School, a model school in Tianjin. I visited Zhongying Elementary as part of a tour of schools in the city when I accompanied Dr Donald Douglas on his visit.
Many of my books are outside perspectives on China. First is Jonathan Spence's The Chan's Great Continent, a book I read at CRIS and subsequently purchased for my own collection at a FNAC in Taiwan. It "explores how missionaries, travellers, poets, writers, diplomats and other outsiders have viewed China over seven centuries".
Next is the bichromatic spine of the Tiananmen Papers, edited by Andrew Nathan, purchased at the Glorietta Mall in Makati, the Philippines, and "smuggled" into China through Hong Kong. Professor Chen Jian analyzes Mao's China in Mao's China and the Cold War. I got a signed copy of former New York Times Beijing bureau chief, now editorial columnist Nicholas Kristof and wife Sheryl Wudunn's China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power. I was introduced to this book by Calvin student Josh Gilliland in the summer of 2000, as a textbook for their Calvin program at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
Next is an old issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, an anthology of Chinese literature published by the China International Book Trading Corporation in "Autumn 1984".
At a bookstore in Ximending, in Taipei, I picked up Bound Feet: Stories of Contemporary Taiwan by Catherine Dai.
For practicing Chinese, I have several books. First, Yuwen Ciyu Shouce or Language Words Handbook, a workbook for learning new words from characters. Also, several books with model characters and spaces to copy them. This should help you to improve your handwriting.
Finally, books that are obscured by the right-end stack include the second-year Princeton in Beijing textbooks, a Nankai University textbook for Chinese learners, The World of Suzie Wong from a Hong Kong Bookazine, several Asterix comic books, a copy of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami "purchased" from the Fullerton Library while presumed lost, the Lonely Planet Korean Phrasebook which I used to learn reading Korean the summer I worked at Knott's Berry Farm, and a four language phrasebook of Tagalog, Korean, Japanese and English phrases.
[ Archived ]
October 20, 2002
The first episode of the new Fuji Terebi drama Home & Away is due to air on KSCI in about 10 minutes. No dedicated synopses as of yet, but the Daily Yomiuri reviews it as part of a comprehensive drama review:
Episode one ends with her cast ashore somewhere, passed out on the beach like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. This script is none too swift, but it may be interesting to tune in and check out where she ends up each week.
Sounds promising. On a tangent to my post on Korean pop culture, the same review suggests that this season's dramas are dominated by gun toting detectives/policemen/thugs.
In perhaps the most unfortunate TV trend of 2002, guns are suddenly in fashion. For three nights in a row, detectives blasted away with more fire power than has been seen on Japanese TV in the last three years.
Note that Korean movies and music videos are often centered on acts of violence, cf HOT's Wolf and Sheep, real life PKing, etc. As a counterpoint, the gun angle suggests Hong Kong style action. We'll keep our eyes open for more clues on this topic. [ Link ]
I first picked up Tokion magazine at the Borders Bookstore in Brea. It's a fusion of art, graphic design, and alternative underground music. Not only that, it's also a bilingual magazine with articles in Japanese and English on the same page. Generatian Rice recently ran an interview with Adam Glickman, a co-founder of Tokion magazine. [ Link ]
The worst teacher I can remember ever having was Barry Simon for Math 1a at Caltech. I recently dug through my files in the garage, and I found my notes for that class. Looking back though the notebook, I noted my habit of writing down quotes by Professor Simon or myself. I've collected them here. [ Link ]
Mighty Morphin Sea Bass, Batman!
My Academic Decathlon teammate Amit Bhaumik is still alive and involved with the Power Rangers. From the evidence, I can surmise that he is working as an editor for new episodes of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. He still posts heavily to alt.fan.power-rangers. [ Link ]
Added the Angry White Man to Sinoblogs.
[ Archived ]
October 21, 2002
China Rock is Dead
Cui Jian has been given the title of Father of Chinese Rock, and many other grandiose pronouncements have been made about his contribution to the genre in his country. Many western observers romanticize this rebel with a musical cause, elevating him as some sort of musical Moses to lead the next generation into a musical nirvana.
But the truth is, Chinese rock is still dead. To make that statement more complete, any form of non-traditional music is pretty much dead on the mainland. The music that ordinary people listen to is largely Western music, Hong Kong Mandopop or Korean gayo music.
Perhaps compared to two decades ago, rock in China is making a noise not heard before. But comparing it to the United States and Japan even on a local and micro-local level, the ordinary Chinese person does not have the leisure time nor the motivation to pursue any kind of recreational modern music. In the United States, half of the boys at the high school age tinker around with a guitar or drumset, covering their favorite artist. They may dream of striking it big, going on tour, or (heaven forbid) making it onto TRL. In China, this sort of future is not feasible. The existing entertainment infrastructure will not allow it.
I was heartened that on my last couple jaunts into Beijing I did see quite a few music stores on Heping Road. I know there are some small punk clubs around the city. And I wish that in a few years I will be able to attend a concert and encourage Chinese young people to express themselves creatively through music.
My point being, let's not kid ourselves as to the state of music in China today. Modern music will still be in its nascent form until China can develop into a modern nation, economically and culturally.
I love making blanket statements. Maybe that's why I'm proven wrong so often.
[ Archived ]
October 22, 2002
The people who make the Opera browser have recently made a big deal over a version of their browser which adjusts pages so that they will display nicely on PDA. In a tribute to the extensibility of Mozilla, a simple bookmarklet was developed that can do the same thing in any browser "having a correct DOM implementation and allowing to bookmark JS". Thus I present my weblog, courtesy of Daniel Glazman's PDAize bookmarklet. [ Link ]
The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs held a fair at the UCLA West Alumni Center today. I drove up and met Jason Cardema at the Bruin statue at 6pm, and we went out to dinner beforehand. We had noodles and orange chicken at Noodle Planet, and chatted on various topics. I got up to speed on what people from Caltech are doing, although I constantly caught myself trying to tell him about old high school friends. The grad fair was a little hard on me, it's so depressing to see how many competent people are going to be applying with me. The Peace Corps is looking more attractive.
Anyhow, it encouraged me to try and get a group together of all the Caltech people up around UCLA. That is not a small number. Sean, Matt and Joe are all studying there, and Viet is living with Joe. I think it would be fun to spend an evening catching up.
[ Archived ]
October 24, 2002
Kat spotted Axl Rose in China. Apparently, Guns'N'Roses played the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center in August as the opening concert of their Chinese Democracy World Tour.
Rereading the description of my bookshelf from October 19, I get the feeling that I could expand my experience obtaining and reading each book into an entire daily entry. I think it's great how every book has an entire story behind it.
I was getting a lot more referrals from Weblogs.com when I reported my site's name as Cut Me Out. The current China, California, Books has been an utter failure in that respect.
T-Salon believes that Google's China news is better than Brand Recon's Moreover.com service. While Google may have more comprehensive coverage of the top stories, their weakness is that they cover only the most popular items. Gems like the following are only found on on the more broad Moreover.com feed.
Never Seen Anything Like It
Two Western anti-fur protesters have been arrested after stripping off in a busy shopping street in the Chinese capital Beijing.
"Mainland China has never seen anything like it," says the caption to one picture. Welcome to the real world, China. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 26, 2002
Icculus.org has an amusing 404 error page. Hit reload to see variations. [ Link ]
Fleeting Youth
I went out to dinner with some Borders colleagues last night . The topic of birthdays came up. We found out that our HR manager is 22 years old and the GM's wife is 23 years old. Which left me mildly scared: am I behind in life?
The Pen is Mightier
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30... Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality.
I signed up, we'll see how this goes. [ Link ]
[ Archived ]
October 27, 2002
I added the following to Mozilla's UserContent.css
/* Add an envelope symbol to mailto links (Mozilla) */
a[href^="mailto:"]:before { content: url("envelope.gif"); }
Now I get little envelope pictures before e-mail links. Hopefully this will prevent me from launching my parent's copy of Microsoft Entourage so often. Say hey for pine.
[ Archived ]
October 28, 2002
Home & Away Episode 2 Synopsis
I watched the second episode of Home & Away tonight. Kaede had set sail to Tokyo on a boat, but at the beginning of this episode she lands shipwrecked on a desert island. She crosses through the island, only to discover that it is truly deserted. Carving out a big SOS on the sand, she can do nothing but settle down to sleep for the night. She is awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a motorboat, and discovers a group of five girls sneaking into Japan illegaly with the help of a smuggler. She is wearing her Chinese souvenir clothes because her real clothes got wet, so she tries to pass as one of the girls. This is her plan to get off the island. But at that moment, a police-boat comes by, catches them and takes them all to jail!
After arguing with the policemen (who think she is Chinese) for hours, Kaede remembers that her passport was in her bag, so she shows it to the policemen and they go off to check it. She goes and sulks in the cell with the other girls. The policemen come back and apologize. She is let go, and finds out that she is in somplace far away from Tokyo. At the bus station she buys a ticket, but her bus is postponed/lost/delayed(?) until the morning. Looking for a place to pass the night, she finds an empty traditional Japanese bar tended by a cold-hearted man in a yukata. As she eats and drinks some warm sake, a drunk young man enters the bar and begins to bother her. She pushes him away, and he exits in a huff. Suddenly, the bartender takes off (oh, if only I could understand Japanese!) for some unknown reason, but she has his permission to stay at his place that night. After he has left, a friend of the bartender comes by and has a heartfelt talk with Kaede. He leaves.
Upstairs, she finds a little boy asleep. She falls asleep sitting next to his bed, and he wakes her up in the morning. As she runs out the door to catch her bus, the kid demands breakfast. In a change of heart, she stays to fix him some vittles and see him off to school. By this time, she has missed the bus. So she wanders around town, stops by the police station, but they will/can(?) do nothing for her. At a local park, she finds the little boy, who is not in school! He says he has problems with bullies, so she marches to the schoolyard with him in tow to confront the bullies. She pretends to be his mom, reluctantly, but settles the conflict.
That night, businessmen come to the bar to have dinner. Kaede tries to shoo them away, but they insist that she make them dinner. All of the sudden, the young man who bothered her the night before shows up with his father. The father is very angry, maybe the young man told him a made-up story. Kaede sticks up for herself, speaking some strong words. As part of her speech, she says that she is the mistress of the bar. The father of the young man, realizing what happened, apologizes and drags his son off. The businessmen, pointing out that Kaede had said she was the bar-mistress, again playfully demand dinner. So she goes into the back and put on a kimono, and makes some fantastic dishes, wowing the customers.
The next morning, she scolds the boy for not being ready for school. He reminds Kaede that today is Saturday. Embarassed, she tells him to eat breakfast and they will go to the fish market. At the fish market, the boy leads her around the tells her what fish to buy. Kaede is slightly annoyed that people think she is his mother, but gets used to it. Kaede sees some delicious looking mollusks and intends to buy them, but the boy says they are expensive and takes her down to the pier where he dives into the water and catches his own mollusk. They sit together to watch the sunset and the young kid scoots closer to her. Kaede is like his mother, and she is happy with that.
My memory is getting fuzzy about what happens next, but the father (bartender) shows up and is nicer to his son. The boy cries and chases after the truck when the father's friend takes Kaede aboard his truck to head to Tokyo. She falls fast asleep, and wakes up thinking she has met another disaster. But she is still in the truck and they are in Osaka!
I also watched the first episode of Are You In Love?. [ Link ]
Also amusing is the Eye Spy LA show, starring either Joe or Alex, depending on the week. This week Joe went to visit Kid's Auto Mechanic. I think Alex is funnier.
Philipino Fast Food: Jollibee
This entry is to remind myself to eat at a Southern California Jollibee someday. There are two locations nearby, one in Long Beach and one in Cerritos. Not only Jollibees, I've also got a mind to find a California Chowking. Also for future reference, there is one Chowking at 8955 Mira Mesa Blvd and another at 2220 E. Plaza Blvd, both in San Diego. [ Link ]
Further research turns up "Chowking outlets at Carson and West Covina", having telephone numbers (310) 835-7100 and (626) 810-4511 respectively.
The plot thickens. It turns out that the Jollibee family extends to "Chinese fastfood chain Chowking, pizza and pasta chain Greenwich and deli/ sandwiches chain Delifrance." Delifrance! [ Link ]
For the folks who have no idea what this is about, Jollibee is a native Philipino fast food chain. We ate there exactly zero times while we were in Manila. Well, we did get drinks the day we went to visit the volcano. But we carried them out. Anyhow, it's exciting to me that a non-US fast food chain is acheiving global success.
For my birthday, I had requested to go miniature golfing at Camelot and to eat at the Hong Kong Buffet down in Fullerton at Chapman and Raymond. Plans may change.
And as a random link, check out Jews in Asia.
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October 29, 2002
Chinese people take English names. Do Americans take Chinese names? Japan makes foreigners keep their names in katakana. That's too bad. [ Link ]
In reference to my recent entry: I found a working link to the Korean pop culture article by the Associated Press. Just for posterity's sake, I saved a copy of my own.
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